Lessons From the Road

Recently I took a little motorcycle trip. Alright, not that little, it was more than 3,000 miles and included seven National Parks and four National Monuments as well as countless other incredible sites (ever been on the Extraterrestrial Highway?). While I loved the incredible geology and cultural history at these places I also had lots of time to think. I distilled a few lessons for myself from this trip and thought I would share them.

Drink more water. This is just good life advice. I rode from California into Nevada by doing a 92 mile desert crossing that was all dirt roads and ATV trails, then rode across the entire state of Nevada into Southern Utah. I consumed more than a gallon of water every day and skipped everything else except a cup of coffee in the morning and a beer with dinner. All of us could probably do with a little more water and a little less “other” beverages.

Receive kindness. While coming down from the mountains into the desert in California I ran into some construction and was stopped with a long line of traffic while we waited for the pilot car to lead us through. It was over 100 degrees and I was in full riding gear, I soon drank all the water in my hydration vest. I didn’t want to take my gear off (I was sure that would be precisely when the pilot car would show up) and I did not want to dig out my other water bottles so I just waited and cooked.

The man in the truck behind me got out and offered me a water bottle he had obviously just pulled out of a cooler, it looked so good! I politely declined. What?! Growing up my family valued self-sufficiency over just about everything else, I’ve always found it difficult to accept help. My natural reaction was to decline the kind offer and I instantly regretted it. I made a promise right then to accept kindness from anyone the rest of the trip. There were numerous times during the rest of the trip that I received offers of kindness from folks, and I recognized it was not a one-way transaction, they felt good about helping someone out. Sometimes it was their “in” to ask about my trip, what was I doing and how was I doing it? It is not every day you see someone on an adventure bike loaded down with camping gear.

Listen to other people’s stories and be willing to share yours. People want to connect, we are social animals and want to know about others and be known. I did not think I was on any big adventure but a number of people expressed that they “…could never do anything like that and were so jealous!” People want to know about you and your story. Sometimes our stories help encourage people to take action on their own dreams and ambitions when they see us doing it. Be willing to share your story.

I also found that people wanted to share their stories with me. I met an older couple who write Nancy Drew-style mysteries set in National Parks and they were researching their next book, I met a family who had discovered a little-used BLM campground just outside Zion and I ended up in the site next to them because I had listened to their story. Sometimes there is a tangible benefit (free campsite near Zion) and sometimes you just get to hear an amazing story and appreciate watching someone relive a memory they love. Either way it’s a win.

Be grateful. This is kind of like “Drink more water”, it’s just good life advice. I am not going to even say what you get from this because I feel that if you’re doing it with an expectation it is not really gratefulness. I will simply report that a grateful attitude (regardless of what you are or are not receiving from someone) creates a different energy for you and around you that simply makes life better to live. As long as you draw breath there is something to be grateful for.

Always have a plan but be sure your plan is flexible. I started my trip with a plan, I had outlined the parks and monuments I wanted to see and a general route. However, things changed along the way and new information is presented. I had planned to go from Zion National Park to Moab, Utah and see the National Parks there. However, during my visit with the family I camped next to I found that I was not that far from Bryce Canyon National Park. My intention had been to head north but I ended up heading south to Bryce Canyon and had an absolutely incredible hike. I also had planned to pass up Capital Reef but ended up going and was astonished by the geology of it.

Our plans have a purpose, something they are trying to accomplish. Sometimes we focus so much on the steps in the plan that we lose sight of the overall reason for the plan in the first place. Keep the plan flexible and always keep the spirit of the plan on your mind.

Rest. On the day I made the almost 100 mile desert crossing I started at around 6:00 am. I spent more than five hours doing that crossing, it involved plenty of deep sand that had me picking up the bike, manhandling the bike and sometimes even dragging it to more solid ground. Once I hit blacktop I rode for an hour or so and stopped to eat. I was spent, utterly exhausted. However, it was only just after 1:00 in the afternoon! Way too early to stop for the day, right? Wrong, I got a hotel, drank a Gatorade and some water and slept for five hours (in the glorious AC). Then I got some dinner and went right back to bed. When I got back on the road early the next day I felt great.

You are going to rest sooner or later. When you do it sooner you get to set the parameters, when you do it later your body forces it whether it’s convenient or not. Also, the longer you put off rest the less effective you become. On a motorcycle that can mean the difference between avoiding that cow on the highway or not.

Always remember that while the places and activities can be awesome, it is the people that give them relevance and make them worthwhile. I believe it’s always about the people. As an introvert I appreciate periods of solitude but I still recognize that it’s the people we share things with that really give these events value. During my trip I shared events and places with my sons (they are 19, 25 and 27) and my partner. Even though they weren’t there physically I shared these experiences with them. Then there were the people I met along the way. We’d talk about these experiences and what they meant, how they fit into our world. That has an impact, at least to me. I took a picture of every National Park/Monument entry sign, sometimes people would ask me to take a picture of them with the sign. One woman asked me to take a picture of her and her husband with the sign. After I took the picture she explained that they were retracing her last vacation with her parents before they passed away. The last time she had stood in front of that sign was 20 years ago and she still has the first picture.

She will probably not remember me but I got to be a part of that moment, of that experience. I appreciate every person that shared something with me along the way even though many of them will not remember or even realize they did it. My hope is that there were people I positively impacted along the way too. I don’t need to know who, how many or how I impacted them, I just hope I did. Isn’t that the only real thing we can leave behind in this world? How we have impacted others? For better or worse we are leaving a legacy every day. You get to choose whether it is positive or negative with every word and action. Drink water, receive (and give) kindness, listen and share, have a flexible goal-focused plan, rest and remember it’s the people that make everything worthwhile.