On a stop just after sunrise I realized how often during a ride I just want to look. Not for a photograph or acknowledgement of a specific sight but just to absorb the world. Thinking about it I also realize how often some other activity got me to that place of looking — ride on the scooter, a journey to make photographs, or even a walk with the dogs. Far less often is going out by myself for no other reason than to look. I wonder if looking is nothing more than a pleasant side effect of other activities.
Paul Ruby and I were on our way to breakfast when I stopped to make another photograph. Neither of us had any idea where we would end up eating but were confident that something would reveal itself if we were patient. During this stop I remembered sitting in the woods with my father, perhaps 45 years ago, while we were hunting squirrels. It was a fine fall morning with the woods glowing orange and yellow from the sun filtering through the leaves. He told me he loved walking in the woods this time of year. I recall thinking he never went into the woods except during hunting season and then only a few times.
Riding, photography, hunting — are these the excuses we make just so we can enjoy the world?
Roads lure me into secret journeys even when I know where they lead. For a moment, especially when a new day is coming to life, they promise an unknown adventure just waiting for me to discover. Those moments keep me coming back for more. Keep me standing in the world and watching for nothing and for everything.
Breakfast was still somewhere in the future when a paved road gave way to an abandoned one and potholes and decaying pavement from years of neglect became the challenge of the moment. This stretch of road lies between the Loganton exit on Interstate 80 and Watsontown to the east. I never knew this road existed and suspect it was abandoned when the interstate highway was opened. Twenty miles of slowly devolving asphalt and gravel with no cell service or traffic. A single overhead electric wire ran the length and appeared to be in use though I never saw any reason for it.
My father only walked or embarked on a journey if there was a good reason to do so. Standing around and admiring a view was not a good reason. I’m trying to remember the last time I walked out the door and down the road without a reason or purpose. Have I forgotten the joy of childhood — doing nothing?
As a kid I could have spent all morning playing in and around a creek like this. As an adult I have things to do and places to go. Not even enough time to pull off my boots and socks and soak my feet in what I’m certain was a frigid water.
I do remember doing nothing. The last time Kim and I were in Maine and I sat along the coast in the morning watching the sunrise over the ocean and suddenly being aware the sun was up and it was getting hot, my mind wandered and led me into some sort of trance. On a good ride something similar can happen.
Derrick’s Restaurant in Dewart, Pennsylvania was our breakfast destination — a recommendation from a fellow some miles down the road at a gas station. Sixty-eight miles from home we pulled into the parking lot to take our chances on a small local eatery. Finding a nicely restored 1965(?) vintage Ford Falcon with a 302 V8 engine was an omen that we were at some sort of eclectic place of power.
Derrick’s was one of the cozier, pleasant and odd places I’ve had breakfast. It was a mix of Christian themes and Budweiser art. Paul commented on the menu prices that they were the lowest costs he had ever seen.
We ate well.
After breakfast the sun had risen high enough into the sky to shred any vestige of magic from light and other illusions. It was just hot and bright. It did not deter us from adventuring on and discovering a small bakery in Muncy, Pennsylvania selling cowboy cookies or a variety of Amish buggies on the road. But as Paul knows I’m not much interested in photographing during the bright days of summer. So the ride continued another hundred miles before returning home to a lawnmower and excited dogs.
And I also carried home the thought that the excuses we make to get out into the world should be unnecessary. Maybe it’s time to just walk out the door with nothing to do and nowhere to be — just like I did when I was nine years old.
That was freedom and I didn’t even know it.
