Motorcycle Trip - Day 6: There and Back Again -- The Journey Home

Day 6:  Tuesday, September 3.

Oh who will come and go with me?

I am on my journey home.

I’m bound fair Canaan’s land to see,

I am on my journey home.

-- Traditional Appalachian Hymn

Waking in Cumberland, Maryland on Day 6 was different.  The Tail of the Dragon, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Skyline Drive -- all were in our rear view mirror.  Ahead was only one objective -- home.  

Weather reports showed there was heavy morning fog around Morgantown, WV.  My riding companion Steve Winters and I loaded up, then decided to take a liesurly breakfast at Bob Evans to give the fog time to clear.
 
One last cup of coffee, then we headed out.  Ahead of us was 460 miles and home.

When riding, I don't relish Interstate travel.  I don't thing any rider does.  The pavement stretches out in long straight lines with uninteresting bends.  All the while you contend with the buffeting from wind off heavy truck traffic and drivers distracted to inattention by the radio, and cell phones, and simply the miles rolling by in the comforting cocoon of a modern car.  

But riding through the interstate in western Maryland, West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania is different.  It is as beautiful a stretch of Interstate riding as exists in the country. The road unwinds in curves that lay gently across the hills, mountains, and valleys, opening up grand vistas of natural beauty.  

As we headed toward Morgantown, the clouds hung heavy and gray, resting close to the mountain tops.  The coolness of the day swept past us.  As we headed north out of Morgantown and into Pennsylvania, the clouds dissipated and the sky turned a luminous blue.

That morning, riding with Steve in the lead, it was pure joy to be on a motorcycle.

South of Washington, PA we followed the commands of Steve's GPS, and cut off on S.R. 221.  The two-lane blacktop rolled and twisted through picturesque Pennsylvania countryside.  The passing landscape was dotted with well-kept century-old homes, Norman Rockwell-like farms and small towns from an America long past.  

We picked up I-70 just east of the West Virginia border.  We rode the short 12 miles through West Virginia, bypassing the famed Wheeling Tunnel for the less dramatic but safer route around the town.  At about 1 p.m we crossed the Ohio River, shining in the sun as it had six days earlier when we crossed the river at Madison, IN rolling into Kentucky, the entire trip still in front of us. 

Ohio. I-70. What lay ahead was a 220-mile stretch of mostly flat straight-line riding at 75 mph. The ride was no longer about fun and adventure.  It was about getting there.  About getting home.

Near Zanesville we stopped at a Denny's Diner for lunch.  After six days of being together on the road, it was our last meal together. 

We finished eating, topping off the meal by splitting a celebratory forbidden peanut butter milkshake.  As the waitress cleared the table, Steve got serious.  

Steve Winters on the Skyline Drive

He thanked me for taking the trip with him, knowing I had last minute family matters that pulled on me to cancel.  Steve talked about how when he was a boy, his family traveled to the Smokies to camp.  It was then he formed his dream of traveling the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Later he added traveling by motorcycle.   It had been his dream for more than 40 years, maybe more than 50.

But now at age 68, Steve knew the realities.  "I'll never take this trip again," he said to me.

I asked if the trip lived up to his dream.  Steve gave that infectious smile with his whole face.  He didn't hesitate.   "It was better than I ever imagined."

With that, we got back on our bikes and we were off through the flat tedium of Ohio.  Two hours later we were, as the song says, back home again in Indiana.

At the U.S. 35 exit in Richmond, we made our final stop.  We chatted for a few minutes about exchanging photos and GoPro videos from the trip.  We made plans to get together for dinner, which we did the following weekend.   We reflected for a couple of minutes, but not long.  The sun was setting.  It was time to get home.  

We shook hands firmly with the true affection of two men who had shared something very special.  Then we fired up the engines and headed off into the coolness of the approaching evening, heading our separate directions.

Less than an hour later, I was home.  The journey was done.  1,763 miles.  Nine states.  628 photos.  Fog, rain, heat, and one bear.  And memories.  So many memories.

None of us know what the future holds.  Steve fulfilled his 40-year dream, but less than three weeks later a motorcycle crash would take his life.  He was unaware that pancreatic cancer had already ravaged his body, though statements Steve made to me, his wife and his friends seemed to hint at an awareness that he did not have long with us.  The cancer would have taken him within months had the accident not intervened.  Somehow, I think Steve would have preferred the way it happened.

As for me, I have no crystal ball.  I don't know where the future will take me -- how far or for how long.  But I know it will be on some twisting, winding back road, a camera in my saddlebag and a notebook in my pocket, the compass in my head pointing north.  

It will be on two wheels.  

I will miss having Steve riding there with me.