If It's Important Enough That It Sticks With You

Day 3-4 – Fresno, CA, USA to Clearlake – 878 km

‘Greg, are you speaking to yourself?’ Jess called out from inside the motel room.

         ‘No, I’m taking a video,’ I said panning from myself, standing in front of the bikes, over to Jess. ‘Anyway, how often do I speak to myself? Do I?’

         ‘This thing is in wrong,’ Jess said, disregarding my question and focusing entirely on trying to secure the wind liner inside her mesh riding jacket.

         ‘OK so this is what we are doing. She is stressed this morning. Jess gets stressed any time I am ready before her,’ I said to the camera and then to her I added, ‘I’ve been ready forever. What have you been doing?’

         She let the question linger unanswered as she continued to struggle with the clasp that secures the liner to the inside of the jacket sleeve.

         ‘OK, so this is quality television,’ I said before I end the recording.

         In ten minutes Jess emerged victorious from the battle with her riding jacket, we greased the bike chains, double-checked the rigging of our luggage, and checked out of the motel. Sixty km after that we were in Coursegold, which is a few minutes drive outside Yosemite National Park on Highway 41. We stopped here so that Jess could put her riding camera on her helmet. Going into her left pannier to retrieve an additional layer of clothing for the coolness at our new, higher elevation, she discovered that the pannier was not holding securely to the metal rack. When I inspected it, I found that one of the plastic braces that fastens the pannier to the rack had cracked so that the case was only securely fixed to the motorcycle at two points.

         ‘What happened?’ she asked as my head emerged from inspecting between the rear wheel and the underside of the bike.

‘So remember that little collision we had yesterday,’ I said, trailing off at the end.

Immediately I recognized that this could easily be patched with duct tape and immediately after that I realize that, among all my tools and spare parts, there is no duct tape.

‘Damn fool, how can you forget duct tape,’ I berated myself.

We found duct tape in a nearby general store and within ten minutes I had the pannier taped firmly to the rack so that, after subjecting both panniers to the jiggle test, I determined that the damaged one was more secure than the other.

Back on the road we continued on Highway 41 into the national park. We rode through the mountains again as we did the day before in Sequoia but here there was more congestion so that you are either pressing up behind someone or someone is pressing up behind you. After a long tunnel we came to a popular turnout that gives a view of El Capitan and Half Dome and the other gray granite peaks that surround Yosemite Valley. We parked our bikes and retrieved the small cooler bag from one of Jess’s panniers and found a place to sit a little away from the crowd of visitors that descended in waves from the tour busses.

         After a snack and an effort to explain in French how to use my camera to a tourist who had offered to take our photograph, we were back on the bikes and following the line of vehicles on the descent into Yosemite Valley. No matter how many times you visit Yosemite you will always be struck by the beauty of the place, but, after several visits, you will probably be less inclined to hang about because of the heavy congestion of tourists.

Still, even if you do not linger about, somehow just by riding through a place, you will feel strongly connected to it. This is another reason why I love to travel by motorcycle. Maybe it’s because you put more than ordinary effort into getting there or because riding through it you were more exposed to its elements or because for you the means was at least as important as the ends.

After riding through Yosemite Valley and stopping and doubling back for a few choice photographs, we left going northwest out of the park on highway 120. Leaving, I felt a bit downhearted for not having spent more time or stayed over to hike to the top of one of the peaks. Then I remembered something I had learned from my first motorcycle trip and I repeated this to myself (yes, I do sometimes speak to myself as Jess had earlier asserted), ‘There will be a lot more of what you don’t than what you do. It has to be that way otherwise you wouldn’t get anywhere.’ This made me feel better and also the knowing that, if you miss something and it’s important enough that it sticks with you, you’ll have a good reason to come back and make there be a next time for it.

We continued on the 120 past Manteca and changed onto Interstate 205 where we stopped at Tracy for the night. It was 100 kilometers further to San Francisco, which was our next destination, so we decided to tackle the Bay Bridge and the city’s hills and its congestion when we were fresh the next morning. In the evening, outside our motel room in Tracy I pulled the covers over our motorcycles after earlier unloading the luggage and making a trip to the grocery store for provisions. Doing this, which should have been the last thing I wanted to deal with after a long day of riding, I realized how I really appreciate this act as some kind of small demonstration of my affection for our motorcycles.

The next morning we took Interstate 580 west past San Leandro and Oakland across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. Once past the toll, we caught our first great view of the city and, although we were surrounded by so many people for whom this was an ordinary commute, riding in on motorcycles and doing it carrying with you everything you really needed in the world, the enormity of it struck me very deeply.

Inside the city we first visited the Castro District and from there we went to Haight-Ashbury where we stopped at a bistro.

After we ordered fish and chips for her and a French roast for me, Jess mused, ‘You know this is the first proper restaurant we have gone to alone since coming back from Liberia?’

‘No,’ I said and then, ‘Can that be?’

‘Name one,’ she challenged.

‘I guess you’re right. It’s been all fast food or going out with others,’ I said.

Jess had decided she wanted to visit Alcatraz so during this early lunch we researched it to discover that even this late in the season tickets sell out several days in advance.

‘That’s what I don’t like about this – we go place to place but don’t get to do anything,’ Jess said.

‘It’s only the planning ahead for touristy things that’s going to be a problem because we never know when we will be somewhere,’ I said. Then I offered, ‘We could go there and see if there was a cancellation or something.’

‘No let’s continue on,’ Jess said. ‘I don’t like the hills to just be riding all over the place.’

Back on the bikes we connected with the 101 and took the Golden Gate Bridge north out of the city. At Petaluma we took the 116 east through Sonoma and then the 121 to the 29 north into Napa. In Napa we took a small walk through the town and tasted varieties of the local olive oils. We decided this was a better choice for us than the wines because we were not committed to staying the night.

After Napa we continued north on Highway 29 through St Helena, which seemed to be a charming offshoot of Napa, and then past Calistoga where the congestion freed up and the highway became a pleasant twisting mountain road. At Lower Lake we took the 53 and came to a stop for the day a few kilometers north at Clearlake. After finding a motel and unloading the bikes, we bought a liter of beer for me at the local grocery and excellent takeaway Mexican food from just up the road. Back in the motel, stuffing the food into our hungry faces like feeding jackals, Jess took a pause to say, ‘I think I would have liked to visit Alcatraz.’

‘Well,’ I said, assuming this manner I have of sounding more Zen about things than I really am, ‘if you miss something and it’s important enough that it sticks with you, you’ll have a good reason to come back a make there be a next time.’

‘Well then next time we won’t ride there,’ she said definitively. ‘I did not like those hills at all.’

‘You handled them beautifully,’ I said and then reminded her that I had stalled on three separate occasions and she hadn’t once.

‘Yeah, well, more than once I thought my bike was going to topple over forward when I was braking downhill.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said, ‘but what I noticed was how going uphill at red lights you stopped into the pedestrian walk where it was more level.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted freely. ‘I cheated.’

A Day of Hitting Things

Days 1-2 - Los Angeles, CA, USA to Fresno - 595 km

A line of vehicles forms behind the kiosk at the entrance to the national park. When the RV ahead of us finishes and it is our turn, I pull ahead of Jess and come to a stop beside the open window.

         ‘We’d like a couple of annual passes,’ I tell the park ranger inside the kiosk.

         ‘Sure. Will you be riding together? If you will be riding together, you can get one pass for both motorcycles,’ she explains.

         ‘Yes, that would be great,’ I say.

         ‘OK, that will be eighty dollars,’ she says, ‘ and I will need her to sign the other space on the access card.’

         I give the park ranger my credit card and, while she goes about processing the eighty-dollar payment, I turn back to Jess and wave her to come alongside me. Then I turn back to the kiosk where the park ranger has finished with the payment and I take back my credit card from her. I As I replace the credit card into my wallet and the wallet into my riding jacket, I hear the heavy thud of Jess’s bike go into gear and then the growing thump-thump-thump sound of her engine as it engages with the gears. As I close the pocket of the riding jacket and turn my attention back to the kiosk where the park ranger awaits the approval of my credit card, I feel the solid thud of Jess’s bike hit mine from behind. I look behind and beside me and I see Jess looking at me with a sheepish grin and then I looked down and see that she had misjudged the added width of the panniers on our two bikes so that her left pannier has thumped against my right one. I meet her smile to tell her there is no harm done and then I turn back to the kiosk. But now I feel that the change in the force of her bike against mine has caused me to lose balance of my heavily loaded bike, which is cradled between my legs. The bike begins to keel to the side and, as the park ranger turns back to pass me the credit card receipt for my signature, she catches me in the desperate act of struggling to keep my bike upright.

         ‘It’s our first collision of the trip!’ I exclaim to Jess when we have pulled over.

         She is smiling and keeping good humor but I can tell that she is a little frazzled and, once she is over the shock, will probably be upset with herself for ruining her record of no falls or crashes on her new bike.

         ‘It’s good,’ I say, ‘because a crash is certain to happen so better that it happens early and that it’s a small one so that we don’t have to have the anticipation looming over us anymore.’

         We check the panniers and find that they are both perfectly fine with only a faint smudge to prove that the incident ever happened. I give Jess a rub on the shoulder and she takes a deep breath and then we remount our bikes and merge onto Generals Highway.

         It is our second day of the trip and it is cool but sunny and now we are ascending a beautiful winding road towards high ground. I am listening to an audiobook over my headphones and running down the battery of my helmet camera by indiscriminately videoing Jess glide through each and every hairpin turn. She is ahead of me because she prefers to set the pace and I prefer to follow to keep others from riding up too close and to not have to worry that I am setting too quick a pace. Certainly she thinks she is going too slowly and she is stressing about it, I think, because she always believes she is riding more slowly than she is and she believes she is holding other people up. I wish she wouldn’t worry so much about it but I can’t blame her because I remember how I used to worry about it just the same until my skill and confidence and cynicism were greater.

         We are in Sequoia National Park on our way to visit General Sherman Tree, which is purported to be the largest in the world by volume. Our trip began the preceding day when we left Los Angeles shortly before noon after a long morning of loading the bikes, packing away things we hadn’t space to take, and tidying the house so that my mother would not return from her holiday to have a conniption.

         ‘It’s not fitting!’ Jess had said the evening before our departure, slumped over her waterproof duffle bag, which seemed fit to burst as she tried to fasten down the roll-top. She had been at it a while now and had already drawn down her clothing and toiletries several times trying to achieve her 89 liter capacity limit.

         ‘Leave it for tomorrow,’ I said. ‘You’ll be fresh then and maybe you’ll have a new idea about it.’

         She frowned and then decided that she liked the suggestion and went about finding something to watch on Netflix.

         I was a good idea except I didn’t consider that, when we had finally succeeded in packing our bags and loading our bikes and tidying the house the next morning, neither of us would have any energy left for the actual riding. By the early evening of the first day, we had made it only as far as Visalia about 350 km from our starting place in Los Angeles and we decided to leave it there for the day, partly because we were tired and partly because we calculated that the additional 45 km gained by pressing on to Three Rivers just outside the national park was not worth the 40 to 60 more dollars that a motel would cost there.

         In the evening we watched TV and bickered playfully and did other normal at-home things and late at night, as I lay awake sleepless for the excitement of having finally started the trip and the anticipation of more riding tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, I thought about the solitude of having traveled alone during my first motorcycle trip. The evenings were often very lonely, I remembered, so that even exhausted after a long day of hard riding and brutal weather, most evenings I found myself out walking the streets or going for an unneeded drink just to avoid the long evening hours when solitude can feel a lot like loneliness. It had been good for me at the time and something I thought I wanted to do again but now, looking over at Jess purring lightly in her delirious exhausted sleep beside me, I was very glad to be doing it this way and with this person.

         The next morning we faced similar challenges to get our duffle bags repacked and loaded onto our bikes but we were off well before lunchtime and I counted that as a success. Now we were on our way and we had entered the first national park on the northern leg of our trip. We had had our first crash and we were both fine and our bikes were both fine and the sky was clear and sunny and we were riding beautiful twisties in a tight formation.

About 30 minutes into the park I signal to Jess to pull over at Amphitheater Point so that I can enjoy the view and take a photograph. As I bring my bike to a stop, I look to my left and see Jess slowing her bike but not quickly enough to avoid hitting the curb at the front of the parking space. After the small jolt she looks to me to see if I saw it and, seeing that I did, she makes a gesture of slumping her whole body in exhaustion.

 ‘It’s like you were so desperate to get off the bike – you just rammed it into the curb and jumped off!’ I said some minutes later when our gloves and helmets were off. We were both laughing and we sat lounging on the stone parapet of the lookout.

‘The parking was uphill and after all the twisties – I misjudged it!’ she said.

‘Yeah, and as soon as you hit it you were like, “I’m done!” and you practically jumped off your bike,’ I said.

She laughed because when she has done a hard stretch of twisties and has done it very well as she just had, she is less critical of herself and will laugh at her small mistakes.

‘And did you see I hit that rock after that turn back there?’ she says.

‘Yeah. I saw it and it left a big smudge on your tire,’ I say.

‘It did?’

‘For several miles after I kept seeing it go round and round. It was hypnotizing me,’ I said.

I went to look for the smudge on her rear tire but it was gone now and I came back to where she sat and shrugged.

‘Anyway it’s been a day of hitting things,’ I said, ‘me and the rock and the curb.’

Back on our bikes, we do 15 long minutes more through hairpin turns and another 15 at higher speed as the highway straightens out until we reach the parking for General Sherman Tree. After parking our bikes and securing the helmets and riding jackets by running the steel cable of the PacSafe through them, we walk to the notice board.

‘Oh, it’s not right here. You have to walk to it,’ Jess says, tracing the foot trail on the map. ‘It’s half a mile downhill, which means it’s half a mile uphill coming back.’

‘You can manage it,’ I say.

‘Ok, but I get to complain and I get to take breaks whenever I want,’ she says.

We follow the path, our stiff riding boots clopping on the hard-packed trail and my thick Cordura riding pants swish-swishing with each step.

‘You sound like you’re wearing snow pants!’ Jess says.

‘Let it be,’ I say back. ‘This is the sound you’re going to hear everywhere we go for the next six months.

Further along the trail I begin to record a video, explaining where we are as we near the destination.

‘We’re going to George Sherman Tree,’ I say, ‘which is what Jess has taken to calling it.’

‘I heard George Foreman instead of General Sherman and I got confused,’ she says. ‘Don’t defame me! Whatever, all you will hear on the video is the sound of your pants!’

At the end of the trail, we visit the tree and we take photographs. On the way back Jess tries to stop us at each bench that the Park Service had placed along the half-mile. When we return to the bikes we have a brief conversation with a retired RAF officer on holiday with his wife who stopped to admired our bikes.

‘You know, it used to be on my last trip that I didn’t want to be noticed so I would downplay what I was doing,’ I say after the British vacationer returned to his wife.

‘And now?’ Jess says as though to concede me the opportunity to say what she already knows.

‘I love that people are envious of our bikes and of what we are doing,’ I say.

‘Of course you do,’ she says.

 Back on our bikes, we follow Generals Highway east to Highway 180, catching a glimpse of Kings Canyon National Park on our way out of the Sierra Nevada mountains and on to Fresno where we will stay the night.

Until There Are No More Roads To Follow

The planning started for me four years ago as I neared the end of my first motorcycle trip, which took me from Los Angeles to the end of the Pan-American Highway in Panama. By the end of the six tumultuous months of that trip I was exhausted of breakdowns, completely out of money, and inspired as never before at discovering my true passion and the knowledge that so much of North America and all of South America and many places besides were left to me to explore by motorcycle.

The plan was to do the next trip alone as I had done the first one and this time to have the right bike and the appropriate gear and the knowledge and experience to do it ‘better’ (whatever that I understood that to mean at the time). Then I met Jessica in South Sudan and we moved together to Liberia and one day she said she would learn to ride a motorcycle and do the trip with me if I invited her. So, of course, I invited her and the new plan became to do the trip together. This new plan started about a year ago when in Liberia I was struggling to engage with my new job and we were both feeling ready to leave Africa for a while and wanting to try something different than aid work. Then we grabbed hold of the idea of the trip and the researching and planning for it became as important as anything else to help get us through that difficult year.

At first the plan was to buy the motorcycles in Los Angeles and ride north to Alaska, perhaps as far as Anchorage or Fairbanks, and then south to Tierra del Fuego at the bottom of South America. Later, when we discovered from our very detailed projections that a couple more months of savings would better place us for a soft landing after the trip, we adjusted the plan to go as far north as Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory of western Canada if the weather and snow conditions allowed it.

I already knew which bikes we would get and I decided from the beginning that I would brainwash Jessica to make her see it my way. This turned out to be easier than I expected since she had a natural proclivity towards enduros – my preferred type of motorcycle – and crotch rockets – that is, sport bikes – and also because the Swiss in her blood gives her an innate appreciation for things that are well made. I decided that we should get BMWs because they are known to be the ideal adventure touring bikes and, after completely bucking the trend in choosing the motorcycle for my first trip, I had no qualms about conformity this time around. Also, on my previous motorcycle trip I had met a young couple from Seattle who let me ride one of their BMWs and I loved how it handled off road compared to my top-heavy and less agile cruiser. Incidentally, in meeting Megan and Marshall, this was the first time I had dared to dream that maybe I could meet a woman willing, able, and wanting to do a motorcycle trip with me. I also should confess to being terribly envious of Marshall then and for long afterwards for having found his Megan.

So, for Jess we got a G650GS, which is, but for a few changes to the aesthetics, that same motorbike that Megan and Marshall had introduced me to when we met in a small town in Belize several years before. It is an on road-offroad bike, which is classified as an enduro, with a 650cc single-cylinder engine nicknamed a ‘thumper’ for the drumming sound the lone piston makes. This bike as been made mostly the same for more than 10 years and, for performance and reliability, it’s among the best and most popular for round-the-world trips even more extreme than ours is like to be. Her bike is sunset yellow and black and she named it Moxie because for her preparing to do this trip has been all about summoning the ‘chutzpah’.

For me we got the slightly larger F700GS, which is also an enduro and has an 800cc twin cylinder engine slightly detuned but otherwise the same as the F800GS, which is every bit as beautiful but a bit too tall and expensive, and probably more geared for offroad than I need. My bike is silver and black and she, Penelope, is second only to Jess in beauty and dearness to my heart.

For those who care to know about more than just the make and model of our motorcycles, here is the rest of the gear-talk. We accessorized our bikes with a skid plate and crash bars – the former to protect the underside when bottoming out and the latter to protect the engine and side covers in case of a fall. We got hand guards to keep the projectiles and cold wind off our hand and a tall windscreen for better endurance on longer rides and at high speed. To Jess’s bike we also added fork guards to prevent rocks and other projectiles from doing damage to the front suspension. To my bike I also added a clear guard to protect the headlight assembly from those same rocks and projectiles that Jess might kick up when I am trailing behind her.

We each strapped a small, waterproof case on the part that serves as gas tank on most motorcycles – on ours the gas tank is under the seat to lower the center of gravity. The tank bag puts a few small necessities near at hand and places a square foot or so of map in view through a clear plastic slip over the top. We also added side cases called panniers to both our bikes to carry a part of our gear. Jess’s were the hard plastic type made by BMW to be adjustable so to extend for greater capacity. Mine were aluminum from Touratech with rounded, rubberized corners to better endure hard falls. In the panniers we planned to carry our clothing and toiletries, and in Jess’s our food and in mine our tools and spare parts.

We strapped a large, waterproof duffle bag across the passenger section of the seat and over the panniers on either side. In this we planned to carry our sleeping bags and sleeping pads, kitchenware, tent, camp chairs, and a few other necessities. The duffle bags would be enveloped in a PacSafe, which is a web made of steel cable that can be secured around the duffle and locked to the bike’s frame to make it harder to cut into or to steal. For our immediate protection, we got armored riding jackets and trousers, both with vents to unzip when it is hot, space to layer for when it is cold, and a waterproof membrane for when it rains. We also got riding boots with armed shins, and cold and warm weather gloves, and fullface crash helmets with vents that open to allow air to flow around and cool the head.

After the many months of planning while we earned the money to make it come true, Jess left Liberia in June and went back to Toronto to get her motorcycle license. I left a month later and, when we met in Los Angeles, we made our first visit to a BMW dealership the very next day. Within a week we had struck what we thought was a fair deal and a few days after our bikes arrived at the BMW dealership in Thousand Oaks. Thirty minutes into the ride home from the dealership on my new motorbike with my dad and Jess following behind in the car it suddenly felt like all the long months had gone by very fast and that I had really gotten myself into it now. Realizing that I was into it and it was all happening now, I welled up and became very excited.

Jess’s excitement grew much more gradually because she was very nervous about what she had suddenly over long months gotten herself into. Her new bike was much larger, heavier, and more powerful than the small one she had learned on in Liberia. Also now the thinking about it was giving way to the much harder doing it and she was practically faced with the demands of growing herself to endure long days of riding on freeways and windy highways and through twisty mountain roads. Jess is very sensible when counseling others and considering things outside herself but when she is part of the equation she is an obstinate pessimist. She found a thousand half-truths to convince herself why her experience riding in Liberia was insufficient, inconsistent with, or inapplicable to the riding she would have to do on this new bike and for the trip. Thinking about the need to adapt to this new bike and the effort required to grow her riding skill to meet the demands of the trip brought her a great deal of stress. Anyone who knows Jess knows that, when she gets stressed, she gets fussy. So you can guess she was quite fussy for the first several weeks and this was difficult for us at the same time as I was becoming so enthusiastic in my excitement.

Yes, Jess handles a motorcycle better than she does a baby

For the first 1000 km we rode around town and stayed off of the freeways. Common knowledge says that to break in a new motorcycle engine you should maintain low RPMs and change engine speeds often. This is best done on surface streets and particularly on twisty mountain roads.  We also took this time to collect our gear and to do other important things like take a course on first aid and CPR. After the first servicing, we broke onto the freeway, which Jess had long feared and almost instantly mastered. A week later we took the first of two practice trips, which were intended to allow us to adapt to the weight and balance of the loaded bikes and determine if we had packed appropriately before leaving for the real thing.

For the first practice trip we went north up the cliff-lined California coast along the twisting Pacific Coast Highway to Monterey and then back south inland past the farms and sun-bleached meadowlands. This went very well despite the long stretches of twisting highways that had given Jess so much anxiety when tracing them on Google Maps and had made her as fussy as ever before.

For the second practice trip we went north again but this time we took Highway 395 through the dusty plains on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range to Rock Creek Lake just below the better known Mammoth Lakes. My dad followed us up in his car and we camped for three nights and fished for two days before returning the same way. Jess caught a small one and my dad an even smaller one and I only had a fish take the fly off my line. On the third night the wind brought the clouds in and it was so cold that the rain fell as hail.

After these two trips we took a final week to make adjustments to the bikes to accommodate the new taller windscreens, to buy a few more items to round out our cache, and to install and test the video cameras on our crash helmets. This was also much needed time to rest up and to say our goodbyes, and to trace a route onto our maps that would takes us through as many of the highlights as possible during the trip. The day before we left to begin the trip was a Sunday and we rode Mulholland Highway to the Rock Store, which is where all the bikers in the area go to show off their rides. Riding there that day on our beautiful new bikes in our riding gear and feeling every bit as much a motorcyclist as the mostly older hands that haunt the place, I experienced an important moment of growth after years of never having the stones to go there.

The new plan had been to leave at the end of August but with everything there was to buy and return and modify and learn to use and modify again this proved overly ambitious. By the time we and our bikes were fully equipped to begin, it was the third week in September and the dog days of summer were growing further and further in the rearview. So, setting off on Monday, 23 September, we decided that the new new plan is to go as far north as snowed in passes and our tolerance for cold weather riding will allow us and then, when we cannot hold out any longer, to swing back south and from there make a dash for Mexico and Central America and then chase the summer into the Southern Hemisphere until there are no more roads to follow.

My White Whale

‘We’ll go when we come back,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go riding now when we’re leaving for a six-month motorcycle trip tomorrow.’

         ‘The riding season will be over when we come back this way and besides this is my white whale,’ I said.

         ‘It’s your white whale?’ she said.

         ‘Yeah, you know, like Moby Dick.’

         ‘Yes, I know Moby Dick,’ she said.

         ‘The Rock Store is the big place where motorcyclists go on the weekends around here. I’ve never gone because I’ve always been nervous because I didn’t have a nice bike or the right riding gear or I don’t know the biker lingo. All these years it’s been out there mocking me like my white whale. And now it’s a Sunday and maybe the last nice day of the riding season and I have an awesome bike and a tall, blonde girlfriend who rides and has her own awesome bike, and we’ve added all the good accessories so that our bikes look serious and I have good riding gear and I know how to talk about bikes and tomorrow we’re leaving to start a six-month trip.’

         After a bit more back and forth, some more urging, and several additional references to my ‘white whale’ she gave in and we suited up to ride Mulholland Highway through the canyon to the Rock Store. On the way we passed many bikers in singles and pairs and larger groups and when they acknowledged us with a left hand held out below the handlebar, I felt good and confident returning the salute because I knew that finally I was a proper motorcyclist with a gorgeous bike and solid riding gear and that I could biker-babble with the best of them.

         Jess rode in front as she normally does because she feels more comfortable to set the pace instead of feeling like she has to keep up. By now she had done enough riding that she could handle almost any situation if she had to but she still held an intense anxiety about parking. When we neared the Rock Store, she signaled me to pass her with her left hand. Passing ahead of Jess as she slowed slightly and steered to the right side of the lane, I felt a surge of anxiety as though I was about to experience one of those singularly important life moments.

Nearing the Rock Store I thought about how my first foray into motorcycling had ended less than one week after I bought my first bike eight years before. I was stopped at a light about two miles from home when I was rear-ended by a breathtakingly beautiful girl who did not see stopped at the intersection. She hit me so hard that her car crumpled around the back of my motorbike and this kept my motorbike upright and me still seated on it, still holding the clutch in, after watching the spit leave my mouth and splatter on the face shield of my helmet during the elongated moments of the collision. Some landscapers working nearby helped me to extract my bike from her fender and roll it off to the side of the road. When we exchanged information she explained that the car was a rental and she was not authorized to drive it, and that she did not have a valid license, and that she had no phone number to be contacted, and she was without insurance, and could she pay me directly for damage if I would agree not to report it to the insurance company, and could I give her some time because she didn’t have the all the money just now.

I thought about this and then I thought about how it was four years later before I got back on a motorcycle. This was in Honduras while traveling after I finished my doctorate and deciding I needed to be alone and do something amazing. So I rented a 125cc motorbike a road 100 km in one direction before I got a puncture and was grossly extorted by a cab driver and a mechanic respectively for a lift and a patch job. Then I decided I had to ride a motorcycle through Latin America. So, I flew home to Los Angeles and with what savings I had left I bought a motorcycle – not based on what could handle the demands of a long distance trip but on what I thought looked good. It was a 500cc 1993 Yamaha Virago, rusty on the inside from lack of use, and with a few hundred dollars in saddlebags and a top case and some invaluable help from a friend with power tools and the knowhow to use them, I set off naïve, unprepared, and scared shitless. Somehow I lived and had the experience of my life and finished the trip six months and many breakdowns later in Panama at the end of the Pan-American Highway.

I thought about that and how before that trip I never went to the Rock Store because I felt like a joker for what I was planning to do and for planning to do it no knowledge and no gear and that particular motorcycle. I also thought about how after the trip I never went because I now I understood just ridiculous the trip I had done really was and besides I no longer had a motorcycle.

As I thought about this, we rode through a bend into a clearing and then another bend and then the parking area of the Rock Store stretched out in front of us. The lot was mostly full but not the way you see pictures of it when it is the middle of the riding season. The sun glared off the chrome of the parked Harleys and the Harley-like cruisers and gleamed off the plastic fairings of the sport and enduro and tour bikes parked in nice formations in the lot. I pulled in at the end of the lot and then maneuvered past one line of cruisers and into a gap between two Harleys. I walked the bike back and forth bying time as I nervously tried to determine if I was too close to the closer of the two Harleys or if I was leaving too much space that would better be conserved to admit another bike in the line. When I looked back to Jess she gestured to ask if she was parked ok and I felt just a little better to think that maybe she was more nervous to be there than I was.

         ‘We’re here,’ I said after we had parked and removed our gloves and helmets and began to walk to the patio of the Rock Store.

         ‘Yes, love, we’re here,’ she said.

         ‘It’s my white whale,’ I said.

         ‘Yes, love, like Moby Dick,’ she said.

         We sat at a table in the patio of the Rock Store and we ordered a couple sodas and then I ordered a corn dog because I saw someone else had one and it looked good and appropriate for the place and how long had it been since I had last had a corn dog. Jess ate the French fries and we covered our sodas so that the bees wouldn’t get in and we watched a grizzly biker ask out the most attractive of the several blonde waitresses.

         ‘Are we going to talk to anyone?’ Jess asked.

         ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not unless someone talks to us first.’

         ‘Then why are we here?’ she asked.

         ‘Because it’s my white whale,’ I said.

         Half an hour passed and we paid for our drinks and got up from our table. We put on our riding jackets and our gloves and helmets. We mounted our bikes and maneuvered out of the line and I followed Jess out of the parking lot. As we pulled away along Mulholland Highway without looking back, I suddenly felt both very accomplished and very underwhelmed and I thought, ok, now you’re ready to start this trip.

Our Life in Her Poses

Her flight arrived on Saturday evening. Somehow I was able to get in to the terminal between the arrival gate and the baggage claim. I waited for some minutes until I saw her walking amidst a small group. Then I gathered the gifts in my hands and walked towards her. At first she seemed very focused on where she was going and did not recognize me. When I came closer, she saw it was me and she smiled and turned towards me. Then she saw the gifts in my hands and she became suddenly very embarrassed. She hurried her pace and, when we met in the middle of the wide corridor, she did not stop. She took my arm and shuttled me off to the side before she received the flowers and chocolate and other things I had brought for her.

            ‘I made this incredibly romantic gesture and you just shove me off out of view!’ I complained later that evening when we sat down to dinner on Melrose Ave.

            ‘I just don’t like making a scene,’ she said. ‘I don’t like being the center of attention.’

            ‘Didn’t you ever learn you’re supposed to like that your boyfriend makes a big deal of you?’ I said. ‘Other – normal – women find it very romantic, I’m told.’

‘I know, I’m horrible!’ she said.

‘Well don’t worry about it,’ I said, ‘next time I’m staying in the car and I’ll slow down just long enough for you to jump in.’

‘No!’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It was a really romantic gesture.’

‘Just drink your drink, will you?’ I said.

After dinner we walked back to Eric’s apartment where we were staying the night.

‘Where did they go?’ she said.

‘To Keren’s parents’ house,’ I said. ‘He said they are staying there for the night.’

She poured water into a vase and then mixed in the nutrient powder. She put the flowers in and then set it down and arranged them. Then we went into the bedroom. It was becoming very good because we had not seen each other for a few weeks but it was over very suddenly when we heard Eric’s voice.

‘I said we were having dinner over there but we would be home around 10,’ he said a few minutes later after we had collected ourselves and joined them in the living room.

‘I heard it differently,’ I said.

‘Anyway, here we are,’ he said. ‘At least you took the guest room.’

‘Drink?’ I said.

We had a drink and then the girls went to bed and then we had another drink.

‘What are they going to think of me?’ she asked a couple hours later when I came to bed after the drinks.

‘That I’m irresistible maybe?’ I said. ‘Anyway, if he was a real friend he’d have kept quiet for just five more minutes.’

Jessica on the beach

She grunted and I turned out the light. In the morning we left Eric’s place and we went to Bobby’s for breakfast. After breakfast, we drove out to Venice Beach so that she could experience something unique. We walked passed the canals and the skateboarders and the people on beach cruiser bicycles, and we passed the tattoo artists and the street performers and the people selling free medical exams. Then we went out onto the sand and down to the water. I stood on the dry sand because my shoes were on but she walked out until she was just close enough to put a foot in the water. She stood where the surf reached the end of its journey. She put her foot out so that the big toe felt the foam and then the water and then it receded back into the surf. As she watched her toe and the surf, she held her sandals in one hand and rested her other hand on her hip. I watched her there absorbed by what I saw: the slenderness of her arm and the angle that it made going out from her shoulder and then back to her hip. I watched the way she stood and it felt very good as though I could see our life in her pose.

A few days later we drove to Palm Springs where my grandmother has a house that was vacant since she had moved into a home. The house is one of many identical units with a uniform color scheme and well-manicured lawn that borders an artificial lake in a gated community. In the lake there was a flock of ducks that dove for fish and sometimes an electric motorboat puttered past very slowly, making ripples in the mirror surface. My grandmother’s house beside the small lake was very nice with high ceilings and tall windows but it had the musty, neglected smell of something that has been used a lot and then suddenly not at all.

Jessica on a chair

When we settled in and I was arranging things inside, she went outside to see the lake. It was the late afternoon and the desert was just beginning to cool after a scorching day in July. When I came to the sliding glass door sometime later she was sitting on a chair on the porch with her feet up. As I watched her, I thought about how I had never managed to be comfortable at my grandparents’ house because they only cared how the furniture looked when they bought it. But she looked very comfortable with her feet on a cushion and a book in her hands instead of the ereader. She was all legs and no cares and it was a wonder to me that she could look so comfortable on that chair.

The next morning we drove to the Salton Sea, which was a popular resort in the Rat Pack days until the water became brackish and then the Yacht Club closed down. The lake looked like an ocean but there was a foul smell and thousands of fish skeletons lined every part of the shore.

‘They are tilapia,’ I said as we stood there. ‘They were introduced and they’re not native. They die en masse based on the weather.’

Then we drove past the Salton Sea to the far end where there was a strange trailer park and Salvation Mountain.

            ‘He was crazy maybe,’ I said a few steps from where we parked the car. ‘Anyway he decided to build a monument to God.’

‘I don’t understand it,’ she said.

            ‘God is love,’ she said, reading the giant words that were molded and painted on the hillside.

            It was midweek and it was deserted now but there were fresh footsteps in the sand and I knew visitors came occasionally. It had a very low profile for a mountain but it was very noticeable for the gaudy colors and bizarre formations and short religious phrases all over it.           

FOR GOD SO LOVED THEM

            YOU ARE LOVED BY GOD

            JESUS LOVES

            FAITH LOVE JOY GOODNESS MEEKNESS PEACE TEMPERANCE LONGSUFFERING GENTLENESS

            Also, the word ‘REPENT’ was written in many places, usually as the first part of a phrase without punctuation:

            REPENT JESUS I’M A SINNER PLEASE COME UPON MY BODY AND INTO MY HEART

Jessica on a swing

            The only object in the place that was not painted in gaudy colors was an ancient cot that was covered in a old blanket and hung from a swing set under a trellis roof of destroyed cloth. She sat and swung back and forth gently, not lifting her feet from the ground because she did not trust it. When she saw me focusing with my camera, she looked away as though it would make the photography stop. Looking away from me like she could not be bothered, she was perfect in that place in that moment. It was a pose that told you ‘God is love’ and ‘Repent sinner’ and ‘come upon my body and into my heart’ as much as if you had never known Salvation Mountain.

That afternoon we drove into Joshua Tree and, when we arrived at the campground, we made a circuit to know the layout and what was available. After surveying several good campsites, we selected one that we liked. It was backed against a sloping crag and surrounded by scraggly bushes so that it was secluded from the car park and passersby.

‘We’re sure that we’re sure?’ I said.

Jessica on a rock

She did not give another glance around. She had decided. I unloaded the car and then I drove back to the entrance to place the payment envelope in the collection box. When I returned I saw that she was gone and that she had left the things where they were. I looked up and saw that she had scrambled up the crag beside the campsite. It was past sunset and the fading light was behind her from where I looked up so that she was entirely in silhouette. She stood there atop the crag tall and slender and entirely motionless against a blue and violet sky. Her pose was perfect for where she was and she was perfectly made to make that pose.

‘It’s really small,’ she said after she had descended from the crag and I had erected the tent.

‘It’s made for one person,’ I said.

‘It really is,’ she said.

‘I warned you,’ I said.

‘Yeah, we’ll make it work,’ she said.

We prepared dinner in the twilight and we ate by the glow of a headlamp that she set out like a lantern. After, we scrambled up the crag to near where she had stood before and laid our sleeping mats on the cool granite. It was nighttime and the desert was very cold now so that we had to lay very close to keep warm. For a long time we lay beside each other – at first talking about many things and then becoming silent as it began to feel – though it was actually not – very late. Soon she fell asleep and I was awake looking at the stars.

When she roused, we descended with our things and we readied for bed. Then, we stuffed our mats and sleeping bags into the tent and then we stuffed ourselves in afterwards. It was very nice to be so close but soon that moment came when sleep is more attractive than your partner. Then we turned away and we fell asleep. In the middle of the night I woke and adjusted and then fell back asleep. Early in the morning, I woke again and this time she woke also.

‘You have nothing to worry about,’ I remembered she had said when we talked about her moods, ‘except for when I am tired or hungry or thirsty or hot or cold…or when I need to be alone.’

‘So only those situations?’ I had said.

‘Yeah, only those,’ she said, ‘or when I’m cycling or when something else is going on with me.’

Now, it was very early and the space was very tight and she was very tired and I could see she was very miserable.

‘I’m getting out,’ she announced suddenly.

She fumbled to unzip her mummy bag from inside and then bolted upright.

‘I’m going to sleep outside,’ she said. ‘It’s too cramped in here and I’m feeling claustrophobic.’

Jessica the next morning

‘It’s ok. I’ll go,’ I said.

‘No, I’m going,’ she said impatiently.

‘Better that I go,’ I said, ‘or I’ll hear about it tomorrow.’

‘You’ll hear about it anyway,’ she said. ‘Just hope I don’t get bitten by a snake.’