bamabikeguy
Active Member
sorry i havent been posting but your posts r so long i havent read thru them all yet.
When you spend 60 hours in the saddle of a motorized bike, the majority of the time on two lane roads, away from the major cities and the traffic, you are lucky you can remember a tenth of "what you have seen, smelled and heard".
There were so many "little things" that didn't get photographed, like flocks of wild turkeys, or the 10-20 conversations per day, (mostly humorous) with friendly folks giving the lost rider directions....that's what makes touring on a motorized bicycle unique.
I passed hundreds of motorcycles, and you would think the 2 wheeled experience is the same, but its not.
Nor is it like pedaling a regular bike, I passed 5 of the spandex crowd on a piece of road north of Greensville SC toward Tigerville, and while I was enjoying views of the mountains, they had heads down struggling to climb the hills. They missed seeing the hawks and the herd of Belted Galloway cattle grazing down on a creek bottom.
What you experience passing through unknown territory is only a taste, every intersection would give you 3 alternative views. And you can stop on a moments notice, take a few minutes to soak it in before taking off again, but there is no way to tell an audience about all that, you just have to try it yourself.
I always claim that I know our 3-4 county area better than all the bus drivers and mailmen combined, they have routes memorized while I cut through all of them at various times of the year.
I watch a lot of PBS
There is a French husband and wife in a show called "Africa Trek", who spent 3 years walking, but have their experiences reduced to 12 half-hour episodes. They averaged 40 kilometers (25 miles) per day, had to lay up for malaria, civil wars, drank out of mud puddles, but the entire journey we can only see in 6 hours of color television.
BUT, experienced MB riders could envision such a trek on their 2 wheeled wonders, calculate how many days they could do the trip, see the same man eating lions as the two hikers, take a picture and speed away. We do meet the various people, just like they do, but can race through a small town if it doesn't have much to offer, or isn't even mentioned on your cr**py map, because it's 40 miles from where you thought you were.
http://www.weta.org/africatrek/
More than travel adventure, this is a cultural exploration of the continent.
Africa Trek is the incredible journey of husband and wife Alex and Sonia Poussin. For three years the French couple walked 8,700 miles across Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Sea of Galilee. During their journey, which they personally filmed, they endured fatigue, extreme thirst, blazing sun, prowling hyenas, malaria and more.
But what they discovered along the way was an incredibly generous place rich with heart, humor and life. The Poussins experienced a piece of the world few of us have ever seen, where time and culture is so different from our own.
There is another series running on repeats, that I wish I had seen BEFORE I left:
APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People
Narrated by Academy Award Winner Sissy Spacek
A Film Series by Jamie Ross and Ross Spears
APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People is the first environmental history series ever made. An all-star cast, including Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist E.O. Wilson and best-selling novelist Barbara Kingsolver, explores the intersection of natural history and human history in one of America's grandest treasures.
http://appalachiafilm.org/
That is how I solved the salamander mystery, after I caught one of the episodes up at Bill's, then saw repeats of all 4 shows back home.
It is the story of the black bear and the salamander, of the Iroquois and the Cherokee, of Revolutionary War heroes and Civil War atrocities, of brutal industrial logging and furious labor battles. The extraction of natural resources has pushed Appalachia to the brink, but the region's diversity, ingenuity and strength of spirit endure.
My great great great great great grandfather Isaac was mentioned (not by name, just "two survivors") in the Daniel Boone part. When episode 4 started, they started naming the names of mountains, my ears perked up when "Mount Glassy" with a near identical photo as mine, flashed on the screen.
Another uncanny thing happens
For years, you will here the names of places you passed through and got to see up close. Springfield Colorado gets hit by a blizzard, or a 5 carat diamond is discovered in Arkansas, or the Okefenokee Park is on fire, or Enterprise High School gets wiped out by a tornado.
By being so close to the pavement, riding on the shoulder, at moderate speeds, taking an hour to get to the next town, the names of those places get "imprinted" into your brain.
So during that "Appalachia..." series, or a Civil War history, or a news report, the moment you hear a familiar area, you experience the story in a whole different way, "Hey, I was there....."
I hope a lot of MBfolks try these 1,000 mile adventures
Or even 2-3 day 500 mile jaunts in circuits around the homeplace. You sleep better under the stars, you can get way away from the rat race just by taking a side road or hiking/canoeing or para-gliding as a secondary adventure.
If it only costs you $10 a day to get there, you can splurge on something else along the way. And since it takes you days to get out of your own familiar area, the anticipation to final arrival makes it a bit sweeter.
I guarantee it feels different than simply loading up the car and seeing the same old cookie cutter interstate system, with the same Waffle Houses and fast food joints on every off ramp.
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