There’s a hole in the bucket at the bottom of the sea…

What the hell is a bucket doing at the bottom of the sea? Wouldn’t it rust?

What’s that – log, you say?

Hmm.

Bikes are all around me.

Still very torn about the financial feasibility of all of this. Surprisingly, though, just when I despair of finances, I get a bunch of work – yay! Is that the universe’s sign to me to go for it, and sort through the finances as I go?

In spite of being torn by the finances, my brain refuses to give up the idea of getting a motorcycle. I had pretty much resigned myself to being a good girl and paying off credit cards and whatnot and worrying about the bike some other time – next year, maybe. This was two nights ago.

Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I found that my subconscious had apparently changed my mind again without my permission. My brain was chanting “Bike! Bike! Bike!”

I did a decent job yesterday of ignoring it and working quite studiously – until the roommate came home and started talking bikes at me.

Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows is coming to New York this weekend. She’s been talking about going, off and on, but I hadn’t heard anything recently and so completely forgot that it was *this* weekend. As we were walking dogs, she said something like “You know, I’ve been pondering this, and it would make sense for us both to go.” She then proceeded to regale me with lists of exhibitors and the amount of gear I’d be able to examine, touch, try on and evaluate. This would especially help the boot situation – nowhere else would I have a chance to check out that many boots and try to find one that would work for me in a decent price range.

Obviously, with my subconscious still chanting “Bike! Bike! Bike!” at me, I didn’t require a lot of convincing.

Funnily enough, it’s 11:24AM on Friday morning and I still don’t know if we’ll be going to check out the show tomorrow. Should have a better idea by this afternoon. But now I actually want to check it out, in spite of the fact that I should be working instead… but if I can get enough work done today, I can afford to take one long day off to go down to NY tomorrow.

In the course of the evening, she proceeded to introduce me to Horizons Unlimited, and that led to her bringing me some motorcycle travel books she has (Lois on the Loose and Red Tape and White Knuckles by Lois Pryce, and Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Simon). Now those books are sitting on the stack of books next to my laptop, waiting for me to pick them up. I refuse to do it right now – I really must get this work done, and I never will if I start reading a motorcycle book or three. But it, too, is staring at me, tempting me with pictures of motorcycles and maps and alluring thoughts of what lies within.

I want to take a motorcycle trip. Lots of them.

I don’t really see a bike as a knocking around town sorta thing. Granted, I could use it to get to friends’ houses and avoid having to wait for the MBTA and its notoriously unreliable buses, but that’s not my intended goal. I sort of envision first trips around New England (because I LOVE New England and miss getting out into it) and then trips around the country. I’d ride out to Indiana to visit my family who I haven’t seen in 4 years. I’d probably surprise them, as I suspect they’ll be none too keen on the thought of me riding around on a motorcycle.

Then I’d like to do a cross-country trip. I’ve never been further west than the Mississippi (except that I was born in Oklahoma, but my grandparents brought me to live in Indiana when I was too young to remember it). I’d like to see the Pacific Northwest, and the West Coast, and the top part of the middle of the country (I don’t have too much interest in the middle of the country – I grew up in Indiana and I suspect it’s a lot like that). I’d like to see the Rockies.

After that, I might head into Northern Canada. I’ve driven through Ontario and Quebec and found it quite lovely, but I have picture books of Northern Canada that look breathtaking. And I’d like to stop in Montreal on my way up, because I haven’t been there in 5 years and I feel nostalgic for it from time to time. Living there, even temporarily, was the bravest thing I’d ever done to that point, and it’s an important part of who I am today.

Then eventually I’d like to head over to Ireland, the UK and Europe. I loved Ireland, and I did not get the opportunity that I wanted to experience it in a more interactive way. I rode around it in a car for 10-12 hour days and saw a lot of the country, but I didn’t want to be passively riding in a car – I wanted to be experiencing it. I thought about walking Ireland, and I might still do that, but I think it’d be fun to tour it on a bike. And I have a yen to see Scotland, and England, and Wales, and Europe, while I’m at it. France and Spain and Italy and Switzerland at the very least, but probably also Belgium and the Netherlands and maybe even Germany.

Of course, from Spain, it’s an easy hop, skip and a jump down to Morocco… and of course Africa would be the next logical destination for me. I don’t know much about a lot of Africa, but I’d like to see Morocco and Egypt, and I’m sure if I learned more about it, I’d want to see more. I’d like to do New Zealand and Australia, too. Maybe eventually South America, India and China.

Obviously I wouldn’t plan to do all of this on one trip. I can’t imagine financing something like that in one go. But I’ve been interested in people for most of my life, and even moreso in the past five years, since my Great Liberation from Indiana and all the baggage that went along with that life. My previous life, as it were.

It would be really neat to see these places and the people and how they live and learn about their cultures and lifestyles.

This is one of those things that I just know, inside of me, is in my future. The question of how far in my future largely depends on me, but it’ll happen.

Once you accept the inevitable, everything else is just a matter of planning.