“Are you traveling to work on that motorcycle a complete stranger, now asks me, while I began fueling up. Away from the gas pump island pergolas, a steady icy cold drizzling rain, is now slowly falling.”
NO, I reply.
“Then why are you traveling?”
– Just for traveling sakes, I say.
Today is Friday, February 12, 2021.
As the rain kept slowly falling, and I waited for Kevin and Mel to show, I thought about how our perception shapes all of our reality. That stranger earlier, saw my glass now as half empty. Whereas, my reality is that I’m still warm and dry; and soon I’ll be riding my motorcycle with other like minded friends.
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day…….. (Johnny Nash song, I can see clearly now)
Our perceptions of what we see profoundly impacts how we view and experience our daily life. The weather temperatures are now in the 50’s, to the east, I begin to see a break in the rain clouds.
We rode through Joshua Tree National park. Two of the must see places in the park are skull rock and Keyes view. The most popular view is key’s point where you lookout over the Coachella valley below, the San Andreas, fault, the Salton Sea, the San Jacinto mountains, Santa Rosa, just to name a few.
The weather now dropped another five degrees, to 50 degrees, no haze whatsoever, you could easily see as far as your eyesight and the curvature of the earth allow you to see.
We ate outstanding Mexican home cooked food outside the Joshua Tree park in the town of 29 Palms. What was comical was, we sat outside on the restaurant’s deck. The wind continues to blow steadily.
Scientists believe the main reason that birds face the same way on a wire is due to the direction of the wind. We now all faced the same way, with the wind to our backs; any other direction would ruffle our feathers.
Is my lens now clear? Do I like what I see? For me, that’s all that matters. And that my friends is how our overnight motorcycle ride went.
The winds subsided at Laughlin, Nevada, our overnight location. The winds also subsided while we walked and visited Oatman, Arizona, the ghost town with wild burros strolling about the town.
Approximately nine hours later the five of us, Kevin, Mel, Al, Christian and your truly, are on the Nevada side of the Colorado river, vicinity of Laughlin, Nevada.
The town sprang up in the 1940s, as a place to house construction workers building Davis Dam (which formed Lake Mohave) and the miners in the area.
We’re thinking of coming back to Oatman with our own motorcycle version of a race bed. I think everyone volunteered Coach to ride it down the towns Main Street.
Once the dam was finished, in the 60’s, a Vegas casino owner saved the town from closing down; that guy was Don Laughlin.
But, while we began making our way home around the California border, Highways 62 to towards the 177, towards the 10 freeway; because it’s a desert, the Mojave desert winds now loaded up with particulate matter, from coarse sand down to the tiniest of dirt specks, none of which is very well anchored to the ground. Those winds now swirling around us, engulfing us at times. The National Weather Service defines “breezy” and “windy” differently, winds 15 to 25 mph are considered “breezy” and above 25 mph are considered “windy.” So, what are the winds now blowing that are from 30-40 mph called? We don’t know, so we just kept right on riding. At one point, we rode past a group of Harley riders now pulled over. Each group waved their arms fearlessly at the other, in unity and defiance of the winds. Still, we continued on. At times, we looked rather askewed, to one another, at the various degrees of motorcycle lean angles. It all depends at the gusts and the winds that now totally engulf us. I was having a great time riding, for I knew, that this riding day, were we to survive, would not too soon, repeat itself.
We came, we saw, we ate well, we made new memories, and shared new experiences, and now we’re even adept at riding in Mojave winds too.
Race the winds, ride the rain, chase the sunsets, sometimes, it takes a like minded person to understand.
Trawlercat
2/14/2021
Trawlercat Personal Blog Chronicles 