Journey Destination
“The journey is the destination“
“Slow down, stop and smell the roses“
Yep – I know all that … but
sometimes the destination is the journey.
When I head cross-country, I’m usually running a tight schedule. Just because I don’t fly doesn’t mean I’m lollygaggling along. I’m finding my ability to drive straight through 30+ hours has diminished somewhat so I need to stop occasionally and take a nap.
Road trips are less of an adventure these days, and more of an endurance test.
But I don’t really want to stop and find a motel and pay upwards of $100 or more for essentially a short nap.
So I find a nice exit ramp in the middle of nowhere, pull off, slip between the truckers on the on ramps, and do whatever needs to be done.
Then – at first light – do what needs to be done next.
And this is probably what I’m doing as you read this …
If I was to do a long distance it would be like you are doing.
I’ve heard numerous horror stories about motel-hotels. And the cost. If you can find one for less than $100 just keep on going.
The backseat in my Blazer folds down and I’ve tested it. If I lay on an angle it can work. But that would also mean rearranging any cargo I was carrying.
I need a bigger boat!
No I don’t!
I don’t for see going anywhere long distance in the near future.
Look at this kee kee, isn’t it amazing?
Pull up the old episodes of ‘Then Came Bronson’ …… covered some ground but did not show much of where he slept…..good title song …. “Goin’ down that Long Lonesome Highway …..”
Good show.
Where you headed?
I don’t know. Wherever I end up, I guess.
Man I wish I was you.
” You don’t work, you don’t eat.”
Never seen it but heard of it, looked it up. Online video is bleak, but I found what appears to be the first (pilot) episode that is an hour and a half long. I just watched the first 5 mins and I think it shows how he got the Harley he rides.
https://ok.ru/video/2001322969811
That’s it.
A long time ago I was able to buy DVDs of the show; I have no idea where they are now.
It was basically Route 66, but with one guy, and he rode a Sportster.
I’m surprised Amazon doesn’t sell the DVD’s.
This was one of those TV shows that I looked forward to every week.
Ex hubby/friend came home from Nam in 1963 (was sent in early). He had been stationed for two years in Japan going in and out of Nam, working on airplanes that had “not been shot up from the jungle while sitting on the tarmac!” “No Siree that was not happening in 1961-1963! He arrived home at LAX with a very nice Honda motorcycle.OMG! we thought it was a big deal (300, which he upped to 350 with talent and a little skill set). I spent the next two years on the back of that bike. Loved every minute of it!
Fifty one years later my lifetime hubby and I were renting a little put put out on a very distant island in the Pacific. Big (really big) polynesian guy was showing DH how to ride this thing: here’s the key, turn the key. Here’s the headlight, etc.
DH climbed on and motioned me to get on the back. MY gosh MUSCLE MEMORY. . . I immediately leaned over and pulled down the foot pegs for the backseat rider, lifted the kickstand for him and instructed him to “get off the slope”. “Get off the slope PLEASE”. 🙂 I settled in pretty well–as well as a girl can be on the back of a bike with a rider who has never ridden a bike before. . . .When we got back to the hotel he said, “gee you make it so easy to steer!” Funny, about that weight in the back thingy . . . Every fibre of my body knew what to do without hesitation. (Well someone had to ) 🙂
Good job Anne! Hardly anybody knows how to be a passenger on a motorcycle. (Lean * with me *, dammit!)
I love the sensation of being one part of a whole (bike, driver, and me!)
oh and the wind and the road . . .
There weren’t many of us doing it back in the day, and the feeling of being free was palpable.
In 1971 I was stationed in Monterey California, where I bought a Honda 750 brand new. It was just about the fastest thing on the road.
I rode it pretty much all over California including up into San Francisco. across the Golden Gate Bridge, down Lombard Steet, and followed the same path that the Bronson movie depicted in what would become the opener for each episode. I rode down Highway One and across that beautiful bridge just north of Big Sur. Down to Los Angeles many times, to Yosemite Valley in the winter with snow and ice on the roads. Then on Hwy 10 to Texas. After that, north to Washington, And then east to Maryland where I rode up and down the east coast, from South Carolina to New York, across the border into Canada, and eventually across the country again, back to Washington State. Then down to Marysville CA . By the time the Air Force released me in 1975, I had put more than 85,000 miles on that magnificent motorcycle. Zero to 60 in the blink of an eye, got a ticket in California going 125 miles an hour while coasting past a cop car in the left lane at 3:00 AM (I know: dumb. but the exuberance of youth cannot be denied); the CHP officer (a veteran) wrote me up for 85 in a 70 (cost me the princely sum of $25, about 20% of my monthly pay ), told me to stay where I was for 30 minutes, and in a deadly serious voice told me to not catch up to him. Those were different times.
Neither of my sons had an interest in restoring my old friend, so I sold her for pennies on the dollar a few years ago. I sure hope she eventually found a respectful home.
OMG! 750–the best of everything! You were so lucky to have the opportunity to do those road at that time!
We (hubby #1) were riding down on the coast highway and stopped at the only light for miles (hwy 39 intersection). Nothing but strawberry fields on the left as far as the eye could see and Pacific Ocean on the right. Guy pulled up next to us and yelled something–couldn’t quite understand what he was saying for the noise, but he had tears streaming down his face. That was the first news we had of the JFK assasination.
There is a place where you ride over the mountains going down into the dessert. We did that one night. No one out there just the dark and the stars. Hubby hollered “get down”, looked at the speedometer–he had that thing buried at 110. No way that would ever have hit that speed if it wasn’t going downhill!
We lived in Laguna and being close to the coast we had a lot of information about what was arriving in Long Beach in terms of Japanes trucks and motorcycles, but then one day our little bike store was full of the buzz that a load of Triumphs had arrived! It was a mad scramble to see who was going to get one! We didn’t have the money, but I do remember the times!
I had a BSA 650 before my Honda. Coal versus diamond.
Anne, you paint a lovely picture. I am grinning to myself ear to ear, remembering the times.
Good! I remember the light and the sense of being someplace in time and knowing right then and there that it was always going to be special–even though we were right there.
P.S. The only time I ever fell off that bike: I was sitting on the bike outside of the parts shop while Hubby went in to get something. I got so involved at looking at something going on on the other side of the parking lot I turned around, and me and the bike fell over! Boy, was I embarrassed because I wasn’t strong enough to get out from under it!
What a time to be young. right? Looking back, it seems like we could feel it- We knew we were living in the best of times – but didn’t really realize it until much later. I often tell my friends – those who are still living – that we lived in the golden age of music. My God! the range and the talent. There was a time when .gov didn’t stick its rancid nose into every corner of your business.
And Anne, you made me smile again. You must have been a tiny thing, getting trapped under a 350.
Jeez, I don’t know how I got the numbers wrong but let me correct it here.
The odometer said 85K when I watched it being driven away in the back of a stranger’s pickup.
It said 45K when I exited Beale’s side gate for the last time.
Hey Ghost if you’re interested you can buy the whole series right here for the low low sum of $30. Add it to your vast collection It’s worth every penny.
https://stores.tvdvdsshow.com/then-came-bronson-dvd-free-shipping/
then Came Bronson music – Search Good start with sidebar clips of the other music …..
then Came Bronson music – Search I’ve got the LP vinyl