I found the Pantry!

                                              Main office for the El Rey in Santa Fe
It was 22 degrees this morning in Santa Fe, a good excuse not to rush out on the highway on a motorcycle. The El Rey gives a voucher for a discount breakfast and that is how I came to find the Pantry. It is a diner two doors down Cerrillos Rd from the motel. It harkens back to the 1950's, it is small, maybe 12 or 15 tables and a long counter with stools. There where people lined up for tables so I opted for a stool. The staff is a mix of hispanic and anglos with the patronage being 50/50 also. Sitting at the counter I got to watch the kitchen and waiters interact. The dishwasher came out with clean coffee cups with his fingers through the handles so it looked like a bouquet of pottery on each hand. All the staff was racing around trying to get ahead of the breakfast rush, with lots of kidding each other. It was way fun to sit there and take it all in. The guy on the next stool had oatmeal, it looked good but. you know, when in Rome, so I went for the Durango Omelet which came with a version of hash brown potatoes I hand't seen before. The sauce was a nice hot, just one of the best omelets I have had in a while. The patrons all seemed local with many greeting each other. It was a great find and when I was back at the motel checking out, if I mentioned I had breakfasted there, whomever was standing there would start raving about how great it was. So a great start to to my second day on the road.

      The run today was to get a big chunk of the distance to Los Angelos covered and it went well today, as I write this I am in a Route 66 themed Ramada Inn in kingman Az. The weather was mostly clear except around Flagstaff. At the Arizona Border there is a lovely rest stop that has a sandstone ridge to the north of it. Sitting at a picnic table ,with a Raven above me in the tree grumbling that I wasn't sharing my snack, it was a balmy 60 degrees. But when I started the climb back up to Flagstaff's 7000 ft elevation the temperature dropped down into the mid forties. The afternoon build ups had a line of clouds with virga but I avoided rain. But once past those mountains and the decent of the ridges the temperature got warmer again and by the time I got to Kingman it was in the mid sixties.
      So it looks as if I have the cold behind me for a few weeks as I make the final run into LA tomorrow to spend some time with my daughter and her family.
      In my original post about this trip I spoke of my optimism of the people I might meet on this trip. And today was a wonderful example of that coming true. From the crowd and staff at The Pantry to the people who greeted me and talked to me at the Rest stop, it was always friendly and positive. I danced with Semi trucks and other traffic all day and even out there on the interstate everyone always making room, I was not cut off once all day! That seemed amazing to me. The Mothership was a flawless partner in the dance.
    So as I said yesterday evening, I will continue tomorrow with optimism undiminished but this time much warmer. Pacific Ocean, here I come.
Will by the River

Damn that was Cold!

            The Mothership and I about to take on Independence Pass, June 2014

      So the Wander has begun.  As I said in the previous post, this is not at the most optimum time of the year to go motorcycle touring. I have been watching the weather and it has been volatile to say the least. The door over Monarch Pass and west to Grand Junction closed down yesterday for at least two or three days unless I thought it would be a good idea to drive a motorcycle on snow packed roads!. Vail Pass area was getting snow yesterday. Salida was supposed to get snow tomorrow (Thursday the 31st of March). So this afternoon I made the run over Poncha Pass to the south into the San Luis Valley and down into Santa Fe New Mexico. Right now I am holed up in a favorite Motel of Mary's and mine called the El Rey. A lovely adobe motor court  on Cerrillos Road.
     The weather this afternoon was cold, with strong cross winds from my right all the way to Santa Fe. I swear I was leaning right all the way down and probably never wore any of the center tire tread except when slowed down for a town. The temperatures ran about 37 degrees from the house all the way to Antonito. The temperature never got above 44 degrees until I was in Espanola just outside Santa Fe. There was cloud cover all the way, with huge developed cells about in the distance with virga all the way to the ground on some. It was just plain cold and even with the heated handgrips and heated seat, the cold was testing the layers of clothing I had on. As I write this I am thinking I should go check out the El Rey hot tub and sauna.
       But enough complaining, I was the one who made the choice to turn the throttle and venture forth today. It is exciting to begin, to begin anything, and I have been planning this trip for some time. I was eager to begin. The drive today was familiar, that is to say, I knew what was coming next. We have driven to Santa Fe or Albuquerque quite a bit over the last 20 years. But the billowing clouds and bitter winds gave it a hostile winter look and no-one seemed to be venturing forth from the houses I rode past. It was as if it was a deserted plain, waiting for summer and life to spring forth again.
      Santa Fe was busy when I arrived at five pm, probably rush hour. The wind was blowing the flags straight here also. But plenty of people out and about with the town wearing it's winter colors of brown still. The trees are getting ready but nothing bursting forth with spring like green that I have seen. Here in the motor court they have evergreens against the whitewashed adobe buildings and it feels warm and inviting.
       Tomorrow I shall venture forth again with undiminished optimism, hoping for temperatures that are more comfortable for riding and see if I can slide past Flagstaff's 7000 ft elevation and down to Kingman Az where I expect to start riding in 60 or 70 degree weather. I don't expect cloud cover tomorrow, which will help make the temperature feel warmer on my dark coat. But I will confess that it is tempting not to turn right at Albuquerque toward Kingman, but to continue south on I25 till I get to Las Cruces. I could follow I10 toward California, through Tuscon and probably actually be hot!
     Well, in the meantime, I will take it one day at a time.
Will by the River March 30th 2016

The Mothership

1999 BMW K1200LT

The Mothership! In the world of motorcycles this is a Large bike. Among a couple of my Motorcycle acquaintances we don't think the LT stands for luxury tour but instead means large truck. It is almost impossible for me to lift it off it's side if I loose concentration when sitting still and let the weight go too far to one side or the other. The joke is that if I let it fall over at a stop sign I would have to call a tow truck. When loaded and fueled and I am riding it, the weight is approaching one thousand pounds! But the upside to all that weight is the absolute stability moving down the road and a surprising amount of agility on the mountain passes around here.

       I came to be the caretaker of this BMW when my trombone guru moved on to a newer BMW R1200. I am so glad he needed a new bike because I really find this one a joy to go and carve roads on. Every time I head out on it I feel invited to just keep going.

       It has been a bucket list item for me to go on an extended solo motorcycle ride. Preferably up the Pacific "left coast" of the United States. So with an optimism that borders on foolish I plan on going on a three week wander out to LA and up the coast to Astoria Oregon and back here to Colorado. The foolishness is leaving by April Fools day and venturing forth in this unstable spring weather and hope to leave these mountains and return without driving in snowy conditions or days of continuous rain. The optimism is with this amount of time I can drive short days or stay somewhere a day to let weather pass and have to pleasure of exploring the beaches and hills of the Pacific Ocean coast.

      This preamble brings me to the point of this post. I have lately been trying to publish musing here, and I would like to try my hand at a daily post of my adventure. I would like these words that I post each day to be more than just a travelogue. More than a description of the geography I am passing through each day. I hope to pause in my daily travels early enough to have some writing time to describe the day and the joy of being out on the road on the Mothership. I expect to meet many wonderful people in this journey that belie what media seems to be professing we Americans are now. So this too is part of my optimism.  I shall go on record here, that I will endeavor to bring a positive image of this wonderful country I am about to travel through. 

       So stay tuned to this page, as later this week, I shall embark and share with you all my journeys away from this my home river.  I will see many other rivers as I transit the Great American West. 

I look forward to sharing.

Will by the River

What is your Voice.

It seems, as of late, that I have heard more often about finding your voice as a reference to how you express yourself. I know it as a common phrase around the arts. But it is also used as an expression of finding ones passion. For a lot of my life, as a musician, it has meant what instrument you have the ability to reveal those notes in your head easily. When you feel emotion and sound flowing out of you effortlessly.
      I have training in voice, piano, trombone, guitar and teaching music. But it has seemed as if it changes between those abilities as to the one that is my primary voice at different times in my life. I know graphic artists whose medium has changed from time to time in their artistic expression.
      Lately I have come to recognize that finding your voice is often meant as finding a way to express your passions in life that does not necessarily mean just in the arts. Even today on NPR they alluded to this idea in what tools do you use.
     But in the end it seems we view our voice as how we express our passion in life. Our participation in this physical realm we find ourselves in.
    Don Miguel Ruiz takes this concept of Artist to all of us as being Artist of our own life story. And so then what we reveal in our actions would be our voice. Ergo when I am playing with the currents on the Arkansas River in an oar frame raft, that would be an artistic voice. Or casting a fly rod to entice a trout could be seen as a voice. But I wander off course here.
     In this past year I have moved from playing a tenor trombone to a bass trombone. This involves some new positions on the slide and extra tubing for triggers and such. The mouthpiece is bigger and so establishing a new embouchure was also part of the transition. But this "new voice" for me has been a wonderful experience, with an ease of playing that has been a delightful surprise. I find it incredibly reassuring to have a successful transition after playing my other horn for over 40 years. I have always felt that, for me, some instruments seem to invite me to use them, while others seemed like climbing a mountain. This horn I am playing now seems as easy as letting the raft follow the current down the river. This ease makes it feel as if this is now my "voice", letting what I hear in my head find it's way to sound in this world.
     So yet another of life transitions that seem as if we are constantly reinventing ourselves. I am grateful  that here beside the Arkansas River I have so many opportunities share music that I love in groups of wonderful musicians.  The Salida Brass is preparing this week to share it's music in multiple Church services for it's 45th straight year. A remarkable achievement that I thank my fellow Salida Brass members for having the chance to play for quite a few of those years. Thanks guys, we will see you this Easter Sunday.
Will by the River