How I Fell in Love with the West

By Laura Drake

I'm a suburban Detroit girl. I moved to California at 23 (but I don't really consider that 'west').

There, I was lucky - I met my forever husband. Our first date was horrible (he talked about his ex the whole time) and the only reason I agreed to a second date was . . . he had a motorcycle, and asked me to go for a ride with him!

I fell in love - both with him and his bike. We took all our vacations on a motorcycle from then on. and I have ridden 100,000 miles together, and I’ve logged over 100,000 on my own. We've ridden from Mexico to the Canadian Rockies, and both coasts, and most in-between.

I’m so grateful for my motorcycle adventures - In a car I probably never would have experienced:

• The awesome vistas of Wyoming, where the land is so open and rolling, that from the top of a hill, you can see how the glaciers carved the land and how time has softened the harsh effects.
• In the badlands of Utah, the delicate multicolored striations in the crumbling ledges made me wish I knew how to dye cloth to be able to recreate it on fabric. 
• The vast open sky of the Four Corners area, with the dramatic red stone monoliths seeming to rise out of the ground in the distance.
• The never-ending green prairies of Canada, where the wheat dances with the wind.
• Small towns in the middle of nowhere, shutting down the main highway that runs through town for a Fourth of July parade, complete with tractors pulling hay wagons festooned with bunting and carrying the local beauty contest winners. 
• Real country stores with wooden floors and pot bellied stoves surrounded by rocking chairs – not to be trendy, but because the old-timers sit there.
• The howling aloneness of the Canadian Rockies, where the mountains stretch on forever.

True, I could have traveled to all these places in a car.  But what makes them unique is that on the bike is that I didn’t go looking for them.  In a car we generally tend To Go Somewhere – have a destination in mind, say a National Park.  You drive there, experience it, and drive home.  On a bike, I like to have a destination, but the destination is not the reason for the trip.  We “happened upon” most of the above places on our way to somewhere else.

There’s something about experiencing life from the seat of a motorcycle that makes it more real and indelible than a car experience. I believe we’ve been so indoctrinated by our “socialization” to be able live so closely together, that we lose the sensitivity to really experience life to the fullest.  The physical and mental rigors of riding a motorcycle scour that protective layer off, and allow the details of life to sink in to the pores of our consciousness. 

To me, riding in a car is like watching a rain storm from inside a house. Then imagine experiencing it on a motorcycle; black clouds ahead, and the straight road ahead leading right into them.  Before you get there, there is a temperature drop, the wind buffets you, you smell the rain in the air, but more than that, you feel the storm inside of you…it almost feels like a small electrical current humming inside your body.  An experience like this is naturally going to remain with you longer than watching rain come down outside a window. 

So I've had the lucky experience of not only seeing the west - I've experienced it. And I tap into those memories to describe the places I've been. Or, since I live in Texas now, I can just hop on the bike and go again!