Part I; The Harvest. Part II; The Return of My Scooter

Well Ok... Been a while and there's things been happenin'... I am solidly in pursuit of a sort of a kind of Minimalism. Some might even call it Spartan... Though I like the sound of Spartan 😎💪 I think Simplicity and Minimalism is closer to the mark.

Got to Montana back in mid/early late September and worked the Harvest. Made a few dollars, a mite less than last year... Buuuut...

I was on the way there when I blundered across an advert for this scooter. She's an '08 Raider. The same year as the one I regretfully sold. I was told she had a bit over 14,000 miles. Truth is it's more like a bit over 13,000.

Of course, I didn't have the dinero for her and wouldn't for maybe six weeks. How-some-ever... the price he was asking was so far below what I took the market to be that I couldn't NOT contact him. I told him if he still had the bike in six weeks he'd sell it for sure and for certain.

To my surprise he writes back that if I put earnest money on her he'd hold it till then. Was a spooky deal for me to send money off for a bike I'd never seen but in a photo to a fella I didn't know... a thousand miles from where I was at.

Buuuuut... some lil' voice whispered to me; "Yo! Dumb ass! You lost the last bike for bein' stupid. Don't let this'un get away.

Well... it took some hustling and working around troubles but I got the harvest done and the bike finally to me. She was just as pristine as pictured and is now...Tee Totally Mine! For almost exactly to the dollar what the Harvest won me! 😁

So now, with Two parts of my road laid down... I'm working on the next couple. Part III; My old truck is sold for more money than I can believe for an 18 year old truck. I should get paid tomorrow! That provides the dinero for what is to be my "New Home" goin' forward.

I'll be getting the Lakota up for sale (Part V; or - whatever - just as soon as my new setup is ready. That'll be a chore as I'm upside down on that rig that proved out to be a huge mistake for me. Whatever, I'll get out from under it somehow...

But... I'll be living in about half the square footage I have in this Lakota, or 72 square feet. That's 6 x 12__ Part IV; at least if the current plan comes together this week as "planned".

This lil cargo box is most likely the benefit of selling the truck. I'll buy this one new__unless a cheaper used one pops up in time. I'm weary of waiting!

A few limited mods I'll make, to render it a decent quarters for such as me, but honestly I'm not looking for much more than a "Hard Sided Tent" sort of deal. I want simple. Minimal... bordering on Spartan... (like I said simple minimalism is probably more accurate... I just like the idea of bein' a Spartan! ha ha)

It's a little spooky to be honest... but I'm excited about the adventure that's in the works!

I have decided, after a couple years of mistakes and wrong choices that got me going in the opposite direction I set off for so many years ago... that the times I've been happiest were the times I've had the least.

So I'm working at reducing all to a few simple Needs. For the Most part!

1. A warm dry place to sleep.
2. A few pounds of food.
3. Good work to do.

Enough wind for now... and I've got work to do!

Keep it in the Wind
Brian

Well the Changes Have Been Coming Fast and Furious...

Been running hard. 

First, Arlo and me found a small piece of dirt just after he joined me. Just a five acre spot down in Cochise county in Arizona.

That's Tombstone/Wyatt Earp/Geronimo and Cochise country.

Then... a biggie is my new "house"... I made a lightning fast week long run from Colorado to Alabama and back to pick it up.

The old Jayco 5er I've been living in for the past several years is going to my Kid... to be used for living quarters while they build a new house in Missouri...

*2016 Lakota Charger 3 horse*

The biggest part of "The Change" though is the change in what I'll be riding... It's the "thing" that caused all the shakeup in the first place.

This old buster is goin' back to horse.

I discovered after better than five years without that there was a growing hole inside me. After living with horses for the greatest part of my life, I came to realize they weren't something I was able to walk away from.

It came down to a hard choice; Horses or Motorcycles. It could only be one. I'll tell you right here... the choice was as tough as I've ever had to make. How do you choose between joys?

Buuuut... My current economic realities dictated that I had to make a choice. I just couldn't swing both as things are... Horses won...

That new Lakota helps that out since those back three windows are the three stalls of a three horse LQ (Living Quarters) Trailer. The front half or so is the living quarters.

So... for the coming foreseeable future, my winter camp will be in southern Arizona.

I've gotten committed to helping my daughters family move and build in the Missouri Ozarks, at least the first part of this summer.  But then__Hopefully__by late August or early September I'll return to my little patch of dirt I'm calling Cochise Camp... to start building up a simple Cowboy Winter Camp.

Maybe with a little luck I'll sell enough books in the not to distant future to allow me to regain a fresh Bike.

Until then, when something occurs to me I'll post a story here... but... most of my time is going to be spent writing, riding horsehide and building... the stories of that will be posted on my sister site goin' RV Boondocking.

Living with Horses again, and then having a good Motorcycle for my "Run Around" transport would be a pure Joy of life for sure!

Duckin' and Runnin'
Brian 

I know... It's Been Months...

It's been a difficult fall and winter. I've been in a "place" in my head that's not what you'd call a good place and not real inspiring to write about...

I came to a place where there was a gnawing inside that I couldn't ignore any longer. I've felt it for a few years, slowly growing... but honestly... didn't truly recognize the source.

It starts and ends with me.

I'm a gypsy in more ways than one. Much interests me... but there's a problem there. Spread yourself in too many directions, and nada gets done. You run in circles with nothing being accomplished.

Well... spinning those circles I came to realize there were... are... parts of me I just can't leave behind. But also in this world, there's only so much of each of us to go around... and it's "THAT"... that I've been stewing over for months.

Which part of me at this late place in life do I focus on? Which part of me is the greater part? I have to cull out the lesser bits to focus on the greater... or lose it all...

Now... I'm a rider right? But what kind? Motorcycle? or Horse?

I've rode both the greater part of my life (Made my living horseback)... but the past six years... there've been no horses. It was THAT absence... that has been gnawing at my innards. Turns out to have been a wrong trail I turned down.

Motorcycles get inside you... Horses... even deeper. It rapidly goes back to that "If I have to explain it to you - You won't understand" bit of wisdom.

There's not enough of me to go around... so I have to choose. Where does my greatest passion lay?

... I have discovered... that it lays with Horses and so Back to Horse... is where I'm going.

To that end, I put my Raider up for sale way back in December... when I got back into Arizona for the winter... I was hoping that like, ripping a bandage off FAST to get the pain over with quick... it would sell fast.

It didn't... it Hasn't. and this turmoil in my head gets drug out week after week... month after month.

I've run ads online since before christmas. I'd not be so perplexed if people looked at the bike and decided against it... but I've had zero calls. That's as in... None. Not one... ugh! Not a soul has looked at the scooter... makes it real difficult to sell it.

That was an eventuality I'd not expected.

I can't mark it off to I've got her priced too high. It's been the lowest for that bike on craigslist by near $2000.

Guys say well keep it... and do both... To which I say; Re-read the parts above where I talk about "Only so much of me to go around." ... I can't spread my loyalties around like that I've discovered... It runs 'em too thin to give proper attention to either.

...or at this point... my finances... and I need the cash she represents to go the way I've chosen...

And deep inside me... I NEED to get back to Horse...

... and this lil' bit of purgatory drags on.

Brian

P.S. If you should know anybody interested in an '08 Yamaha Raider with 38,000 on the clock and a few extras for $6000... send 'em my way...

How Do You Tell If You're Getting Lost?

When you look around and you don't recognize YOU.

The stagnation of this stationary life that circumstance has gotten me mired in the past few months... has me that-a-way. I feel lost. I can't but feel like I'm just waiting... and there's NOTHING here to wait for. Time is long past to be going...

The hardest thing for those that aren't is to understand the hunger that drives a rover.

There's those that travel and even travel full time that think of themselves with that moniker. They are wrong. They might do it full time for a few years; or off and on for a lifetime... but traveling is not Roving.

Those folks go to see this or they go to see that... and then... they go Home. They might "RV" full time for three, four...maybe five years... but then... They Go Home. They settle in again.

I'm not denigrating them or their way of going when I say; "They are not Rovers." Let's be clear. They are fine but that's not being a Rover. They are simply people who go from here to there and back again from time to time and fully enjoy it.

However... A true Rover... a wanderer... lives from a completely different perspective with a completely different need. He has no intention of getting "There". He's not trying to "Get" anywhere. For the Rover... there is nowhere to "Get"... He's already there. He only needs to be moving.

As a bird needs the sky and a fish needs the river... a Rover has a visceral, genetic hunger for the road. It is a need that drives his soul.

He doesn't seek anything. That is not and never was his goal. It takes a lot of Drifters many years to realize that themselves. They keep asking; "What am I doing? What am looking for?"

They are taught by soh-sigh-uh-tee that they are somehow faulty and their way is a weakness. It takes many years before the realization finally shines in their hearts... "I'm not wrong. I'm not weak. I'm not trying to "DO" anything. I'm not trying to collect anything. I'm just Being. I'm just me."

To quote Gus... "Just a man... free on the earth."

It is the Going that feeds the soul of a Drifter. It's not seeing some place that drives him. It is but the simplicity of the movement itself, the change. The Freedom. ROVING is the Stuff that sustains his soul.

In this society, to be "approved"... you must show yourself to be "productive". You must demonstrate tangible creation for dollar spent. You must be profitable to "IT" the society to be measured a "Good" person.

A Rover has no need for any of that judgmental nonsense.

A rover I will always be

I need the wind in my face

The sun on my back

A throttle in my hand

A big V-Twin rumbling under me

Two tires singing on asphalt

And the Horizon... racing on ahead of me

Simply put, a Rover knows that the place where he belongs, where his Spirit is in rhythm with the universe is out there... along some lonely road... following the paint stripes of a Ribbon of Asphalt.

When he is there... His spirit glows warm with the sure and certain knowledge...

~ I am home ~

Not new words for me... but words that continue to echo in my head.

Grab Your Handles and Ride

Brian

The Two Hour Job...

That's goin' on two weeks! ha ha ha... Yup... those seals and such are maybe two hours for a "trained professional"... and I'm bumping up on a couple of multiples of that.

Buuuuuut... got a call yesterday afternoon and my bushings are in... so I'll bump along today and see how close I can get to putting her back together!

I can't say I'll have saved any dinero... considering the tools I've bought to do this work... but I am kinda happy to be honest that I'm doing it for other reasons. Somehow I think it's a benefit to have been in there, and know better how things work... and just to refresh the memory that I can still get it done when needed.

... and that kinda gets a guy to thinking 'bout other things.

I wrote on my "other" blog/site that I'm now of that age where folks often make veiled and not so veiled comments that it's time for the "old guy" to start slowing down... "You're too old to be doin' things like that any more..."

Just the thinking of that sentiment... let alone the voicing of it makes my liver quiver. My response is generally something like; "YOU are too old to live maybe... but ME? I'm only too old... when I'm DEAD!"

You ever hear or see anything about this Ol' gal? Gloria is 89 years young. Still twisting the throttle and still hangin' it in the wind.

That's my goal now... and I've got better than a quarter of a century to pass her record by!

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

Dark Clouds Threatening... or ...

The clouds hung low shrouding the front range. A few drops of rain splattered on my helmet. I wondered if I was going to get wet.

I was only riding a few miles into town in search of a switch. As I wait for a new Yamaha tail rack to arrive, so I can install it on the back rest, I was working on re-installing my electronics charging power dock.

I had a single "Lighter socket" power point before. This time, when I reinstalled the repaired and modified saddle bags I decided to do a better and upgraded setup. I was about to fix the new socket in place when I realized it had a power indicator light. That hadn't been noticed before.

One little led won't draw much power. Maybe a .1 or an amp or less? ... but... 24/7 that would not be a good thing... So... I decided I needed to back up and wire in a switch to kill power to the unit when un-needed/wanted, and when the bike is parked... So I was riding to find that switch.

The days have been pretty slow and frustrating lately. Down hard with the flu... my next book stalled from that and a lethargy in my writing muscle... it's just been some of that "meh" kind of a time.

So I rolled along chewing over all that frustrates. Words came to me from many places that scolded me for being "down"... bleh... just all noise...my thoughts wandered off into the distance and I just rolled...

... and that's when it struck me; not like a hard attention getting slap, not like a gong ringing in my ears... just one of those simple, quiet revelations... I had very nearly sold his moment. That's what selling the bike would have been... selling all the moments like this one... for a few transient dollars.

I was smiling... looking at those low hanging clouds and thinking... without words...

Not an ear to ear, giggling, wicked happy sort of belly laughing grin... just that easy, soft, subtle upturn of the corners of your mouth when... you're just riding easy. When all is calm and quiet and Right.

One of those moments when all the troubles and useless trivia of this life fade away and you are just in the place you belong and there are no doubts or questions... A moment when priorities come clear and you just see and hear and breathe... and your heart slides along content.

And I thanked the Boss for that moment... and suggested that a few more of 'em from time to time would be much appreciated... and the bike just rumbled along

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

A Wanderer and a Drifter

I've been wandering for the last four years... hell... that's really a lie... I've drifted since I was 14. I started wandering the Arizona desert then... Can't say as I've ever really stopped since.

Crossed the oceans... lost count of the miles...

I often think of setting up in a place that I find that's nice... even stop on occasion and start digging post holes... but soon... the sound of a truck up on the highway, or the lonesome wail of a train across the valley, the rumble of  V-twin, starts that gnawing itch to roam working all over again.

My way isn't one that many can tolerate. Most need a "place" and a "home". Hell, the happiest I've been I was in a tent.

For me it's not about trying to get somewhere either. Actually, I don't like getting "There". What gnaws at me is the insatiable hunger to just keep moving.

There are those that call it a sickness... no Eagle would agree.

The thing about drifting and wandering is... keeping your nose in the wind and smelling the sweet scent of that special freedom that only a rover knows.

Last night, after a fine day of progress on several projects I was sitting outside, the first evening in a good while without a heilatious wind roaring in the trees, and sipping on a bottle of Tommy Knocker Brewery's finest... listening to my ipod... Bob Seeger... and just soaking up the space around me. It was a cloudy sky...

Suddenly... the sun broke through just before it settled behind the high peaks of the front range... Everything was lit in a golden hue... It was as if the Boss himself had set the world to glowing.

Right at that moment... a Bald Eagle sailed over the house I'm parked beside. My rig hides in a wind break that has protected that house for over a hundred years.

That Eagle soared just over the Top of that tree... He was lit in glittering gold by the setting sun and soared over me, against the wind, for long seconds before finally disappearing behind the windbreak behind me... An awesome sight.

What's that got to do with anything?

This. It's the sweet flavor of life...

Recently I stepped off the path that I've known was the right path for me... for a long time... I stepped off for the purpose of pursuing dollars... a fools mistake... and honestly... it ate a hole in me.

Not only that, I was going to sell one of my great joys... for what? a few thousand dollars that would what? hep me... maybe... make some more?...

There's one damned word for that... STUPID.

I've been working on refitting Sonja after a few years of lots of miles and deferred maintenance, planning on selling... and it's come to me... in the last weeks as I polished her wheels, got the pipes refinished, sanded the saddle bags, buffed the tarnished fins on the jugs... that... I just can not sell her.

It makes no sense to sell off parts of yourself... in pursuit of subsistence. You'd just end up with lots of groceries... for a guy that wasn't there any more.

No idea how I'm gonna get where I need to go... Only know it won't be by selling off precious bits of my self.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

I've Ridden Many Saddles...

The first was a fifteen year old kid cowboyin' back on the Arizona Desert... on a bay horse named Joker...

 Chasin' genuine wild cows in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson...

...I grew up with memories of old hands and places that are gone now...

... buried under asphalt, concrete and rooftops.

I started ridin' bikes then too... rippin' through that same desert.

Horseback or standing on the pegs... that kid was free and wild as the wind.

There's many a day I miss the guts that kid had.

He ran off to do his duty... and got caught in the blender of life in a society that eats its young.

Like many he spun in circles trying to find his way... trying to be that person he was told he was "expected" to be... and most times failing.

... and always... looking on that person he was "Expected" to be... with disgust. All he could see in that image was a trained and beaten down monkey.

Along came a different sort of saddle to straddle... on that different sort of horse...

Cutting the wind on that he once again began to feel some of that freedom he'd known.

He could feel some of that wild wind again in his thinning (ok gone) hair...

But always... in his heart and his mind lived the memory of those horses on those sunny slopes of the west in his soul.

Now the mysteries of life have come full circle...

...I Never Sold My Saddle...

I rode that saddle through thundering hail storms and twenty below blizzards. I roasted in it and got mud bogged on it. That saddle has memories tattooed on my soul...

...Life never seems to give up. It works 24/7 to beat you into submission. 

Thing is... the only thing you get when you try to whup a Cowboy... is one hell of a fight.

I still have no real sliver of an idea where I'm goin' or how I'll get there...

I just keep on Saddlin' my Horses and ridin' my circles...

When I ride my last circle... I'll be where I'm goin'...

Grab Your Handles and Ride

Brian

Keep it Between the Ditches

It's been said that;

Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere...

and sometimes...

In the middle of no where... you find Your Self.

... and sometimes... I believe we wander around wondering; What in the F5#@% am I doin'?

Things... I've railed a bunch about things. Maybe too much. All about not letting them rule me... own me.

But now something has occurred to me, think about it... What if... the "problem" isn't THINGS... what if... the PROBLEM... is ME?

Think about this a minute...

If you (I) go the other way and spend  a lot of time, working, watching, guarding against and double checking all in the effort to make sure that we don't get ruled and owned by Things... so as to protect our Freedom...

... uh huh... we get ruled by those same damn Things once again...

Only this time, life gets' burned up worryin' about ensuring the Non-possession of those same damned things! It gets to bordering on Nuts! and our Freedom leaks out like water from a rusty bucket.

It's all about extremes... Like a motor... Too hot; Bad. Run too cold; Bad. Somewhere in the middle is the operating range.

So, in search of the holy grail of answers... People talk about seeking "Balance" in life. Like a "Balanced" eco system. Only problem with that is, such balance exists only in Disneyesque fairy tales.

There is no Balance in nature. No such thing. Nature is a world of violent extremes.

Things swing from overpopulation to catastrophic population crashes. Calmly grazing deer to the savagery of a wolf's assault. Sunshine to blizzards. Droughts to Floods. Feast to famine. Overgrown forest to burned out grasslands.

Life for a biker is flush to broke. Healthy to sick. Standing up to laying in a ditch. Employed to unemployed. Rolling down the road to stuck with a broken machine. Fueled up to out of gas. New tires to bald. One extreme to the other.

When you're riding through what appears to be a time of calm and serenity... You're only in that valley between the extremes.

So, there is no balance. Control is only a fantasy. Yet somewhere when it comes to the issues of life and things... I believe there still exists an answer. I think somewhere between the unattainable fantasy of rigid control... and the wild gyrations of total chaos is the possibility of following a sustainable road.

Like one of those snowboarders in a halfpipe... back and forth up one side and turn back before the extreme... and back down and up the other side. Over and over testing the limits but staying in that sustainable Operating range.

Rather than seeking control, rather than achieving the unachievable "Balance" I see things as a pendulum. You can't stop it. It swings irresistibly back and forth into the foggy far distant future. The trick is to get into that rhythm and go with it.

Like I wrote about the weather in Alaska. You can fight it and lose, or you can embrace it, equip for it and go with it. Learn to love it as a piece of life... and just swing along with the pendulum.

You can't stop it... but maybe you can influence it. You can teach yourself to function within the established rhythm.

Maybe if we learn to keep a low key, subconscious eye on the world around us... kind of an underlying situational awareness... we can get ourselves to seeing that pendulum starting to swing  too far... starting to gain a lil' too much momentum or force... Whether that be in the actual world around us... or in the world between our ears... and do it without the phobic life darkening extremes.

... If we can apply a touch of friction to slow it down... coax it slowly back into that calm, sustainable rhythm, before it starts breaking things; if we can pull it back into a cadence that is within our ability to keep step... we can avoid twisting our livers into knots.. and keep the scooter between the ditches.

Kind of an abstract thought that occurs on occasion when I get a mite too close to the bottom of a beer bottle... I hope I'm right... I'm kinda weary of untying knots.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian 

ATGATT... Reasonable Care? or Unreasonable Fear?

Well, this rant isn't all about atgatt... It's a convoluted and fuzzy rambling about... surety and how the foolish quest for that, ruins the life that IS surely here.

There's but one thing that's for sure and for certain in this life... Death.

I am weary to the bone of all the people droning on and on and on about do this safe or that safe... BE SAFE!

Ahhhhh... I wouldn't pay a nickle for a pound of Safe... I'm weary of that anemic idea because it's all mostly baloney built on a base of unrealistic fear in the first place.

No matter how much care you take, how religiously you eat your vegetables, no matter how skilled the Doctor or how well your preacher has the ear of God... You my friend... are going to Die.

As long as I can remember I've been propagandized with the idea, in one form or another, to always turn away at risk. Avoid it like the plague. Only foolish people take risks. Risk takers are some sort of whack job.

The reality is, nothing happens without RISK. Adventure is RISK. Excitement can't happen... without RISK.

The reality is, that psychotic, trained in fear of all the things that could go wrong... is surrendering to cowardice under the color of reasonable care.

Life is a dreary and grey place... absent of RISK.

Now... listen up... I'm saying RISK... not STUPIDITY. Accepting Risk doesn't mean ignoring  common sense. It means weighing the benefits, playing the odds and having confidence in your abilities...

OF course... if you believe you can outrun that grizzly after you poke that ugly basket thief in the butt with your sharp stick... I've got my video camera warmed up and focused...

***a bit of a sideline*** just to say it... the base source of this malicious idea of "safety" is our "Leadership". The leaders of Society don't want excited, adventurous spirits taking risks. They want obedient, quiet, productive serfs laboring in safe and reasonable pursuits. (adventurous people are difficult to control) They want those laboring, fearful masses working for them... so THEY the leadership can go out and adventure, sky dive, climb mountains, TAKE RISKS and enjoy LIFE while the rest of us support them***

I've allowed too much of my life to be stolen by that never ending droning about all the dangers of this life and their avoidance; this toxin, that seat belt, red meat, safe sex, crap in the water, crap n the air, speeding, drinking, smoking, running with a fork in your hand, bucking horses, saving money, mercury fillings, genetically modified food, cancer from your cell phone, flu shots, colon cancer, calm down you'll get a heart attack... blah blah blah...

Ugh... I Vow... more people have died from the worry piled on 'em about what might could kill 'em... than from any of those multitude of options that in the end don't matter... 'cause in the end we all end up in the same place...

... The belly of a worm burping and rubbing his stomach; "Damn! That was one good Biker!"

But even worse; While you sit around waiting to die... because once all the risks are seen and avoided... there isn't a hell of a lot left to do but read a book about Somebody Foolish Going out and LIVING... while YOU wait for the worm ... LIFE passes you by.

The thing is this... take  bit of care here and there. Don't be stupid... unless stupidity wiggles your bean. If straddling your bike geared up like a science fiction warrior is what captures your imagination... do that.

If putting it in the wind bare headed and bikini clad is your thing... do that.

Just own it. Accept the consequences of your Choice... and don't judge others for theirs. (or, think you have the right to judge... or impose YOUR values)

The thing is... live while there's living to be done. Live a Class A life while you're living.

Would you rather live one GREAT 30 year movie? or... sit through the agony of 67 years of the worst, dullest, most agonizingly moronic home movies kodak ever created? Think about it...

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

Southern Migration

It's coming. I know it. Winter is pushing its way south and I retreat before it. Our Beet Harvest Job in Montana is done and I've moved as far as Denver.

With a week visiting my Grandbabies near done... the urge to be moving on is strong. Weather is coming later this week but I won't wait on it. Maybe I'll get out ahead of it... maybe have to push through it... But I'll go. The desert and the work I have waiting there this winter is calling.

Work. The world demands its pound of flesh and I am not immune to that so produce I must. My good fortune is, almost blindly, I stumbled into that sort of situation where I get to do, for a living, what is a joy in itself.

Now, I still have a lot of work to do to bring it up to where it needs to be. My writing is not yet fully sufficient or reliable. (income wise) It sits in that tantalizing place of being juuuuust outside those bright lights of prosperity. ;)

For me prosperity is not riches. It's waking up in the morning, owning my life. Having some groceries in the cupboard, a little jingle in my pocket, the lack of crushing debts and the prospect of more of the Work that feeds my soul to keep me going.

I use the word WORK not job. A Job is just shoveling horse poop... WORK is the Art that feeds the spirit. Whether that be painting, writing, architecting, mechanicing, cowboying ... for some, Waitressing does that.

Whatever WORK feeds your soul, you chase that. You hone that craft to the sharpest edge you can put on it.

This winter that honing will be done brushed up out on the Arizona desert. I've a couple of Large Projects planned. Two novels are to be written one to add to each series. They're outlined and just sit waiting my arrival in the sunny south. Camped out amongst the creosote bushes and Paloverde trees... I'll immerse myself in them.

Sunny days, pots of coffee, miles of knees in the wind to clear my thinking when I hit a literary tangle ;) ... and come the spring, a fresh new pair of fabrications of terminological inexactitude from the twisted mind of a cowboy biker to keep the momentum of my publishing empire rolling. 

Keeping it in the Wind
Brian
 

The Competing Needs of a Cowboy Biker

Balancing the wanderlust of a gypsy Cowboy Biker with the work of living... and the many great and treasured chunks of life is a formidable task for someone as lazy as I am.

Precious Friends whose absence leaves an aching hole in me, my writing and publishing, my Grandkids, my leather craft and even Horses! ... All are personal Treasures competing for a place. Some surely fit together and overlap, some stand alone... but the permanent and total loss of any is unthinkable...

I even tormented over the order they should be placed in the sentence!

... but, stretching out in front of me, remains that road that has no mercy... its whispers are relentless... its call I cannot leave unanswered...

Yet, to remain on the road, to preserve this life that I've come to Love, I increasingly see a burdensome reality. To sustain my gypsy life, I may have to choose to have less of it. It is in my mind analogous, somewhat pompously considering the contexts, to a line from the movie Gettysburg;

General Lee was speaking to General Longstreet before the worst of the battle;
"Soldiering has one great trap; To be a good soldier you must love the army. But to be a good officer you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love.

To wander... you must love the road. To sustain your wandering life, you must often push away from and leave behind the thing you love.

Few can produce a living, from the simple act of BEING a wanderer... They find they have to leave the road for periods of indentured servitude, contracting either their bodies or their intellect, or both,  to produce the dinero required to finance their rambling.

It's akin to owning a horse. If you're going to live with the spiritual fulfillment the animal gives, you must accept that you'll regularly have to shovel some shit.

The trick is to manage your life so the things you love... don't get buried under the horse shit.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

Blooms, Beers and Joyous Ribbons of Ashpalt

I'm camped along the Wenatchee River, nigh on to twenty miles west of Leavenworth Washington, only three miles above a place called Coles Corner.

That town of Leavenworth is a place that seems like it was built for tourism. The whole town, even McDonalds! has been built to echo a Swiss Alps town. You'll likely need to keep your sunglasses on for all the flowers.

Even on a cloudy day the colors just pop.. everywhere you look. Flowers everywhere. Hanging baskets, window boxes, beds of 'em, great pots of 'em... If you like color and flowers... You'll like this lil' burg.

 

When you get hungry or thirsty and go looking for a place to eat or sip a brew, you've picked out a job for yourself. You might could go bankrupt trying to sample every eatery or beer in this place...If you lived here a month and ate each meal in a new place, I'm not sure you could cover 'em all.

We were walking around... and found a lil' shop, down a set of steps into the basement of the building. They boasted 80 sorts of cheese and 150 beers... Now... I don't much care 'bout the cheese? but the Beer boast kinda fascinated me...

Since we stepped off some three years ago, I've been mostly buying my brew made by local breweries, and I can't say I've been disappointed in any of 'em. truth is? The big boys have lost me. ;)

Anyhoo... This basement place does it mostly a lil' different... Rather than a whole sixpack... you can buy just one of a brand to try it...

So how's a guy to choose? Well... the name of this'un caught my imagination... and the name of the brewery didn't hurt either...

Quilters Irish Death Ale brewed up by the Iron Horse Brewery in Ellensburg, Washington. Aw, it just has a ring to it... don't it?

WHooooooeee! Now that might LOOK like a reg'lar bottle of brew but that big baby's a pint and a bit of Suh-Wheet smooth Ale! That record of no disappointments held true with this lil' beauty too! and I gotta tell ya... that 7.8% kinda caught me off guard at the end of a warm day! :) caught me off guard and caught up with me! I may just be getting to be a lightweight in my "golden" years.

My ONLY regret is gonna be trying to find some of that sweet Craft Beer elixir down the road a thousand miles or so! :(

The other local brew I've been sippin' that hasn't hurt my feelings any is the Whistling Pig Hefeweizen that's bottled up by Fish Brewing Co. out of Olympia. I started drinking the Hefeweizen style beers down in Mammoth lakes... and I gotta say, I like it!

With the temps bangin' on and into the 90's round here, an old guy has to take good care to stay hydrated and cooled down sufficient from the riding!

I'm not any sort of a Beer Conna-sewer... I don't know about hoppy, or smooth or any of the lingo of any of that stuff... other than that IPA makes me gag!

What I can say is I like what I like and these two brews have been keeping me rolling, cooled out and nicely mellowed, for sure and for certain! ;)

Yes sir, medicinal alcohol judged to be Cowboy Biker Excellency'!

But... the real deal here, for me is the roads that take me from here to there and back again. There's two of 'em and two lanes both. The first is the western segment of U.S. Hwy 2, the main route, that runs from St. Ignace Michigan to Everett Washington... and winds right through the river valley that holds Leavenworth.

If you turn off onto Washington 207 at Coles Corner you'll find our forest service camp just a couple of miles up... Leaving that camp and turning away from Hwy 2, just a few hundred feet is the "back" road that will take you to Leavenworth, 18 or twenty miles distant, by way of Plain, Washington.

Now, I'm here to tell you that on a mid morning ride on a sunny Tuesday morning... It was one of those rides that I can only describe as Suh-Wheet. Traffic was light. I got stopped for about two minutes at a repaving project but other than that it was one of those perfect, little traffic, no brakes, just wind it up tight and let the motor pull her down into the mostly fast sweeping bends.

A tighter twist here and there tickles your attention, but mostly it's that sweet dance where my rumbling machine can just roll from leaning over left, stand up quick, roll right through straight up and dance right back into a right hander.

Back and forth, one sweeping turn after the other. The tighter ones coming in here and there to keep you honest.

Its a road with that rhythm I love. No brakes. You just find that fast point where the throttle and compression let the bike swing through the twisties like a dance. Sweeping along through the trees and past farms and cabins. Every once in a while a longer straight that lets you open her up a little more and then drop a gear and rumble down into a tight right hand...

Faster than legal for sure. ;) but still not that crazy, spine tingling scream when you hear a crotch rocket wound up tight. This road lets me make that smooth, choreographed dance where everything fits into place and it's like a piece of music you can't get out of your head... You just sweep along and hope you never get there.

I don't push cagers when I come up on 'em... no profit in it... I just hang back and wait for an opportunity to roll by safe and easy... this day, two of 'em just pulled over in a wide spot to let me roll on... even though I was back there a decent space and riding easy... I coulda kissed 'em. suh-wheet! 

I picked up our mail at the post office, fueled the scooter, and then made the return ride west up Hwy 2 back to Coles corner.

Much of that you run along the river with views of it and the surrounding hills as you split the wind in a gorgeous valley. Be lucky like me and you find yourself in a big hole between the traffic that was light anyway... and the main road return is nearly as sweet as that joyous back road. 

Yeah... stay in Leavenworth for a night or two. Taste the brews and the food. Ogle the purty gurls (California has NOTHING on Washington!!!) and make the loop out through Plain and back.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

Crossing Washington in The Smoke...

Freedom of the road... is not always Free and Easy.

Though I live on the road, I don't "Live" on the Bike. My house has four wheels and a hitch, and is drug by a truck... which in its senility, requires ever more attention, a couple grand and more in the last 60 days...

There is hardly a day that passes where I don't wish for an even simpler life. The happiest I've been, in the past ten years, was sleeping in the rain, under the thin skin of my HooDoo tent in Alaska. Just me and a bike. Nothing else to worry about or contend with.

Just me, a man, free on the earth... in rhythm with the land.

Now, my bike, my ONLY truly precious and necessary possession has her own need for attention.

The seals in her forks started leaking some time ago. First one, and then the other. Repair is simple. It only costs money. But that money, as soon as it gets close to being sufficient to pay the mechanic... is consumed by the life around me... and the rig. boo hoo. poor me.

Riding her I have to hold back. The unequal conditions in her front legs produces an unsettling wobble over uneven pavement if I push her out a bit leaning through the bends... and there are other maintenance needs that are stacking up for attention.

Now, knocked into low spirits by the trivial realities of life... I head for Idaho and Montana... only to be confronted by smoke and fires, straddling all the routes I was hoping to travel.

My wheels turn back farther north, Hoping that I can find clear air to travel through, and enough miles without need for repairs... that the repair money can go to Sonja. Sitting patient. Waiting for the attention she deserves. Waiting for the attention she requires. Waiting for the attention she has earned.

A simple life? ahhhh... such a sweet fantasy. It's all just life. Savor each of the small and good bits along the way.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

A Man ... A Machine ... A Love Affair ...

She waits for me in the dark, a metallic lover that commands my soul. In front of my camp beside the aerodrome, the sunrise crawls softly over the mountains.

I sneak out to share the early dawn and softly close the door behind me, as if to guard our affair.

A swirl of steam twists lazily from the coffee in my cup, rising through the still, sweet scented, cool air of the morning, to vanish into nothing.

I stand gazing at her flowing lines and feel that tension. My finger tips slide through the Dew that lays heavy on her skin like the sweat after a passionate embrace.

Behind me, the highway that calls to us both runs just behind the trees. At this early hour it lays nearly silent.

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Today we're going to dance along the coastal roads. From Cape Mears to Cape Lookout, Cape Kiwanda and Pacific City and we'll climb to the bluffs above the beach.

The trees that shroud the narrow road will hear us rumble under their branches. Like the sensual writhing of lovers, we lean through the bends that wind along the coastline. Man and machine will revel in the joy that is two wheels in the wind on an open road.

Today belongs to us. It is ours and ours alone.

We'll roll together with No one to own our time, our route or our destination.

No one to decide... but us...

Along the way we'll stop here and there to just sit quiet together and take in the visions and the scents. To rest and just breathe slowly, soaking up the life that is our freedom...

... and then we'll continue on.

She'll laugh as we dodge the holes in the road that suddenly appear as we sprint through the sun dappled shade over decaying pavement.

I'll grin with lust as she dances and weaves across the landscape, thundering back her love of the wind.

A strange blend of metal and man...

... The perfect antidote for a world that seems to have lost its mind.

I am forever in love with a machine.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

She Rides Out in a Star Spangled Rodeo...

... and teaches me the meaning of Cowboy Up. The meaning of the word GUTS.

I have been blessed with a most precious and special friend.

The lady is a barrel racer. Now, there's lots of "barrel racers" out there, just as there's lots of "cowboys". You've seen the sort; Big hat, Silver buckle, beer swilling blowhards regaling all the girls with stories of how bad and wild they are.

"Cowboys" that have never gotten closer to a herd of cows than the 14th row of the theater watching the latest western.

This precious barrel racing friend is a HORSEWOMAN. A genuine, tee total, double rectified, Barrel Racer. She has yet to achieve her dream, to ride out at the NFR in Vegas. She hasn't got there yet, but she's young, she's skilled, she's strong and the sheer guts and determination she shows with each day just makes my heart ache with admiration of her.

She hasn't gotten there yet, but for her ultimate victory there is no question. Only, when that day will come.

The thing is, she wasn't born with a silver spoon... or even nickle. She has no backing, no support, no sponsors. All she has to carry her on is her own personal belief.

When she set off to battle against the others with their $20,000 High Grade mounts, supported by rich families with deep pockets and "Connections" where simple transportation and lodging wasn't even a thought let alone a concern... she started her ride with a small, greenbroke mare out of Nebraska. To most, nothing special... just another horse.

What she paid for that mare wouldn't feed that $20,000 high grade for a year. But this woman could see the promise... she could sense the heart in the animal.

For her choice, she was belittled.

Competing against those others she hasn't the silver spoon to ease her way... she's had to labor, and still does... with the "plastic spoon" the world handicapped her with.

She's been knocked down by betrayers and blockers... Yet she keeps going.

She was ridiculed for the "little Horse" she brought to a horse race... yet with quiet pride she and that little horse have already beaten MOST of the others and just about all of the loud mouth ridiculers... and she keeps going. The detractors are a lot more quiet now.

She struggles to find the transportation to get to races, while her competition hitches up their $90,000+ rigs without a thought... yet she gets there... and beats their scores in the process, in spite of her struggle.

She's run "Against the Wind", hobbled by not only a Lack of support from friends and family, but, in deed, their active emotional obstruction... and She's gone on to enter, in my estimation, the Top Level of Horsewomen in spite of that.

What's this got to do with Scooters?

Everyone has a dream. Most leave them on the shelf. They'll live their lives with that knot of sorrow eating at their guts; because they made the mistake of listening to the friends, the family, the ridiculers.

They allow themselves to be hobbled by accepting as fact another's denigration of their dreams and their abilities... They allow their own, internal Belief in Their Own Self Worth to be stolen by the callous disregard of people who's only real ambition is to hold back anyone who might TRY.

For if those who TRY... Succeed... It shines a great Glorious light on The base Cowardice of the blockers and betrayers.

You have a dream? A challenging ride you want to make? A Motorcycle you want to build? A business? A hunger in your soul? Anything? Do - IT!

Don't listen to the nay sayers. Ignore the family and friends who surrender to their own fear and work to block your road. Smile, wave... and... Go around them! LIVE people. LIVE your LIFE!

Do it now. Do it Today. Tomorrow may never come.

What's the worst that can happen? You can fail and have to start over. Yet even in that failure you succeeded. YOU tried. While the others lay wallowing in their fear, making excuses and going nowhere... YOU summoned your courage, you went out chasing your dreams and YOU Tried. You have bragging rights to something They ~ Never ~ Will.

Follow the lead of that inspiring friend that holds my feet to the fire... and summon the courage to TRY.

Grab Your Handles and Ride.
Brian

A Raider 4th of July

The 4th of July 2013 for us was in Florence, Oregon... or... at least that's where it started and ended.

We dawdled around the rig, parked at the Three Rivers Casino for too long and let the wind catch up with us. Though the day had started off clear sky and calm, and the clear sky remained... the calm blew away.

Mid morning we climbed on Sonja... the Raider... and headed north along the PCH from Florence, buffeted by a stiff Ocean breeze.  :)

North of town a ways are the Sea Lion caves. We dropped the coin a few years back and took the elevator down in to see the place. It was ok... maybe do it again some day... today... I just rolled on by to pull in just a short way further north at the view point for the Haceda Head Lighthouse.

We'd stopped here in the truck, one stormy morning, on a trip a few years back to try and photograph what's claimed to be the most photographed lighthouse in Oregon...

That day it was raining, foggy, and the surf was huge... Over the sound of the crashing surf I could hear this sound that... sounded like barking... but couldn't for a bit figure out where it was coming from...

I finally realized that the beach, there on the right... was an odd color...

It was Covered... by Sea Lions... making it a rich, brown color... Covered, nose to flipper, shoulder to shoulder, with Sea Lions. Hundreds, thousands even.

There were rafts of 'em, 20 and 30 in a bunch going out to hunt and coming in to rest on their "haul out" beach.  In the rain and wind that day I failed to capture any photograph... except the one in my head. Altogether is was Pretty awesome.

On farther north on our run toward Newport, we found another wide spot to pull off and walk...

A grassy trail led down to the beach below a small river that dumped into the sea at this spot just a few miles below Yachats.

The beach itself is narrow, and pretty rocky in spots...

 ... a few small tide pools are hidden in the rocks...

More of those "Rock Pilers" we followed in Arizona and Utah... have visited the Oregon coast...

Couldn't go too far up the beach though... a short convo with a guy playing with his dog on the windy beach used up the time I had available... (that's shorthand for ~ I BADLY needed a lil' boys room!)

... it's a cold wind... morning coffee thing...

So, we walked back to the bike and continued on up the PCH to the Fishing Port of Newport.

Parked Sonja backed into the curb... and strolled non-nonchalantly down the street... trying desperately to NOT look like an old guy with something in his boot....  while I stood in line for the Grandmother and her 18 or 20 year old granddaughter??? to come out of the "one holer" public restroom after an 8 or 10 minute get-together... :-/

Then... it was find a nice lil' cafe along the bay for lunch... and make the run back to Florence in time to find up close parking for the riverside 4th of July fireworks display the Siuslaw Fire Dept put on in the Florence Marina.

All in all a real nice hundred+ mile 4th of July along the Pacific Coast Highway (U.S. Hwy 101)

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

A Biker Caught Betwixt and Between

I've been on the road now for three years... Which fits pretty fine, since I've been a gypsy spirit since as long as I can remember. My only regret is that I didn't just change my life to this "way" of going a Long, Long time ago.

Buuuut... There's ALWAYS a but...

I also have a very big "scheming" gene that never rests. To many it carries a face that looks just like indecision or at best a short attention span. In reality, it's more akin to an open mind mixed with a hyper active curiosity and seasoned by a hunger to try a bit of everything; all compounded by the very strong realization that my scrawny ass sits on the shady side of the mountain.

It's a lot like one of those; "If I could" grunt, grunt "just get this" gruuuuunt! "pushed into pla.... Oh Look! A Butterfly!" Clank!! as the tool in my hand falls forgotten on the ground and I go wandering off following my new interest sort of mental meanderings. ;)

Too bad all those psychological deficiencies are financed by the wallet of a gypsy biker cowboy disabled vet! :)

So anyhoo, wandering across the country, riding roads all over the west and having a warm dry bed and a refrigerator for my beer in the fiver right behind me, is absolutely fine! If I get to not liking a neighborhood all I gotta do is hitch up and move my house to a fresh place. No shortage of new places to flicker past my wandering eyes.

The ONLY drawback is there are things I want to do, things that really grab my imagination, that just don't fit into that gypsy living.

I have in my head a vision of a one of a kind camp catering specifically to traveling bikers. Keeping that company are visions of several versions of a "vintage/hot rod/classy "rat ride"/survival" sort of a bike... I'd like to carve the tooled leather seats for those bikes with my own tools... since I used to make my living doing custom leather for several years.

...then there's several, looooong... Rides I want to make that a wife, two dogs and a fifth wheel just don't fit well with... especially a wife that enjoys the occasional 200 mile day with me... but not 40 300 mile days in a row... or longer!

All of those are nestled amongst plenty of other schemes that float around behind my eyes when my vision clears after just a few miles out there on the two lane. 

So... though I am as happy as a biker with new tires with the life I have... I am one of those lonesome souls that's never fully satisfied. I'm always pushin' for the horizon... reachin' for the stars... and dreamin' way beyond the world I'm in.

Ain't that what it's all about in the first place? Dreamin' the dreams... and then seein' how many of 'em we can chase down before our odometer ticks its last mile... Living Life and Chasing the Wind!

Grab Your Handles and Ride!
Brian.

The Un-Solicited Wisdoms of; They Know Better Than Me...

I don't believe I've made it through a whole dang month in the last 45 years that some wise soul hasn't accosted me with the un-asked for burden of their denigrating wisdom.

It's not just a motorcycle thing... it's about just 'bout every piece and part of living.

Where does that sort of arrogance come from?

Now let me say right here, I say a lot here 'bout what I think is good, and what I think is bad... and the ways and trails I've found in my search to find more of the good and less of the bad... FOR ME!

BUT... I figure if a body came here... they were lookin' for my ramblings... my Oh-pin-yun about something or other.

... and I didn't rope 'em off the street and force 'em to listen neither! ... I'm not grabbin' 'em by the arm and squealin' about what weak brained droolers they are... just sayin'.

Now... if I ASK a person what they think of this... or what they think of that... I can't complain 'bout the answers I get... and generally I get enough of a variety of responses that I can sift out the sensible answer I'm lookin' for.

It's all those towering intellects, with their sou-peer-ee-ore brain functions, that stink of pomposity, self appointing themselves to dump their un-soh-lisss-i-ted advisements on me like a tsunami of bovine fertilizer; that I did this wrong or I'm screwin' up that ... that frosts my spleen and kinks my bean in a knot.

Where in the hell do folks find the arrogance to even think that THEY KNOW BETTER what pleases ANYBODY? They know what pleases their own selves. They know what works for them... and they know what they don't like... and that's all they know.

They ain't got the sliver of the shadow of a clue what motivates me... what I need and what I want... unless I tell 'em. It tickles my liver to a rolling boil when they come back at me... after I've filled 'em in with a few of those lil' tidbits about ME... that; "No you're wrong! That's Not true!"...

Seriously? I'm what? Too STUPID to know what makes me smile and what makes my liver flip?

I ride to FEEL the wind, the rain, the cold, the heat, the dust, the scent of the pines... I want to experience life... not get Told what it feels like by those who had the cajones to hang it in the wind and know it first hand.

"No" they say. "You need this and that and the other to protect and isolate you from all those things..."

Thanks... I guess I was too damn stupid to know what I want...

NO... I don't NEED those things you say I do... YOU do.

If windshields and fairings... and grip heaters... and electric underwear... and abs brakes and computer operated instant inflation airbag vests and all such accoutrements twist your throttle, I am as happy for you as a furloughed sailor with a full months pay in his pocket finding a discount whore house.

But please, STOP trying to convince me, by way of self inflation and  ad hominem assaults (didn't know I knew any of those educated words did ya?)  that ya'll know better what I like, what appeals to me... and what is better for me... Than I do.

Guess what? I stop listening juuuuuust 'bout the time you fire off the phrase, or something like it; "You HAVE TO"... or ... "You NEED TO"... or "You'd be BETTER OFF if"... arrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh...

JEEEEESUS Cuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrimmmmmineeeeeeeeee! I got juuuuust a few active neurons still zingin' around in the Ol' Brain pan. I've kept myself on top of the grass through things that would kill a heavy percentage of the ones claimin' brighter bulbs than mine... and bailed their types out far more than the opposite... SO... I do believe I'm qualified to choose what I wear... and what I sit behind when I'm splittin' the wind on a scooter... and how I live the whole of my life for that matter.

If I ask for an opinion about this or that, or for a soliloquy about your experience with such or the other... by all means pipe up... but if ya'll just want to bestow on such feeble minded as me the precious jewels of your infallible wisdom about how I ain't got the sense to pee in a bucket...

... Bite your tongue...and Give that sucker a freakin' Rest!

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

The Divide 'tween Old Riders and Young Riders

There has always been a bit of a "conflict" between young and old... there always will be. The fortunate are those that survive long enough to learn.

I once was a wild young Bronc Rider... one of the few that had the sense kicked IN to him rather than OUT! ;)

Just like Bronc Riders... out on that Ribbon of Asphalt, there are wild young riders and there are Old riders... but very few Wild Old riders. There are exceptions... but in the whole scheme of things... they are just that... exceptions.

The road has little patience with young riders. It offers few second chances. It responds poorly to those whose testosterone leads them to defy its risks and dangers. Those who ride with disrespect for the road rarely survive long enough to become old riders.

For a time the young demon may impress with their feats and daring... but in the end... they most often live only in memory, for the way they passed... not sat with, sharing a fire.

The old rider has lasted long enough to realize that to be in a  frantic hurry to get where he's going is to deprive himself of much of the pleasure of the going in the first place. He's learned the trip is over when you get there... and his desire is to extend the run... not foreshorten it.

The old rider travels at a pace, and stops more often along the way, to allow him to see what he's riding through... the impatient young pushes on with his eyes on the odometer.

The old biker savors the warmth of a cup of coffee, and quiet conversation in a roadside cafe' along the way of a chilly morning ride... the young chokes down gas station joe and scrambles back onto his bike to hammer down the road.

The old rider has found that putting his knees in the wind in the mountains; riding not slow... but not face tightening fast; the bike swinging back and forth in a graceful dance from turn to turn, its engine throbbing under him as it pulls down into a bend, then surging back up into a straight, a relaxed, rhythmic pace that produces a serenity in the spirit...

... is far superior to the frenzied almost manic thrashing of a machine through the twisties.

The old rider has found that if he does want miles under his tires... wild eyed speed is not the ticket... but a measured, quiet, sustainable momentum. Push too hard and you ride past the point where you physically can't keep up... and the old timer waves with a smile as he cruises on by...

... the wild youngster laying exhausted on the shoulder.

Most important; The Old Biker has found that the ride is for him, and him alone. He doesn't ride to impress the cagers with his masculinity, or his pards with his daring do...

He rides for his own mind, his own heart... and for the serenity of his own soul...

... and he leaves the wild rides... to the Young Riders.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian