Hodomania by Benjamin Simpson

A Week Early

      One afternoon I stopped at a gas station that was definitely in the middle of nowhere. My bike was at 75 miles from the last fill-up, 75 miles from the last gas station and I was beginning to wonder if another gas station would ever arrive.
      The gas station sat all alone beside a dirt road. It was a small low building, with a roll-up door and an old pick-up truck sitting in the bay. Both the building and the awning over the soon–to-be-in-a-museum-gas-pump looked like they were straight from an apocalyptic Science-Fiction movie.
      The pot bellied man behind the desk looked startled to see me. As if I was the only one who had stopped by all day. And I probably was. His head was covered with a trucker hat, his hands were creased with hard work, and the creases were filled with permanent grime.
      “You’re a little early, aren’t you?” he said.
      I looked confused back at him.
      “Most people don’t show up for another few weeks.” And looked at me like I was a complete idiot, like I was some city boy who had no idea what I was getting myself into.
      I became defensive, knowing that he was looking down at me, laughing at my ignorance. Enjoying that he knew what was going on, and I didn’t.
      So I tried to be logical.
      I told him that the weather reports said that it was spring, and that there was no reason to believe that I was going to be stuck in bad weather.
      He just looked at me with a little smile, a knowing smile, a smile knowing that I did not know anything.
      After we exchanged money for the gas, he wished me luck, with a much too large grin, and I smiled and thanked him. Thinking that he was just trying to make me paranoid.
      That was, of course, when the weather started getting cold.

      I had gone and checked the weather before I left, the average temperatures in May no longer went below freezing at night, and the average snowfall, was so close to zero it was really nothing.
      The temperature slowly dropped as I continued my journey, to where it was 45 degrees F in the afternoon. That, of course, does not count the wind chill factor. I was traveling at 70 mph, and at that speed, it is supposed to drop the actual temperature 40 degrees. Or 5 degrees F, -15 degrees C.
      There was a thick scarf wrapped around my neck, stuffed both up into the full-face helmet and down into my leather jacket to keep the wind out.
      Underneath the thick leather jacket was a long sleeved t-shirt, a turtleneck, and a sweater. On my hands were leather gloves, glove under liners, and a pair of socks on my wrists, with the toes cut out, to keep the wind from going up the sleeve of the jacket.
      There were two pairs of socks underneath the boots, and on my legs were long underwear, jeans, and plastic rain trousers.
      I was still cold.
      Damn cold.
      When my motorcycle decided on it’s own to stop, sometimes I would place my hands, with gloves, directly on the side of the engine, and hold them there until the heat began to hurt my palms.
     As it got colder and colder, the ache in the muscle on my right shoulder grew exponentially. It ached because it was under tension all day, holding the throttle open. In the evening, when I had found a hotel room, I would stand under the blazing hot water, and kneed it with my other hand. Waiting for it to do what it always did, continue with it’s slow ache, until the blood rushed to it and then fill my shoulder with ten seconds of blazing pain, until it settled into a dull ache again.
      I swore, over and over again, that I would never do something this stupid again. I would have a bike with a faring, one of those cool new BMW’s with the heated grips. I told myself I would leave later in the year, that I would do it in a car.
      At one point the long low hills faded away into a mountain range.

      It was not a tall mountain range, only a couple thousand feet higher than the road below. But that was enough. As I crested a ridge near the top there was a lake, and I thought of the man in the gas station, and how he must be laughing.
      The lake was frozen over. It was not that there were a few icebergs floating around, it was still completely frozen over, it looked thick enough to skate on. There was snow around the lake, but the blacktop of the road was clear of snow.
      Ok, I admitted to the gas station man in my head, maybe I was a little early.

      The clouds were hidden behind the mountains, deep grey clouds, leaning to black, in the direction I was heading.
      Up until now, the only serious rain was a thunderstorm on the California/Oregon border. I looked ahead, into the grey clouds, and thought, it doesn’t look so bad.
      It began to snow once I passed the lake. Large wet dollops of mostly ice, that melted as soon as they hit my visor. Luckily they melted as soon as they hit the road as well. But I could feel them, I swear I could feel each one hit my outer jacket, and feel the freezing cold soak instantly through all those layers directly to my skin.
      I was to learn while living in Alaska, it is better to be in cold dry snow, than warmer slush.
      My bike and I crawled along between the evergreen trees, with visibility down to fifty feet because of the low clouds. All I could think, was that it’s probably fifty miles to the next shelter. My hands were beginning to cramp, and the cold wind that slipped under the visor –to keep it from fogging- made my nose run.
     After a short while, my mind twisted, and I looked up from the single-minded road, and out upon the scenery. On my right were small fields before the mountain rose into the fog, on my left was a forest of evergreen trees. The mist surrounded and hung to everything, and I was in a surreal world, enclosed in this little space. I no longer felt the cold, or the wet, and just looked around and enjoyed this real moment from a fantasy movie. This is where the hero sees the unicorn.
      That was when the hotel loomed up on my left, and my surreal experience gave way to the need for coffee.
      The car park was empty, and the front desk was empty. But there was a pot of coffee sitting out, and after glancing around, I poured myself a mug. With my outer layer off, I sat down until my hands hurt from the hot mug and I stopped shivering.
      Five or ten minutes later a young lady wandered through the lobby and looked surprised to see me. I smiled and said that I was just stopping for a few minutes to try to let the snow pass by. I said that I took a cup of coffee and needed to pay for it. She said to not worry about the coffee and smiled and went on to whatever she was doing.
      I saw no one else in the hotel.
      After twenty minutes the clouds went from grey to white, and I piled all the clothing back on, and headed back out onto the road.

     A few days later, after crossing the boarder into Alaska, I came across the town of Tok, -pronounced like what you do with a cigarette, not what a clock does. There were only twenty of so buildings visible from the road, so I had some dinner at the motel coffee shop and watched bad television.
      Tomorrow was the final ride, the last of the ten days of riding. The last day, where I was finally going to get to Anchorage. To finally arrive where I wanted to go. I was excited, I was actually going to arrive in the town I was heading for. I was sick of holding the throttle, sick of unending road, I wanted to settle down for a short while.
      The 400 miles on the last day seemed simple. It seemed like just another day, like it could happen without any effort, nothing could stop me now.
      Nothing could stop me now? Huh?
      When I opened my door to have an evening cigarette, little while specks were falling from the sky. They collected on the seat of my bike, but melted instantly in the muck of the parking lot.

      I assumed that it would be like riding thought he mountains, it would go away quickly.
      I was wrong.

      Over the evening it fell and fell and fell. There was no strong wind or storm, the snow just quietly fell and covered the ground.
      When I awoke in the morning, there were a few inches covering the ground, and my bike was piled thickly with the stuff.

      I went to the coffee shop for breakfast and to consider what I was going to do for the day. I asked the waitress what she thought of my chances of making it to Anchorage. She pointed me toward a man in another booth, who had flown into Tok yesterday.
      He said that the roads here were already cleared. But on the road to Anchorage, there was a mountain pass, that had probably got two or three feet of snow. The removal crews would probably not be there till this afternoon.
      He answered that it was probably not a good idea.
      I spent the day in Tok, listening to the man from the gas station laughing quietly.

      On the following day, when I rode to Anchorage there were three foot snow banks on the side of the road through the pass. The road was dry and clear, except for the wide shallow rivers of run off water crossing from one side of the road to the other.

Click here to read:
Road to Alaska: Section VI

The AlCan: Middle of Nowhere

      The phrase –The Middle of Nowhere- is thrown about with consummate ease. To some people New Jersey is the middle of nowhere, while to others it is the middle of the Gobi desert. To me, it’s where there are no people around, or on a straight open road.
      Before heading up the AlCan, for me, the 10 freeway through West Texas was the middle of nowhere. Or the 5 through Central California, or the 80 cutting straight through the waving cornfields of Nebraska.
      But none of those really compare to the AlCan.
      On the 10 or the 5 or the 80 there are signs of life, there’s a road, or a gas station or a general store at least every twenty miles, more probably every five miles. But on the AlCan, when I was way up north, when the road vaguely follows the invisible barrier between British Columbia and the Yukon, there were times when I went 60 miles without seeing a gas station, and some of those were closed.
      There were moments when the motorcycle felt like it was on a treadmill. A beautifully convincing treadmill, but a treadmill nonetheless. While the roads in the southwest of the United States tend to be straight lines. They travel over perfectly flat land for hundreds of miles. The road on the AlCan was never like this. It was constantly shifting and always the same.
      The simple blacktop of the AlCan was two lanes wide, enough space for one car in either direction. The trees by the side of the road had been chopped back thirty feet, so there was a stripe of blank earth leading up ahead.

      Oh, there were rivers, and valleys, and mountains, but all I remember is the soft rolling hills. The motorcycle and I would rise over a soft rounded hill, to see a shallow valley up ahead, beyond that was another soft easy hill, and beyond that hill and another hill.
      Those hills, with the road scar cut across the top, went on for miles and miles and miles. The air was so clear, I could see the mountains in the distance, but because of the clear air, they never seemed to get any closer, just sat on the horizon, a mirage that I was never going to reach.
      This flat tundra was shaped thousands of years ago. Glaciers moved down during the last ice age and chopped the land flat like a knife smoothing icing. During the summer it is marshland, filled with the Alaskan state bird, sucking moose dry. But during the winter, it is frozen solid. The wind from the artic flows south and east across this flatland, collecting speed and power and aching cold as it moves. That is why the winters in Chicago, Buffalo and New York can be so horrible. And why Mount Washington in New Hampshire has some of the strongest winds in the world.
      Anchorage, on the other hand is surprising pleasant. It sits next to a body of water, and is relatively shielded by mountains. Not that it isn’t cold; there is snow on the ground from mid-October to mid-April. But the temperature does not fluctuate wildly. During the winter it seemed to float between 10 and 20 degrees F. During the summer it sits at a pleasant 60. I remember listening to the complaints of the locals, when the temperature had the unmerited horror to reach all the way to 85.

      The road was deserted. It thought, at first, that the road was like this all the time. But because of the upcoming weather, and the number of RV’s I saw traveling through Anchorage later in the summer, I realized that I was just a few weeks early.
      The twin exhaust note of my three cylinder was the only sound I heard. I had no stereo, no Walkman, and the ipod was still just a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eye. So my mind emptied. Maybe that is why I love traveling so much, that I was able to sit on the bike, hold onto the throttle and look out over the countryside and just watch.
      It is the ultimate head clearing experience for me. My mind does not go into the 3 am downward spiral. When I lay there staring at the ceiling, revisiting all the stupid things I have done in my life. Reliving the horrible moments, and the missed opportunities.
      On the road, going forward, there is none of that self-doubt. None of that questioning, it is just the road and you, moving forward.
      I guess it could be called Zen. The art of being at peace with you and the world. I don’t know, I’ve never studied Zen any more than from that book about motorcycle maintenance. But I know that it feel right, that it feels good. And sometimes with that head clearing, the way forward in life looks a little less confusing.

      The Alaskan-Canadian Highway, or the AlCan, was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the summer of 1942. Yes, the whole 1500 miles was built in one summer. The government was afraid Japan would attack and cut off the shipping routes from the Lower 48 to Alaska.
      I quickly found that most Alaskans refer to the rest of the United States as ‘The Lower 48’. I would say, “I’m going to California for a week.” And they would answer with “Oh, you’re going to the lower 48.” The only exception to this was Hawaii, which every Alaskan referred to by name, and I think every Alaskan visited in the month of February.
      When the road was first built, through this desolate marshland, it was mostly dirt tracks, and wooden or pontoon bridges. But now it has been finished by the Canadian Government and is a smooth black top – modern bridged highway.
      The official highway runs from Dawson’s Creek in Canada, to Delta Junction, near Fairbanks, Alaska.
      It seems only natural to ride the whole road, from beginning to end, but once I entered Alaska, I was to cut off the road and head south to Anchorage. I felt somewhat guilty about not finishing the complete highway. But I think I did enough miles on my motorcycle for a little while.
      Total mileage from Laguna Beach to Anchorage was just about 4000 miles. That’s 1000 miles more than from New York to Los Angeles. 400 miles seemed like a good round number, so did 10 days, so I rode 400 miles each day, basking in the glory that is a hot shower in a motel room each night.
      It eventually took me 11 days, but it was not my fault, it was the fault of a prophetic gas station attendant, and some flaky water.

Click here to read:
Road to Alaska: Section V

Alaskan Humor and Wildlife

     Classic Alaskan joke:
      What is the state bird of Alaska?
      The Mosquito.
      When the people in the bar found out I was new, they almost fell over each other to tell me this joke. I didn’t get it at first, so they had to explain. “You know, ‘cause they’re so big.” Which still didn’t get a response from me, so they expanded on the story. “Well, you know, out in the middle of nowhere, in the marshland, there are so many of them and they are so big, they can actually kill a moose by sucking all the blood out of it.”
      “Are you serious?” I answered and then I thought, Could that be possible? I mean this is Alaska, and I have seen some pretty big mosquitoes. No, that can’t be true, it’s just an old wives tale, told to newbie’s. But it sounds good, and sometimes the best stories are the one’s that sound good.
      I found myself, retelling the same stupid mosquito joke, six months later, to someone who was new to Alaska.
      I guess that’s how urban legends get started.

      There is another joke, well, it’s not really a joke, more a piece of wisdom on the mentality of the people of Alaska, but it must be a joke, because the teller always finishes it up with a hearty laugh.
      “So you’re walking in the woods with your friend, and the only gun you have is a pistol. Suddenly a bear jumps onto the trail in front of you. It sees you and charges. How do you get away?”
      “Um, shoot the bear?” I answer.
      “No, shoot your friend in the foot and run.” This is where the storyteller laughs heartily.
      My face scrunched up in a scowl that said, why the hell would you do that?
      So the teller answers with, “a pistol will only get the bear angry, it won’t stop it, so the only way to get away is to make your friend run slower than you.”
      So that’s how to survive in Alaska.

      But I also found out, in a strange sort of way, the three things that are needed to survive in Alaska (other than a friend and a gun).
      During my first winter, working at the Captain Cook Hotel, I bartended small Christmas parties. One of the parties was a large family having their gift exchange. Each person brought one gift and they drew numbers to see who would pick from the pile of gifts in the center of the room.
      The gift theme for this year was: Survival in Alaska.
      The gifts revolved around two simple items: Alcohol and Duct Tape.
      And not just any alcohol, but Crown Royal whiskey, with its purple bag. I’m not sure how the bag helps to survive in Alaska, but the alcohol certainly does.
      Later, drinking in a bar after work, I relayed my newfound knowledge, and was told the third thing needed to survive in Alaska: blue tarps.
      I once saw a man who had repaired his winter books with stripes of blue tarp and duct tape. So I assumed that somewhere on his person was a bottle of Crown Royal.

      There was another Alaskan joke, and this one went like this: “What is the plural of Moose?” When the recipient looked dumfounded, the teller said “Meese, you know, like goose, geese…” and then laughed uproarisly.
      It is really not a funny joke, but after living in Alaska for a while, I found myself, usually while drunk late at night, repeating this, um, joke to other newbie’s, and laughing heartily when I told it.
      Maybe being that far north degrades you sense of humor.
      But, like the clichés say, there are moose in Alaska. I know because I got a present on Christmas morning. Standing on my third floor deck, looking out over the inlet, a moose quietly nibbled at the branches sticking through the snow in my front yard and I felt like I was in the opening credits of Northern Exposure.
      Moose are damn big. Weighing somewhere close to 1000 pounds. That’s 300 pounds more than me and my motorcycle combined.
      The first moose I saw was on the AlCan, on one of the infinite stretches where trees line each side of the road, and the motorcycle felt like it’s on a treadmill.
      I saw movement off to the left of the road, and a baby moose bolted from its hiding place out into the road. It was far enough in front of me, that I had to brake quickly, but was in no danger of hitting it. The baby looked confused and lost. It was about the size of a small deer, with legs that looked eight feet long, with pencil thin calves and huge knobbily knees that seemed to bend in both directions. Its hooves slipped on the hard road as it crossed.
      But once on the other side, it decided that it was better to be on the original side of the road, so it cut back and crossed in front of me once again.
      Then, it its confused state, decided that it was on the wrong side of the road again, and cut across in front of me.
      This time it was sure of where it wanted to go, and plunged into the trees and disappeared.

      At another point of the AlCan, a small herd of Buffalo cropped the grass by the side of the road. Their great shaggy chests and shoulders gave the impression of patient power, while the horns advertised imminent danger.
      There were no fences along the side of the road, and they all stopped and watched as I motored past.
      At a different time, a wandering bird joined my travels. I don’t know what type it was, but it was small and dark and it looked like the F-114 Tomcat had been designed from its silhouette.
      My speedometer read 75 mph when I noticed the bird flying along one foot from my left shoulder. I glanced at the bird, and the bird glanced at me.
      Its wings were swept back, and it did not flap, but just hovered there, next to me, at 75 mph.
      After ten seconds of this, I glanced at the bird again, and it returned my glancing look, and seemed to realize that I was not what it was looking for, banked hard to the left and disappeared over the trees.

      Once in Anchorage, I had a few more encounters with meese.
      Riding along the road that skirts the end of the airport runway, I saw a moose on the side of the road. I had my camera, so I stopped on the opposite side and trained my 200mm lens on it. Before I could snap a picture, the moose lowered its huge head and antlers, looked directly at the camera and snorted steam out its nostrils.
      It didn’t look like a sign of friendship.
      Later I was told that looking a moose straight in the eye is a sign of aggression.
      When a moose attacks, it will not usually use its antlers, but rear up on its hind legs and smack you with its huge, hard hooves. There was at least one person who had been killed this way, while I lived in Anchorage.
      I lowered my camera.
      The moose kept its head down and slowly walked along the other side of the road, snorting steam from its nostrils.
      I moved behind the motorcycle, put my camera away and my helmet back on.
      I was trying to decide if it was better to hide behind the motorcycle, or run to the group of trees thirty feet behind me, when a car came along the road. The car scared the moose, and it ran away in the opposite direction.
      Five minutes later the adrenaline left my body, and I stood on the side of the road quietly smoking a needed cigarette.

      One of my favorite moments. A moment where something so familiar crosses your path, but with a completely unexpected outcome. A reminder of how far away from the past life you are.
      One afternoon while riding on a quiet wooded road on the outskirts of Anchorage, a jeep passed me headed the other direction. The jeep flashed their lights. I mentally thanked the jeep for telling me there was a cop up ahead with a radar gun searching for speeders.
      I relaxed on the throttle and slowed down to 45 as I came over the ridge. There was no cop there, but a collection of moose by the side of the road.
      Useless fact #4,538, when a car flashes its lights at you in Alaska, it means there are moose ahead.

Click here to read:
Road to Alaska: Section IV

Romance

     Alaska is the last place in the United States I wanted to live.
     No, wait, read that the other way around.
      I had lived in the four corners of this country; I grew up in Southern California, summered in Manhattan and Portland and spent over a year in New Orleans. I felt that I had lived in all the places that I wanted to live in the United States, except one, the last place, Alaska.
      It was that romantic ideal, the last frontier, the place of endless green or white vistas, and the place where people went to find adventure. I was fueled by the stories of Jack London, by John Krauker’s book ‘Into The Wild’, by stories of fishing for the summer, and snowbound in the winter, of constant sunlight or darkness, and of the northern lights twisting the sky with their surreal colors.
     All of these things were in the back of my mind while I headed north, but the story of Chris McCandless and his journey ‘Into The Wild’ was fore in my mind. There is something wonderfully romantic and fascinating in his journey. I can understand his thinking, I can understand his yearning, even if I can’t describe or explain it. His desire to remove himself from the trappings of this world, remove himself from the money and the homes and the bills and the people.
      Sometimes in my daydreams, I find myself disappearing into the wild like he did, wandering into the wilderness to find something unexplainable. Or following Ambrose Bierce into Mexico, searching for something I cannot explain.
      But I could never go as far as they could, I could never take that one step into nothingness. I have a love hate relationship with people. I love the touch, and the laughter and the connection, I need to be with them, to feel them, but I also need to be away. Most of the time it works on a small scale. There is a party the night before, with drink and dancing and laughter and people. But the next morning, I need to be away, away into a book, or wandering with my camera, or driving my car. And once I wander away, I can come back, and enjoy people again.
      I wanted, in my soul, to do what Chris McCandless did, to just disappear, but I knew I could not be that romantic. I knew I could not go that far.
     He ended up dying of starvation in the wilderness of Alaska, while I became a bartender in Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska.

     Once I arrived in Alaska, I found that many of the myths about the state had disappeared over time, but some were still true.
     It used to be that there were many more men than women, but now the ratio is about 50/50. But the women have a saying about the men is still true. “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
     There is also a respect for the wilderness, a respect for Mother Nature, which I had never encountered while living in Southern California. This respect was centered on one simple ideal: It can easily kill you.
      The ocean temperature hovers just above freezing, and will kill you in three minutes.
      In the trunk of my friends cars, they kept blankets, water and power bars, because if you break down, even close to a town, the winter can kill you before you can make it back.
      And while I respected Chris McCandless for his desire to wander out into this wilderness, for his desire to live life fully, to live in a cabin in the woods like Thoreau, (who took his laundry home each week), the people in Alaska thought him an idiot. An idiot for not respecting the dangers, an idiot for not respecting Mother Nature. There was an unstated undercurrent of reaction from the Alaskans; he got what he deserved.

* * *

      When I look back at some of the things that I have done, I can, with hindsight, understand what it was that drove me. Why I made that particular decision. But at the time, there is no such logical understanding. It is just my subconscious telling me what to do, and I found that I can ignore it for a short time, but it is better just to follow along, and see where it takes me.
      For this particular journey, it went like this:
      I had spent two or three years working in a wonderful bar in Laguna Beach. I had collected a second family, who my friend Lyle called The Manson Family, but a beautiful family nonetheless. My feet were itching and I needed to move on. I had saved some money, and booked a flight that would take me to India for three months.
      But what to do after that?
      I was giving up the apartment, putting my two vehicles into storage and needed to do something next. I knew that I needed to go somewhere new.
      Alaska came to mind.
      People ask me now: Why Alaska? And my answer is: It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was a good idea, but that was the most I thought about it. I just wanted to go there, so I did.
      I was to arrive back from India in mid-April, spend two weeks in Laguna, and then head north on May Day.
      The next question was how to get to Alaska.
      I could, of course, fly, but that seemed like the easy way out. Flying is like jumping up and landing in a different place. There is no feel for the place, there is no understanding for the weather, which affects people in myriad of different ways.
      The only real way to travel to a new place is to get there over land. I guess a true traveler would walk, or take a horse. But I wouldn’t do that, so one of my two vehicles would have to do.
      I had the choice between my 1955 MG TF or my 1977 Yamaha XS750. I could put more stuff in the car, and it would be more comfortable and warmer. But the motorcycle had a simpler, romantic allure. Even the luggage I would use –saddlebags- brought out visions of horses on the open prairie.
      But the decision came down to one logical thought: the motorcycle was disposable. The car was worth a lot to me, both financially and emotionally. If something major were to break in the middle of nowhere, I would probably have to tow it to Anchorage, which might be a thousand miles away. The motorcycle I had bought for $450 and even though I loved it, if something major happened to it, I could dump it on the side of the road and continue on a different way.
      So I put the car in storage, sent two boxes of possessions to the post office in Anchorage, and made my Yamaha ready. I changed the oil, replaced the rubber fuel lines, bought backup throttle and clutch cables, put on new tires, and packed up my saddlebags and backpack.

Click here to read:
Road to Alaska: Section III

That Sensation

     I left San Francisco on May 3rd, 2001, heading north. A familiar feeling arose in my gut, a simple and powerful sensation. The feeling of movement, freedom. As the bridge opened up, and the tarmac sped past under the wheels of my motorcycle, I looked up –north- toward somewhere new.
     The first time I really remember this sensation I was traveling to Paris. It was my first year at University, therefore my first year away from home, and I was driving to Paris for the first time. Paris, the city of myth and love and beauty.
      The University of Kent at Canterbury, where I was studying, kicked everyone out of the dorms during the Christmas holidays. I was to be staying with my Grandparents in Devon, but before I traveled in that direction, I had to visit Paris.
      Canterbury sits next to the M2 motorway, which heads due south to the port of Dover, and the ferry over the English Channel.
      Early in the morning, I climbed into my horribly battered and unreliable ‘74 BMW 2002, left the University, made a right and another right, and climbed up the entrance ramp of the motorway. There was no traffic, so I kept my foot on the floor, and felt the speed in the middle of my back.
      The sensation of speed morphed into something else. A sensation of freedom, a sensation of movement, the passion of something new, and I could see Paris ahead of me, beyond the green English Countryside, beyond the white of the cliffs of Dover, beyond the blue of the English Channel, and finally beyond the French countryside.
      The sensation felt like a slowly expanding balloon in the middle of my gut. It grew and grew in my abdomen, and then slowly expanded, rose through my chest, filling my lungs and my heart, rising and growing, expanding until I could feel the tightness all through my body. Finally it exploded out my lips, not in a scream, but in laughter, full loud laughter, while my hands gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, and I sped down the motorway.
      Wiping the wetness from the edge of my eyes, the motorway ticked past like the flickering frames of an early movie. My mind was not thinking of words, but full of this sensation, this sensation of freedom, of movement, and that place over the horizon waiting for me.
      A big dumb grin stuck to my face.

     The sensation grew again as I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. The joy, the newness, the freedom. All those petty problems of life dissipating behind.
     The balloon expanded in my gut, filling my whole body, erupting with laughter. I wanted to fly, I wanted the motorcycle to launch itself over the people, over the columns of cars, so I twisted the throttle hard down and held on as the bridge ended and I climbed the hill, passing cars that were seemingly standing still.
     The exhaust boomed through the rainbow tunnel, and I launched myself out the other side. North to Alaska.

Click here to read:
North to Alaska: Section II