Moving too fast

7. Moving too fast

I accidentally looked at the calendar and realized that somehow the summer is flying by. My response to this dilemma has been to move. I drove from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington to Idaho to spend three great days with great friends, Bill and Jan, but in route I again drove too far in one day. For me 420 miles pulling, up and over the Cascades, is too much when I leave after lunch and get in after dark.

I met Bill 15 years ago at a sky diving boogie in Montana, and we’ve been close friends since. Bill and Jan live in an enormous motorhome (45 feet = enormous) and pull a 22 foot cargo trailer. I would not want to drive something that long, but Bill handles it with ease and actually backs the cargo trailer with the motorhome. Me, on the other hand, well, I feel smug when I successfully back my truck and mere 29 foot trailer into a spot. Bill and Jan don’t have a car; their two trikes ride in the big cargo trailer that Jan jazzed up with some of her art work. Bill rides a triked Goldwing (motorcycle with two wheels on the rear); Jan rides a Spyker (two wheels in the front, one on the rear). They use the trikes for everything – shopping for groceries, tools, clothes, etc. You’d be amazed at the amount of storage space they have. And then because their home is on wheels, they don’t stay where it’s too hot, cold, wet, or windy for the trikes. Obviously, I had to ride both trikes. I was surprised — I liked the Goldwing a lot (I’ve harbored a prejudice against them, as the old folks’ toy that isn’t really a bike. In fact, it handled well and was fun. Another prejudice bites the dust.) I was surprised at the way the Spyder handled; it too was fun but would take longer for me to get use to the feel of the front end, the automatic transmission, and only one brake. Jan was seriously injured on her motorcycle several years ago; her response to that was to buy a bike identical to the one that had been totaled (and almost totaled her) and to begin riding again the moment the doctor cleared her. But after facing down that dragon for many miles and months, Jan and Bill decided to go with trikes. And I have to admit, it’s pretty cool not having to worry about tipping over.

On our morning walks, Jan and I enjoyed watching a herd of goats that had been hired to clean up a surrounding meadow. The goats came with two very focused Border Collies (who insured the goats did not get close to the highway or anything else the collies considered off limits), two labs (whose job it was to keep people from getting close to the goats), and a herder who meandered with the flock.

And because of that time-flying thing, I left after only three days. Then I did the too-many-miles thing, again and again. I drove across what was left of Idaho, then Montana and Wyoming, to finally sit down (briefly) just north of Denver. When I’m traveling from point A to point B, I often will spend the night in the parking lot of a WalMart. WalMart includes RV’ers in their marketing strategy; we are welcomed (at most) to park on the outer edges, they provide 24-hour security and then sell groceries and all sorts of stuff to the gypsies. I was one of 14 RV’s in the Missoula, MT, WalMart parking lot. And then I did it again and again – pulling too many miles in too few days. No one ever said I use common sense on a daily basis. Especially when I begin to feel that summer is moving too fast.

So after a few days visiting special friends in Colorado, I’ll go down to New Mexico before heading back to Florida.