Scooter in the Sticks

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

My Favorite Road Close to Home

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Vespa GTS scooter along Brush Valley RoadGateway Road

My favorite road begins one mile from my front door — Brush Valley Road.  Whenever I need to unwind with a short ride it’s generally my first choice. It’s a lightly traveled secondary road the winds through rural Pennsylvania; past horse farms and dairy farms, through villages and woodlots and all the time providing scenic views that help erase the noise of an especially chaotic day.

If I have little time the ride can loop home after just eight miles.  But it’s a gateway to longer ones.  Brush Valley continues on for forty miles until taking on the name of Buffalo Road.  And along the way there are a host of departure points for much longer rides.

Vespa GTS scooter in a winter wonderlandRoad for All Seasons

It’s a lovely road in all seasons.  The natural beauty of the landscape coupled with the seasonal effect make for some visually rich travel.  The road is well maintained and the drivers are generally well-behaved.

Vespa GTS scooter in fog along roadRoad for All Weather

As the road winds through the valley it is blessed from time to time with fog which can completely change the riding experience, almost to the degree that I sometimes don’t recognize where I am.  That’s a joy for a short ride in familiar territory.

Amish horse and buggy with Vespa GTS scooterOn Through Amish Country

Ten miles from home you’ll begin to see signs of the Amish communities in the valley.  Lines on the roads from the buggies.  Horse droppings.  The Amish farms.  Or even the horse and buggies themselves.  Added to the picturesque landscape makes the road one of the finest rides you’ll see in Pennsylvania.  And get the right weather and it’s magical.

Steve Williams with BMW F650 motorcycleOn to More Adventure

Brush Valley Road can be a jumping off point for a wide range of rides.  One of the most common rides I take is a 150 mile loop through three counties that traverses field, forest and mountain.  Here I was stopped along PA Route 44 as it crests Little Mountain.  I was riding a BMW F650 GS motorcycle.  One of my favorite motorcycles.  Plenty of power without being a lumbering mess.

Two Vespa GTS scooters in the mountains of central PennsylvaniaVespa in the Mountains

My friend Gordon and I rode our scooters on the same route and stopped in the same place to admire the view.  Some roads have those special places just screaming for a photography.

My favorite road provides a challenge to ride, exquisite scenery, and a chance to renew my riding spirit.  It just doesn’t get much better than that.

2017 Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge

This post is part of a month long writing prompt challenge conceived by Kathy at Toadmama.com.

Road View

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child sitting on a neighborhood streetLife on the Road

I remember Idaho Street and summers picking at tar strips in the concrete streets where I grew up.  Bicycle riding and baseball games took place there along with hopscotch and squirt gun fights.  Even before my second birthday I had found another world on the road.

Steve Williams looking at the roadRoad Study

Nearly sixty years later I still appreciate the road and the world which unfolds upon it.  Riding has brought me in close contact with the road —  looking closely at its physical properties as they relate to riding, and considering the metaphysical properties of riding itself.

I still like touching the road.

an empty roadWhere it Ends Nobody Knows

Round and round we go.  I love the road — on two wheels, in a car or on foot.  The road is a mystery of which I continue to attempt to unravel.  I took a road view as a kid and am still doing the same thing now.

The Best Things in Life are Free

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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.

Perpetual Journey

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“I tramp a perpetual journey.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

cup of tea at Saint's CafeIf I’m on a perpetual journey there’s always a cup of tea along the way.  My life is paved with simple pleasures.  As the road winds through field and forest the sounds, sights and smells spark joy and make the journey tolerable in foul weather and thrilling in good.  It’s true for riding a Vespa and in a metaphoric application to life in general.

Journeying into the new year has brought me through a new professional landscape as I puzzle through new work and responsibilities.  The trip has forced the Vespa scooter into a quiet nursing of electric on the little black wire to a Battery Tender Junior 12V Battery Charger.  No riding this week as part of the perpetual journey.

But all is not lost…

View through the window at Saint's Cafe in State College, PennsylvaniaA familiar path to Saint’s Cafe has reopened a photographic door to a fallow creative field, one in which I’ve labored to plant with a renewed interest in photography beyond producing images for Scooter in the Sticks.  It’s been a long time since I’ve exhibited a project, or anything for that matter, and I’ve begun contemplating an exhibit of words and images involving life on a Vespa — a version of this blog which would live in a physical space.

Planning and building an exhibit is no small task considering the time involved to conceptualize a collective message, envision a visual experience and invest in the printing and presentation necessary for installation of a body of work.  On the blog it’s simple and inexpensive.  Not so much in the physical world.  And aside from framing, one of the biggest challenges is the printmaking process.

Paul Ruby at Saint's Cafe in State College, PennsylvaniaA journey can be made easier with a companion.  As I begin exploring a photographic project my friend, photographer and rider Paul Ruby has provided support and inspiration to keep moving when the road becomes steep and rocky.  Watching his ongoing photographic work along with others has led me to purchase an Epson SureColor P800 Inkjet Printer — a magnificent printer that produces amazing inkjet prints of archival quality that are worthy of hanging on a wall for others to see.  With the capacity to use 17 inch wide rolls of paper I’ll be able to make some large prints.  I’ve resisted this road for a long time and now that I’m on it I can kick myself for avoiding it for so long.

Blame my fascination for the fumes of a chemical darkroom.

Steve Williams with a Vespa photograph at Saint's Cafe in State College, PennsylvaniaJourneys start with a single step.  So it is with the Epson printer — some online training to avoid bad habits and get my head around a process that will allow me to transition an idea of a photograph onto photographic paper.  I’ve been exploring a workflow process using small prints to confirm the limitations of the digital files and hone the craft of the printer — me.

Making images to post online is seductively easy.  Not so with ink on paper where you lack the dazzling electrons blasting from a screen.  Reflective images on paper are more challenging and require forethought on everything from size to type of illumination.  I’ve stored that expertise in a box somewhere in my head and am still sorting through the mess to find it.  And almost every print until now that I’ve exhibited in public has been black and white.

Color is a different beast.

That’s where my recent journeys have taken me.  I confess to an aching desire to ride along with rejection of single digit temperature rides as my body screams “no way!”.  The days ahead promise some rain and moderating temperatures so perhaps the Vespa will wake to the road.

I can’t go long without a ride.