“The Real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes”, This quote from Proust, of course, brings to mind one of the things I love about motorcycling. The complete sensory bombardment that takes place. Each ride is like riding for the first time, you notice things, feel the changes in temperature and the smell of the land. When my daughter was young and use to go on trips with me, I used to quiz her on gas and lunch stops on what had caught her eye, etc on the ride. I would like to think it helped her not only with her powers of observation but also her ability to describe. Driving a car is like being in a cocoon, protected from the environment around us, by steel, seats, crush zones and air bags, side curtain and all. On a bike you are completely out there and even with helmets and protective gear and gloves, vulnerable. As I well know. I try to ride defensively in traffic, and once on the open road, I try to ride with as little traffic as possible around me. I have also read that riding a motorcycle is a good way to free up your analytical mind. Need to decide something, take a bike ride. I am sure that riding a bicycle long distances is probably the same. I find my memory and ability to recall the past are much sharper during and after a ride.
I wanted to go on a ride this past Sunday, my first in over five weeks, and since my usual riding partners, were busy, I just went on my own I checked the usual suspects on the bike and the air pressure in the tires and mounted my Gps and Valentine One radar detector. I should have enough gas to get to Heber City. Valentine is the best radar detector money can buy, and besides Valentine was one of my grandfathers name. . For many years I have ridden with custom made ear plugs that have speakers in them. Its only recently that I have taken to riding with an I pod and I just have a simple shuffle, I set it and forget it and what comes on comes on, the last thing I want to be doing is pressing any more buttons than I have to. If the detector goes off, it partially mutes the sound from the I pod. I had pretty much decided where I wanted to go. I have all ready done Wolf Creek and Monticristo and am saving Fairview to Huntington for later in the summer or early fall. I headed south on I-15 to just past the point of the Mountain and headed East towards Alpine and the Alpine Loop. There is usually a fair amount of traffic on this road, especially around the parking lot for the cave, so wicking it up, is not a very viable option. Most of the corners are fairly tight and somewhat blind and with that knowledge, that beyond any corner, there maybe a big SVU or truck pulling a pop up trailer and taking most of the road, all you can really do is pay very close attention to what is going on. It is a beautiful area and the backside of Mount Timpanogos is majestic and earns the mantra along with Midway and the Heber Valley of Utah's Switzerland. I camped out in this area as a boy scout in the 1960's and remember something just off the main road called 'Mother Nature's Ice Box', since this is going to be a fairly short ride, I didn't bring any water with me, and I find this cold spring and the water was a cold as my memory remembered. Years ago, before I really knew better, I once rode almost eight hundred miles and only stopped, other than for gas, for two cokes, a snickers and a hostess turnover. Needless to say, today, I would have water with me and if I bought anything on the road, it would be probably a muffin of some type and possibly a Hershey bar. There is an adage in motorcycling about those that ride to eat and those that eat to ride. I eat to ride, which means food is never really that important to me. I grew up in a house where food was important and my sisters and daughter are all very good and accomplished cooks. They would shutter at the thought that if modern science came up with a way where you could get all your nourishment through a pill of some kind, I would probably do it, except of course for any kind of berry pie and or ice cream.
Once I was on top and just deciding where I truly was headed, my fuel light clicked on and although thanks to the GPS I knew I had enough fuel to get to Heber City the long way, through Provo Canyon up around Deer Creek, I instead turned towards Cascade Springs. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot at Cascade, so I opted not to stop. That meant to get to Midway, I would have to ride on a dirt road for five or six miles, but it was dry and has been graded at sometime in the last few years and I had no problem. ,Each time I ride to the Heber Valley I am shocked by the growth, where do all these people work, to be able to afford these massive homes. After gassing up in Midway, I headed towards Highway 40 and its junction with I-80 and all the exits between there and the ride down Parleys canyon. By the time I arrived home the GPS showed 118 miles since I had set it earlier in the morning.
