The Journey Begins

"To Travel hopefully, is a better thing than to arrive" That quote from Robert Louis Stevenson is on my Garmin GPS, which I see every time it powers on. It very readily defines my feelings about traveling. It is the journey that I put most of the emphasis on. Whether I am traveling on my BMW motorcycle or in a car, I notice the surroundings, and since I have traveled all over the west, both as a child and even more as an adult, I also bring the capacity of memory to bear on these outings. I am laid up this summer after some rotator cuff surgery and will not be able to ride a motorcycle for a couple of months, This blog, which I have been thinking about for a long time, will be a substitute for being able to hit the open road. Two years ago, after my last leg fixing operation, stemming from a motorcycle accident almost three years ago, I was not supposed to ride for several months, I cheated after about a month, and on one 300 mile day trip, by myself, I found myself, after having stopped for water and a restroom break, having to ask someone at the service station in Huntington, Utah, to help me get my bike off the side stand, because I didn't have the strength in my left leg. I asked if he would help an old man and explained that I wasn't supposed to be riding yet, but that I had to get out on the road! He laughed, and helped me and I was soon starting up highway 31 from Huntington to Fairview. This year, I am going to wait, I hope, until my surgeon, a BMW rider, tells me it is okay to ride again.

What I propose or suppose this blog is mainly going to be about, is the thoughts, feelings and observations I have gleaned on my travels over the highways and byways of the American West during my life. The sensory bombardment I feel while I am traveling is sometimes very palpable, and I will suddenly be an a stretch of road going somewhere, and remember being on the same road as a child with the whole family and remember what was going on at that point in time, It has made me realize that time really just is the space between events!

I will end this first post with another quote of Robert Louis Stevenson, "For My part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."

Happy Trails!