Tracing History

Day 1. Zero hour. Go time.

Monday, July 29th dawned, and I was nervous. I had told myself I was going to leave, and I was determined to hold to that, but between last-minute cleaning and prep in the house, quadruple-checking that I had everything I wanted to take with me packed into my bags like Tetris pieces, and making sure the bike was ready to go, I had more on my plate before hitting the road than I really wanted. It was nearly 4:00 P.M. by the time I finally locked my bags into place, pulled on my gear, and fired up the Twin, but I was determined to get somewhere that day, and damned if I'm not stubborn about these things sometimes.

It's hard to describe the mixture of feelings running through my head as I rode away from my house and made my way west out of Nashville; a touch of sadness at the thought that I wasn't going to see my home for close to a year, a bit of dread at the potential dangers, however unlikely, that lay ahead, slight bewilderment at the fact that I was even doing this in the first place. The biggest and best feeling of all, however, was that bubbling, adrenaline-rush, heart-racing feeling of excitement that only comes when you have embarked on something really, exceptionally cool and out of the ordinary; I hadn't even made it onto the highway yet, but already I was grinning under my helmet and tapping my fingers on the handlebars in anticipation of things to come.

And then, in the most quintessentially Nashville fashion, as though the city was giving me a final f***-you for leaving it behind, I got stuck in traffic.

After roasting through close to an hour of stop-and-go, I was thirsty, sweaty, and needed fuel, having traveled a grand total of 12 miles, but after satiating the Twin's thirst along with my own, I finally got on the road I'd been seeking all along, the one that would form the first leg of my journey: the Natchez Trace Parkway. The Trace is a 444-mile long roadway that closely follows the original Natchez Trace trade route from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville; first walked as a bison hunting trail by the Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, the Trace came to be heavily used as a Revolutionary War-era trade route by boat merchants returning north after floating their goods down the Mississippi to Natchez. After the invention of the paddle steamer made it possible to travel both ways on the Mississippi and ports along the river sprang up, the Trace fell into disuse and was largely abandoned The Parkway itself was started in the 1930s as a Civilian Conservation Corps project under FDR, but wasn't fully completed until 2005. The rich history of the old Trace has led to considerable archaeological discoveries along the way, and there are markers for historical sites, natural features, and Native American ceremonial mounds and territorial boundaries seemingly ever couple of miles. In addition, many parts of the Old Trace are preserved as hiking trails, intersecting with the Parkway in numerous places. I had ridden the portion of the Trace from Tupelo to Nashville when Ngaire and I first moved in 2012, but doing the entire route was a goal I'd held since then.

While it would technically be possible to ride the entire 444 miles in one day, and I'd certainly done more than that on a couple of occasions, I had neither the daylight that first day, nor the desire to do so at all; I saw this part of the journey as an opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of the South, and to learn more than a bit of American history. And so, I set off to do just that. It didn't hurt that I had picked a beautiful evening to start out, the sun low enough in the sky to not boil me in my riding gear, and no rain to be seen.

One of the monuments I'd most wanted to visit was the grave of Meriwether Lewis, and I managed to make it while the sun was still up. It seemed appropriate, given what I was embarking on, to stop and pay tribute to one of America's greatest explorers. Not long after leaving Lewis's grave site and having just crossed the Alabama border, fading light and a close call with a deer convinced me to stop and make camp for the night.

I awoke to find that I'd pitched camp right next to a fast-moving, spring-fed creek with a short hiking trail surrounding it, and so I started my morning surrounded by nature, hydrated with actual (filtered) spring water to boot, before packing up and resuming the journey. I'd had it in mind to make it all the way to Natchez on the second day, but finding myself in Tupelo, MS around noon, I decided I had to visit the birthplace of Elvis Presley. The museum and exhibits surrounding The King's childhood home were surprisingly subdued given the astronomical fame he achieved, and I found myself learning far more than I'd expected about the origins of and influences behind his music. Stuffing myself on lunchtime barbecue didn't hurt, either.

My meandering down the Trace continued until the late evening, when I pulled off at Rocky Springs, one of three campgrounds maintained by the National Park Service on the Trace, hoping to grab a shower before pitching camp, but was surprised and disappointed to find that not only were the showers closed, but all the running water to the site appeared to have been shut off. Between the lack of water, oppressive humidity, and nearly having my dinner stolen by marauding raccoons, it wasn't the greatest end to a long day

Once again, I woke to find that I'd inadvertently camped next to an interesting landmark, this time the abandoned town of Rocky Springs. According to the placards on site, the town had grown from a trading post on the Old Trace to a reasonably large cotton production area with a population of over 2,000. Union occupation during the Civil War, erosion of the cotton crop from nonexistent soil conservation, the expiration of the namesake spring, and both a yellow fever epidemic and boll weevil infestation in 1878 conspired to drive much of the population out, and Rocky Springs was abandoned completely by the 1890's, a Methodist church being the only remaining structure. The site was almost eerie; the ruins of cisterns, bank safes, and a few machine parts and foundation fragments are all that remains outside of the church, and the thought of a town being abandoned in the modern day for anything short of an epic catastrophe is a nearly foreign concept.

With less than 60 miles of the Trace left, I opted to continue the historical theme for the day, and detoured to the Civil War battlefield of Vicksburg, MS. After weeks of fighting and huge losses on the Union side, Ulysses S. Grant's 47-day seige of Vicksburg starved out the Confederate defenses in July 1863, surrendering complete control of the Mississippi to the Union and effectively cutting the Confederacy in half. I had learned about the Battle of Vicksburg at length in high school, but scarcely understood its importance in the Union's victory, nor the astounding lengths to which the Union army went to secure the city. Having never visited a Civil War battlefield before, I toured Vicksburg with a somber sense of awe; the scars of the war are still very much visible in the fields, trenches, and craters, and the preserved artillery, placards listing each repulsed attack by the Union army and losses sustained by both sides, and memorials to the numerous infantry, artillery, and navy units who fought at Vicksburg made it all too easy to imagine the horrors of the Civil War. I left Vicksburg knowing far more than I had coming in, and I don't think it'll be the last battlefield I visit.

Back on the Trace, I could feel the opening leg of my journey coming to an end as the miles ticked down, but still took the time for one more detour to the Windsor Ruins just north of Natchez. The site of one of the largest antebellum mansion ever built in Mississippi, Windsor was destroyed by fire in 1890, leaving 23 enormous columns that once supported the main part of the mansion as its only remains. It is one of the better-known landmarks on the Trace, and even though I wasn't able to walk among the columns, it was still a spectacular sight.

 Arriving in Natchez felt at once like a relief and the start of something else entirely; there would be no more easy camping wherever I felt like, no limited-access roads that I wouldn't have to worry about sharing with many other motorists, and likely far less shade than I'd grown accustomed to. The next phase of my journey, through Louisiana and Texas, loomed large, hot, and humid in front of me.

Mileage: 620.3

Mpg: 42.8

How To Train Your Motorcycle

So, we've come up with the harebrained idea of an 8,000 mile motorcycle trip through 2/3 of the Americas, and for that, we need a motorcycle.

I was no stranger to two-wheeled travel coming in; my first rides on both of the bikes on which I'd done the majority of my riding had been multi-state rides of over 500 miles, and my move to Nashville involved an only partially successful attempt to outrun a hurricane while leaving New Orleans on my previous motorcycle. It was clear, however, that the bike I had been riding for the previous four years wasn't going to cut it.

My red, white, and blue Honda Interceptor was easily my favorite bike I've ever owned and is, in my heavily biased opinion, one of the best road-going motorcycles ever built, but its sporty riding position, stiff suspension, and sportbike tires weren't going to cut it for months on end, especially on the unpaved roads I knew I'd be encountering at many points along the way. I would need something that was comfortable over long distances and capable of carrying enough luggage for my needs, yet could also handle rough roads and terrain while not breaking down at the first sign of trouble.

I actually thought I'd found the perfect bike almost immediately after deciding on the trip, in the form of a 2013 Suzuki DR650 with a mind-boggling number of add-ons and modifications to make it better over long distances and rough roads. The DR was a "thumper"; a big, single-cylinder dual-sport bike that hasn't substantially changed since about 1998, and with a reputation for reliability, easy maintenance, and great off-road ability. The fact that the previous owner had probably put as much into luggage, suspension, and power mods as I'd paid him for the bike didn't hurt either. The DR was a fantastic introduction to the world of dual-sporting, proving to be just as capable on dirt and gravel as it was on the road, reasonably comfortable, and with enough range to get almost anywhere. It seemed, at the time, to be the ideal bike to take me all the way to Chile.

What I hadn't figured into the equation, however, was that once I got to Santiago, my bike would become OUR bike, and as much as I was enjoying the DR650, it soon became clear that while it was possibly the best solo travel bike I could have possibly bought, the combination of an almost nonexistent passenger seat and soft suspension wouldn't be up to the travel plans Ngaire and I were already making in anticipation of my arrival to Chile. And so, even as I got more comfortable on the DR, I was already starting another search.

I knew what I wanted; the next logical step up from the DR650 was the class of so-called "adventure bikes"; effectively touring bikes with taller suspension, larger wheels, and some protection for light off-roading. The BMW R1200GS started the trend, but nearly every major motorcycle manufacturer has jumped on it. The one that stuck in my head was Honda's Africa Twin; a combination of great looks, a much greater focus on off-road ability than its competitors, fuel economy, and Honda's legendary reliability, I'd wanted one since it was announced, but a new one was out of range. A barely used one that popped up just a few miles from me this past November, on the other hand, looked like just the ticket. And so, along with the DR650, I sold my red, white, and blue Honda for...a red, white, and blue Honda. Whatever, everyone has a type.

I'll admit that I didn't take to the Twin immediately. Part of it was the bond of sorts I'd developed over nearly five years of riding my old Interceptor and the Twin's relative lack of sound and fury, part of it was simply getting used to a completely different riding position and character. I was racking up the miles, but something wasn't clicking, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. In the meantime, I started to make the bike my own; a set of crash bars and engine guards ensured that any drops wouldn't hurt the vital parts of the bike, a set of racks and panniers (more on those in a later post) provided the means for travel, and a set of Shinko dual-sport tires added much-needed cornering and off-road ability. Still, something was missing.

It took a healthy dose of dirt and gravel for me to really "get" the Twin. In late March, I rode out to East Tennessee for the March Moto Madness rally, a three-day gathering of dual-sport and adventure riders held in the Smoky Mountains. It would be my first real trip on the Twin, and my first time exploring whether or not it lived up to the off-road hype. Short answer? 110%. Long answer? Through over 100 miles of gravel fire roads, dirt trails, rocky hills, and water crossings, one thing was running through my head: "How is it this good?" There was no reason why a bike weighing over 500 pounds with a relatively inexperienced rider should have been able to handle every type of terrain I could throw at it just as well as the DR650 had, and yet the Twin was delivering every time. Through the combination of compliant suspension, a torquey, easily modulated engine, and controls that fell easily to hand whether I was in the seat or standing tiptoed on the pegs with the bars cranked over, the Twin never felt like it was fighting me or trying to go its own way, as so many heavy, powerful ADV bikes had a tendency to. I left the rally having found the last pieces of the puzzle with this new bike, and excited beyond description to take it even further.

Genesis

Flying home from Santiago, five miles over east coast of Florida and traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 mph, it's hard to imagine that in just a few short weeks, I will be going back the other way in decidedly different fashion, married to the ground through two narrow tires, a set of handlebars, and a seat decidedly not made to have a narrow, bony butt sat on top of it for more than a few hours at a time, much less days, weeks, or even months. It is next to impossible to imagine trading the daily view from the side seats of my ambulance and engine for the simultaneously narrow and expansive view through my helmet visor and over the dashboard of my motorcycle, the companionship of my friends and pets for the sometimes oppressive solitude of life on the road, the comfort and convenience of a house I own with central A/C and a memory foam mattress for a 2-meter-square tent, pad, and sleeping bag pitched in locations I have yet to even fathom, and yet the July 22^nd date of my departure grows ever nearer, and with it simultaneous anxiety and excitement for what many would deem the “journey of a lifetime.”

What would possess a 31 year-old paramedic/firefighter with steady employment and a good, if not 100% perfect living situation to plan to drop everything, jump on a motorcycle, and ride nearly 8,000 miles through 13 countries over the course of two months and change, with all the risk, potential hardship, and temporary poverty that implies?

Well, you see, it all started with a girl…

Ngaire (ny-ree, for those not versed in Maori pronunciation) and I recently crossed six years of marriage and are fast approaching ten years together in total, to say nothing of the ten prior years for which we’d known each other, having met in our 7^th-grade orchestra circa 2000. I’d been utterly bonkers about her almost from the start; she’d wanted nothing to do with me romantically until a change of heart in 2010, shortly after we’d both returned from reconnecting during college semesters spent in Brazil (her) and Ecuador (me). The international theme of our relationship has always been a strong one, taking her to Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Argentina throughout her undergraduate, Master’s, and doctoral studies of international education, but it was the offer of a full-time job in Santiago, Chile that changed us from a couple whose overseas separations were an exception, to one where living apart was the rule, punctuated by brief home visits and meetings in other cities for work trips, with weeks, sometimes months in between. Most couples would have agonized over the decision, perhaps even turned down the opportunity altogether; not us. She knew how much I valued my work as a paramedic, firefighter, and instructor of new EMTs; I knew how important the opportunity to work overseas doing the kind of work she’d spent over a decade studying for was to her. Neither of us was willing to ask the other to compromise, and so began our time as a long-distance married couple. There was, however, something of an ulterior motive behind my support for her endeavor; a small, insistent, and ever-growing voice in the back of my mind repeating one thing over and over:

“MOTORCYCLE TRIP!”

The first motorcycle I remember laying eyes on was a blood-red Ducati 998 prominently displayed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s modern design gallery in the winter of 1997 or 1998. My parents had taken me there for the first time as part of a week-long marathon of museum-hopping; my overarching memory was of a violent case of bronchitis, but the two-wheeled Italian supermodel earned an honorable mention, and started an enduring love of motorcycles. It would take several more years before a friend would teach me how to ride one around the empty farm fields surrounding our hometown in Iowa, and a few more beyond that for me to purchase my first bike, an electric blue Kawasaki Ninja 250, but taking off on a bike I owned for the first time turned that love into an obsession. A long sequence of Hondas followed, powered by snarling, soulful V-4 engines and striking a perfect balance of style, speed, and comfort, and only deepening the wanderlust I’d felt since I’d first nervously booted my friend’s old dirtbike into gear. I rode everywhere I possibly could, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of pure desire, through sun, night, storms, snow, and even the early stages of a hurricane while living in New Orleans. I devoured stories of project bikes, racing triumphs, and epic travels through the pages of Motorcyclist magazine, online forums and blogs, and the crown jewels of motorcycle-related media, the Long Way Round and Long Way Down miniseries chronicling Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s adventures circumnavigating the globe and traversing Africa on a pair of kitted-out BMWs. If there was a place to be explored, I wanted to explore it on a motorcycle.

Thus, the opportunity for a seemingly ideal trip presented itself through an otherwise undesirable situation; I had a destination, a very good reason to travel there, and, through an unexpectedly forthcoming employer, the time I would need in which to do so. Now all I needed was a bike, and a plan.