Ever Drink (More Than Just One) And Ride?
Bill gets beered after we’re done riding for the day.
We get less extreme, and we like to think smarter, as we get older. At least everybody I know has.
Do you ever drink and ride your motorcycle? I never do now but I sure can’t say that about years ago.
Take for example one night John and I spent in Laramie. He and I had taken just a two-day ride, up through North Park and the Snowy Range to Laramie, motel, home down I-25 the next day.
This was in the really early days, maybe our second overnight trip ever. The first had been a three-night thing with Bill along. Bill couldn’t get free for this so it was just John and me.
We were young and out for a good time. And what is there to do in Laramie on a Saturday night but hit the bars? So that’s what we did. This bar. That bar. That bar. And how about that bar.
As you might assume, we drank quite a bit. But no problem, we were only about two miles from our motel. And we weren’t drunk. No, I’m sure of that. Absolutely. I think.
Either way, we were not going especially slow heading back to the motel, and with John in the lead, we got to the turn into the motel and he just whipped right into that turn . . . and I’ve never seen a bike go from upright to on the ground so quickly in my life.
John was just scraped up a little and his bike just dinged up a little–worst thing was his windshield was smashed–but he was thinking about other things. Like the cops coming along and stopping and then having him do a breathalyzer test. He yelled at me to help him get the bike back up quickly and then he pulled on into the safety of the motel parking lot. Fun night.
Then there was another time, when the OFMC was in Idaho and we pulled over at this bar in Arco. We had a good time with the locals in that bar, even bought a round for the house, and then we were on our way again. We weren’t drunk. No, I’m sure we weren’t. But we sure did find that going really fast was a lot of fun. Who knew it could be that much fun? And nothing happened. We reached our destination OK.
There were plenty of other times when we had a drink or two along the way, and that doesn’t even address the many times we would do a joint or a pipe at a stop along the road.
We don’t do any of those things anymore. But man, we sure used to. And we’re still alive and in one piece. It’s nice living charmed lives.
Biker Quote for Today
The turbulence of the mind begins to calm, and all the noise of modern life becomes quiet. Regrets of the past, worries of the future, anxieties, loneliness and the fear of death. Those demons . . . they all fade into the background in a cloud of dust as your body tunes into the present. It’s like that momentary state of enlightenment that monks and mystics spend a lifetime chasing.
Tags: drinking and riding motorcycles, drunk on a motorcycle
