The rain started Friday afternoon and continued a slow, soft and steady beat for the rest of the day. It rained heavier and all day on Saturday. Sunday morning opened with fog and still heavier rain. My "Plan A" trip to Ohio was off. "Plan B" didn’t work out either, again because of weather. Housebound, I had to face the ugliness of incomplete work. So I settled in for the weekend, read some newspapers, listened to CNN, switched to BookTV when CNN began repeating its stories. And, in-between all that, I managed to get some real work done.
Sunday night, the rain slowed and eventually stopped altogether. Even with the ground wet and some areas reporting as much as 10 inches of water, I couldn’t stand it any longer--I had to get out. I geared up and went for a short ride. I passed by the Chicago River, it looked swollen and angry as it whirled toward the east, angry perhaps that its natural flow was being influenced by the city opening the floodgates to push some of the river’s overflow into Lake Michigan. It reminded me of something novelist Toni Morrison wrote about floods and memory.
“You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”
Now, millions are without electrical power. One man (there are many others) had recently finished remodeling his basement, which now holds about four feet of water. I am grateful this isn’t Haiti or Galveston, TX.
As I turned from Wacker Drive onto Michigan Avenue, I could feel a slight slide of the rear tire, which I had anticipated by the wet street. I slowly straightened up the bike as I eased on a little more throttle. The ride was short but just what I needed to air out my head. I opened my visor to smell the wet air and the fish as I road across the bridge over the river. Michigan Avenue is beautiful any time of the day. But its quiet beauty at night, when all the Magnificent Mile strollers have thinned out, is unmatched. It is too late in the season to be summer but too early to accept that fall is really here. Yet, its scent is hard to ignore.While riding, thoughts of riding far, far away filled my head and I smiled at the thought that in a few weeks I’ll be heading south for the first time alone on two wheels. The South is a place I go when I have a reason to and I’ve only had reason about five times in my life. Friends are the reason that beckon me now. I am heading to Knoxville, TN then onto Durham, NC. In addition, I will attend the first annual Eastern BMW F800 riders rally in Buchanan, VA. As I prepare for the mental part of the ride, I thought I’d share some of my favorite travel quotes.
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller
“It is not down in any map; true places never are. Herman Melville”
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” Henry Miller
“The journey, not the arrival matters.” T.S. Eliot
“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” Moslih Eddin Saadi
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” St. Augustine
“When you are traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” William Least Heat Moon
“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” G.K. Chesterton
“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless…it goes an equal distance into the world within.” Lillian Smith
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain
May the roads be kind to you...
