Peto

Thank you blythe. I'm glad you enjoyed reading this short story.

It was good to be back on the bike. It had been way too long. I was heading into the Wawayanda State Park on an all but forgotten road. It was 27 degrees and the lakes were frozen over. The sun peered through a thick white veil - a sure sign of impending snow. We were all alone. It might as well have been the surface of the moon. Just me and my VFR. She’s a good bike, sometimes even a good friend. I have had so much on my mind lately. A lot of unhealthy negative stuff. Life can sure be a bitch at times. It builds up on me, you know? Sometimes it happens really slowly and its tough to notice as the weeds begin to take root in my mind. After a while I am stressed and not sleeping well. The future starts to have a bleak outlook. All I see is stairs to climb, battles to fight, composure and integrity to maintain, and another responsibility looms just beyond the next. I glanced out over the frozen water and at the bare mountains beyond. It's pretty incredible. These huge jutting rocks weathered to mere symbols of their former selves. The countless trees and their leafless branches all sparkled with frost. A large brown bird, maybe a falcon, swooped down and glided alongside me for a few moments before disappearing up an out of view. There was ice in places on the road but was easily avoided by our nible stride. I could see deep into the surrounding forest as most of the vegetation was long since gone. There was an old cave or a mine that had been partially sealed shut by fallen stone and debris. I wondered for a minute about it. There were no trails leading to or from its black mouth. If it had ever been used it was a long time ago. I could smell a burning wood scent from a distant fireplace. I enjoyed the smell. Someone somewhere was keeping warm. I tried to revisit my mind, my stale thoughts, and a strange thing happened. I just smiled inside my dark tinted shield. This is it. This is all I need. I am happy and completely content right now. Why am I struggling so? Why beat myself up over my mistakes? Why demand so much of myself and my future? Why is there no compromise? I am thirty years old and doing quite well. It’s likely that I have many more years ahead. Life is just beginning. Each day is the start of the rest of your life. We have a massive, wonderful world here to explore and enjoy. I simply could not feel the negativeness, that emptiness in my gut, that worry in my mind; I looked, it just wasn’t there. I breathed deeply and watched my warm breath swirl in the wind. A strange thing indeed. For those that know me, know I come prepared. I was wearing my Under Armour cold gear leggings and long sleeve shirt. I had on my BMW comfortemp pants and a pair of merino wool socks. I even connected arm chaps to my Widder lectric vest. For my neck and lower face I wore an EDZ multi-tube which sits from the collar bone to the middle of my nose just below the eyes. For the extremities, I had on a pair of Held Steve gloves, BMW Contour Plus boots, and my Arai quantum II. Finally, I was in a full BMW Santiago riding suit with the liners installed and all vents tightly closed. My heated grips were on all day as was the Widder setup. I wasn't as prepared as I thought. And, unfortunately, I was more than a little cold. My toes and my fingers were frozen after a few hours at recreational speeds. By the time I got into the upper elevations of High Point State Park, I was glad I had downshifted my plans for this weekend’s ride. Note to self: heated glove liners & heated socks are probably a good idea if its going to be below freezing in the middle of the afternoon. My original plan was, in the words of VFRD, ambitious. I wanted to run out to the mountains in central and western Pennsylvania for the weekend. About a 1000 miles door to door. Snow was expected for both days. High winds on Sunday. I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince my more realistic and sensible VFRD brethren to join me on one of my motorcycle adventures. I offered free beer, a free room, my witty humor, even tried a guilt trip. No one budged. I don’t blame them, as I have always been a passionate dreamer. Sometimes, I am actually brave enough to step up and differentiate myself from most. Sadly, not this weekend. About 3 o’clock I rolled into Newton, NJ. It’s a pretty cool little town, arguably a small city. The town square was decorated really well for the holiday’s, but all I was interested in was the Hampton Diner on the outskirts of town. New Jersey has these diners everywhere. Places you can get anything you can think of to eat at any hour of the day or night. The menu is the size of a dictionary and most times you are not restricted to it. Be careful though, as some diners are hardly better than the grease trucks that serve most construction sites. This one, however, is a gem. It affords an easily accessible location (i.e. near good motorcycle roads) and a great atmosphere. The food and service are consistently good. Most importantly, the place was heated and warm. I must have been the sight - a sort of frozen space ninja - as the entire full house looked up, no, turned around and looked up, at me and my pink face. I was actually quite disappointed when I didn’t get a round of applause. The waitress took one look at me and promptly turned around. She returned to my table after a minute with a cup of hot water for me to warm my hands on. She was a sweet lady. My feet were warmed to the point that they had begun to hurt before I stepped back outside. I only had my tinted faceshield with me and sunset and snow were looming. There was an hour and a half of light left and I was still well over an hour from home and had one stop to make along the way. I revved her up good and turned onto the main drag. Learned me a lesson. When it is this cold your tires cool down extremely quickly. She went out pretty wide and wobbled a bit, thankfully, nothing more. As the light faded I found myself riding along some nice sets of roads. I was in a nice heavily forested lake community with cabin type houses along the banks. I saw a flannel wearing guy chopping wood here, a bundled up couple decorating an evergreen there, a frozen body of water on my left, a swirl of smoke from a chimney on my right. I love when the water is very close to the road and its surface elevation is near that of the road. It always invokes a neat feeling as I ride on by. I though to myself, “I like this area. I would like to live here.” Anyway, I came to a stop at a T-intersection. Surprising even me, guess what was 100 feet to my left? With a bit of luck, the house that I will own soon. Right on the water, and surrounded by woods and very decent roads to ride. The place is vacant right now, a pre-foreclosure sale, I just had to go stand on the deck and gaze at my would-be view for a bit. I could sure spend some time here. Maybe cook a steak on the grill after work… 300 miles and I didn’t even hear a bike - let alone see one. Actually, that’s not quite true. I did see a blow up Santa sitting on a blow up chopper decorating someone’s front lawn. I passed one police car, a young guy, and I joked to myself that he must have thought, “don’t wanna mess with that dude.” Back to the bright lights. 15 minutes on the interstate and I was tucking my friend away behind my apartment building. The sun had gone down and there were flurries in the air. Gotta keep the moments alive inside. SJP