It's been awhile

Shhhh! Don’t let anybody know that I’m here, doing this, you know typing on my computer.......at home.

The past two months have been a blur of activities; a long list of chores that need to be completed before the snow and cold weather settle in for the season, somewhere in the middle of the frenzy, I had family visit me from New York, leaving very little spare time to do things that are a part of my normal routine. It wasn’t until I leaned over to fire up my computer that I realized how long that I have been away. It has been a while.

I still have quite a bit to do on my punch list, today is all about firewood and an oil change or two, we’ll see about that. I figure that if I can manage to keep a low profile, nobody will know that I am home therefore freeing up the morning to do something that I haven’t had the opportunity to do in a while, sitting idle.

We have been blessed with a perfect autumn around these parts though, I can’t believe that today is the first day of November and the temperature is expected to be around 60 degrees. I have been riding a lot, another blessing, and I have a lot to share. Looking at some of my previous posts, I still have to complete my post about the ride that I took in Idaho back in July, since then I have experienced a lot of other things of the two wheeled nature as well. There is plenty to post about, as things slow down in the coming weeks; I look forward to catching up.

A brief encounter with Captain Obvious

One quick story before I end this post, about an encounter that I had at a gas station in the middle of the night in downtown Spokane (a lot of encounters seem to occur while we refuel, don’t they?).

Friday night, two weeks ago, the company that I work for had our annual inventory. This is always a marathon day. This particular day started at 6:00 Friday morning and ended at 12:30 Saturday morning. My brain was pretty much shattered from the long day and I was in a miserable mood, frowning under my helmet as I left work, longing for my bed. I was about two blocks from the freeway on-ramp when I had to turn the fuel petcock, over to reserve. Crap! All I wanted to do was go straight home and go to bed, now I had to stop for gas.

I usually keep my helmet on when I refuel the bike, but I removed it this time so that I could take a couple of aspirin that I had stowed in my saddle bags, I needed to take something to ease the pounding in my head.

Filling the tank, I noticed a gentleman wearing a Green Bay Packers jacket and Seattle Seahawks hat (must’ve been a Mike Holmgren fan) staggering his way in my general direction. I tried my best to give him my “go away” look but he stopped anyway, staring at the bike from the other side of the fuel pump. Inevitably, he started talking to me in a slurred, drunken speech, great I just want to go home and now I have to deal with a chatterbox drunk!
“What is that an Enduro?” (Enduro? I haven’t heard that description in years)
“Uhhh, yeah you could call it that.”
I continued to give him my “I don’t want to talk to you look”, it wasn’t working, he kept talking.
He announced, “You know, I had a bike once.”
I don’t know why I continued the conversation by asking the question, maybe it’s just because somewhere deep down I have a need to talk about bikes, even if it was with an inebriated Packers-Seahawks fan at a gas station in the middle of the night.
“Oh yeah” I replied trying really hard by now to look stoic and disinterested. I had finished filling the tank and had turned the petcock back to the “on” position and was preparing to put my helmet on.
“Yeah........it was a Harley” he replied.
By this time I didn’t care, I didn’t want to talk to him in the first place, but feeding the conversation along like the glutton I was, I had to ask, “What kind?”
There was a brief pause as he thought hard about the kind of Harley he used to ride.
Then he proclaimed, “Davidson!”
I cracked up, laughing as I finished strapping the helmet and thumbing the starter I said, “Those are the best kind.”

I smiled the rest of the way home, thanks Captain Obvious!

Ride well

E.T.

Blechh!

I dismounted the bike last Saturday evening, and I felt that something was not quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was a feeling that something was askew.

I awoke Sunday morning to my answer. A sore throat and a nose that was running like a champ! Crud. I was sick.

I don't know if this has been a really bad cold or a mild flu but it has gotten the best of me this week. I haven't ridden to work for the past week, the vertigo won't allow it. When I arrive home, it's straight from the car to the bed (my German Shepherd doesn't really appreciate that either).

The only thing on my to do list today is to pull the wires out from beneath my seat for my electric gear. The vertigo appears to be gone, and the Kleenex box has gone untouched since yesterday morning.

I am not 100% yet but it appears that I am on the down hill side of this thing now, hopefully I will be able to return to my normal routine tomorrow, the dog will appreciate that at least.

Ride Well

E.T.

Living in the now

For the past month or so, I’ve been reading a lot of posts about the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Some have noted the brevity of summer and have been fretting the number of rides that are left in the season before the temperatures plummet and the snow begins to fall. I admit that those same thoughts have been rattling around in my mind as well.

I have never really put my bike to bed in the winter months; usually the weather during that time of the year is mild enough for me to steal a ride at least a couple of times a month; Last year wasn’t really one of those “mild winters”. Perhaps that is why summer seems to have come and gone so quickly for me. Usually, as the season’s age, I find myself looking forward to the change, that hasn’t been the case this year, not with summer at least.

The long winter of last year found me a number of times stuck on either the “at home” or the “at work” end of my commute with a closed road blocking the way to my destination. That’s never happened in all of the years that I have spent out here on the Palouse. By the time spring finally arrived, I was worn out, almost everyone around here was. Our spring didn’t help that much either; cold and rainy and generally miserable, there was even a dusting of snow and frost in June (another first for me around here)! I wasn’t ready for summer to end, not yet, and that’s a shame, because autumn is my favorite time of year.

Round barn on the Palouse

I awoke this morning to the usual ritual of what has become my alarm clock on the weekends, which is a 90 lb. German shepherd bouncing on my bed like “Tigger” taking playful random bites at whatever part of my body resists. There is no “snooze” button on this alarm clock other than getting up and getting a start on the morning. The interesting part of this alarm clock is that usually once I have finished my shower and have begun my normal morning routine, Flicka (that’s the name of said alarm clock) usually lies down and takes a nap, go figure.

With the chores of my morning routine complete, I geared up for a ride. As I started dressing for the ride, somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking of how many of these perfect mornings remained and all of the things that I had left to complete on my “to do” list, decking, fencing, yard work, painting, how soon would my truck get out of the paint shop to begin doing some of this heavy stuff, things like that.......... All of this needs to be done before the snow flies, the brisk morning air serving as a reminder that my days are limited.

Throwing my leg over the bike and giving the transmission a gentle stab into first gear, all of those concerns wander off.

We settle into a mild canter, my bike and I, weaving our way through the quiet roads of the Palouse. All around me are shades of brown, yellow and green; some of the shades are of fields of recently harvested wheat while others are fields still waiting to be reaped; some will lay fallow for a season, giving them a chance to rest, and a few are freshly sewn in tight rows. Throughout the ride, my bike, as always, doesn’t complain; she thumps a steady cadence down the highway.

In her own special way, without words, without any language at all except for providing me with the experience of the cool September air rushing by and the sun riding a little lower in the sky, casting longer shadows on the buttes and valleys and the occasional scent of soil recently turned over by the farmers plow, she conveys the importance of living in the present.

Paraglider sailing the Autumn wind

beneath me.

In her eloquence, she reminds me that it is the ride we are on, this one now; no thoughts of yesterday’s commutes or concerns of tomorrow’s imminent storms, it is about the two of us in the present and enjoying the birth of yet another Autumn.

My bike and the way she keeps me in the present moment, she is special that way, perhaps all bikes are.

Realize deeply that the present moment

is all you ever have.

Eckhart Tolle

Ride well.


E.T.