I grew up begging my dad to take me for a spin on the back of his old Harley. Warm Michigan summer nights were filled with a loud rumbling engine and me screaming in my dad's ear to "go faster." It was only fitting that I ended up marrying a guy who always dreamed of owning a Harley...Shortly after Eric and I started dating, he made an offer on a 1994 Heritage Softail, and have been coming up with excuses to go somewhere "for a ride" ever since (minus the months from about November - March of course). It wasn't until this past weekend, however, that we finally took a real bona-fide "bike trip." We stayed over night in Ludinton, and spent most of a Saturday morning wandering around a little town called Pentwater. From there we casually meandered our way south, by way of back roads--some of which took us through large sunflower fields and others only a couple hundred feet from Lake Michigan. The scenery was amazing, the company (Eric's parents were with us on their bike) was awesome, and I didn't think about anything but that very single moment in time.
There is something all together freeing about being on a motorcycle, in the middle of nowhere, with no schedule. And, when you see other people on bikes, you give the biker wave, or as I like to call it the "Harley Hi." It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what political party you identify with, or what your religion is--if you pass another motorcycle you wave. Not a big old, "hi how are ya" wave though. It is a low, suddle two to three fingered hand nod. So as I sat on the back of our old bike, with nothing else to think about, I pondered what it was about that fine piece of machinery that brought us all together. It intrigued me that we have a hard time saying hi to people we know in our everyday lives, but go out of our way to wave to people we don't know and most likely never will, going 60 miles an hour. Perhaps a life lesson waiting to be learned...
Stay tuned for our first almost cross country trip (hopefully to the East Coast and back)... With all that free time to myself, I am sure I will come up with something else to write about....
