Ciao For Now

Some things have come up which necessitate putting this blog and the stories of my ride on hold. It's not over, nor forgotten, just on pause while I finish some other projects. I'll be back in the fall.

EDITED 12/8: Yes, I know it's winter, it's a blizzard out my window at the moment. Am touched that many of you are eager for more installments, however, I am trying to survive my life right now, and until my band of clones gets delivered, I would appreciate your patience. Posts will resume when they do.

Red Road

Q & A: The Camera

A week before I set out on the ride, my beloved Canon A2 camera body broke after seven faithful years of hard use. One of the dials lost its traction and spun freely, rendering the camera useless.

I really didn't have money lying around for a new camera. I had just bought some spendy leather pants, and the details of the trip ahead were all unknowns, including the financials. So, instead of buying a camera equivalent to the A2, I decided to throw down $99 for a cheap, discontinued Rebel body - my logic being that, essentially, a camera body is just a little box that keeps the film dark. I shoot strictly manually and never use the programmed settings.

However, the body is only half the camera; there is the lense, as well, and though I like shooting with a more basic body, I never compromise on a lense. I only took one lense on the trip, my delectable 28-70 f2.8 Canon L Series lense, a lense that still makes me swoon every time I hold it. It is gorgeous; heavy; worthy of being the centerpiece on a dining room table - if I had a dining room table...if I had a dining room.

Anyway, along with being cheap, the Rebel body is extremely light, and with my lense attached, it was totally unbalanced - it felt like I was holding a lense with a growth on the back of it rather than a camera with a lense on it, and it made shooting with one hand impossible. None of this was the end of the world, but it was definitely a nuisance.

It should be noted that everything I have said about camera bodies here pertains to film cameras. I shot film on the trip, not digital. I love film, with a deep, romantic love that will never die. The names alone - Portra VC, TMAX 3200 - make my heart flutter, as does the smell of processing chemicals, the time alone under a dim red light bringing images to life.

But, these things are as foreign in Wyoming as palm trees, and so when I moved here, I began shooting digital. Charlie's early photos were shot with a borrowed Nikon D70, which was a great camera, but I yearned for my sexy Canon lense and recently bought a Canon EOS 30D. It reminds me of my A2 - fewer bells or whistles than the other models, but savvy enough for one to be confident in, and it has a nice heft, creating the perfect balance.

Motel. Delta, Utah

Fifty-Nine Days In

I can’t stop grinning this morning - and it’s more than grinning; hysterical laughing, actually, and cackling, and uncontrollable stoner giggling. I wonder what I look like to passing cars - leathered out on a Vespa, ponytail flapping, cracking up laughing.

The mellow highway turns into Main Street; a boy, about thirteen years old, hangs out of the back window of a minivan in the lane next to me. He’s smiling right at me, half his body leaning out the window, one arm raised in a strong and enthusiastic thumbs-up. It gives me a smile that lasts for blocks.

I notice that when I’m spontaneously smiling down the road, kids on the sidewalks and in cars around me smile and wave in return.

Going Somewhere, Always

Between the head and the heart is the voice, and our voice reflects our choices: the way we reconcile what we think and what we feel; what we know and what we desire. Our voice reaches the world through the manner in which we live - sound is unnecessary; we show others who we are by the way we go through life, and touch everyone we meet with who we are in that moment.

Prints Now Available!

The photographs of Vespa Vagabond are now for sale!
Click HERE for more details, or use the links to the right.
Enjoy.

Giant Pines

Haven't Vanished

No, I haven't vanished or stopped this blog, I just was laid out for an entire month with West Nile. Not fun. Once I catch up with my life that went on hold, I will be back to posting here. Check back soon for more tales!

Campsite, South Dakota

The Daily Coyote

Back in April I mentioned I was caring for an orphaned baby coyote. He's still with me, still too young to fend for himself, and is quite an amazing little being. I've been photographing him daily, and share the photos with an evergrowing mailing list. To see more and to get on the list, check out The Daily Coyote (http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com)

All Consuming

After riding though two states of flat, endless fields of corn and soybeans, I reach Chicago. Chicago, the second largest city in the country; different from others in how absolutely alluring it is. I walk down the streets and revel in the energy. What I notice, after being mostly in the middle of nowhere for a month, is the waste; the mindless gluttony. It's not even a mindful gluttony - rather, it seems to go unnoticed, taken for granted - the countless paper napkins slightly crumpled, slightly dirty, scattered along the edges of sidewalks; plastic shopping bags snagged in every chainlink fence and blowing by in the curling gust from each passing bus. What filled these bags at one time? What was served with all these napkins?

Where is it all now? We don't need most of what we have, and I wonder how things got this way. I'm certainly no exception to the attraction of consumption - even after a month on the road with only three shirts and one pair of shoes, even with this theme consciously planted in my mind, I walk past a boutique and covet, with visceral longing, the blood-red leather purse displayed in the window.

Wyo Hills

Q & A: Tips For Distance Rides

A few simple things can save grief in the long run when you take off on a long haul - or even to the next town over...

Check tire pressure every morning. Invest in a quality tire pressure gauge - don’t trust your life with those cheapo stick gauges.

Consider a windshield. Depending on your location, how fast you like to ride, the time of year and average air temperature, a windshield can make for a more comfortable ride. I know this because I didn’t have one - in the Nevada desert, the incoming air was a cooling relief; in Montana, it was brutal, cold, and felt like I was getting punched in the chest for hours on end.

Know where to find help. Before I left, I used the online yellow pages to make a list of Vespa dealerships and motorcycle repair shops along my route with addresses and phone numbers.

Let go of your worries. Stressing the whole time about what might go wrong defeats the purpose of your trip. Be aware and be safe, then let go and enjoy.

Open Land

After A Month Of Riding In The Country

I’m in Chicago, deep in it - the madness of the city swirls around and slams itself through me. I’m in it and of it - instantly morphing back into city mode, dodging potholes and running yellow lights. It’s amazing how quickly I adapt. Life speeds up a thousand times - ten thousand times - it speeds up until it rockets off and is an entirely different universe altogether...

Pit Stop

Q & A: What I Brought

It’s the high season for travel, for taking off down the road for an afternoon or a week or more, so I thought I'd finally answer what many of you have wondered: What, exactly, did I bring on my cross-country journey, and where did I put it?

There’s no place on a Vespa for traditional motorcycle accoutrements such as saddlebags or tank bags (no tank), so my available storage was limited to the compartment under the seat (which is the size of a full-face helmet), the tiny 'glove box' below the handlebars, a stock Vespa pod (topcase, technically), and a small, square cooler bag I strapped to the seat behind me.

My sleeping bag, maps and directions, and a pair of flip flops went under the seat. In fact, the seat would not close properly with a haphazard stuffing of the sleeping bag - it had to be mashed free of air and then rolled and folded at the same time like a fancy burrito.

The glove compartment is hardly larger than a pair of gloves, but into it I crammed rain pants, my fancy tire-pressure gauge, 18 feet of nylon rope, coarse sea salt (to counter dehydration), and extra-large rubber utility gloves that fit over my leather gloves in the rain.

The cooler bag was mostly filled with film (call me old-fashioned), along with my camera and a refreezable icepack to keep the film cool. It also held my journal and two pens; my cell phone, charger, and three extra batteries; sunscreen, sunglasses, a lighter, a flashlight, and a pocketknife; my wallet, a water bottle, two neckerchiefs (which I wore wet when it was hot and dry when it was cold), and an mini can of fix-a-flat (which I never used). I didn’t bring a tent, but did bring a tarp to sleep on or to cover the Vespa with if necessary. I folded the tarp to fit on top of the cooler bag and strapped it all down with a bungee net.

Everything else went in the pod. My clothing for two months amounted to two pairs of thin wool socks, one pair of kneesocks, three tank tops, three t-shirts, two bras and a handful of underwear, silk long underwear, one long sleeved shirt, a fleece hoodie, and a pair of lightweight cargo pants. The other necessities: travel-sized toiletries, spf chapstick, mascara, a nail file, extra contacts, a folding hair brush, hair bands and bobby pins, a very thin camping towel, insect repellant, and four small rocks, because I have a thing for rocks.

I rolled my clothes into long tubes in order to cram as much as possible into the oddly-shaped pod, and packed toiletries in small bags to fill small niches. Everything I needed, fit; and there was not room for anything more.

That was it; plus, of course, my daily uniform: leather pants, leather jacket, leather gloves, and motorcycle boots. That was all I had for two months, and I never felt deprived. Though the first thing I did in NYC was go buy a pair of jeans.

Open Road

Where The Lessons Are

Adversity is a teenager with studded lips and lobes and a sullen expression. If you turn your back or say cruel things, it will glare at you in return and be none the worse off; it expected such behaviour, anyway. It comes to you on the defensive, but comes to you nonetheless. And if you are not intimidated or disapproving; if you are not judgmental of an exterior you may consider harsh, and instead, relate to it in respect, you’ll find a liveliness and a brilliance, a purity, a revelation, a gift.

Chicago

Dakota

The road is straight and desolate; cars are few. I ride through Pine Ridge and continue on Highway 44, through towns that all begin with W: Wanblee, White River, Wood, Witten, Winner. The land is hot, beige. I feel tiny here.

The dry, brown earth extends wide and unobstructed; I don’t understand how it’s plotted, or who owns it, or what it’s used for. It stretches out lazily to each horizon like a mountain lion stretched in the sun, impossible to tame or own; it’s simply too wild and self-possessed. As I ride the pavement that cuts through this land like a gash, the wind and heat beat forcibly upon me, emissaries of the landscape to keep it pure of men.

A Tiny Huge Distraction

Yet again, I've been away from this website for a month... beginning when a ten-day-old orphaned coyote baby came into my life and moved into my cabin with me. It is an experience filled with wonder, one that I've given every free moment to enjoy. Now that I've managed to find a balance between Real Life and lovin' up the coyote (he's sitting on my lap as I write this), I'm back.

New posts will start rollin' next week.

Early Autumn, Connecticut

Wayward Traveler

The road widens gradually, imperceptibly, and the few cars that travel it fall away, so that soon I am the only one on this road and the road is wide and soft.

The road is a thing of beauty, winding through aspen groves, rivers sliding by here and there. I fly up the road and around the sweeping curves. A large, mottled hawk is flying in his own curve.

At the same moment we notice each other, and in that moment, see that our paths are about to intersect. Our eyes lock as we realize our impending collision less than a second before it’s bound to happen.

The hawk rockets backward, impossibly, as if on a rubberband as I jerk the Vespa to the right in a quick swerve. The noise I make is something between a laugh and a gasp.

"I almost collided with a giant hawk!" I think to myself out loud - because there’s no one to tell. I tell it to the aspen trees; the hawk is probably doing the same, it had looked as surprised as I was.

Bear Butte

Getting Philosophical

Riding curves is an art, and on this northern Nevada mountainside I finally did something beyond a doodle. The road was carved into the mountain and traversed the slope in curves and twists. The edge dropped off just feet from where my thigh cut through the open air, solid earth giving way to canyons and valleys. I leaned deeply into each turn, beaming, in joy and bliss and concentration - immersed in the exquisite thrill of being synchronized with the road and the ride.

In every curve there’s a moment that feels out of control. A common reflex stemming from fear, from the feeling of loosing control, is to squeeze the brakes in the center of the curve. Yet if fear is allowed in, trouble often follows. The key to riding curves is in the acceleration, not the breaking. We are meant to join forces with the momentum. A slight, steady increase in speed helps maintain the desired course. Curves ask us to lean into the abyss, to understand that letting go a little is what carries us through. Mastery comes from trusting enough to look beyond where you can see.

Bad Blogger!

I've been MIA for a while... because Spring finally came to Wyoming and after spending the winter in a log cabin with no running water and a woodstove as the only form of heat and temperatures averaging below zero for months on end, I had to bask in the sunlight and frolick and play. Please forgive me.

Totally non-related to Vespas and cross-country travel, here's a bit of Wyoming spring - horseback rides and baby calves. (Yes, mother cow has her tongue in her nostril; they do that.)

New posts of the ride on their way, pronto!

The Grotto Of Redemption

The Connection Keeps Us Going

I had my one and only mental meltdown in an Erie, Pennsylvania gas station parking lot. I’ll get into the details of that later, but the short version is that I wanted to just lie down on the pavement and not get up. Ever. But as we know, I am not still lying prone in a corner of a gas station. Though it took over two hours to muster it up, I did finally stand up, pull on my gloves, and pull on my helmet.

I stood, straddling the Vespa, letting it run stationary beneath me. I focused my mind away from the way I was feeling, away from the loneliness, away from the frustrations. I forced myself to focus on the noise and commotion surrounding me, to focus back on the ride. And as my attention focused on everything going on around me, everything going on inside of me began to recede.

I maneuvered slowly through the parking lot and pulled out into the road. I leaned into the left turn and my connection with the Vespa took hold. I felt the revolutions of the engine build, the gears shift. This is what endures.

Wide Iowa

When The Going Gets Tough

The roads I had chosen from Geneva to Buffalo looked on the map to follow the edge of Lake Erie, but they do not. They are slightly inland. They cut through strip malls and suburban sprawl. The immediate surroundings are ugly and characterless, but the route is close enough to the lake to receive the cold, damp air that sweeps in from across it. It is colder here on this straight, semi-urban thoroughfare - or cold in a worse way - than it had been in the Jackson fog or the Montana rain. This is an insidious chill, it is subtle and more painful, the way it whispers itself into me and seeps through my core.

Road construction makes this ride a frustration. Orange diamond signs mark each stretch: Road Work, Motorcycles Use Extreme Caution. The noise from jackhammers and earthmovers and heavy machinery is penetrating - insolent noise that I cannot escape. Huge sections of pavement have been removed, sliced away to create a sharp ledge that drops three inches to the base layer - graded cement raked in an undulating wave pattern of ridges and grooves, haphazardly dusted with gravel and sand. On two wheels, tires can get trapped in these grooves; gravel and sand corrupt ones ability to maneuver. It’s rough riding, and my collarbone is sore and pulses - an old break that never healed properly, it throbs when jarred consistently. After traversing each missing stretch, I must jump the Vespa up the ledge of pavement back onto smooth road.

Over and over again, the pattern repeats - the orange diamond signs appear, broadcasting their warning; the sharp smells of construction filter in to reinforce them; the pavement ends; the Vespa lowers with two blunt jolts as each wheel takes the drop; forearms tense to burn as I slowly navigate a wavering course; my body hardens and there is no enjoyment.

Lake Erie

I Was So Proud Of Myself That Night

After a long, gorgeous day of riding, I pulled into a state campground on the shores of Lake Erie just as dusk was falling and the collecting rain clouds were deciding if they would unleash themselves or not. The park cop told me I was welcome to spend the night in the laundry room since I didn't have a tent, and I thanked him, thinking that sounded like a nice plan.

I parked the Vespa at the campsite I had paid for - a lovely spot, the only site with a tree - then walked down to the laundry room to check it out. It was home to a terrifying mass of the largest spiders I have ever seen. I will ride a Vespa across the country but I will not sleep with giant spiders. I returned to my picnic table and my tree and decided to make a shelter. It was dark at this point, so I tucked my mini maglite into my bra strap and set to work.

I tied the rope I had brought (because you're supposed to bring rope on trips like these) to two branches of the tree and stretched it diagonally above the picnic table, which was too heavy to move. I draped my tarp over the taut rope and used hair rubberbands to secure it in place, and with that, created a funky shelter. I avoided the spiders, though several moths flew down my shirt, attracted to the flashlight in my bra.

Milkshake Break

Thinking (Wyoming)

It's about now. We so easily get wrapped up in thoughts of then (be it past-then or future-then), we miss out on or ignore or are blind to or rush past the gifts of now.

Connecticut Dawning

I take the dirt road out of town, through woods and fog, past stone walls half-hidden, slowly overtaken by brambles and moss. Mist hangs in the air around me, obscuring the definitions of things so that they are felt more than seen. Colors are soft and muted; silver-blue sky blends delicately into a silvery-green meadow, silver-barked trees look leafless and glowing, semi-obscured by the mist. The mist rises from the earth and settles in from above - one can't tell from which direction it originates, only that it meets everywhere and everything becomes part of everything else.

Mississippi River

Traveling With Time

Storm clouds threatened in the skies above as I left Bozeman, Montana. I made it 26 miles before the rain began. I had just reached the neighboring town - Livingston - and ducked into a coffeeshop to wait out what I hoped would be a typical Montana storm: hard rain for an hour, then blue sky. It wasn't; it lasted all day.

I became fast friends with Kate, the owner of the coffeeshop, and she invited me to put off riding in the rain and stay the night at her house. I accepted, on the condition that I at least wash dishes for her at the coffeeshop. The next morning dawned beautiful and clear, and Kate and I got up early to open the coffeeshop and have a cup together before I set off.

There were only two possible roads east out of Livingston: I-90, or 25 miles of dirt called Old Convict Road. I had planned to take Old Convict Road, but neither Kate nor I really knew how to get to it, and after the rain it could have easily turned into impassable mud. I decided to try to find it anyway in order to stay off the interstate.

I was gathering up to go when the first customer of the day came in - a huge, burly man named Time Keeper. He was a miner and a biker, with a ponytail beard and the most gentle laughing eyes I've ever seen. His gloves were so big I could have worn one as a hat. A beast of a motorcycle, decorated with skulls, was parked outside next to my Vespa.

I asked the Time Keeper if he knew how to get to Old Convict Road. He did, and as he drank his coffee he began explaining the way. After several directions of the "turn left at the third fence post" variety, my eyes glazed over and I interrupted him to dash for a pen and paper. Amused, he asked when I was going.
"Right now," I said.
"I'll ride out there with you," he said. "I've got the morning off."
And so we zipped up our leathers and waved to Kate and must have looked like the oddest pair to anyone out that early.

I followed the Time Keeper's massive, graceful silhouette into the sunrise. He led me out of town and into the open land to the unmarked turnoff that was Old Convict Road. Before he turned back to Livingston, I gave him a hug and showed him the tiny skull decal that discreetly peered out from the back fender of my Vespa.

Tree Tunnel

A Recap - To Get In Gear, So To Speak

I left San Francisco on August 1st with the leather outfit that encased my body and not much else: a camera, my journal, a sleeping bag and a tarp, a few t-shirts, one pair of pants, long underwear, toiletries and first aid, a cell phone with three batteries, a can of Fix-a-Flat, and a few sentimental totems. I didn't bring a tent, and I didn't bring mace or any other weapon. I spent some nights alone, some with friends of friends, and some with complete strangers I met along the way. I rode in formation with Harleys, and shared the road with tractors and Amish buggies. I rode my Vespa into a bar, a coffeeshop, and several stranger's garages. My route took me down back roads, dirt roads, and secondary highways; through a glittering high-speed underwater tunnel and over quaint wooden bridges. I rode through gravel and mud and only eight miles of interstate. I reached elevations of 8,000 feet; survived a record-breaking storm; and endured temperatures that ranged from 109 F to 42 F. I drove through lightning, thunder and some of the most gorgeous landscapes ever seen; was rescued from a budding tornado by an entire community of people; rode a longhorn steer in a Badlands bar and hugged a cheetah in Cincinnati. I ate a lobster on a dock in Maine and fresh cantaloupe in the Dakota dust; made friends I'll keep for the rest of my life and experienced more than I could have imagined.

When I arrived in New York City, I was stunned at how difficult it was to end the ride, how heartbreaking. It had seemed like a life, a lifetime, a lifestyle; I didn't want to give it up. Sitting on the curb in Brooklyn one night, I reflected on my ride - two months, moment by moment. And there, the truth of the trip emerged. We are here to live on this earth in awe, of people, of place, of ourselves.

Morning of the Second Day

A Far Cry from Vegas

Highway 50 through Nevada is called "The Loneliest Road in America," 380 miles from Carson City, at the western end, to the Utah state line at the east. Across this expanse sit four towns - only four - and the space between is long, open, without sign of human existence save for the pavement you're driving on.

The landscape is termed 'basin-and-range,' for there are a number of mountain ranges that run north/south, perpendicular to the road, with wide valley basins dividing them. It is a surprising terrain; the nature of the road changes drastically as one travels from basin to range and back again.

The basins are immensities of romantic desolation, long and wide and flat, and the road peals out in a straight scream to the horizon. Then, approaching a range, the air becomes cooler, and the road winds and curves in switchbacks that traverse the mountains, and junipers appear, and the straight flatness of the basins become a memory.

The Winding Way

If Day One was defined by unexpected horror, Day Two was one of unexpected bliss. I set out from Sacramento to cross the Sierras, headed for the tiny valley town of Gardnerville, Nevada. The Sierras had been my one looming worry before starting the trip, and after my experience with the Diablo Range, I did not have great expectations for this day.

I set out early and left the city streets of Sacramento in the early dawn. By midmorning, I arrived at the foothills of the Sierras and hopped on Highway 50, a beautiful, loping divided highway with sweeping curves through forests of cedar leading up the mountains. It was completely devoid of cars - my own private racetrack; the perfect road to practice riding curves and getting comfortable with speeds above 50 mph.

I left Hwy 50 and jogged over to a small, obscure road called Old Emigrant Trail. The Old Emigrant Trail is a dream - an old two-laner so densely lined with evergreens I could have reached out and touched bough after bough after bough as I rode along... I needed that hand for the throttle though. It was so quiet. Cars and trucks approached from behind but I got competent at looking ahead for pullouts so I could ease over and let them pass me, rather than being panicked by the presence of someone on my tail. Always, they would pass with a wave, especially the giant truckers. There was an easy sense of friendship and camaraderie and peacefulness between all of us on this hidden, secret road.

Sierra Lake

Day One, Part Two

The day continued to be awful. When I stopped shaking, I got back on the Vespa and onto a long flat road through the countryside and into farming land. The day had gotten hot, I presumed it was over 100 degrees. Feedlots lined the road, crammed with cows standing in the dirt like lost souls in limbo. Their stench hung in the hot air; when semis passed in the opposite direction, the furling air and horrible smell conspired to knock me off my ride. Overwhelmed, nervous and lost, I wondered what the hell I was doing.

As the feedlots faded down the road behind me, traffic dissipated and thousands of tiny yellow butterflies whirled and danced in the air for one long stretch of the road. A beautiful sight - but tears fought for release as the butterflies splattered against my Vespa, against my face shield, against my jacket; unavoidable deaths because of their number.

Soon I reached the cities of the Central Valley and traveled surface roads north to Sacramento. A bank sign in Stockton showed the temperature was 109. I was dripping with sweat in my black leather, and forced myself to drink a sip of water at each stoplight, wondering when, when, would this day end? When would I finally reach Sacramento and my grandmother's little trailer?

When I did reach my grandmother's home, I opened the door and fell to the floor, unable to walk or move, and sobbed out all the overwhelm and stored fear and self-pity. I truly believed that day might be both the first and the last day of my trip. It was a day that lasted ten, and though I couldn't possibly fathom it at that point, I would soon learn with delight they all would be.

Day One, Part One

On the first day of the trip, I rode from the Bay Area to Sacramento, CA, and it was unequivocally one of the worst, most horrific days of my life. It began soft and wondrous, setting out into the unknown adventure in the misty dawn, a scattering of stars still visible. The day grew light and warm as I rode past the cities and the suburbs to where the land opened up and the scent of sage was heavy in the air.

To get to the Central Valley and Sacramento, I had to cross the Diablo Range, a small range - certainly not mountains in the Western sense. I was too busy worrying about having to cross the Sierras the following day to give any fear to my morning's ride across the Diablos. I-580 is the main route of travel between the Bay Area and the Central Valley, but since I wanted to stay off the interstate, I chose what appeared to be a rather obscure secondary highway.

I approached this little highway via a lovely wooded road with no traffic, calm scenery and lots of birds. I was feeling so good, so in control, so right on the road. Things changed in an instant. The moment I turned onto the highway I was swept into chaos, into conditions of insanity - at least for me, on day one, on my tiny Vespa.

The highway itself was a two-laner, one lane for each direction and no divider in between. It wound up steeply in great sweeping curves, following the landscape of the dry hills, and it was packed with cars, trucks, and semis rushing in both directions.

Hypnotic golden hills of windmills rolled like waves in every direction, growing and dropping, overlapping to the blue-sky horizon. The huge spires of the windmills grew out of the ridges of the hills like rows of giant white flowers, their petals giant blades, spinning, mesmerizing.

I pushed the Vespa to 70 mph in an attempt to keep with the flow of traffic - at that speed, I felt like I was going to take flight, and still I was not going fast enough for the drivers behind me. There were no turn-offs, no shoulder at all; there was nowhere to go but straight ahead and straight ahead was a curve. A semi grill loomed enormous in my rearview mirrors, racing down the declines just feet behind me. One wrong move or jerky turn or hesitant reaction and I knew I would be laid out in a crash, the semi on top of me in a semi-second.

I nearly threw up inside my helmet twice from fear and desperate helplessness, and I could feel the moment when pure animal survival-instinct stepped in to overcome my rising panic and simply keep me upright. When we reached the Valley, the highway leveled out and I spotted a fruit stand. I pulled over, parked, and stood beside the highway, shaking.

Mile-Long Train

View From The Vespa

Above and Below

It is no longer the road itself which captivates, overwhelming my eyes and filling me with awe; the sky I travel under is what mesmerizes me now. I've been so taken by the characteristics of the road - the colors, changes, textures and routes, the sways and swoops; now it is the sky. The endless sky, so large here - open, dancing with clouds, open, nothing but blue. The sky, a depiction of all human expression: the darkness, purity, strength, and brightness; at times tumultuous or gentle; and, regardless of mood, always open - openness its only constant, a visual example we do our best to exist under.

Vay-cay

Just a little note to say that I've been on vacation and new posts are coming directly!

Tetons

Sunrise through the fog this morning - thick, three-dimensional fog that swooped and hovered above the road and river. My nose ran down my face from the cold but it was worth it to be out in such ethereal beauty. The road climbed in elevation and the fog lay in the grass, among the trees and calm wandering horses, softening tones and the borders of things. I rode towards Jackson in the dawn; a sign showed it was 42 degrees. Ten degrees above freezing! At 50 mph it felt beyond freezing. And there were the Tetons, pink and glowing in the sunrise, rising through the mist that lounged along the valley floor, spiking the lavender sky.

Sky: Chicago

Through Fire And Into The Divine

I had a great apartment in San Francisco. It was a small, older building; classic, with high ceilings and huge windows, wonderful worn wood floors, and a hallway with a domed archway. It was my first apartment with a hallway; I adored that hallway. At 3 am one night, a crash woke me from sleep, followed by a woman's screams. I opened my eyes and all there was to see was orange - orange light so intense, so magnificent, it was like the color orange in solid form. Someone had poured gasoline through the mail slot of the front door of the building next to mine and lit it. As this was downtown San Francisco, where all the buildings touch and all are made of wood, the fire had jumped over to my building, exploding out windows as it burned through the stories. The fire destroyed both buildings and killed two of my neighbors that night.

Insomnia ensued for two weeks while I stayed with a dear friend and her family; then I set about finding a new home. Instead of renting another apartment downtown, I decided to move to an obscure hilltop neighborhood. My new home was a tiny jewel surrounded with jasmine and wild roses. With the money I was saving on rent as the means, and the inaccessibility to public transportation as the rationale, I bought myself a Vespa. I had never been on a Vespa before I bought mine, and though I had been on the back of a motorcycle, I had never driven one. I didn't have my motorcycle license yet, but I got my permit, had a lesson, and knew I was destined to ride. Riding a Vespa feels like a cross between riding a horse and skateboarding in the sky. It's exhilaration and meditation, awareness and surrender, chaos and craziness and extraordinary peacefulness all at once. It requires being completely in the moment - or risking serious injury. It is so much fun.

The fear of having my home burn down was my single greatest fear for as long as I can remember. Yet the fire, and the subsequent events that sprung directly from it were so infused with magic and miracles, I was stunned into a realization that would prepare me, a year later, for my trek across the country....

When I told my mother I was planning to ride my Vespa from San Francisco to New York, she gasped. She was not alone in her horror - I soon learned the common reaction was one of shock and fear. Many people expressed concern over every horrible thing that might happen to me on the road. One way of looking at my decision to go is that our freedom can be taken, in various ways, without warning - so why allow one's fear to take it? And everything "bad" that could have happened to me on the trip could happen to me anywhere, anytime, in the most seemingly benign environment. However, the deeper truth that the fire helped me to learn was this: bad things happen to give us the opportunity to realize there are no bad things. To not have gone would have been to turn my back on faith (plus, I'll take any occasion to wear leather pants).

Incidentally, I was never harmed. I rode through lightning, got chased by buffalo, spent the night with at least one felon, and got lost every day... but I was never harmed, or hurt, and nothing bad happened.

Radar the Steer

Population: 67

Interior, South Dakota is a tiny town on the border of The Badlands and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. I stopped for gas and ended up staying three days. In the parking lot of the gas station - which didn't have any gas - I met Greg, ex-boxer, ex-trucker, and the owner of one of the town's two bars. We hit it off, and I followed him to his bar for a break from the heat.

Soon after I arrived, Lonnie, a deliberate, silent cowboy, brought his longhorn steer into the bar. A saddle was perched high on his massive back, and so up I went, my head nearly touching the ceiling as I sat atop this giant, gentle beast.

After hours of laughter and stories and countless cups of the most delicious iced tea, it was time for me to keep on down the road. Instead, Greg invited me to stay with him and his girlfriend in the trailer where they lived, in the bar parking lot. I accepted. My three days in Interior felt like a month, and I met all the characters that came into the bar - the cowboys, the bikers, the Sioux. Everyone was rough, tough, and wild, yet our conversations were deep and intimate, and I learned more about the heart - our own true Interior - than I ever expected.

Thinking (Salt Lake City)

I'm in a different time zone, but time has been different since the moment I began. Each day has felt like ten for all that I have seen and felt. Even the cells of my skin seem to be jumping, reaching, trying to grab a piece of what surrounds me to hold onto and remember forever.

Interior, South Dakota

A Whole Lot O' Buffalo

It's hard to take buffalo seriously until you're surrounded by 200 of them. From afar, they look rather bizarre; lumbering, disproportionate, almost silly. When you can hear them breathing as they stare you down, it's another story entirely.

I was cruising through the Black Hills, on gorgeous empty sweeping roads, crests and dips, crests and dips. I rode over a hill and descended straight into a herd of free-ranging buffalo. These massive beasts lined both sides of the road and spread up into the hills, dotting the grasslands as far as the eye could see. Huge bulls stood four feet away from where I rode, trembling, in awe and afraid; each one five times the size of my Vespa, their heads larger than my entire torso and adorned with conical black horns. Ignorance is bliss and I didn't have that luxury; I knew these guys could run - fast, up to 35 miles per hour.

I soon realized that forward was not an option. I was flanked by buffalo where I was, and others stood in the road ahead. And so, I made the decision to turn around and find a different route, frantically praying the Vespa's headlight wouldn't anger those it crossed as I made a slow U-turn in the middle of the road.

I tried to avoid eye contact - because isn't that what you're supposed to do with wild beasts? But it was an impossible feat - everywhere I looked, a pair of big brown buffalo eyes stared down at me. I made my way back through the herd, hands sweating, my entire body shaking. A bull twenty feet from the road thundered into a run. Was he after a lady buffalo or after me? I didn't stay to find out. I opened up the throttle and was out of there.

Old Convict Road, Montana

Badlands

The sun was just rising and the air had a hint of cool to it from the night, though the promise of new heat was evident. I rode slowly down the wide highway toward Badlands National Park, past dry, open prairies, the Badlands on the horizon like torn paper against the sunrise. They're like icebergs in reverse, made of heat and contoured by wind, and soon I was in them, and they grew around me, and as they did my amazement grew as well.

The Badlands are hard to translate. They appear to be made of sand or dust, fragile and delicate though massive. And yet they have a kind of shell - one can walk up a crest without sliding; sometimes you leave a footprint, sometimes, no trace. I cruised through and around this strange terrain, the Badlands pulling me deeper in, the road following their shapes in steep curving rises to crest and point and drop, down, down, steeply into the heart of this landscape, and from there all that you see are prehistoric peaks growing from you in every direction, penetrating the sky.

Macedonia Brook Road, Connecticut

What I See

Sometimes I separate myself from myself and see this girl on the road on a tiny scooter, amidst cars and trucks and 18-wheelers, states away from anything she knows, 2000 miles from where she began, and I think what the heck is this girl thinking? It really is insane. And I only get that view for a glimmer of a second here and there; otherwise, it all seems perfectly normal and not out-of-the-ordinary whatsoever.

Sometimes I separate from what surrounds me and see myself - a glance at a dusty boot, a shoulder of black leather in the rearview mirror - and I realize, I am here! I am doing this! I'm in the middle of nowhere I've ever known, flying along four inches above the ground, and I laugh! And I feel like the luckiest person alive.

My Route

Gassing Up

I pull into a gas station and a giant RV is parked at the adjacent pump. A condescending and pointless remark from the man as he pumps gas: "there you are girl - we passed you ages ago." Well, here we both are, Dick. The woman looks at me wistfully from the passenger seat and tells me how brave she thinks I am, that she could never be that brave. I believe she could.

I pull into a gas station, fill my tank, clean the face shield of my helmet with the window squeegee, down some water. An older couple approaches me from the other side of the station. They're carrying a green disposable camera and ask if they can take my photo. I laugh and blush and say sure. We chat, they snap; after a few hollow clicks of their plastic camera they thank me and walk back to their car arm in arm.

I pull in to top off my gas in the middle of nowhere Nevada. It's not even a town; it's a place with a sign. I'm about ready to go and the tallest, thinnest cowboy pulls in. I smile, he looks at me and says with a slow, lyrical drawl, "You drivin' that thing across the country?" I say yes. His drawl is almost slow motion. "If it weren't impolite, I'd say that takes baaalllls."

I pull into a gas station that is swarming with Harleys. I'm fairly intimidated, riding into the mix on my sparkly little white pony. The moment I stop I am surrounded with bikers, full of smiles and questions and stories. They invite me to Sturgis. The women who ride on the backs of these Harleys fall completely in love with the Vespa. They righteously declare that if their men don't want them driving motorcycles, then damn! They are going to get Vespas!

I pull into a gas station across the street from a Senior Center. There's a carload of elders - three very old ladies in the backseat and two old men up front. I smile and wave as they drive out in front of me, staring. One of the women gives me such a smile back, it seems as if she is concentrating all her energy and willing herself into my skin, into my body, even into one of the snaps on my jacket, just to be along for the ride.

Hwy 88: Sierras, California

Before Leaving

I look at my route on a topo map and part of my heart becomes quite still and my lungs start working overtime. There are no lines, there aren't even curves, just these schizophrenic marks, frantic and erratic, scribbled across the enormous Sierra Nevadas.

This opportunity thrills me, it really does, but the glory of the ride ahead is dampened and dulled by my worry of Others. Maybe reckless, maybe simply on a faster ride, I cannot stop questioning, wondering, analyzing: will someone coming up from behind me be able to keep from crashing into me if they come upon me suddenly in one of these innumerable blind corners? How split can a second get? And while I trust myself and trust the road, why can't I extend the decency of trust to other riders on other journeys, these individuals I know I will encounter while on mine?

Here is my cynicism (that humankind is an oxymoron); here is my need to control (that I can only stay safe if I am the one acting, that if I leave it in the hands of anyone else I may as well be toast). Here is my challenge - to believe that other people are around to help me, not to harm.

In One Minute

It's what you see, what you feel, what you notice now and now andnowandnowandnow. Say it fast - that's how fast it's all coming to you as you breeze down the road. Now the air is a different temperature; it's warmer - all of a sudden - with a gradation back to cool as before. Now a bug WHAM on the face shield, cheek level. The sound of impact is startling, just for one moment. Now you see the individual end feathers fringing the wing of a great hawk, who is motionless but moving as fast as you are in the air slightly above you and to your right. Now a car sails by in the opposite direction, sunlight gleaming and bouncing off the metal contours. It's past, it's down the road behind you, it's gone. Now the road changes form - it dips and curves, bending itself into a large sweeping curl. It's three-dimensional, this curve, you're inside it, and then you are it, you and your machine and this road curve together into one feeling of flow... The light on the long green grass breaks you out of this reverie, this oneness, it is so beautiful you have to be yourself to look at it - separateness is necessary in order to gaze upon it - and you slow down, there's no one around, and you go quietly by, taking in the yellow-green light warming these blades of grass. And now one minute has gone by.

Hwy 50: Nevada/Utah border

We Shall Not Cease

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of a thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
--t.s.eliot
(from 'four quartets')