Sometimes you need an adventure. Sometimes you need to stick your nose into the wind and say, “OK, here goes.”
That’s what I’m doing right now riding a 38-year-old Honda motorcycle (the first Goldwing) across central Nevada’s Highway 50. I just spent two nights at a private ranch where there are natural hot springs bubbling out of the desert.
Soaking and walking and thinking and eating chile cooked from a dutch oven. There’s no electricity at this place and no other structures in sight. It’s eight miles down a dirt road off the “loneliest Highway in America.” It’s like that James McMurtry song I play with my band: “Out Here in the Middle.”
Even though there’s no electricity at this ranch, you do dishes with hot water that you just pulled out of a hot pond with a bucket. It’s like stepping back in time 150 years, but with some amazing creature comforts.
Now I’m sitting in what qualifies as a “frou frou” coffee shop in Ely, Nevada, that has wireless Internet. It’s the kind of place where two locals came into the shop and sat down on a couch and said nothing. The woman behind the bar just started making their order without saying a word.
My computer is charging. My iPod is charging. I believe my perspective is recharging.
You think differently out here on a motorcycle as opposed to a car. The wind has blown my bike all over the road and thunderheads hang ominously over nearby mountains. I’m driving through Ely thinking, “Is this town big enough to have someone who could wrench on this bike?” For the first time since owning it, I had to use the reserve tank out here on 50.
I’m generally on my way to Colorado, where I plan to visit my family, including my aunt who is battling cancer. I wish I had a better camera. I’m using my phone.
The great thing about technology — I can take a picture with a phone, e-mail it to myself and then post it on a blog. I can do this in Ely, Nevada, of all places. (Well, maybe not. I’ve been waiting for that e-mail to come through and no dice just yet.)
So in the coming days, I’m planning to write about events happening in Redding and also share a little bit about this crazy trip. I can do this because there’s a MacBook on the motorcycle. Couldn’t have done this back when that bike was built.
Viva adventure!
