My second favorite InZane\u2026 My favorite, naturally, will always be the one in Asheville, NC, where ALI became ‘our girl’, and she and I were reunited! Dang, it\u2019s hard to believe that was three years ago\u2026 Time sure flies, as they say, and so do gypsy biker dudes\u2026 Speaking of gypsies\u2026<\/p>\n
The thought has crossed the vast, barren expanse of my cranial cavity recently that perhaps I\u2019m not genetically linked to my ‘parents’ after all. Is it possible, I\u2019ve wondered, that a band of gypsies left me on their doorstep, and I was simply taken in and raised by the folks I think of as my mother and father?<\/p>\n
Nah, too many physical feature similarities between us for that to be the case, but we do have one stark difference: My people are all \u2018home\u2019 oriented. Stationary folks who want to sink deep roots, even though life has often brought venue changes their way. Still, a permanent house and hearth were always the goal, and the comfort that comes from familiar surroundings, people, and life generally always were their end-game target\u2026 Not me!<\/p>\n
Nope, the older I get, the less inclined I am to stay put. I don\u2019t want to live anywhere\u2026 I want to live everywhere! I\u2019ve always been that way, I suppose, but my indoctrination and programming had me assuming all that \u2018normal stuff\u2019, along with many other myths, was the ‘right-minded’ thing to do, as is the case with everyone, I guess\u2026 Was I then and am I now guilty of wrong-thinking? (A rhetorical question\u2026 if I am, I don\u2019t really want to know!)<\/p>\n
Ever think about that? I have\u2026 a great deal, as a matter of fact. By the time I\u2019d reached the age of thirty, I was wallowing in self-doubt and confusion. By then, many of the \u2018pat answers\u2019 to everything that had been \u2018given\u2019 to me, were proving to be suspect\u2026 I\u2019d already found myself having to turn my back on some long-held \u2018facts\u2019 and choose another view\u2026<\/p>\n
So many times, what I\u2019d so easily bought-into turned out not to be the case, or the \u2018certain\u2019 view of how things are and what life is about simply didn\u2019t work out, or even more confidence-shaking, they proved to be downright wrong\u2026<\/p>\n
All the values, beliefs, and ‘fundamental things’ I\u2019d assumed were spot-on were not the product of my own thinking, though, and they desperately needed to be challenged, tested, thought through deeply, and re-done where appropriate. I became determined to be my own person by choice and reasoning, and to jettison where appropriate the simple solutions I\u2019d adopted as \u2018truths\u2019, that had been pounded into my thinker muscle throughout my life. However, life greatly complicated that process by overwhelming me with responsibilities, activities, obligations, and other distractions\u2026<\/p>\n
I finally stumbled upon long distance motorcycle riding as a near-perfect platform for thinking things through\u2026 a magic carpet that would transport me to another spiritual dimension… and the rest is history\u2026<\/p>\n
My \u2018natural state\u2019, my center of equilibrium, I\u2019ve discovered, is to be alone and highly mobile. That\u2019s not to say I\u2019m a hermit\u2026 I do indeed need social contact, just not to the same degree nor in near the same quantity most folks appear to need. And that, boys and girls, brings us to my decision to attend InZane.<\/p>\n
What a great event! At no time in my life have I ever known so many good folks or felt like I truly belonged, as much as I do around this group\u2026 Only two things bind us that I can discern: Valkyries and riding, and \u2018goodness\u2019. By goodness I mean, unpretentiousness and good will towards others. No phonies here, and the generosity combined with unqualified acceptance by each for all others is as palpable as it is attractive.<\/p>\n
My journey there had begun with a commitment to attend\u2026 skillfully extracted by that \u2018smoothie\u2019 we all know as Misfit. Once that was done, the next step was to agree to wander out there with an amazingly easy partner with whom to travel for any distance and for any length of time\u2026 Troutdude\u2026 now we\u2019re talking!<\/p>\n
Following the stop in Tennessee and the escort to Indiana, Dennis and I altered my previous non-plan and decided to just head straight for Colorado. It seemed only logical to conserve time (he was on a schedule) by blitzing through the less scenic areas, and to use it to do a couple of loop-de-loos through what has been fittingly called the \u2018American Alps\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n
Now, it probably does not need to be said, but that marvel of nature beyond the plains is not a well-kept secret! Nope, one can\u2019t travel around that incredible wonder without encountering busloads of foreign tourists, vans with church groups from other areas, plus rented cars with visitors from all parts of the globe! Hearing three or four different languages spoken at a given stop is not uncommon at all\u2026<\/p>\n
The more I expand my contact with \u2018folks not like me\u2019, the more I\u2019m convinced our differences appear to be a mile wide, but they are actually less than an inch deep\u2026 Scratch the surface and it becomes apparent we\u2019re all just alike, really\u2026 I can only conclude from my own experiences, that differences in learned behaviors and adopted beliefs are what separate us. A fascinating discovery that became obvious to me early on, and that belief has only been reinforced over the decades\u2026 A marvelous byproduct of traveling, especially solo, is coming into contact with such diversity\u2026<\/p>\n
Now, I mentioned earlier that Dennis is a wonderful ride partner\u2026 and he most certainly is. I\u2019ve also traveled with some other good ones over the years, but the one by which all others are measured is my dear friend Jim Dorman. Jim finally had to put his riding gear aside recently, and now he is stuck in his own recliner trying to live vicariously through the writings of others. I often think about the many miles we shared, and I do celebrate our time together with an occasional Milky Way candy bar – one of Jim’s favorite treats\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My second favorite InZane\u2026 My favorite, naturally, will always be the one in Asheville, NC, where ALI became ‘our girl’, and she and I were reunited! Dang, it\u2019s hard to believe that was three years ago\u2026 Time sure flies, as …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meanderings-by-ddt-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}