Getting Ready

Dereka shamed me into it. My friend and fellow Friendship Sampler Quilter, Dereka Smith, is riding her bicycle (as in, no clutch, no throttle) from San Diego to St. Augustine, camping along the way. Dereka, sweetie, you have moxie to spare. When a guild member posted her blog url derekasblog-dereka.blogspot.com, I realized that I’ve sadly neglected my own blogging responsibilities, and should get back into the habit before we go to Africa.

David and I leave in just under two weeks on our third Ayres Adventure, Call of the Wild ayresadventures.com/Africa_CallOfTheWild, where we’ll ride BMW motorcycles through South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, with a possible short jaunt into Zambia to see Victoria Falls. We’ve been assured our trip will include lots of wildlife, and at least one spa. What camping will be involved is promised to include luxury tents with ensuite bathrooms. If not, one smiling tour leader will have a very cranky grammie on his hands!

As I continue to struggle with competence and confidence on the bike, I’ve been working with Mark Brown of MotoMark1 motomark1.com. Since mid-January, Mark has made bi-monthly trips to Greensboro to work with me one-on-one, and he and I both see real progress.

Mark was a professional motorcycle driver (he scorns the word, “rider”) for many years with the North Carolina State Police, and has trained Marines, adventure riders, beginners and everyone along the motorcycle continuum. He has a rare gift: the talent to teach, as well as the talent to ride. We have one more lesson next week, then it’s off to Africa!

In the mean time, I’m riding nearly every day here in Greensboro, and spending my Maine days compiling lists and piles of stuff for the trip. This being our third Ayres Adventure, we have a much better idea what to expect. My last stabbing happened Friday, a yellow fever shot allegedly good for ten years. I’ve had hepatitis A and B, tetanus and typhoid shots, giving me more pincushion experience than I normally have in the sewing room, and malaria pills are on the dresser ready to go.

Plus I’ve been reading books on Africa, watching National Geographic pieces arriving daily in red Netflix envelopes and listening to my No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency audio books with a new attentiveness.

LL Bean has made their first quarter earnings on my purchases of insect-repellant clothing. The molded earplugs we ordered at the IMS Charlotte show last month have yet to arrive, despite the salesman’s promise of their being here within a week. If they don’t make it, we’ll take the Shoei helmets instead of the Schuberth, which are far too noisy to ride all day without better hearing protection than what we have. I also scored an awesome, orange, vented Olympia riding jacket at the show for less than half price. I’ve test driven it several times here, and it will do nicely.

Are we ready? But for the actual packing, I believe we are, physically anyway. In my stomach though, it isn’t quite real, not yet.

Daisies and Lupines

When we built our cottage on the Cape, David wanted a paved driveway in a loop to practice motorcycle turns. In the middle of the loop was left a single tree and a pile of dirt. Being the dedicated non-gardener that I am, I threw a bag of Vermont wildflower seeds in there and called it good.

Much to my surprise and delight, the following spring brought the daisies and lupines pictured above. I don’t remember ever seeing them together before, and their exuberant purple and white made me laugh. Every June, they return with more and more enthusiasm.

Growing up in Maine, both of these flowers were part of my childhood. One year when I was 6 or 7 years old, I wandered off one day to explore the woods and fields behind our house in Hampden. I was alone (perfectly normal for children in the 60s in Maine), and poking along one of my favorite paths came out of the trees into a field entirely covered in daisies. I remember being overcome with joy, taking in their triumphant march down to the river. The following year, I went back when the daisies showed their happy faces around our house, but the field had been plowed under and planted with hay, and my disappointment was as deep as had been my delight the previous spring.

Lupines are like magic blue and pink firecrackers poking into the sky. Picking them is useless; they don’t last in water. They flourish where they are, and to enjoy them we have to move ourselves to their homes, not bring them into ours.

No one has planted hay in our circular driveway, so now I get to see the daisies and lupines together every spring. They are like old and trusted friends.

My first ever solo motorcycle trip to Vermont felt a little bit like exploring the woods when I was young. It was a little scary, and exhilarating. Not all of it was pleasant – I still don’t like highway riding, even though I am able to do it well enough.

When I got to Stowe, I connected with the old friends with whom I’ve worked on the balloon meet for so many years. My two days there held the customary laughter, productivity and rejuvenating fellowship. This being my last year (see Changing Direction, March 5, 2011), time with these people took on a new poignancy. Yes, we will continue to be friends, to stay in touch, to keep up, but it won’t be the same. I was freshly reminded how much I love them all, how dear they are, how part of me.

Riding home, the worst part of the trip came first, Interstate 89 and its miles and miles and miles and miles of construction. I definitely do not have the confidence to go the customary 5 to 10 mph over the speed limit on corrugated pavement, as the car drivers often do. So on the one-lane bits, with no place to pull over, lines formed behind me. Frustration, embarrassment, stress… and deep breaths and reminders to look out at the beautiful mountains through which I was riding… that’s how the first 70 miles of my trip fell out.

At the end of the longest stretch of road work, I emerged back onto regular pavement as the road curved around a steep hill. At the end of the curve, just as I was back up to speed, a brilliant patch of daisies and lupines burst into view on the side of the road.

They felt like old friends – always there when you expect them, and a happy surprise when you don’t expect them at all, but need them the most.

Nerves and Nerve Food

It’s just a quick trip over to Vermont for a meeting about the balloon festival. And the weather forecast looks fine. So why not go over on the bike?

Because I’ve never done anything like this before and it’s 336 miles one way and I’ll be all by myself and quite a few of the roads got washed out last week and it might be cold and I got an owie in my back a couple days ago and if I take the car I can come back Tuesday and quilt all day Wednesday and there are hills and twisties all the way and no David or capable Ayres Adventures tour leaders to rely on if I get in a fix...

and most of all because I’m a wimp.

That’s the long and the short of it. And because it will be good for me, I will go. And I’ll probably have a great time on the road too.

Mom called yesterday for my birthday, and we laughed about the concept of age. “When your father died,” she told me, “I was only 52, and I thought I was old and that my life was over.” 

   “Yeah,” I replied, “I thought you were old, too, and I’m 55 today, and don’t feel old at all. In fact, I feel like I’m just getting started!” 

   “I don’t feel as old at 75 as I felt at 55,” she admitted.

So I can’t use my advanced age as an excuse. My hair is still red, and I’ve never been one to shy away from adventure either.

That leaves just plain nerves. Nerves are not new to me. I’ve felt them millions of times -- like I said, I'm a wimp. Looking back though, I find that every single time I’ve just gone ahead and done whatever made me nervous, I’ve been very, very happy I did. And when I wimped out I was mad at myself and embarrassed.

Fortunately, from birth I’ve been exposed to the secret weapon true Maineiacs use to vanquish nerves: Moxie Nerve Food. When people ask what it tastes like, I can only describe it as a yummy mixture of root beer, sarsaparilla and battery acid. And it packs enough of a jolt to make Red Bull seem like chamomile tea by comparison.

I take my Moxie seriously. Consider the following:

• My email address is moxielady@me.com (ME is the state code for Maine for those of you “from away”).

• Moxie is the official drink of Maine, and I’m a native, with the papers to prove it.

• I have consumed enough of the delectable drink to turn my insides to steel. People from away can rarely choke down a single swallow, let alone down it by the case.

• I have a Moxie-orange motorcycle, built by BMW to honor my father’s German heritage.

• Her license plate is MOX-E. (MOXIE was already taken, but close enough)

• There is plenty of room in my saddle bag for a can or two, diet these days.

So off I go in the morning. I may post from Stowe tomorrow or the next day, or maybe not. Depends on how my nerves hold up.

They Say it Gets Better

But I can’t imagine it. After crossing Rimutaka Hill on our way to the ferry at Wellington, we got out of the knife-edge twisties for awhile (today’s came complete with construction, or “road works,” as they say here) we descended into the beautiful bowl of a city with the most amazing cultural museum I’ve ever seen. We only had a couple hours there, so not enough. But we were privileged to see the famous Britten racing bike that won at Daytona in 1994, and some lovely quilts. The one below measures about seven or eight feet square.

Then onto the ferry for the three-hour journey across Cook Straight to the South Island. Oh. My. Gosh. Way too many photographs here, but I couldn’t stop. After the ferry we had another couple hours going through kilometers and kilometers of vineyards (the wine here is beyond excellent by the way) and then back into the hills to our final destination of Nelson, along the shore of Tasman Bay. Chris (below right) lives here in real life, and I can’t imagine why he would ever want to leave.

Still, he says it will get better. And exactly how can that be remotely possible?