The joys and perils of unplanned motorcyle travel…

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The Mirani Tust was founded in 2014 by Doctor Haresh Mirani primarily in the interest of supporting the Sankara Eye Foundation which he had identified over his years in medical practice, and later as an emerging philanthropist, as an organization particularly deserving of his support.

I became involved in the project having helped Doctor Mirani with some of the technicalities of writing his memoir, after which it became obvious that at some point I would need to travel to India to familiarize myself with the operations of the Sankara Eye Foundation and to begin the business of a building a relationship between the Mirani Trust and the Foundation. From this emerged the idea that Doctor Mirani and I would spend a few months travelling in India, probably on a motorcycle, which seemed like both a lot of a fun and a practical way to get around.

Anyway, by mid-2014, as the charter of the trust is being formalized and a lot of the leg work of setting it up underway, it became necessary for me to spend a little time in Knoxville where Doctor Mirani lives, and where the trust will be based. Since I would need a vehicle of some sort when I got there, and the thought of driving 3000 miles in a car did not much appeal, I made the questionable decision to take a week out and complete the journey on my motorcycle.

The point of journeys like this is that they are easy to embark upon but often difficult to complete. I made the decision on a Thursday afternoon and was on the road by noon on Friday. The deficiencies of my hasty organization began to be come obvious fairly soon. I was sunburned very quickly, and after a couple of hours I packed a cushion and a down jacket on the seat to relieve the discomfort, and in general I began to resemble a man on a very desperate journey.

And without doubt it was hard. The wind in the winter comes in from the east. It was in my face every day except one, and that was the brief period on the plains when I was traveling south instead of east. My motorcycle was underpowered and slow. It rained steadily for a whole day as I crossed the continental divide, crawling out of Aspen in Colorado, and up the Independence Pass like a wet cat. My core body temperature dropped very low, and I believe I was not really able to stabilize it again for the remainder of the trip.I took a hotel for two nights, but slept under the stars for the remainder…

I am fifty-two years old. Even for a thirty-year old this would have been a tough trip. A number of times I wondered what the hell I was doing, but by then the thing had momentum. If I had been in my twenties or thirties I think I would have turned around and gone home, or at the very least sat down in the road and cried. But as an older man I found that I had a sense of perspective. There were long hours in a cramped saddle, shivering, wind and sun burned and eyes burning with the repetition of miles upon mile of freeway.

This is America in a rush. The distances are astronomical. Three hundred and eighty five miles a day I averaged, traveling forty five to fifty miles and hour on a motorcycle.

There were a number of things that I learned. The first was that a person can be trapped by an idea. I remember a comment attributed to Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his novella A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. A Day in the Life was a novella exploring life in a Soviet labor camp. Solzhenitsyn implied that a prisoner of the body is also a prisoner of the mind. A single idea keeps recurring. This I found to be true. A single idea. A single grievance. Something that had happened recently occurred and recurred consistently, only dulling down once the focus of my mind had narrowed down to my own discomfiture, boredom and wishing that the journey would be over.

I also experienced a slice of life. Crossing the Rockies was miserable. The morning began in the desert outside the Colorado town of Dinosaur, under the heel of the mountains and a steady spitting rain. By the time the road reached the ponderosa forests and the high country it had settled into a steady, drenching rain. Crossing the mountains at 11,000ft it was cold. The rain continued for a few hours longer, diminishing as we dropped in altitude, and almost gone completely once I was on the plains.

There was a break in the clouds on the far eastern horizon. The sun was low and I wanted that sunshine so badly. I tanked up and headed out onto the plains.

But the distances? My God! By nightfall I was low on gas and no sign of a settlement, a town or even a farm. Under the moonlight I was surrounded by infinity and silence.

And then I rolled into Kaval Colorado, deep out on the plains, ranching country. A town of 200 or so souls, with no gas pump and no grocery. The moon was rising red over the plains while a dozen or so heat storms decorated the east horizon. I set up camp and there slept. The next morning I loaded up andf cruised the twon, after a while encountering a woman walking her dog. This was Sharon. A petite woman. Very friendly. Could she help? She would try!

But I am an African guy with an accent, and I am traveling, and who am I and what am I doing?

She was a school teacher, and if she could find some gas would I talk to her students about Africa.

An hour and a half later I was in the gym of a high school with fifty pupils, fifteen of whom were gathered to hear something about Africa. That I can do, and that I did, and an hour or so later I was on my way, tank replenished, and a feeling in my mind that there is hope for our youth if high school students on the plains of eastern Colorado can absorb and embrace, and certainly appreciate, the nuances of another society with a strangely intermingled history.

But so it was, and so it is. Travel leads to adventure, and adventure can assume many forms. After eight days of solid travel I arrived in Knoxville, not the same man, a better man I suppose, as one always is after a journey, no matter what the circumstances. I am looking forward to Haresh and my journey in India. From that I am sure there will be much to report.

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