Dan's Travel Adventures

Helmets, built to protect us from the unthinkable, create an inner sanctum where the only reasonable task is thinking. I have been thinking lately about layers. If your riding buddies are busy with their own thoughts, or just enjoying the view, there can be hours of just wind and motor. In these hours, understanding reveals itself in layers.

Mitch has enjoyed his bike since he bought it new, 6 years ago. If you ask him (and even if you don’t) he’ll tell you how much he loves his bike, and what a great purchase it has turned out to be. I have been witness to his happiness while riding, and it is genuine. Recently, he had a breakthrough in a skill he was working on (“Sublime” post), Afterward, he said his improvement led to a better understanding of the bike’s capabilities, and while he hadn’t thought it possible, meant he loved his bike even more. Understanding, and layers.

I did a long road trip 20 years ago. At 40, I was floundering a bit, and thought I might find answers on the road or in my helmet. Perhaps I just wanted an adventure to distract me from what I wasn’t getting right in life. 30 days and 10,000 miles later, there were some immediate takeaways – the vastness of our country, coming face to face with the people who elected the President I didn’t vote for, and the amazing foresight demonstrated by the people who preserved the majority of our natural wonders into a national park, national forest and national monument system.

It wasn’t until much later, however, that I realized I had come to terms with what had been haunting me before the trip. I was more at peace with myself after that trip, and in turn was more ready for the things that were important in life – I fell in love with my wife more deeply, changed careers, got happier.

Years later, the trip revealed more to me. I came to understand that my riding buddy, Benjamin, and I would be forever close. Geography and time could separate us, but our connection was inseverable. The understanding that trip delivered arrived in layers.

20 years later, I am on roads I rode then but I am experiencing things differently. A few mornings back, we rode Going to the Sun Road, in Glacier National Park. It’s my third, but by far the most emotional time on this road. Going to the Sun is one of the most beautiful rides in all the US. You travel along the side of the mountains, but the whole range surrounds you. You could interpret their presence as foreboding, isolating. There is no horizon. On this cold overcast morning, however, the emotion is an embrace, a welcoming. I turn off my helmet comms, and I am alone in my experience with the land. The road winds, revealing new looks at the same peaks. We rise, ever higher. I am more connected, more present this time and I understand Glacier a bit deeper than before. As we reach Logan Pass, I put the comms back on and rejoin the world. Turning back to the road, I say aloud, mostly for myself; “we cannot let this be the last time we see these mountains.” I know there is more to understand here, more layers.