A Green Dodge Dakota, Retrieving my Silverwing, Thinking about life

The guy who helped me tie down the bike asked me about my insurance. he said that he looked at my bike when it came in and he didn't think that the accident caused my brakes to lock up when I described what had happened. It starts to sink in that I could have died because some punk didn't actually fix the brakes like I thought.

I try not to think about it on the ride home.

Anyway, a couple of weeks later, (by the way, did I mention that my computer and my video camera are working well?), I am out riding the Kawasaki as I can't stand to frickin stay home so I am cruising and cruising and cruising around the town as I didn't want to go too far, but couldn't stay home. I turn down a road to head over to Yale, and then I find a green Dodge Dakota sitting by the side of the road with a for sale sign on it. Did I mention that I thought about a price, also?

I go, no, not really. A truck that is what I am looking for in the style I want. It's a cab and a half, forest green, bed liner, runs well, shifts well, brakes are good, wtf? You have got to be kidding me. Maybe I should buy the truck and go get the bike. Most people don't like to travel as much as I do. I love it. Absolutely love to travel.

I decide to buy the truck. I am scared to drive a vehicle all that way that I don't really know. That was part of the problem with the Wing. But I grab the keys, climb in and head off to pick up the bike. I was worried about how it was going to be loaded up, but figured that I could always call a wrecker to hoist it up. I did know that I couldn't help load it and still couldn't climb up in the bed to tie it down very many times.

The trip down gave me a lot of time to think it over. The first thing that I did was to go to the storage area and sit on the bike. Wow, did it feel good to be sitting on it. Wasn't rideable, but I was sitting on it. I wheel it out of the storage room, gather up all my luggage onto a cart and take a deep breath. I had it back. That was important to me.

Sitting outside the storage area, I started talking to guys and there were a couple of bikers who worked there. One even had a ramp in storage there. They loaded my bike into my truck and actually listened to the way that I wanted it to be tied down. The tailgate wouldn't go up so I double-checked that I wasn't going to lose it, and took off. I couldn't go back the way that I went when I had the accident, so I headed across on I-10 and headed up I-75. It was still early in the day when I left Jacksonville.

I was tired because of the stress, so I stopped early. There were four bikers who came in to the hotel later after me and I took the time to talk to them. I ate lunch in the local dive. It reminded me of Nebraska, where the only sit-down restaurant was in the gas station. The food was good, but I didn't really want to go back there for breakfast either. I thought about making it over to two-wheels m/c resort to try out my camping equipment, but didn't think I would be able to sleep on the sleeping pad yet.

I'm sitting back tonight, thinking this stuff through, wondering where I am going and what I am going to do about that damn dream to do a perimeter tour this year. I need to do it. I need to do it for me, for who I am, for who I want to be. Cause if I don't, I won't be who I want to be next year.

So, maybe I need to start planning things out once again. I had hoped to go camping with J.Rock this month, but it's not going to happen. so in a way, I feel like I wasted another month. I'm free the 10th or 12th of September for three weeks, I could do the Northern Section, come back for a couple of days, then go back and finish the rest. I need a calendar, a map and a hitch for my trailer.

Marty