Month: June 2011

Just a quick note: I’m still here. I’ve just been too busy riding and visiting old friends and making new ones to write much of late. But I have several posts rattling around in my head, so there will be more coming in the near future.

So. I’m in Europe now. I guess this thing is really happening.

I left Toronto in the wee hours of Thursday morning, several hours later than anticipated. This is due to the fact that some unnamed vehicle ran into the wing of our designated plane. Of course we weren’t informed of this until all the passengers were on board and settled in for departure. After unloading and waiting for all the checked bags (and motorcycles!) to be moved to the new plane, which was luckily present and available, we finally departed. Then, there was much sleep to be had. I woke on the approach to Frankfurt, had an unsatisfying airline breakfast, and then it was time to land.

Whereupon I discovered that my I’d arrived in Germany on a national day. This meant I was unable to get insurance, and therefore my motorcycle stayed in storage for a day. Luckily, my friends Paul and Silke were happy to put me up for the night, so I headed to their home. They were making the most of the day off by hosting a garden party – there were about 15 people present when I arrived, evenly split between adults and young kids. It was a great way to relieve the stress of the flight change and disappointment of not being able to extract my bike.

Paul had taken the next day off, and generously offered to offer taxi and translation services to assist me with the tasks of insurance, customs and import clearance. His help was very much needed and most appreciated!

After regaining custody, I headed off to visit Sanmi, another dear friend whom I hadn’t seen in far too long. She lives on a shared communal-style property in the woods about an hour’s ride away, through rolling pastoral hills and forests with lovely narrow winding roads. The place is so wonderful and peaceful that even though she had weekend plans away from home, I ended up staying another day, just to soak up the calm.

This morning, after breakfast and conversation with Sanmi’s sister Florence (who also lives on the property), I headed off with one goal in mind: Drink Belgian beer, in Belgium, destination Liege. Having arranged a place to stay for a couple nights through couchsurfing.org, I plotted a course and set off. I have to say, my first border crossing in the EU was rather anticlimactic: I saw a sign stating ‘Belgie 1000m’. And then I noticed that the road signs had changed. Ah, the benefits of EU integration!

Speaking of signs, it has taken me a few days of riding to start to make sense of them. For one thing, plotting a route on backroads is much easier – at least in Germany – by paying attention to the towns you want to go through rather than the road numbers. Not all signs are numbered, nor are all roads – at least not in a fashion obvious to me after multiple hours of investigation. And in Belgium I was initially confused by the snowflake-looking signs, until I realized they indicated upcoming roundabouts – which are both awesome and quite prevalent in both DE and BE.

I’m expecting my host to arrive home soon – she met me in town with a key to her place on her way to work! – and so more when it comes to me.

Tonight I make the Big Leap, after six weeks crossing the United States and two days in Canada. Tomorrow I’ll wake up on the approach to Frankfurt, and the start of Phase Two.

I’ve spent the last week working my way up the East Coast, with lots of visits along the way (seeing friends along my route has been a big theme of the trip so far, and will hopefully continue while I’m in Europe).

I left my parents’ house last Monday and spent the afternoon and evening visiting friends in Chapel Hill / Carrboro. The next day I rode from Chapel Hill north through the Piedmont to Danville, then west towards the Appalachians. I rode into a brief but torrential rain squall as I approached a little town, where I saw a road sign proclaiming ‘STUART EXIT LEFT 1 MILE’. With directions like that, how could I refuse? So I stopped in Stuart (named after JEB Stuart, famed Confederate Army General during the Civil War) to dry off and caffeinate, then proceeded west along VA-8, a beautiful twisty-windy climb up into and through the mountains to Radford, VA, where I spent the night in the home of old friends from Seattle who I hadn’t seen in close to ten years.

The next day took me back across the mountains to the east – including a brief, lovely stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway – and into Maryland for the night. From there, a long heavy traffic push to NYC with an unfortunate detour into Philadelphia – and an additional hour or two of traffic – as a result of one missed turn.

I spent three nights in NYC, catching up with my friends there. I went to the theater (twice), ate wonderful food, geeked out on motorcycles and photography, and reconnected with folks I hadn’t seen in too long. All in all, a wonderful way to spend my last weekend in the US for a long time.

After a late start out of NYC on Sunday, I rode across northern NJ (where I saw a black bear along the side of the road!) and PA (through lots of the beautiful Susquehanna River valley), then north to Horseheads, NY for the night. Shortly after I settled in, I was lucky to witness one of the most impressive displays of lightning I’ve seen in years as a severe thunderstorm rolled through the region for an hour or so. The next morning I headed north along the west shore of Seneca Lake, one of the larger Finger Lakes, and then onto the highway for Toronto, where I dropped off my motorcycle at the airport for shipping. After being inseparable from my bike for the last six weeks, it feels very strange to be without it, despite it being for only a few days.

Once shipping was arranged, I cabbed into Toronto to catch up with another old friend I know through the Burning Man community, who I haven’t managed to see for three years despite several efforts along the way on both our parts. She’s taken me on a mostly food-focused walking tour of the extended area around where she lives, which has been delightful.

And so I find myself on the cusp of Phase Two. As I was riding towards Canada on Monday I felt for the first time a sense of nervousness, a trepidation about this grand crazy adventure I’ve laid out, as if somehow the first border crossing – or perhaps the act of delivering my bike for shipping – somehow made my plans more vital than they had been to that point. It didn’t last long, thankfully, but there was certainly a momentary glimpse. I don’t have time or need for trepidation at this point – I’m sure the time will come when it becomes an appropriate response, but today is not that day.