Cruising the Parkway by Jacob Fox
The morning was dim and pleasantly cool, misty around the edges and filled with the early half-light that hangs between night and day like a wet and threadbare blanket. The bikes rested quietly on their kickstands, shadowed horses of iron wrapped in the gloom, appearing naked and out of place without their war-bonnets of glitter and gleam.
Dawn lurked just beyond the edge of the horizon, and the day pulsed with the feel of adventure.
The Blueridge Parkway was nothing short of legend in the motorcycling world, a neo-Mecca that drew riders from all over the country. It had loomed from the dusty back-shelf of our thoughts all summer, some lost highway hidden high up in the mountains. Its forest-fringed lanes and spilling skies whispered dares of enchantment and allure that made heels itch and hearts burn, eyes turn north and hands ache for the throttle. All summer long we had been waiting for some sunny weekend to pull on our boots and answer those dares, and somewhere amid all those lazy dog-days that ran past with such blurring speed, we had found it.
I climbed aboard my little Honda and started the engine, smiling as she purred like a favored kitten. Then the vibrating hum between my legs was abruptly and completely drowned out by a lion’s roar as Dad started up his Harley. He grinned and took off. I sighed, and followed.
We blasted through the morning, shaking the dew off the leaves and the sleep out of the world. If you’ve never set out on a journey like that before, a fleet-footed lark of summertime, then that’s a shame, because the exhilaration is almost indescribable. To stand at the threshold of day, to gaze into the great beyond with a desire-washed stare, to know that with a single step you can simply leave it all behind, is to truly feel alive. That’s what it’s all about after all, discovery is just as much a thing of leaving as it is of finding, and that’s what we did; work, school, T.V., traffic, stress, for two blissful days it would all turn to smoke and be blown away by the intrepid winds on which we flew. We washed our hands of living red-light to red-light and hit the backroads, tearing down the shadow-dappled streets with gleeful abandon, grinning like fools and falling more and more in love with the blossoming day.
We traveled with true wayfarer grace, which is to say we got gloriously lost and turned about until we couldn’t distinguish up from down. Even that turned out to be a delight though, for it seemed that every time we stopped to ask directions we encountered another colorful, small-town character with their own unique set of quirks and advice, putting us back on our way laughing more often than not. By the time we finally reached the Blueridge Mountains I was baffled, bemused, weary, excited, sunburned, wind-tossed, and utterly delighted, feeling like Jack Kerouac on wheels.
I’m not sure exactly when it was that we actually got on the Parkway, although I’m sure there must have been a sign or indication of some sort posted that I was simply in too much of a daze to notice. Or maybe not. Perhaps we boarded by means of some secreted and invisible causeway assessable by only the true-blue seekers, those born with the sun in their veins and feel of the road forged into their souls, out of sight to the mainstream. Anyway, I all at once realized I was riding along the fabled Blueridge Parkway, that my tires tread upon sacred asphalt and my nose inhaled air laced with the most fragrant of Honeysuckle aromas. Even the bug guts splattered across my helmet visor looked special and exotic.
We cruised on, marveling at everything.
Thousands of others must have felt the same restless ache as we did on that particular day, because there were bikes everywhere.
Crotch-Rockets shot by us in blurs of high-pitched speed, and wolfish packs of muscular Harley Davidson style bikes roared along with Visigoth grandeur, creating an almost circus-like atmosphere tearing up and down the curvy roadway. There were even a few low-slung choppers lurking around. And clinging to the back of almost every rider but me were luscious, scantily clad woman with curves that put even the neck-breakers I rode on to shame, adding yet more fantastic turmoil to my fully cranked senses.
The views, though, the views were the purest shade of beauty. They sprawled away for miles and miles, rolling and dipping like an emerald sea of choppy waters, the forested mountainsides chiseled by so many sleepless centuries flowing away until they meshed with the very fabric of the sky, forming breathtaking panoramas of endless blue-green that swirled and swam and danced their timeless dance. I almost died once, so enrapt I was by the utter majesty unfolded before my eyes, of slanted sunlight falling on a woodland vale with the tiny faces of bare rock peeking from between the branches, and of the distant view of the very road I was on curving around another far off mountain, that I almost forgot to turn with road right before me. I caught myself at the last, heart-to-throat second, leaning so hard I almost scrapped my knee on the pavement. It would have been a long fall, but at least my remains would’ve lain at the feet of wonder.
We hooked onto the tag-end of a caravan of mismatched bikes and misplaced bikers, a patchwork procession of crazed riders just out having a good time and getting punch-drunk on life itself. They would stand up on their pegs and shout at the sky, the ones that had radios blaring rock music as loud as it would go, their tattooed arms drenched in sunlight and their chest-length beards blowing like scarves in the wind. As I watched them I was filled with pride and rouge camaraderie, because for a few hours I was one of them, a carefree vagabond, a classless loser, a swag-bellied saint that laughed with the breeze and sang to the stars. Why not? We were cruising the Parkway, anything was possible.
Mountain shot strait up on one side and strait down on the other, creating staggering walls of weather-scarred stone, beaten and faded to impartial, but somehow impressive tapestries of gray that seemed for stretch for eternity in their respective directions. There were several tunnels carved through the very stone of the mountain, their walls made of gutted granite streaked with jagged drill lines like ancient claw-marks. For a few seconds we left the world awash in sunlight far behind, and plunged into the wellsprings of midnight, roaring through the inky blackness like chrome-plated stars falling across the night sky. The darkness was cool, almost chilly after the pounding heat of the day, and the winding songs of the engines bounced all around us. Horns were honked and headlights flashed on and off, the raucous cacophony holding to the general spirit of fun and tom-foolery that was the only real roadmap for this bastard parade. We burst back out into the daylight, where the sun smiled upon us and the horizon flaunted its far-flung mystery, and any shadows still clinging to us were washed away by the raw, unfiltered brightness.
We rode around for the rest of the day, floating along currents of suspended amazement through an ocean of sprinting valleys and soaring skies, caught between in our own dusty dreams, the nameless ones that filled our many roaming hours. Then day began to wane, and the sun melted into a glowing tangerine that had been cast in liquid bronze, dripping its burning light onto the world in weary waves of amber.
We decided to call it a day, and bade farewell to the Blueridge Parkway, solemnly promising to return again next summer and ride once more through these sun-seared halls that smelled of wild Honeysuckle, that misty perfume of romance and danger. We broke off from the footloose and fancy-free motorcade, waving goodbye to the whole wanton crew, and were answered by an impromptu salute of horn honks and waving hands. We got off at the next exit and shacked up in a cheap hotel for the night, falling asleep before we could even kick off our boots.
The morning came with quick showers and a hotel-lobby breakfast, a couple of swiftly gulped cups of coffee and burnt toast, and then it was back on the road. We headed out even before the sun could raise itself up and into the day’s workings, leaving a pale, listless sky overhead and a distant horizon laced with silk-spun clouds. We rode all day, into the sunlight and then out the other side, pulling into the garage late in the afternoon in dead beat triumph.
We brought with us the only things that can be aptly taken from such a voyage; a biker’s tan, wickedly sore buttocks, and a freshly ignited infatuation for the unknown.
I wonder what we’ll find next time.
|
|
