Wanderlust

And now on with the show.

Kimmie roared to life the other night, yes roared.  I could just hear her say, in the petulant voice of a pretty Korean girl..."I need to go further, I need speed.  I need the open road.  It's been so long since we gone on a long ride!"

Perhaps it's the summer weather but I have gotten tired of the daily commute.  I am up for an adventure, I need...no, crave something different.  I've been reading blogs like Road Pickle, Riding the Wet Coast and Scoot Commute,  I evny their tales of long trips and adventures and just doing something different for a change.

I suppose every rider experiences that need in their life to just keep going, to see what's down the road and around that corner.   In our case I've been thinking about a ride to St Augustine.  Sue and I visited recently but traveled by car with my family.  The idea of taking the bike there has appealed to me for some time.  I know that Kimmie will hold a overnight bag without issue, so a weekend trip is within grasp.  I feel ready to make such a trip.  I suppose given enough time I'll want to travel the country.

Only two issues.  I don't have any (unplanned) vacation time left this year, so  it needs to be next year.  Susan has been using my jacket and back up helmet so we still need to get her proper gear.  Plus she is not feeling comfortable behind me.
She has confidence in my ability, but I am a full foot (0.30 m) taller than her.  So she sees nothing but the back of my helmet (and I refuse to ride without a helmet).  At a little over 200 pounds (90.7 kilos) I'm very good at blocking air flow.  So she's hot, with pins in her back from a car accident in her teenage years she needs to sit a certain angle to be comfortable.  That may not be possible on the bike.  Funny how you learn new things about someone you have been with for a long time.  I've a feeling we will be doing more 2-up riding in the fall and winter when the tempertures fall to a much more manageable degree.  Now that I'm used to having her back there, I can't imagine riding without her.

Kimmie quotes Keiichi Sisawa in my ear:   I would think that a motorrad's purpose in life is to go places isn't it?  The traveler's purpose in life is to travel.  - from Kino no tabi.  "Let's go." she whispers.   I turn the throttle and she purrs.  I think of Jack Kerouac “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

She whispers, demanding now...."Let's go for a ride"

Here's to you Jack Kerouac

Yesterday I had some personal business to do in Clearwater and St Petersburg, Florida.  My plan was to originally take the Bergi down, get some good shots of it framed against the deep blue of the Gulf of Mexico waters and then have dinner at the Flamingo, the bar where Jack Kerouac supposedly had his last drink.

As it so happened I ended up having to take my car down since I had no way to properly strap the GPS to the Bergi (Note to self:  get a GPS mount) so no pictures of the bike on the Bay.

October 21, 1969 was the day that Jack Kerouac died at the age of 47, and American Literature lost a unique and original voice.   Kerouac, for those of you that may not know, wrote the seminal novel On the Road.

I read On the Road years ago, I was influenced by it like thousands of others before me, not so much to leave home and travel about the country...as it did for a few people I know...but to go ahead and experience different things and sensations.  To break out of my shell...to explore and fall in love with life.

On the wall of the Flamingo

As a young and hopeful writer at the time I fell in love with his "spontaneous prose" which at times seemed sporadic and musical, crazed and insane and oh so wonderful.

I read more of his work, and that opened me up to other writers and ideas and ways to live.  Where as Jack's work influenced me to live with a sense of adventure and wanderlust, in the end his work has always struck me as sad and lacking.  He was always traveling, looking, searching for something that always seemed just out of reach.

Sitting at the bar, a bottle of beer in front of me, I reflected on all of this.  The journey that lead me to sit alone in a bar on a Tuesday night, perhaps on the very seat one of my icons sat on forty years ago.  I paid for the beer, walking out of the bar feeling a little down...knowing that a great talent died way to young.

I looked up, two people on a cruiser pulled up her arms wrapped around his and they smiled...then pulled away and went off on their next adventure somewhere down the road.

I smiled, looked up at the sky and gave a silent "thank you" and went home.