September 3...
"It's knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk, that makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch..."--Glenn Campbell
Home. The bike is emptied and it now sits silently in the garage, its first time indoors in a week. Bags dumped out on the bedroom floor, laundry sorted. My ears still buzzing in the quiet of my living room, echoing the wind and dull cadence of the exhaust. The mixture of emotions and exhaustion. Tired and glad to be home and a bit of depression that it is done.
The hurricane that we'd expected to escort us the better part of the way from Milwaukee to Springfield never really materialized to the extent that was forecasted. Other than some gusts of wind and about 30 miles of moderate rain, the day was uneventful. The Labor Day weekend in Springfield has always been one of the major cornerstone events in my motorcycling life as far back as I can remember. This is the home of the Springfield Mile, the greatest even in motorcycle dirt track racing, and in all of motorsports if you ask me. Growing up, I was 'that' kid. I didn't have the Walter Payton or Ryne Sandberg posters adorning my walls, like most of my childhood friends, but rather, my heroes in the world of sport were the larger than life characters that risked life and limb battling it out in the black clay corners of the Mile, and other tracks across the US. Names like Ricky Graham, Jay Springsteen, and Steve Moorehead. I spent scores of Labor Day Sundays in the stands cheering for the likes of Randy Goss, Bubba Shobert, and the greatest dirt tracker of all time, Scott Parker. I shed tears at the loss of greats like Ted Boody and Davey Camlin. Gladiators who fearlessly gave it all they had as they locked the throttles of their XR's wide open down the straights, drafting tightly into the corners and then dropping that left foot into the dirt and slinging it sideways. They did it not for the money, but for the love of the sport that is so intertwined in the history of motorcycling.
Getting to Springfield to find out that the rain that Isaac had delivered in previous days was more than the track could shed was a disappointment. Race postponed for two weeks. Damn. I can count on one hand the number of Miles that I've missed since I was a kid. Oh well.
The change of plans did offer me an opportunity that is rare for me lately. Angie and I quickly shifted our plans and cut out by ourselves and hit the road. Now, let me explain. Part of what I do as a motorcycle dealer is facilitate opportunities for my customers to get out and enjoy their bikes. That was the sole purpose of this trip to Milwaukee to begin with, but I jumped at the chance to ride with no one else but her. One bike, our schedule, our speed.
"A gypsy wind is blowing warm tonight. The sky is starlit and the time is right...."-- Bob Seger
Together we rode south. It was a game we played as we dodged the circular spinning skies of the dying hurricane as it coughed its final breaths. A dance. A chess match with the clouds. Speed up here, slow down there. Change the route, stay southbound, now turn east as soon as we can. Every now and then the rain would catch us and we'd tuck in and hammer through it, bike wet, smiles wide. More often than not though, we were able to avoid the weather. The road was ours.
We made our way to Carterville Illinois and spent the night with our friends Shad and Dana Zimbro. Shad is a fellow Harley dealer and also my 'brother'.
Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another"...
Thank you Shad and Dana for a great night. You are excellent hosts and the precious few times we all get to be together are always wonderful. Thank you for the laughs and the tears and the different sets of eyes and ears for each of us to bounce our thoughts off of.
As we made our way home, I took the chance at riding old Hwy 51 through southern Illinois. Old 51 is a dinosaur, a quiet, tree-lined ghost town all of its own as it snakes through the valleys of the Cache river before it dumps off in Cairo. You see, if you follow 51 on a map, you'll be on I-57 from Anna all the way to Cairo, as someone with more pull than me felt that would be a more efficient way of moving cars from one place or another. One interstate with two names. To find and follow old 51, you almost have to imagine where the road used to go in order to find it. I marvelled at the old foundations that dot the landscape as we passed down the old blacktop. What were these places? Old filling stations now used as storage sheds. Abandoned motels, with their broken neon signs still standing. Cafes who'd coffee is long since gone cold. "Tired" little towns like Mounds Illinois, whom most people will never see, as they roar down I-57, scanning the passing billboards, none of which making any mention of the wonderful nearly extinct world that used to exist on the old two-lane that served its purpose so well. The soul of America lives on two-laned highways. Find them.
And then the road ended at my driveway. Showered, and fed and ready to get back to the world tomorrow. Thank you to the new friends I made on this journey and to the others that I got to know even better. Thanks to my family and bride for joining my and allowing me to be a part of their journey as well. And thanks be to God for getting me home safely and for another trip to catalog away in my files for my memory to peruse and relive after I've taken my last ride.
"I believe I'm gonna count my blessings..."--Ray Wylie Hubbard
And thanks to my iPod for serving up a damn good soundtrack.
Ride Safe and with purpose.
Scott
