Independence Day Ride

The holiday found me out on the road early exercising a bit of personal freedom on the scooter. Riding alone allows me space to think about things like independence and freedom. Without going into a long reflection I’ll just say I’m grateful for the freedom afforded to me through the diligence, work and blood of the past 231 years.

Flags lined the main road near my home. The red, white and blue leaped from the grey morning. For the rest of the day I saw flags draped from houses, painted on barns, stuck to bumpers of trucks and generally bursting forth across the landscape.

I had no destination in mind and struggled a bit to find the path the scooter (me) wanted to travel. Eventually I headed south towards Spruce Creek stopping several times to consider if it was time to put on my raingear. Each time the expected downpour did not come and I continued on. The road ran along the creek and old Pennsylvania Railroad tracks (now Norfolk Southern I think) and I was delighted to see a freight train move through the woods in a gathering mist that had me thinking “Brigadoon”. Eventually I came upon the limestone quarry owned by New Enterprise Lime. I’ve always been fascinated by a good ravage of landscape and this was no different. I could spend a lot of time wandering around a mine…

Riding over the hill and away from the quarry into the open farmlands the rain finally came. I stopped to put on my raingear and make a picture. Five miles later I realized I must have dropped my lens cap. Back I ride and there it is laying in the middle of the road. Making photographs with gloves on has thrown off my ritual of lens cap care. The entire feel of the process is off and I guess I will have to develop a new mode of working.

I rode across the valley and began up the next mountain until the paved road ran out and became a little track with the fabled “No Winter Maintenance” sign. To the experienced traveler that sign means “You’re on your own, we don’t do nothing with this road”. As the road became muddier and I realized where it was headed I decided to turn back and go another way. The rain stopped allowing me to make another photograph without dousing the camera and also ditch the raingear.

Probably the most magical part of the ride was along a road I had never been on through the considerable forestland holdings of the American Eagle Paper Mill. I assume they will eventually chop everything down for pulpwood but this day the light, the mist, and the forest were just amazing. I must have stopped a dozen times just to marvel and the atmosphere.

Something weird must have happened in that forest because I got absolutely lost. I usually always have a good sense of direction but this time I had no idea where I was and was heading the opposite direction I thought I was when I finally saw a sign with something vaguely familiar.

I was about 45 miles from home when the rain started to come down hard.

I stopped one last time to photograph a group of cows who gathered to watch me cloak myself in bright yellow. From there the run home was wet but comfortable. I stayed dry and had a leisurely ride to complete my personal celebration of Independence Day.