Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

Destination Ohio

by 18 Comments

James D. Williams hunting snakesHunting Snakes and other Memories of a Father

My father has been gone almost 14 years from the world.  In my mind and heart he never left.  I see him in the mirror, hear him in my words, and sense him in the places I travel. I believe he and I are quite different.  His background and circumstance put him on a different path and despite the gulf between our interests and experience, there is a common ground.  Perhaps it’s something programmed in our DNA that allowed a closeness despite the differences, my early departure from home to seek my fortune, or the gulfs between connection.

I’ve not visited since his funeral.  Memories and thoughts of days past surface at this time of year.  And I want to go to Ohio.

There have been more than a few plans to ride the Vespa to Ohio to visit his grave, say hello, and talk about all the things I never learned about the man.  Like snake hunting. The image of him with his foot on a boulder was etched in my mind at an early age as I loved to sit with my mother and page through the family photo albums.  She knew as little about the snake hunting as I did though in her case by choice.  And I never got around to asking dad about it.

I neglected to ask about a lot of things.

Destination Ohio — it’s where I want to go.  Probably won’t find this trip outlined in any tourist promotion brochure on on the “Ohio. Find it Here” website.

***This post is part of a blogging challenge…***

2017 Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge

A Challenge of Commitment, Ingenuity and Storytelling

Toadmama has once again unveiled her challenge to bloggers to post every day in February on a specific topic. They’re listed on a post titled Brave, Bold, Blogger Challenge.  I participated last year and found the exercise instructive and creatively emancipating from the regular tyranny of blogging.  If you have a blog and need a sudden, rapid injection of writing mojo, try it out yourself…

The Best Things in Life are Free

by 11 Comments

The best things in life are free goes the old song. Sleep, laughter, love, friends and good memories — examples of the things money can’t buy.

Vespa GTS scooter on winding road near Hyner ViewGood Memories

Of all my rides and Vespa meanderings, the picture of the scooter on a winding road near Hyner View State Park, not far from Renovo, Pennsylvania, on my way home from a camping trip, shines in my memory.  What surprises me now is how much the planning and anticipation stayed with me — as if it were a riding event all it’s own.

I’ve been turning another event over in my head, a short trip of five and a half hundred miles, to visit my father, departed now for some years.  And like the camping trip, the mental planning and imagining has proved just as exciting.

Perhaps you find satisfaction in the same way?

Vespa GTS scooter display on the road at nightImagining the Ride

I imagine myself on the road before dawn, easing into the dark to extend the riding day to allow for choices of coincidence encountered on the road.  I know how many miles I need to travel on a direct route — 250 miles to my destination.  Miles and miles of winding, at least until I hit the flat grids of Ohio, roads.  But between here and there I’ll be presented with endless opportunities to turn left or right away from the plan.  Depending on the choices I make I could easily ride 600 miles or more before returning home.

Lying in bed with a map before falling asleep fires the nighttime imagination.

Imagination is always assaulted by the demands of reality — there are things I must do which always seem to try and generate a list.  The riding checklist.

tools used for Vespa maintenanceThe Riding Checklist

There’s a lot of things to do before departing on a trip.  The less attractive tasks spin around maintenance, something with which I have a love/hate relationship.  Oil and filter change, spark plug change, hub oil change, air filter change, tire change.  I usually look forward to change.  Hopefully I’ll get the tools out on a lovely day.

I don’t make checklists.  At least not for riding.  Ideas and needs float around in my head and I try and attend to them.  My resistance to organization in regard to riding is a conscious stand against regimentation and the robbery of fun.  Just as I enjoy being lost there is a dark pleasure in finding myself scrambling because I forgot something.  As long as it’s not my wallet I’m in good shape.

The mental checklist:

  • Choice of routes — what general path will I follow?  Are there areas I haven’t been to?
  • Time constraints — how many daylight hours will I have to ride?
  • Stops along the way — any places I want to see or visit?
  • Photography — how complicated am I going to make this.  Please God, remove video from my mind.
  • Clothes
  • Tools
  • Gear

The choice of routes consumes most of my thinking but when I actually get on the road I often follow a remarkably general, unplanned route toward my destination.  There’s a fine measure of serendipity to that sort of travel.

portrait James D. Williams, born in Wellsburg, West VirginaJames D. Williams

My father has been drawing me toward this trip.  I hear his voice from time to time, that familiar “hey boy” when I would answer the phone when he called.  Our talks were usually focused on details of a project lest the conversations lag and end.  This time he wants to talk more. In a few weeks it will be 13 years since he died.  It’s time to pay a visit to his resting place.

I’m seldom superstitious but open to the unknown — a lesson I credit my wife Kim for teaching me.  There are mysteries in life worth exploring, considering.  She’s shown me magic and the shimmering of life. But that’s something for another post.

It’s time for a trip, I’m looking forward to the event and the memories it will nurture.  Once the snow and cold are gone for a few days.

I try to remember, the best things in life are free.

Focus on the Journey

by 30 Comments

Vespa GTS scooter and Mt. Nittany in PennsylvaniaDestination or Journey?

During my ride to work I was thinking about destinations, places I might like to visit on the Vespa.  Aside from coffee shops and quiet places to write in my journal, I was coming up empty.  There are no dreams of riding to the top of Pike’s Peak, Daytona Beach, the Tail of the Dragon or any of the other places that riders like to visit.

Perhaps it’s because I like to ride but hate arriving.

This morning was chilly with the temperature at 38F when I departed.  The remaining snow and ice was almost gone leaving anything not paved or heavily graveled a soft, muddy mess.  Strolling around for a few minutes while photographing the Vespa scooter with Mount Nittany I sensed a little of why I am not destination focused.  I love the experience of travel and the exploration of the space I’m in, the continual revelation of things to look at.  I don’t want to rush to get somewhere and not take time to investigate everything on the way.  A destination focus hampers getting to know a place by demanding schedules and expectations.

I want to wander as a child.

family photo on livingroom couch in 1956Christmas 1956

I ache when I look at this picture of myself with my mother and father.  They’re just kids.  And now they’re gone.  All chances to know them better have disappeared. The further I travel away from them, the more I realize how much they have given me — she a curiosity with the world, and he the even temperament to accept whatever I discover.

I’m a long way from home.

Vespa GTS scooter on gravel roadSudden Golden Silence

Sunlight on a winter day warms the spirit. And the ground.  An attempt to cross a pasture was thwarted by the scooter instantly bogging down in the mud that lurked beneath the grass.  Without knobby tires the scooter was going nowhere in that mess. Still, it’s a quiet time on the way to work.  A few minutes to appreciate the air I’m breathing, the world I’m beholding.

One of the things I love about a ride are the little discoveries — mud I can’t traverse, the sound of boots squishing through soggy turf, the dramatic sky framing a photo.  There’s no destination or place (save getting to work) that is driving me.

Mother and son on the living room couchLessons on Travel

I learned from my mother how to travel.  I learned from my wife how to savor the trip.

About a year after this photograph was taken I made my first trip to Germany — a vague recollection of a long flight on a Pan Am Clipper followed by mountains.  My mother loved the Alps.  She was an explorer and I learned to appreciate everything from reading a map to how to navigate strange places.  Always on the go, it seemed we never were sure how a day trip would unfold.  It’s much the same on the Vespa — in motion and few plans on where to be and when.

From Kim, I’ve learned to be somewhere, stop, and absorb the place without agenda or itinerary.  Our stays in Ogunquit, Maine at the Beachmere Inn, weeks in one place, with nothing to do but walk out the door and see what the world was doing.  It’s like that with the Vespa too — get on the scooter and absorb what the road reveals.  It’s out there, just waiting.

Who cares where they’re going.

mud on the rear wheel of a Vespa GTS scooterRough Roads

The Vespa has taken a beating and has the earthly patina usually associated with BMW adventure bikes.  It’s an indication of the road less traveled — at least for most scooters.  If I was focused on destinations instead of “wonder where this trail lead…” I’d miss the opportunity to dirty up the scooter and a chance to explore what’s right in front of me.

father and son on living room couchDreams of My Father

Dad and his boy.  I don’t recall him ever referring to me by any name other than “Boy”.  He’s been gone now for 10 years and I can still hear his voice.

I have to confess a there is a place I want to ride — to the cemetery where he’s buried.  I’ve not been there since he died. It’s time to visit and say hello. I had a trip planned in November but some things came up and had to cancel.

kid with wooden go kartBuilding Dreams

Home after a second trip to Germany.  During or after each trip dad had something special prepared for me.  I was craving potato chips during the first trip so he shipped a big bag by airmail delivery which had to cost a fortune.  I still love potato chips though circumstance has changed how much or how often I can enjoy them.

A wooden push car built on the chassis of a little kid’s fire engine was the surprise in 1959.  The pack of kids living on our street pushed that thing around all over the neighborhood. Three years later I arrived home to find that he built me a clubhouse in the backyard.

Not everyone has good memories of their father for lots of reasons.  I’m grateful for mine but regret we didn’t talk more.  I never asked him the big questions.  It’s too late now.

Vespa GTS scooter on gravel roadLittle Journeys

Every ride is a journey if only to the grocery store for milk, bread and eggs.  I ride over the same roads and see the same places but somehow there’s always new things to see.  During a video interview I did while in graduate school with photographer Stephen Shore, he shared the challenge of photographing the landscape when he moved to Montana.  Shore told me it took him several years there before he could see anything.

I understand now what he meant.  And why a race to a destination for a quick photo or two and then on to the next doesn’t leave much room to experience a place.

So I’ll continue my destination-less riding and see where I end up.