Inspirations of the Ride

A little over a year ago, when a friend suggested that perhaps I should start a blog as an addition to my personal journaling, I didn’t really know what direction the blog should take. I spent some time online and observed a number of other sites, deciding that a motorcycle related blog would be a suitable direction. As I have commented on in previous posts, the motorcycle community is a diverse one, and I’ve had a wonderful time reading about the personal experiences that others have had on two wheels.

With the decision of basing my first attempt at a blog on motorcycling, I made a statement in an April 6th post that I would “try to introduce to the reader the diversity of both the region that I live in and to the Inland Northwest the best that I can via motorcycle.” After reviewing my posts, I noticed that isn’t exactly the direction that this site has taken.

When I journal, there is no specific direction that my entries take, my journal entries have never had any sort of disciplined approach to what subject I should write about. Attempting to post on one particular subject has become a frustrating challenge and one that I don’t care for. As I thumbed through old entries in my journals, I noticed that a lot of them had subject matter that related to when I was riding and in particular what I was thinking about on the ride. That’s when it struck me; an epiphany of sorts that a tremendous amount of inspiration and insight about all sorts of things occur while I ride, Thoughts that rarely occur at other times.

Twenty years ago, while still living in Upstate New York, I went on a coast to coast road trip with a buddy from high school. The plan was to trailer my motorcycle (a Yamaha FZR600 at the time) behind my car, and whenever an interesting road presented itself, I would unload the bike and ride until things got “less than interesting.” Tom (the high school buddy), who had never been on a trip of any significant length, was unaware of my tendencies to basically stop only when I was finished and not when the day ended. This tendency of mine used to go on for days; I say ‘used to’ because as I have gotten older, I’m okay with taking a break from time to time.

We had made it to somewhere just north of Chicago when Tom finally chimed in, “When are we going to stop?” Honestly, that thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I assumed that Tom was well rested because he had been sleeping the whole trip, only waking up to drive when I felt like riding the bike. I told him that I had no real plans on that, figuring that when I started to see things that I knew weren’t really there, that I should probably take a nap. I assured him that I was still seeing things just fine and maybe tomorrow I would have had enough, this didn’t satisfy him. He ummm..... kind of exploded at that moment, “I don’t know how the hell you do it; you just sit there and drive, and then ride, then drive again until you feel like riding and then get on the bike and ride some more!” Tom wasn’t feeling so well. “How the hell do you stay awake, we haven’t stopped for 24 hours!” My only answer was, “I don’t know, I just think about stuff.”
“Like what!” Tom was kind of screaming at this point.
“I don’t know, just stuff.” I replied.
I took pity on Tom and got a motel room, besides I needed to take a shower to scrub off the funk of traveling for the past 24 hours straight, and yes, when my head did finally hit the pillow, I slept like the dead. Tom did pretty well for the first half of the trip, he didn’t throw another tantrum until we were heading east on the Bay bridge out of San Francisco and into Oakland. The conversation was a lot like the one in Chicago so I’ll spare the details.

Twenty years ago on the California Coast

The son of a Truck driver, I grew up on the road; traveling for days on end is not an unusual practice for me. When Tom asked how I was able to stay awake for such long periods, my answer of just thinking about stuff was about the best way that I could describe it.

The experience of riding motorcycles only enhances those thoughts, very close to the point of perpetual inspiration. I tend to believe that perhaps that is why “Motoblogging” has become so popular. I don’t think that I am alone when I say that riding on two wheels is an endless inspiration, whether it’s a good ride or a hellish one, a blogsite makes for an excellent conduit to others.

I read recently on someone else’s blogsite a statement to the effect that “A car only transports a person’s body, while a motorcycle carries the soul.” I wish that I could discover where I read that, but can’t seem to find it now, I like it though; I personally feel the motorcycle to be the most suitable deferent of the soul.

In summary, I would have to say that although this site will not always be about the direct subject of the ride that I am on, every single one of these posts have been and will continue to be about the thoughts that have occurred to me while on the ride. Some may be about the immediate experience of sights and sounds and the people that I meet, other perhaps a little more abstract with a tendency to digress at times, it’s just the way my brain works folks. All of them will be about the inspirations that I have felt while riding on anything with two wheels and an engine; those inspirations have never stopped coming to me no matter how conceptual or “flowery” the prose, or how matter of fact the post about the ride might be. I think that I can live with that direction for this blogsite.

Ride Well

E.T.

Palouse Country

The Palouse area of Washington lies on the eastern edge of the state bordering Idaho; depending on who you talk to, it begins just south of Spokane and ends somewhere around the Walla Walla area. Although there are many parts of the United States and Canada that produce wheat, I can’t think of any that share the interesting topography of hills and buttes that cover this area, it is unique. If you’ve ever seen the film “Toys” starring Robin Williams, you will know exactly what I am talking about. The movie was filmed about halfway between where I live and the city of Spokane. Imagine that movie set covering an area roughly 100 miles from north to south, and 40 miles east to west. This is the Palouse.

This is wheat country, 4,000 square miles of it, and at this time of the year, the landscape is carpeted in various shades of greens, yellows, and blues. I recall a while back, reading a local photographers statement in the newspaper commenting on the Palouse. He likened it to “a giant abstract painting, a photographer’s playground.” I suppose that I can see his point of view; I believe that a lot of amateur and professional photographers view it that way too. It is not that uncommon to see a vehicle pulled off to the side of the road with a camera mounted on a tri-pod, a sunset or a butte or some other subject posing for the camera in the distance, all the while accompanied by various hues of amber and jade.

Riding the gently sweeping “Blue roads” in the Palouse country is much like riding through a painting, though it doesn’t always have to be abstract. A tree still looks like a tree, and a barn is of course a barn, and as I ride, I observe casually as the gentle breath of summer coaxes the waist high grass to dance over rolling fields and the leaves in the trees to tremble, shimmering in the sun. Anyone with an unquenchable passion for light will eventually find themselves intoxicated by the raking sunlight against the hills and various fields of depth in the shadows. As for the roads, this is not a technical ride out here, just a soothing one as the scenery of the ride passes through me; I can understand why photographers are so drawn to this place. As summer ages, the colors change from a dominant green to shades of gold. I believe Katharine Lee Bates said it best when she coined the term, “Amber waves of grain” in her poem “America the beautiful.” As with many forms of art, usually when viewing a painting or photograph, abstract or otherwise, it requires the viewer to pay attention, and when I think of “paying attention” my first thought would be of sitting still, clearing my mind of distractions and focusing on the art that is to be had. As a Motorcyclist however, those rules don’t apply; I revel in the experience of a passing landscape, the constant evolution of sights, sounds, and smells. This is not revolutionary thinking though; 135 years ago there was an artist who used to paint from perhaps a similar point of view that continues to inspire Motorcyclists everyday.

Studio Boat

Imagine for a moment, that you’re standing on the banks of the Seine, in a town just down-river from Paris called Argenteuil; the year is 1874. At that moment, a small boat slowly drifts past; in the boat a bearded man sits with a short three-legged easel holding a paint brush, painting the scenery as he drifts by. The man is Claude Monet who would later become known as the Father of Impressionism. Monet was doing something revolutionary, not only was he painting “En plein air” (painting outdoors) but he was also painting the scenery as it was passing by, capturing the effects of light, ‘from one twilight to the next’ as his close friend Eduard Manet once described it. Monet was on to something, gliding with the light rather than trying to conquer it.

As Motorcyclists, Bikers, and Scooterists, perhaps our machines are our own floating studios and though our scenery passes more quickly than Monet’s, our inspirations could possibly be quite similar.

Ever since man put an engine between two wheels, we have tried to express to the uninitiated, the experience, the passion, the raw inspiration that we feel while riding our machines. I’ve read many articles and posts on the subject; I imagine that I will read many more. This post is one of my own efforts at doing that same thing and I imagine that this blog will be filled with many additional attempts in the future.

So if you’ll excuse me, with what remains of the day, I plan to jump on my bike and take a ride through the work of art that is my Palouse Country. Over countless hills and through fertile green valleys, I’ll let the landscape inspire me as I visualize myself, in my minds eye, on the prow of a small boat; and if I clear my mind of life’s little distractions for just a moment, perhaps I will look over my shoulder and visualize a bearded man with his easel and brush, and together we can capture the light in our own unique ways, from one twilight to the next.

Ride well

E.T.

This whole blogging thing

At times I find myself a little surprised at how few people actually keep a personal journal for themselves. To a certain degree, I have always kept journals. Nothing too rigid or disciplined mind you; my entries are usually ramblings that I have experienced throughout my life. Some of them a simple sentence, others go on for thousands of words. The most rewarding aspect that I have learned about writing down my thoughts is going back and reading my journal entries from decades ago. A simple sentence can rekindle an experience in detail that I had twenty years ago; something that I would have long ago forgotten had I not written it down.

Blogging has brought forth a new aspect of journaling for me. While I still keep my various paper notebooks lying around for my own private posts, I’ve discovered that the experience of journaling online has introduced me to a group of people that I would have never had the privilege to communicate with otherwise. I keep my blog centered on motorcycles primarily because my life-long “Lone wolf” mentality towards riding naturally prevents me from sharing an experience that is so central to my being with other like minded individuals. This blogging experiment has been a positive experience and an enlightening one as well. I am grateful that I have this tool to meet with others who share similar passions, as diverse a group that we might otherwise be.

A friend of mine, after observing my little experiment with “moto-blogging”, expressed an interest in trying out blogging as well; mostly as an outlet for the day to day frustrations that he deals with in his career as a Law enforcement officer. I’ve listened to a number of his experiences and I believe that a lot of them would be an interesting read, especially for those of us who normally don’t have to deal with the type of critters that he works with around the clock.

In addition to writing about his job, I suggested that perhaps he should write about a number of his past experiences. Even though he wouldn’t necessarily admit it himself, he has led a pretty interesting life for a guy of only 34 years of age. From working on a Crab boat in the Bering Sea, to his experiences as the Crew Chief of an A-10 Warthog in the Air Force, one of those experiences involved crash landing in a C-130 in the Kuwaiti desert, literally bouncing off of the desert floor and then back into the air! I remember the night that he called to tell me that he was alright, while I watched the footage of it on CNN.

Also, he has taken an interest in Motorcycles; I suggested that perhaps he post his experiences about that as well . F.Y.I. he is the one who took the picture of me for my blog title.

He told me that he isn’t too concerned with whether or not folks read his posts, this is more of a journal for himself that others are welcomed to read, but I encourage you to check it out here, you might find some of this interesting, even if it isn’t always about motorcycles.

Ride Well
E.T.