I will Never Forget You

I Will Never Forget You

Memory is a funny thing.  What makes us remember one thing, but forget another?

I remember my first real kiss.  It was April of 1983 and I was sitting on the front step of the house of a girl named Nancy.  We had become good friends and I was sharing a ride from Covenant College, on Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga to my parents’ home in Northern Michigan.  Her home was 2/3rds of the way to mine.

So, there we were, sitting on the steps of her home.  The sky was a Northern Indiana auburn hue.  The martins were flying and swooping in an intricate ballet and Nancy was sitting beside me.  I can still remember the warmth of her on my right side.

I wanted to tell her how I felt about her, but I was afraid it would freak her out, so I sat there, nervous.

I felt her weight shift and I turned to look at her, then she tilted her head and kissed me.  She backed off just far enough to say “I love you.” And I was speechless.

If ever there was I time I didn’t want to be quiet, this was it.  I managed, through a tight throat, to say “I love you too.”

This was the first time I was in love, and the first time a kiss really meant something, but the relationship was not to be.  Nancy didn’t come back to Covenant.  We tried to keep it together, but her life was growing one way, and mine another.  The love was real, but love has to be maintained, and that was not possible… our time was over.

I still visited whenever I was traveling to Michigan, but there was not enough to keep the friendship alive.  There came a point when I was driving up Interstate 65 and I knew I should just keep on driving and not stop to visit her, so, watching the exit, I drove past Nancy’s life forever. 

I stopped at the next exit to mourn the final collapse of a relationship.  I had another reason to stop: for the first time, just there at exit 253 on Interstate 65, I was aware of the enormity of humanity.  I traveled 440 miles along that highway four times a year.  There were so many exits along those miles, and at the moment I passed Nancy’s off-ramp I came to realize that there were thousands of dramas, just like mine, at each exit.  That is a lot of joy and sorrow.

It became a ritual, each time I drove north on 65, to mark Nancy’s exit.  Every time, there was sadness, but the sadness slowly faded… still sad, but no longer painful.

I graduated from college, took a position in the military, got engaged, spent more than a year overseas in Asia, came back and married the second woman I fell in love with.  We lived in Colorado, and then moved to the Auburn area in Alabama.  From Auburn I would pack up the family occasionally and travel north to visit my parents.

On each of our trips, I took Interstate 65 North.  On one of those trips I remember how the sun was setting and the sky turned deep red.  I looked out over a field and saw the martins swooping and dancing in the evening air.  Suddenly I realized that I was not on I 65, but was in Michigan and I had not noticed Nancy’s exit go by.  I tried to remember how her exit looked, or even the number, or the last time I had done the ritual of marking her exit, and I couldn’t recall it.  I tried to remember her favorite song, her favorite ice cream flavor, her address… nothing.

I still remember that evening, and that kiss and those 3 words “I love you”, I remember her eyes, they were happy and kind, but everything else was gone.

I looked over to my wife.  Trina was looking out her window at the same field that triggered my memory, oblivious to its significance to me.  I looked back at my 2 daughters who were reading and my son who was trying to lick boogers off his nose with his tongue and I realized what I already knew: I didn’t belong with Nancy… I belonged here.  I didn’t remember Nancy because I was with Trina. 

This was as it should be.

All this came rushing through my memory when I read this passage:

Isaiah 49 

¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast 
   and have no compassion on the child she has borne? 
Though she may forget, 
   I will not forget you! 
¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; 
   your walls are ever before me. 

The first part of this passage is easy to understand… do moms forget their own kids?  Would a mother neglect their child?  Even if this happens, and sadly it does, God will never forget.

Even though I have allowed Nancy to fade from memory, God says that He will never allow me to fade from His memory or neglect me.  He tells us why He will not forget:

            “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;”

What it means to have a name engraved in your hand is not as clear to us as it was to the people who lived with Isaiah.  My first impression was of a person who writes things on the palm of their hand with a pen… this is not like using a pen.  It literally means that God has carved our name through His skin and into subcutaneous tissue… ewww.

The Hebrew is “chaqaq” חָקַק which means “to cut, to cut into, to hack”  This is a permanent mark… it is not temporary at all.

There were Hebrews who were so fanatical about a cause or a city that they used to carve the symbol or the name of the city or cause into their palms.  This was serious business because there was a real threat of infection and the act of carving scars into the skin was against the Law of the Torah:

Leviticus 19:28

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

²⁸ You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD.

So, here you have a Jewish man, or woman, who is so fanatical, they will carve a symbol into the skin of their hands and defy the law of God to show their loyalty.  That’s extreme commitment. 

This is what Isaiah is saying about God; He says that He has chosen to break the law to keep us with Him.  What does this mean?

2 Corinthians 5:21

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

²¹ He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

It means that the act of accepting our sin meant taking the place of the lawbreaker, taking on the guilt of sinners and being nailed to a cross.  In taking our place the hands of our God were marked permanently.   The name that God engraved into the palms of His hands is the nail mark in the palm of the hand of a crucified savior.  It means that when Jesus looks at His hands, He sees the price He was willing to pay for us.  How much do you think you worth?  Watch The Passion of Jesus to see what you are worth to Him.  Jesus is fanatical about you.

How does this tie to remembering a kiss and a girl?

We remember the people we are with and we forget the people we leave.  I know that we keep a part of a person we have left, but there is not that relationship filled with vitality anymore.

Since I am out of Nancy’s life, I don’t know what makes her laugh, or cry, or smile.  Since I am a nosey person, I know what city she lives in, generally what she is doing, and that she has been married to one man for at least 25 years.  It comforts me to know she is living well, but I don’t know anything about her fears, or hopes, or dreams.

Jesus knows where I am, what I am doing and what my dreams are.  He knows my fears and my strengths.  He knows what I need, and what I want.  Why does He know me so well?  Jesus knows me because He is with me. 

He said ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ then He took the bread and the cup and instituted communion.  Of all the commands Jesus left us, only once did He say ‘remember Me’.  Isn’t it odd that the one time He calls us to remember is with a ceremony tied intimately with His death? 

Or is it?

Would I die for Nancy?  Sadly, no.  Would I die for Trina?  Yes, I would, because she is with me and I have invested my whole self in her life.  The truth is, the more we invest in something, the less willing we are to abandon it and the more we are willing to pay to keep it.  Jesus invested in us to His death.  Death is a pretty big investment.

Jesus invested so deeply in you and I that He will never back out.  I think this is why He picked communion to help us remember Him, it’s because He wants us to have confidence that we will never be forgotten; that He is invested in us and will never back out; and that He is with us.

This is as it should be.

Day 5 of cross country - going home

DAY FIVE TUESDAY JULY 12, 2011

Day five found me awake without my alarm at 4am.  I walked over to the truck stop and got a cup of coffee, pretty good coffee, and carried it back to the room.  I packed my gear and got it on the bike. The motel had a concrete walkway which ran its entire length.  My unit set high above the parking lot, about 3 feet, so there were a few steps poured down to the parking spot where Betts was.  I felt like Aragorn at Helms Deep as I sat on the walk, looking east and waited for the sun to rise.

I was so intent on making mileage yesterday, that I didn’t note the landscape.  Somewhere east of Oklahoma City, the foliage had changed from the plains to the forest.  Before OK City, there were shrubs and a few trees with dense tree cover in gulches and creek banks, but here in Checotah, the trees pushed themselves up in full stature and stretched limbs out to tickle each others extended fingers.  I could see where the understory area had the look of a forest floor that the tree canopy had blocked enough sunlight that there weren’t as many smaller plants.

As the sky brightened I could see some cleared fields.  The swallows, or martins, were swooping and diving over the field.  There was a  haze over the field where the air neat the soil, still warm from the ground which never really released the heat of the day mixed with the cooler air above.  It was a soupy mix of moisture, bugs, truck fumes and feeding birds.

Gradually, the sun beat back the night, lights started coming on in the motel rooms, and the sounds of a human day grew louder than the sound of nature.  I turned in my room key, got on the bike and added my engine to the noise.

700 miles to Notasulga, Alabama.  I charted by course through Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Tupelo, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama, then down US Hwy 280 into Dadeville, then off side roads through Reel town and Liberty City and into sleepy Notasulga.

Leaving Checotah, I was struck by the flavor of John Cougar Mellancamp.  The kids at the Sonic, the hot, humid nights, that solid stalwart attitude of the American farmlands all gave me a sense of peace.  There is a need, in a nation, for a common thread.  The language binds us still, but the attitude of the American still is a ‘let’s make this work” kind of pathos.  The desert southwest had a calm in the face of an environment which was not designed for humans.  California is hard to nail down because it is so diverse within itself… childish, sincere, hard working, fun loving, hurt, but trusting… California is an enigma.

Texans seemed the most independent.  They kept to themselves and expected you to as well.  They were friendly enough, but they left no bones about it, they had their stuff together, so pay mind and stay outta the way.  Oklahoma and Arkansas are the solid country folk who will help a stranger, but they carry that same thread of strength of character as the Texans.  All the people I met knew that it was right to help a stranger.  They all knew that level heads and clear thinking was the best course.  They all agreed that hard work is better than luck, but not luck could sink you even if you worked hard.  We have that core American belief that our futures are ours to break… other people may destroy the environment where you can succeed, but there is no need to lend a hand in that destruction.

I thought about these people as I rode and watched the land come into the day.  As I got closer to the Mississippi river, the land use became denser.  More cows, more fields, more towns that John Cougar would be at home in.

I crossed the big muddy river at about noon.  I wanted to pull over, but there was no room.  I kept one eye on the river as I rode, and then conjured the image in my mind as I left the Mississippi behind.  The great divide between the east and the west.  No I am truly in the East again.  Memphis, Tennessee is under my tires and the Southland is in the air.

I found myself humming Indigo Girls “Something About the Southland in the Spring Time” as I tooled past the city of Memphis.  I stopped at a McDonalds before I got too far and looked at the google maps.  I saw where my road peeled off the bypass around Memphis.  One of the men who east breakfast at McDonalds warned me about the exit to get on US Highway 78 to Birmingham… it looked more like a driveway than an exit.  I pulled off onto 78 and found myself on a city street wondering if I was on the wrong road.  Scanning the road, I found the marker sign for US 78 and pressed on.  At one point it was bumper to bumper with the majority of the vehicles being tractor trailers.

I didn’t like being in stopped traffic in 95+ degree weather while sitting on top of an air cooled motor.  It turns out that a traffic light had malfunctioned and there was a snarl in the road.  No police, no traffic directing, just the will of the drivers as they got their turn at the intersection.  It took a long time, but soon, I was through the intersection.

I stopped at a gas station and a woman on a Harley pulled up.  We talked bikes for awhile and she sat down at a bar stool where I ate some jerky and bought a fountain drink.  She was intrigued at the story of the trip.  I gave her a link to the route through Yosemite, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon and the Indian Reservations.  She said she would like to try that sometime.  I really doubt she will, but you never know.

I crossed into Mississippi and I could feel the urge to press on and be home.  The rolling hills of the Appalachians began to rise up in front of me.  As the hills rose, the rain clouds increased as well.  I stopped and looked at the weather radar… thunderstorms dotted the southeast.  The possibility if rain didn’t really worry me anymore.

I crossed into Alabama. I was taking in the sight: large rolling hills completely covered in trees.  There were no gaps in the tree canopy except where an outcrop of rock might peek through.  I could tell it had been raining here recently because the air had that fresh-rain smell that comes after a storm.  There is a musty ‘its just started to rain’ smell, then there is that after rain that smells of pine and sweet gum resin and leaf mulch.

The sky darkened and the temperature dropped.  The tree-covered valleys had those wispy bits of cloud hanging onto the tops of the trees and there were some very low level cloud banks just above the hill tops.  I looked forward, down the highway, and saw the unmistakable signs of approaching rain.  I stopped at an exit and got my rain gear on, ate something and hit the road again.

The temperature dropped from the mid 90’s to lower 70’s in the span of a few minutes and then the rain came.  It was an easy rain to ride in, not the blowing torrential downpours that make me regret being on a bike.  It lasted about 20 minutes and as the rain stopped, the temperature again climbed into the heat of summer.  I got the rain gear back off and rode through a just-washed landscape.

78 is also called Future Interstate 22.  You have to exit the highway because it is unfinished.  I took the last exit and followed the signs to Birmingham downtown.  78 runs into the Forestdale area of Birmingham.  I stopped at, yes, a McDonalds to check the weather.  A couple of older African American ladies sat at a table right next to me and struck up a conversation.

“That bike you got?  What kind is it?” asked one of the women.

“It’s a BMW.  Sort of a cross between a race bike and a Harley.” I shut the lid on my laptop.  “I bought it Monday in California and rode it back here.”

Black woman have the most expressive faces… they are great to talk with.  The lady’s eyes opened wide, then a smile went all across her face, “You serious?”

“Yep” I said.

They looked at each other and crossed their hands on the table in front of them in a truly elegant fashion that I believe only real Southern women can and one of them said “Well, then, you need to tells us about it, now don’t you?”  These words were given in a cadence that says “No need to hurry through this, just let us hear a good story open up like a rose."

“Yes Ma’am.”  They sat and asked questions and laughed and gave little stories of their own about the places they had seen.  I noticed that my stories involved people and places whereas their stories were only about people.  The only reference to a place was its name, not the color of the sky or the contours of the Earth.  Each land and each group within that land has a different set of rules in story telling and conversation and I love them all, but the South has become, for me, my favorite place to spin a yarn.  The white folk tell it one way, the African, another, but both are uniquely Southern in the flavor.  Its kinda like the tea… sweet, but strong and made, not for the gulping, but for the long slow sipping that works best on a porch after, or during the rain..

They looked at my laptop screen and then they pulled out their iPhones and we all looked at the weather.  It struck me that here was something which has changed… 50 year-old something black women with iPhones blinged out checking the weather.

“Ooooo honey, that old man weather is chasin you!  You’d better g, o, go!” pointing wildly at the screen.

I looked at the green yellow and red and decided she was right, “For sure… it was nice visiting with you.”

“You be careful, now.” The shorter of the two gave me a stern look and I nodded.  I believe she gave that stern 'mother' look even though our relationship was born 40 minutes ago and was drawing to a close right now.

“Yes Ma’am… you too.”

I got back on the bike as the rain crept in, but I moved so quickly through the streets, that it slacked off and stopped.  I picked up I 65 to bypass I 459 and took the Mountain Brook exit onto US 280.  It was a familiar road from there and I hardly noticed the passage of the miles.  I got to Dadeville Alabama and took Al 49 south and wound along and through the hills surrounding Lake Martin.  The sun was completely below the horizon and the sky was an auburn color.  Unlike the desert, Alabama has no long vistas unless you are on top of a hill.  The tree canopy is so tall and thick that the only view of the sky is nearly straight up.  The outline of the boughs and leaves were impossibly black against the auburn sky.

There is a section of this last leg that runs from Reeltown to Liberty City… it runs through some prime wiregrass hay fields.   The tree canopy gave way and, for a rare moment, a vista opens.  I rode through land like a rolling sea with no white caps, covered in Bermuda hay.  Some of the fields offer a full mile view of the choicest hay fields I have ever seen.  Round bales of hay dot the field and a thick smell of silage was wafted off the field by lazy summer evening breezes.

Further along, past Liberty Ciy, Alabama 14 winds through pecan groves and finally into Notasulga.

I pulled up onto the concrete pad leading to my front door and sat back on the seat of the BMW.  I looked over the bike and my hands and thought it was strange to actually be here at the end of an epic journey.  It was almost like I wasn’t really sure I was going to make it, this trip… now I was here.

My home is an old Southern country home with 12 foot ceilings and a 12-12 roof pitch.  It has a cozy front porch and 2 large Chinese Elms out front and 4 very old Pecan trees on the side and in the back.  I sat under the whispering leaves of the elms and listened to the familiar voices of the elms.  A breeze came out of the East and carried the spicy smell of the pecans my way. 

By now it was darker outside than in and I could see Trina at the dining room table with my son, Aiden playing with toy cars beside her.  I could smell dinner mixing with the smell of the Southland on the breeze as well.  All of the familiar items of my life were with me again.  It’s that way sometimes, you have to leave all the things around you to really appreciate what they mean to you when you are back in the middle of them.  This is what home really is: home is the place that, when you have everything removed from you, you are willing to risk everything to get back to it.

day 4 - On the Windy Plains

DAY FOUR MONDAY JULY 11, 2011

On the Windy Plains

Crossing New Mexico, Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma

3 am a huge thunder clap sounded.  I heard a torrential downpour going on.  I sat up and turned on the light.  I gave the roaches a few seconds to hide and was about to get up to see if the rain was getting to my bike.  It was then that I saw the water running into the room from under the door.   I jumped up to get all my stuff off the floor.

I have many pet peeves… one of them is wall-to-wall carpet.  I refer to it as socks you never change.  Truth is, you don’t change wall-t-wall carpet, you simply wipe off the top layer… somewhat.  When my feet hit the soaked carpet, the grime of God-knows-what combined with the water streaming under the door made a pool of what looked like beef bullion come up between my toes.

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed all my gear and threw it up on the bed I was not sleeping in.  I slogged into the bath room, turned on the lights and allowed all the roach neighbors in the bathroom subdivision to complain about the sudden light and head back into their hiding places.  I rinsed my feet of in the shower, grabbed some towels from the bathroom and jumped from bed to bed so I could lob towels at the door.  I tossed a chair beside the door, jumped to it and stuffed the towels into a make shift levee.

I sat cross-legged on the bed and waited for the rain to slow.  I woke up an hour later to a train whistle that sounded like they had mounted the hideous thing in the room with me.  I think two of the roaches died due to the volume and surprise, but I couldn’t prove that, they may have actually drowned hours previous.

Trina complains about the train whistles in Notasulga.  She doesn’t complain about the decibel level…  her complaint is that they aren’t in tune.  Note: don’t even bother about arguing with a musician about tuning a train whistle unless you just want to mess with them and get them all riled up.  It just isn’t worth it, mostly.

Bleary eyed, I open the curtains to look out.  It was still dark but the rain had stopped and I decided to mount up and ride. The ride out of Gallup was actually pretty cold.  It had rained most of the evening and the air was brisk.  Sitting still, the temperature was nice, but at 70mph on a bike was nippy.  About 10 miles out on Gallup at 4am I caught up to the rain.  I stopped and got my rain gear on and decided to find a bridge and take cover until daylight.  This was because I didn’t like the pelting rain and I saw numerous deer crossing warnings.  I think there was a bear crossing warning as well.  Running at 70 in the dark and colliding with a deer, or worse, a bear, seemed like too much excitement.  I took the next exit and made a left at the bottom of the ramp and headed under the ‘bridge’.

The bridge was made out of two very large box culverts.  Not the best place for a bike to hole up in in the wee hours of Monday morning.  I had a vision of a late night bar hopper driving with blurred vision through the bridge and wondering why there was a man stuck under his windshield wipers and what was causing that awful metallic grinding noise under his car.  I stomped in the little river that had formed in the culvert, managed to  splashed water up my pants leg, and got back on the road.

I stopped in a Loves truck stop to wait out the rain and wait for the sun to come up.

For the record, I do not love Loves.  They have wifi, but it is for sale.  I went up to the counter and asked if there was a free wifi. The woman at the counter had that dull attendant look… will I never learn?  I said “Look, there is a McDonalds.  THEY have free wifi.”

THAT got her attention “Well, why don’t you go over there for your free wifey (wifey?)… ohhh, ‘cause they ain’t open, are they?” 

She did that side to side head bob thing that some women can do while she said “‘cause they ain’t open, are they?”  (How do they do that?) She spun around with a flourish and went to the other side of the counter and scowled at me over the 5 hour energy drinks.  I wanted to slap her.

Out of spite, I sat there anyway, sans internet, and wrote on the computer.

The sun came up and McDonalds opened.  I walked across the parking lot and into the McDonalds.  I checked the weather, bought an egg muffin and a coffee and went outside and hoisted the coffee in the direction of Love’s truck stop.  Maybe they saw it, maybe they didn’t.

The rain cleared up and I hit the road in western New Mexico.

As I rode along Interstate 40, I noticed something I hadn’t taken note of before: fences.  Up until now, since I had gotten out of the San Joquine Valley, I had seen no fences, but here, near Grants New Mexico, were fences.  There was also a smell of hot grass in the air.

On the plains, once again, I could see for miles and miles.  Albuquerque was coming into view.  There is a mountain in Albuquerque that the interstate runs along, then crosses its skirts.  It was near this mountain that there were rain clouds dropping water on the city.  I stayed on the bike and rode through the city on the interstate.  As I was climbing a hill out of Albuquerque, I went through the rain.  It was light and cool and pleasant.  I looked to my right just as I was clearing the rain and I saw the brightest rainbow I think I have ever seen.

It is very dangerous riding a motorcycle and being enamored with the sight of a rainbow in the rear view mirrors, but it was spectacular.  The morning sun was bright, the clouds to the west were thick and dark and the air was clean and crisp and clear.

Coming down the hill, just a little way from Albuquerque, it stopped at a gas station and said hello and good morning to the gas station attendant just to make him growl.  There was bullet proof glass, so I was safe.  After paying for my gas I pulled around to a McDonalds.

Coming across America and stopping at McDonalds, I have noticed something… there are a lot of 50+ year old men who meet at McDonalds in the morning.  A whole bunch, as a matter of fact.  There has to be a place where men can meet and just sit.  They don’t always talk, some of them just come in, get a drink and sit down beside another man and the other 3 of 4 just nod to each other.  No talking required other than the old man groan them make as the sit down or stand up.  If you ask most women, this whole concept of interaction is like behavior from another planet.

That said, my wife could walk around nearly all day with a phone attached to her ear and either say nothing, or just shoot the breeze with no objective in mind at all.  The fact that sitting without uttering a word in person is abnormal, but listening to a person breath over the phone is perfectly normal makes no sense at all to me.

These men, all across America, who can either sit and talk, or sit and breathe are a great comfort to me… it means that there IS something in our land which unites us.  It’s McDonalds.

Well, actually, it is the fact that we share the same dreams and the same loves as each other.  Black, white, Hispanic, Indian… we all want the comfort of friendship and the safety of being accepted no matter what.

A pastor friend of mine named Craig used to say that we all come to the checkout counter the same way… we tally our stuff, which are our desires, and we have a moment of expectation until we see that word “APPROVED”.  We all cringe at the word “DENIED”.  Even Bill Gates would feel smaller if he was denied.  We want acceptance in our home, work, church, and in McDonalds over a cup of coffee.  These men don’t need words, or group hugs.  They need to see that they are seen and welcomed without fanfare or swiping some silly magnetic strip.

I talked with these men in Albuquerque for about a half hour.  No names, just men.  One of them warned me that the exit in Memphis which gets you to Birmingham is hard to see and doesn’t seem like it was a major route to a significant city.  I’m glad he warned me because on day five, he was right.  They warned me that the heat would really set in at Santa Rosa NM and I would be in that heat from there out.

From here out I was in a mood to make some major miles.  I had a goal of getting home and as I looked at the temps on the US map, it looked pretty grim in Texas and Oklahoma.  I was thinking about that heat as I rode through New Mexico.  The land is pretty flat in NM. The surface of the land is rolling with occasional spires of rock towering out to cast long, thin shadows in the grass.

As I passed Santa Rosa, it wasn’t that I felt hotter, but I felt wetter.  In the desert, the moisture evaporated quickly, but here in East New Mexico there was just enough humidity keep some sweat on me.

About 30 miles east of Santa Rosa I stopped at a station.  I needed to eat some and rest.  As I sat on the curb in the station and drank some water and ate granola, a beat up Mercedes pulled up.  There were three young people in the cabin of the car along with a good portion of Fred Sanford’s inventory.  Two girls piled out of the front seats.  One was wearing a tank top with camo cutoffs and army boots.  The tank top didn’t really do too much for modesty, but then again one look was enough for me.  Her hair was in dreads and was previously colored something, but was now washed out.  She had odd sun-dial looking tats and some tribal ink plus those small of the back tats.  She did not look happy.  The other girl was wearing khaki shorts over fishnet leggings with a tank and a plaid shirt over top and suede looking boots.  She was pierced and inked in mainly druidic looking symbols that reminded me of the hex signs in Pennsylvania.

What struck me about them most was the look in their eyes: they looked angry and ready to make a scene.  They rounded the car and headed for me.  I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with these two. They were unshaven and, it turns out, unwashed, or at least sans deodorant.  There was an additional prevailing odor I couldn’t place at first.

The slouched against the build a few feet from me and the army boot girl pulled a few markers out of her boots while the fishnet girl dropped some cardboard on the ground between them.  They started to stare. I ate my granola and sipped water.  There had been a stand where I bought so veggies and I pulled out some carrots and an apple.  They glared louder.

I knew they saw my inventory of them: arm pit hair, obvious life style brandings all over them and they were traveling in a car… they were likely in a relationship together, or they were daring people to say something so they could pounce… I think they were pouncers.

I looked back to their car and the third person in the triad was spread out over the junk in the back seats.  I thought it might be a guy, but I turned and looked at the girl and decided that opinion was premature.  Whoever it was had been asleep all this time with their head tilted back and mouth wide open.   It was a very large mouth.  Judging by the amount of arm pit hair and the shadow on the chin and neck, I was getting closer to pronouncing the third a male, but not to be hasty.

I reached in my pack and pulled out the third course: beef jerky, teriyaki flavor.  Fishnet girl made a noise and army boot girl was placing her finger in her mouth.  I ripped of a really big piece and made a point of smacking as I chewed.

It turns out that Number Three was male… tall, lanky, smelly, hair all in knots wearing Birkenstocks and tatty khakis.  He scratched in places you shouldn’t in public and went to the trunk of the car and pulled out plastic jugs.  The smell was fryer oil.  They were burning cooking oil in the Mercedes.  The cardboard was a sign asking for oil or work.  I wondered some at their story, but not enough to risk the encounter.

The boy didn’t look angry… why is it that when girls go bad they can scare the water out of you?  Mean girls are tougher than the tough boys for sure.

Back on the road I felt a renewed determination to get some miles done.  I tucked in behind a truck and twisted the throttle.  The miles churned by as the lands changed to more and more grass and some scrub oak style trees.  The air smelled more and more like agriculture has been here.  Just shy of the Texas border I stopped at a gas station and called home.  Rae was home and I let her know where I was.

I crossed the border into Texas and my resolve to be home grew.  The roads are concrete there and the sun glared up off the road painfully.  I felt the beginnings of a terrible headache coming on.  I stopped and put on sunglasses in addition to my shaded inside visor on the helmet.

I was about an hour into Texas when I saw a strange thing: there was a truck with what looked like an airplane wing which was slightly twisted.  I thought it might have been a propeller of some sort, but of what sort, I had no idea.  I was musing about the propeller when I saw a bunch of people walking out into a field.  They were in a line walking out into the field and raising dust as they went. I craned my neck over and saw a bunch of cars planted out in the field.

When you see pictures of the Cadillac ranch, it looks better as a picture.  I doubled back and stopped to gawk.  To be honest, I wasn’t impressed.  I got back on the road and passed through Amarillo.  Just on the east side of town near what looks like a defunct store are eight or so Volkswagon beetles planted nose down.  Now, after seeing the caddies, the bug ranch was funnier to me.

The lands in Texas were almost completely fenced and had the look of well-established agriculture.  Cattle farming seemed to be the biggest aggie industry in this part of Texas.  This wasn’t the case with Nevada, Arizona, and less so in New Mexico.  The land was flat and gently rolling.  It was dotted with dark green scrub oak and stunted piney looking trees.  It wasn’t a land that seemed hospitable to life, but it didn’t seem to hate it either.  Over-all, it was a reasonably pleasant place, if it were not for the heat.

The temperatures had climbed into the upper 90’s by noon and seemed to be planning on triple digits by late afternoon.  It was, as Trina puts it “Africa Hot’.  I had planned on staying on the US highways as much as possible.  There were signs advertising Route 66 all along this highway.  As the air heated and grew more humid I decided the trip had become a quest to return and not to discover.

I noticed more of the odd propellers as a traveled East.  I saw one pulled off the interstate on a side road and I got off the interstate and back tracked to it.  The base had to have been 4 feet in diameter and about 65 feet long.  I didn’t stay long enough beside the propeller to ask what it was for.  But my interest was peeked.

I stopped at Shamrock to rest.  The winds coming off the plain were beginning to become punishing.  They had to have been 15mph to 30 mph coming at a 45 degree angle to the bike.  The wind whipped my head back and forth and beat against by chest like King Kong beating his chest.  As I came up on a semi, it would shield the wind, but as I rounded the front of the big rigs, the wind combined with the wall of wind bouncing off the front of the truck was really exciting.

As I made my way into Oklahoma, the wind grew in intensity.  As I clung to the bike behind a big truck with a nearly reflective back door, I could see my reflection.  The bike was tilted at about a 10 degree list.  The effect of the wind was like being in a constant turn to the right.  The wind was beating on my helmet, tiring my neck and back, it was buffeting my torso causing my arms and abdomen to work hard to keep my seat, and my legs and arms and back were getting a workout in an effort to hold the bike at the right angle to keep moving in a straight line.

About the time I was wondering how long this wind would last, I saw the first of the wind farms in Oklahoma.  Tall, stately poles rose out of the prairie grass. Each pole had a three fingered turbine turning lazily at its top.  The poles stretched out as far as the eye could see.  I realized that the propellers I was seeing on the trucks were for these turbines… the height of the pole had to be at least 150 feet.  The total diameter of the turbine with propeller was about 130 feet.

My heart sunk because I realized that the wind I was riding into was no fluke or a random wind storm.  For this many turbines to be operating, this HAD to be a regular weather pattern… it was windy.

By the time I realized what I was in for, it was too late to change.  I was on I 40, and that was that.  The winds increased to a level I found hard to believe.  I stopped at a gas station and a man in a minivan looked at me and said, “Nasty wind, isn’t it?”

He had Missouri plates on the back.  “Sure is.  I feel like Rocky Balboa at the end of the movie.  I’ve been sluggin it out the last 4 hours.”  I looked at the van, “I imagine the wind pushes that around as well.”

“It does, but the worst is the wind around the tractor trailers.” He looked back at the highway, “wish I had picked another way to go.”

“Me too.” I finished gassing up, “I’d warn any biker about riding through this part of the country… is it any better north or south of here.”

He shrugged “Can it be any worse?”  Point.

I still think that, had I to do it over, I either would have set more time aside so I could ride on US highways at 55mph, or go far enough north or south to be out of the cross winds.  The interstate speed being 65, the wind was vicious mean, but slowing down below 65 was dangerous due to the barreling traffic intent on speeds in excess of 70.  Slowing to 55 had another draw back: my seat, the one permanently attached to my bones, was feeling the miles and another 3 days may have left me with a lifelong limp.  So interstate it is.

On the Interstate it didn’t seem to matter if I went 70mph or 80mph, the wind was going to beat me sore no matter my speed.  I grit my teeth and pushed her up to 80 and hung on.  The wind eased up about 30 minutes west of Oklahoma City so I decided to stop.  There was a man on a Suzuki Intruder.  We talked bikes and he tried to get me to ride on Route 66 instead of the interstate.  It might have been more comfortable, but I was ready to be home.  Oklahoma was a vast and solid country, but I was less interested in learning the land than making time and miles.

One of the striking things about Oklahoma are the cattle farms.  Some of them have pens close up against the interstate.  I think some of the pens I saw were holding pens for the slaughter house.  The smell was truly… memorable… nervous cows all packed into an area too small to break down the manure.  Here is the cost of our diet and survival… animal life packed in tight, set in line for death and butchering.

I looked at the maps and watched him the guy I was talking to ride off on his Suzuki and I decided that the quicker I was home, the better. I saw how close Oklahoma City was and decided that Fort Smith was within my reach.  It was about 200 miles away.  I looked at my cell phone and it was 5:30… I could make Fort Smith by 8:00.  If I did that, I would have made 825 miles in a day.  That left me 700+ miles the nest day and I was off the bike and in my house.

There is a ‘club’ called the iron butt club.  If you register the ride before you leave and can document your trip and map 1000 miles in a day, you get a patch.  Not a very good deal, in my opinion… having come within 175 miles of the 1000, I really don’t think it is worth it.

I pushed on through Oklahoma City and watched my shadow grow long in front of me as the sun went down.  I approached Lake Eufaula at sunset.  There is a zone that surrounds a lake.  It is hot and incredibly humid within about a quarter mile of the water, but you break the shoreline and get on a bridge over the water and the temperature drops quickly.  I crossed the bridge over lake dreading the other side, rode through the sticky heat and saw the signs for Checotah Oklahoma… this is the end of the road for me tonight.  Google Maps said I traveled 794 miles in one day… my odometer said 825.  What a day.

I pulled into a truck stop with a motel.  I got a room in the back right hand corner of the L shaped motel.  The room was amazingly hot. I got all my gear inside and turned on the AC.  I decided to try my luck at dinner in town.  I found a Sonic not too far away and had a chicken wrap and watched the martins catch bugs out over a field lite by a purple sky.  There were some high school kids hanging out at the Sonic.  I listened to the drama of adolescence for awhile, then cleaned up my table and headed back to the Motel.

The room had cooled down.  I showered and hardly remember getting into bed.  The sound of trucks revving up woke me in the morning.

Day Three - crossing rolling hills

DAY THREE SUNDAY JULY 10, 2011

Crossing rolling hills to the Grand Canyon

I got my gear out and was strapping it to the bike at 5:00 am.  The early morning time is special to me.  There is a hush all over like creation is expecting the day.  We treat it like the day just happens, but, I believe, the world around us waits to see the morning unfold.  By the time I was riding, the desert was just beginning to glow.

There is something about being about your business before most other people are up.  It seems like you’re really serious about whatever you are doing if you are up early.  The other travelers who are on the road with you seem like brothers or sisters. 

As I was strapping my stuff on the bike, a man came out of his room with bags.  We both stopped, looked at each other.  He smiled, I did too, and with a mutual nod, we packed up without a word.  His car was parked right beside my bike and we had an impromptu dance, as we shared the area between bike and car.  We knew what we both were about.  As I pulled out and headed east, he signaled west.  We waved and that was that, a life going in an opposite compass bearing, but really on the same road.

The highway out of Las Vegas and Boulder City used to wind down to the Hoover dam, but now it crosses the Mike O’Callaghan - Pat Tillman bridge… it is concrete and large and has high walls on both sides so all you can see is the bridge.  At first I was disappointed with the walls, but a vicious cross wind changed my mind… if it was not for the walls, the wind might have been worse with a very real possibility of being swept off of the bridge.

Once on the Arizona side of the bridge,I decided that I wanted to see the Hoover dam, so I doubled back. Getting off the road was a good idea… the dam was impressive in the setting sun.  I didn’t attempt to tour the dam, I just got close enough to see it.  Its big.  Really big.

The area just east of the Hoover Dam from Hoover to Kingman Arizona is barren.  I mean it is absolutely foreboding.  If I was a pioneer and got to that point, I would have said “OK. I’ve changed my mind, let’s go back.”  I imagine this landscape is what J. R.R. Tolkien had in mind and wanted Mordor to look like.  I was amazed at it.  The Nevada Desert didn’t seem as alien to me at this did.

As I rode through the mountains, they gave way to rolling hills.  For some reason, the sandy, smooth hills didn’t seem as angry at my being here as the rocky and sharp mountains did.

I stopped for gas at a station in Kingman just north of interstate 40.  I guess deep underneath my pessimistic psyche is a part that wants to think the best of gas station attendants.  Don’t get me wrong here… I am not profiling, but the vast majority of these folks are surly.  Maybe it because of the grumpy travelers who, sun-burned and wet, say stupid things to them.  Regardless, I asked the attendant what the weather was looking like for the day.

“Ugh! Hot and sticky and miserable, what else.”  The woman behind the counter gave me that whats-up without even laying an eye on me.

Ok then, “Well, you have a nice day.” And I retreated as fast as possible. She never did look up.

Kingman Arizona is at the junction between US 93 and Interstate 40.  For the past 2 days I had been riding through deserts and state parks on US highways.  I 40 was the first interstate I was getting on.  I didn’t care much at all for the interstate.  The traffic was fast; the road was boring; the ability to stop, limited.  I toughed it out.  The next stop was Williams, Arizona.  Williams is the town at the exit for the Grand Canyon.  I hung on to the bike and pushed the speed up in an effort to ‘man-up’ and make the next exit.

I expected the ride to be ‘hot and sticky’, but the air felt cool as long as I was moving.  A few miles out of Kingman, the roads were wet from an early morning rain.  With just a tee shirt and a button-down on top of that and a windbreaker over that, I started to actually get uncomfortably cool.  I didn’t mind too much since I was convinced that I would be very, very hot later.

As I rode, the horizon was growing heavier with with rain clouds.  My heart sunk as I considered looking out over the Canyon with rain obscuring the view.  I wondered at the odds, again of rain in the desert.  I certainly looked ‘desert-like’.  There were cactus and scrub oak and Joshua trees.  It looked like a hard place to live, but I thought it looked like you could live there.  It wasn’t like the Nevada desert which was either indifferent to my being there, or was offended at my presence.  Either way, Nevada seemed like it would never cooperate with living things… we had to fight to live in those places.

Coming into Williams, I stopped at a gas station, which was not a chain, and the man there seemed to be unlike most of the attendants I had encountered on the trip.  He was a Hispanic man with a very busy attitude.  My guess is he was the owner of the station.  I bought gas and a powerade from him and attempted a conversation.

“What does the weather look like from here east?” I asked.

“Pretty much rain all the way.  Seems like it rains about 1:00am for about an hour, then again around 2:00pm.  Keeps it cool.”  He looked out to the bike.  “That your beemer?”

“It is now.”  I broke out some jerky and granola for breakfast while he was working on a sandwich, “I bought it a couple days ago in Santa Cruz.”

“California?”  he stopped eating.

“Yep, riding it back to Alabama.”

“Dude, you gonna be wet.”  He laughed, “long trip.”  He looked out the window… it had bars on it.  “Sounds good though, you know, just ride and ride.  Be fun to just head out without any idea of where, just go.”  He sighed.

Just then an over-weight man in Birkenstock’s hobbled in, “Do you have a mechanic?”

“Sure, be right there.”  He got up and kept his eyes out the window.  He looked down at my feet and held out a hand.  He never made eye contact again after the man asked for a mechanic.  I shook his hand and he said “Good luck, friend.” And he, head and eyes down, walked into the shop and started directing the tow truck with a mini van on it into the bay.

I wonder if I had invited him to close shop and get on a bike if he would have come.  I think he would have.

There is only one road into the Grand Canyon from I 40 near Williams.  The road is straight and crosses gentle hills.  Heavily traveled with RV’s and busses, the traffic moved smooth.  I kept looking ahead anticipating the canyon.  You would think that something as big as the Grand Canyon would have some evidence of it from miles away, but there isn’t.  The surrounding country gives no hint that the Canyon is there.  For that matter, If it rained regularly here, it would look like Michigan’s farm country, or Indiana’s… gentle, rolling hills stretching out for miles and miles.    

I stopped at a station to rest some more and buy some maps, then stopped again just outside the park.  I asked an attendant who looked young and foolish enough to offer an opinion whether, once I was done at the canyon, it was it was a good idea to ride back down 64, the way I came, back to the interstate, or take back roads.

“Mister, I wouldn’t go the US Highway route, I’d turn around and take 64 the same way I came and get on the Interstate as fast as possible.” He was young with adolescent acne.

“Why not go the US Highways?” I looked behind me to make sure I was not holding up a line, “I’d like to see the country.”

“Well, the highways all go through Indian Reservations… you know, deserts and mesas and the police on the Res hand out speeding tickets for any speeding at all.”  He handed me a map, “Here is how you would go, but there isn’t anything by desert and Indians out there.”

“Got it, but then again, I have never really been in a desert until 2 days ago,” I looked at the map with the road he had pointed out, “I’m not sure the romance between me and the desert has died out yet.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Mister, if you like deserts,” he laughed, “go this way.”  He pointed out the road along the South Rim, through Cameron, Az, Tuba City and ending in Gallup New Mexico.

I went back out to the bike.  A couple on a Harley pulled up with a trailer.  “You heading into or out of the canyon.” The man on the bike asked.

“Heading in.”

“Wanna keep pace.” He asked. “By the way, we was wondering… does your bike wanna be a cruiser or a rocket.”  They both grinned.

“She’s only 12 years old” I said, “give me your address and I’d send you a letter when she grows up and makes up her mind.”

“Oh honey,” said the lady on the back, “bikes and their riders don’t ever grow up, they go to sleep one night and forget who they really are in the morning.”

“That’s kinda sad, isn’t?” I asked.

“Only to the ones behind that remember them.” Said the man.  I wondered if people in the desert southwest are either philosophers, poets or surely gas station attendants.

I saddled up and paced with the Harley couple.  We took our time and stopped often.  We split ways at a scenic turnout.  It was the last of the turn-outs.  They said they were doubling back and would be going to the village next. 

I never asked their names.  I realized it was funny that, on the road, names just don’t seem important.  Maybe its because the travelers are united by the road, or they just don’t want to invest in someone they will never see again.  Then again, it might be something wrong with me… I don’t ask for names.  What a person is doing, what they hold in esteem, that I remember, but names?  Not so much.

Its not just names I get hung up on… sometimes its saying goodbye as well.  I remember there was an Air Force Airman named Steve that I served with in NORAD.  We were from vastly different backgrounds and dispositions… actually, except for the uniform we had to wear, we had very little in common.  I applied for an ‘early out’ from the Air Force and got it.  I remember the last day in Colorado Springs.  Steve’s wife, Amy, asked “Don’t you want to say good bye?” I thought to myself “Why?”  I had no common ties with them, except proximity.  I knew I would, likely, never see them again, so why say goodbye? 

I believe my wife thinks me defective in this, but unless there is at least a hope of reunion, or a pain from the separation, then I just as soon leave the good byes alone.

As the Harley couple turned around and chugged off, I mused, again, about the lives that are lived without even an inkling on my part of their hopes and dreams and sorrows.  I looked back into the canyon and saw the metaphor: here is this amazing and enormous thing that dwarfs every person who sees it.  The Canyon itself was compelling… I wanted to be IN it, not AT it.  We are in the middle of a vast sea of dreams, but the size and scope of this sea isn’t apparent to us until we are right on top of it.  There is really no chance that you can guess how a person feels unless you put yourself in their life.

I wondered, as I sat on the stone wall at the end of one of the scenic over looks, how many people traveled right past this enormous canyon, and never even had an inkling it was there.  I wondered how many times I was in the company of greatness in another person, but I never knew it because I never asked that person a question.  It’s like being 100 yards from the Grand Canyon, and turning around.

For me, the romance of the Grand Canyon is this: You HAVE to purposefully desire to see it: you come to it on it’s terms, not yours and; it is so large and complex, you can spend a life traveling it and KNOW that not everything has been seen.  I looked out from the south rim and the sky was a pale blue with cotton ball clouds above.  There was a slight haze in the air.  Instead of obscuring the view, it lent an air of mystery and wonder.  Life is like this as well… if we really thought we could learn it all, where is the adventure in that.  The allure of the adventure is, partly, not knowing what comes next.

Seriously, if you knew how the book ended, would it captivate your heart?  Even if you know the ending, you still need to know how the people in the story got there, don’t you?  I am driven by the unknown.  Is it scary?  Sometimes, but fear isn’t bad… respect the consequences of irreversible actions, but live life fully, not safely.  Take a risk, step out into the unknown, fight, struggle, win, lose, fight again… that is life.

If you aren’t a little afraid, are you really alive?