Month: May 2017

Transitioning into the Trans America Trail or…..Day 1

/ R'ac'ne Ooma'ah / Leave a comment

I’ve been packing the bike for nearly a year now. Trying different configurations here and there and boiling things down to what I think I will need, what I know I will use often, and even some things I may not need, but would like to have “just in case.” When you add those things up, they start to get quite heavy. I’m not as light as I could be, but I am as light as I’m going to be and much lighter than many bikes I have seen while spending hours and hours reading limitless ride reports. She’s ready for her Day 1 Backyard Photo shoot.

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Home sweet Home — Tiny RV

Today is a soft opener. I’m taking some dirt forest roads and the Blue Ridge Parkway to meet up with my son, get a feel for how the bike feels at full pull, assess how well the months of packing pays off in real world scenarios and not just short shakedown runs, and spend some quality time with my son.

As I leave it starts to hit me — homesickness. I will miss my wife. I’m not saying that to butter her up (though it can’t hurt ;). It’s something about the trip I have been dreading. The excitement mixes with the qualms and makes for some pretty interesting feelings as I kiss my wife and throw a leg over the bike.

Underway I feel heavy. The bike handles as it would be expected to — twitchy in front, sluggish in back. No matter. Every bike I have owned, I just learned to ride around its misgivings. Poor suspension set-up, poor braking, underpowered….these are all part of the personality of a motorcycle. They are things that can be improved, but your ability to ride the bike as is and adapt your skillset to the hardware is an important ability to possess.

I get about five miles from home and laugh in my helmet — gas light! The KTM 690 Enduro has a .66 gallon reserve and ticks off miles since the light came on sarcastically but not until I am already two miles past the closest gas on route without pretty much backtracking straight back to the house. Oh well…turn around it is.

Once gassed up, it’s on to the gravel. The front tire makes itself known by trying real hard to tuck in. Hello! Had my first “dab” not 15 miles in. This 5000 mile section is going to be interesting.

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Looking forward to it. 

“Isn’t today your last day?”

/ R'ac'ne Ooma'ah / Leave a comment

“No. It isn’t. It’s the first.”

I walk down the sterile, well-lit hallways with a plastic bag full of long, smoke-filled nights, years of sleep deprivation, some really good times and just as many bad, laughs with friends and angry words with strangers, and arrive at my locker. It is full of hurried, last minute preparation in the form of clutter. On any other night, the locker is a place of rushed activity. Tonight I can take my time.

The plastic bag containing my uniforms is over-stuffed and only barely fits into the locker for the last few hours of my last shift. Time moves forward in a blur. While on the game, I can’t help but wonder if this is the right thing to do. I have been wondering this for months and the moment is drawing ever closer. Work is light and stress-free and invites the notion that “maybe you’re making the wrong call.” I also have to remind myself that it might just be the fact I am leaving that makes things so light and stress-free. Unfortunately I am not a very sentimental person. Many of the friends I have made wish me well and offer up their best wishes and “good lucks.” I am grateful to have worked with so many genuinely good people.

Where I work there is a process when you leave where they “walk you out.” I am reminded of the scene in Shawshank Redemption where Red is walked to the gate of the prison when he is released. Red had resigned himself to die an institutionalized man. Were it not for his promise to Andy, Red would have met the same fate as Brooks in that halfway house room.

“Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.”

I’m certainly not comparing my job to prison. It is in reality a really good job. The Shawshank Redemption is less about prison and more about breaking free and living the life you see yourself living despite the situation you find yourself thrust into. And here we are…..

“Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” — Andy Dufresne [in letter to Red] Shawshank Redemption, 1994