I a finally wrote the story of this infamous trip. Still, you can view the pictures, and  view the map of this trip (note that it may be split into multiple pages).

The Infamous Trip

This is the trip that most people who know me have heard about. For those who don’t know, this was my ride to the mother-of-all motorcycle rallies, Sturgis, in 2004:

Sweet ride, eh? It even has two more wheels than what I left from Ohio with.  Read on…

The planning stage

One of the traditional stops in the Sturgis area, on our way back from Devils Tower, is an old, empty shell of a house. The windows are gone. No one lives there. But during the Sturgis rally, this house is converted into a bar.  In 2003, we stopped here for a cold beverage, and my friend Lumpy and I were talking about possible rides for 2004. “We can meet in Sturgis, and ride up the Alaskan Highway, and maybe come back on the Al-Can Highway”, we mused.  The gal tending bar interrupted, with a thick German accent, “I’ve been all around the world, and if you want to see Alaska, you have to go by water. The roads can’t get you within 500 miles of the coast, and that is the area you really need to see to understand Alaska. There’s a ferry, the Alaska Marine Highway System, that can get you from north of Seattle all the way to Anchorage. It’s cheap. You can set your tent on the deck of the ship for $35, but trust me, even in August it is very cold. Get a cabin. This is how the people who live in Alaska get back and forth with their cars to the lower 48, so you can take your bikes. Have fun!”  Great advice from the voice of experience.

Lumpy and I try to find some of the others in our group who want to go to Alaska, but there were no takers.  Just the two of us, but that’s okay, as a large group is a challenge to coordinate. It’s going to be a difficult trip on thousands of miles of poorly maintained highways. There are 4500 miles of road to get me from Anchorage to Ohio.

While most people who do the ride and ferry to Alaska will ride up and take the ferry home, I know that the ferry system is busy and does not run every day, so I would rather get the scheduled part of the trip out of the way early. If we take the ferry up, then we don’t have as much of a deadline trying to get home. The worst that can happen is that I call my boss to say that I am in the middle of Canada.  Also, most people who leave the ferry at the end of their trip always talk about some neat town they visited along the way, and they had wanted to spend more time there, but one left one spare day in Anchorage, and they wanted to save that in case they really needed it. I don’t want the deadline over my head. If we want to stop for a day somewhere, I want the flexibility to do that and enjoy the trip. So, we agree that we will do the ferry first.

In January, Lumpy sends me an email with the prices for the ferry, and a complete itinerary of what we will do every hour of our time in Alaska. Whoa! I am on a schedule my entire life, except when I am on a trip. While there is much to see, I also want to build some wiggle-room into the plan, and try to convince Lumpy to add a few ‘down’ days. We’re going to be on a ferry for about six days, so the first full day in Anchorage, I want there to be no plan, just so we can see what’s around. And before we leave for the ride home, I want there to be another down day, just so we can do the last minute preparation and see things that we couldn’t otherwise fit into the schedule. He relents after much protest, but I agree that we can stop in Juneau and Valdez, as he really wants to see those cities.  Excellent!

During the year, our friend Johnny, living in Phoenix, takes his bike in for service. His mom, Mary, waits at the dealership as he talks to the service department. When he comes out, Mary is standing near a shiny Harley with a ‘Rent Me’ sign. She asks, “If I rent this, will you take me to Sturgis this year?” Sure! His mom used to ride bikes, even in the days when nice girls weren’t supposed to (a few guys still think that they never should), and she is lots of fun, so he agrees.

Losing it in Denver

So, on my way to Sturgis, I plan to meet Johnny and his mom, Mary, in Denver. We can spend a few days there, riding around and visiting the mountains. They will ride up to Sturgis with me, where we will meet Lumpy, then ride up through Yellowstone to Seattle, where Lumpy and I will get on the ferry to Alaska. Sounds good.

I get to Denver first, and when Johnny and his mom pull in, she is grinning from ear-to-ear. She is having a blast! They had a wonderful ride up through Colorado Springs, and she just loves being on the back of the deluxe new Harley they rented.

Johnny and I share a room, and Mary gets her own. We roam around Denver the next day, and Johnny and I go out bar hopping at night. We arrive back at the hotel and go to sleep.

The next morning, Johnny wakes up and goes outside for his morning cigarette while I stay in my bed. He opens the door and asks, “Dude, where’d we park the bikes last night?”  Well, right in front of the door.  Shit. It finally happened. Our bikes were gone.

Now, by this point, I have been to 43 of the 50 states with Johnny.  A few years ago when we visited Philadelphia, we got a cheap motel room across the river in New Jersey. It was late on a Sunday night, and Johnny was concerned about our bikes. It was too late to buy chains, and there were too many of us on that trip to even attempt to fit them into the motel room. After about 45 minutes of trying to brainstorm, I finally said, “I have insurance. How about you?” Well, yes, he did, too.  We went to sleep. The next morning in New Jersey our bikes were there. But here in Denver, they weren’t.  This wasn’t even as cheap a motel as that one was.

I didn’t even jump out of bed to verify that the bikes were gone. He wouldn’t do that. Hmpf. Well, I am just a few days in to a five week vacation from work. If I go back home, I don’t really have anything to do but go back to work, and I don’t want to go back to work without an adventure. The Universe always throws me a curve ball, and I have always had a great time as a result.  The Universe has always made incredible and unbelievable ‘coincidences’ happen to take care of me. I really believe that. So, I am renting something and going somewhere. I’m NOT going home. And that was it.  While I loved that bike, the color, the style, the road trips we had together, and the freedom to travel that it provided, it was a ‘thing’. And stuff always happens to things. They break, wear out, or get stolen.  Now that my friends back home have been to Sturgis, they will want to do more road trips. I can get another bike and go back to all those states again, and maybe this time take them with me.

Well, we call the front desk, and they call their ‘night security’ guy, who, of course, didn’t see anything.

Then we call to file a police report, as we know that the insurance companies will need that.

We’re pretty calm about the situation, as we realized long ago that this was always a possibility. It was Mary who was most upset about the bikes. Mind you, I was pissed off. That bike got me to all 48 states. I was on the way to the last one I can ride to. I will hit 100K miles during this trip. Those are the things that pissed me off.

The police officer came to the motel and took our reports. He told us that there was very little chance the bikes would be found. We knew that.

The next step was to call the insurance company. “So what year and model bike?” 1998 Harley Heritage Softail. “How many miles on it?” Ninety six thousand. “Excuse me?” Ninety six thousand. There is laughing on the other end of the phone. It doesn’t stop. I’m envisioning my payout for the bike decreasing by the second. After about 30 seconds, when I figured he was down to $5, I stopped him. The insurance agent says, “Sorry, no. We’re used to hearing people buy a new bike and take it to a bar and have it stolen with 100 miles on it, or a 10 year old bike getting stolen with just 2,000 miles on it. You ride yours. We have NO problem paying out on this one.” PHEW!

Johnny is not as lucky. While his bike was a rental, a girl at his insurance agency told him that his regular insurance will cover the bike and not to pay for Harley’s insurance. Well, that may be true for rental cars, but is specifically not part of his bike insurance policy. (Eventually, this got resolved, but it was several months later when they finally agreed to cover the rental)

So now what? We decide to get some breakfast and discuss the options. We luckily have all of our gear in our rooms (I had some tools in my saddlebag, but could replace them). Our friends were expecting us in Sturgis later today, and there was no cell service to call them, so we really had to try to get to Sturgis. We agreed to get a rental car to get us to Sturgis. Johnny and Mary would still take their trip up to Seattle and down the coast back to Phoenix, but it would be in the rental.  The only rental we could find big enough for three of us and all of our stuff (we can pack a helluva lot on our bikes) was a Dodge Caravan minivan. In baby blue.

What goes around…

Now, during Sturgis, there are over 500,000 motorcycles that get there. Every gas stop within 500 miles has bikes at it. Many of the bikes are on trailers, or you see people without a bike or trailer, but dressed as bikers. I pretty much ignore these people, as they are not getting the full experience of riding their bike to Sturgis. So when we make our stop for gas (just one… bigger tank than on our bikes), I try to start conversation with the bikers and get no response. UGH. But I ‘was’ riding mine!  Didn’t matter.  Oh well.  Turnabout is fair play.

The Sturgis that didn’t count

We have to get through several miles of traffic in Sturgis to reach our campground. There are bikes everywhere. Our minivan is just an obstacle for the bikes. Something taking up much more room than it should if we were on bikes.  This sucks.  No one looks over to check out our ride. No one gives us ‘the nod’ of acknowledgement. Nothing. We are practically invisible people. We’re worse than that. We look like biker wanna-be’s.

The thing I really hated most was not getting to Alaska. I don’t know anyone who had been there that didn’t love it. I really had been looking forward to seeing it. I am disappointed that it won’t happen now.

In talking with Johnny, he reminds me that he and his mom were planning on seeing us off on the ferry. I can STILL get to Alaska! I will just have to fly home.

We finally get to the campground and meet our friends and explain the situation. At least we’re real bikers to these guys, as they know we’ve done the ride to Sturgis on our bikes, many times.

I am concerned for Lumpy. Here we had this great trip planned to Alaska, and now I won’t be able to do the challenging ride home with him. He thinks about it for awhile and finally says, “Well, every time I plan a big ride with people, something happens and they can’t make it, and I end up having a really great ride by myself. So, I guess I can do that again.” Wow. I am impressed. I am not sure I would do the same.  Lumpy earns a lot more of my respect and admiration.

Of the three of us, Mary is certainly the most disappointed. She was having so much fun being on a bike again, and was looking forward to riding up on a bike when they visit their relatives in Seattle. Johnny takes her around Sturgis in the minivan, but it is just not the same experience. It is Lumpy to the rescue, as he offers to take her for a tour of the Black Hills on his bike. She immediately accepts his offer. They have a great time, and she is very happy.

One of our group, Tim, from Boston, arrives at Sturgis late one day. The day before the group was planning a ride to Devils Tower. Tim, feeling sorry for me, but also wanting to go but exhausted from his long trip, offers to let me ride his bike, and he will ride on back. I jump at the chance to ride with the group, so we both win from his offer. I enjoy having passengers on my bike, and we have lots of fun.

Neither Johnny or I bought a Sturgis t-shirt this year.

Heading to Seattle

Lumpy is going to meet us at the ferry in Bellingham, Washington, just a short distance north of Seattle. This allows him to enjoy his ride to the northwest, and visit the places he wanted to see. In the minivan, we head towards Yellowstone. Mary really enjoys staying in the town of Cooke City, Montana, outside the northeast entrance to the park. There’s one street, about a half-mile long, and tall mountains on either side. That is why I always try to stay there.

We do a fairly quick trip through the park, as I can give ‘the tour’ and describe the sights as we drive (something that can’t be done on a bike). After seeing Old Faithful, we head to the northwest.

The ferry to Alaska

I call ahead to the ferry company. I have heard that they are always full, and want to let them know that there will be room for one more bike, if they should need it. I know that it is too close to departure to expect a refund, but the woman says, “Well, you’ve been through enough. We’ll refund the bike part of the trip. $555.” Excellent. The Universe seems to be working, as my insurance deductible is $500. For those interested, the fare for me, sharing a room with Lumpy, was right around $700. Not bad for six days on the ship.  Certainly better than the $4000 it cost for a cruise ship.

As we are boarding the ferry, I help Lumpy strap his bike down for the voyage. He accidentally burns his wrist on the hot tailpipes. A woman gets out of the car parked behind him, and offers a rag filled with ice from her cooler. She’s a registered nurse, named Cathy.

We find our cabin and get situated. The rooms are strictly utilitarian and functional. There are no perks or pieces of cheap art hanging on the wall. That suits me just fine. There is a cafeteria, and this ship also has a dining room. We can walk around the deck of the ship, but there is also a large indoor viewing area with large windows and filled with tall reclining chairs. The ship has a movie room and a bar. All of the necessities for a comfortable trip.

The ship travels up the Inside Passage. This is the area off the coast, where the Rocky Mountains drift off into the Pacific Ocean. There are thousands of small islands, a few with cabins or mansions, but mostly just trees. Since the islands protect the coast from the ocean, we are guaranteed of calm waters for almost the entire trip to Anchorage. Most afternoons, as we sit outside and admire the scenery, there are humpback whales that swim alongside the ship. I am told that in May and June, as they arrive from Hawaii, the whales often jump and play in the waters. In August, they are used to being here, so they simply swim nearby.

Passengers just mill about. There are nature talks in the viewing area every few hours, but mostly everyone walks outside, watching the incredible mountains. We meet quite a number of people from various places. Most are from Alaska, some are tourists, like ourselves.

Cathy, the nurse we met when boarding the ferry, is returning to Alaska for her second time in a program to get nurses to some of the remote villages. She’s excited to return to Alaska. While she did the first year primarily for the money, she is returning this year because of how much she loved it.

As we meet people, I find that almost everyone has spent time talking with Cathy. Each of them had a very in-depth conversation with her on a topic, and each topic was vastly different from the others. She is truly a master conversationalist, and very well read on many subjects.

It isn’t until the third day that the ferry makes its first stop, in Ketchikan, Alaska. The cruise ships don’t allow the ferry to dock in the prime areas, so we dock a short distance from town. There are cabs available to give me a ride into town. “Do you want the tourist town or the new town?”, asks the cabbie. Since the cruise ships took over the original town and drove prices up, the locals created a new area, a few miles away, where they can shop in peace. I only need batteries for my camera, so it is closer to get to the tourist town.

Our next stop is Petersburg, where Cathy is going. As the ferry follows the coast, there are many homes built along the shore. Almost every house has the residents waving to the ferry, and many of them are waving white handkerchiefs. I exclaim, “Look! They’re surrendering to us! That house is OURS!” Everyone laughs.

Cathy offers to give Lumpy and I a tour of the town of Petersburg. Her house is directly across from the dock, so it will take her only moments to make enough room in her car for us. The tour around the area lasts a full 20 minutes. She tells us that there are about 3,000 residents, mostly from Norway and Sweden. She takes us to a small version of a Norwegian stave church. This is a place where people can watch the humpback whales as they feed in the local waters all summer. It is very peaceful. I can understand why she wanted to return. We thank her for the guided tour and say our goodbye’s and return to the ferry.

The next stop for the ferry is Juneau. We are going to get a motel room and spend a day in the capital city. The next ferry does not leave until late the following evening, so we have time to sight-see. Other than Honolulu, this is the only state capital that can only be reached by boat or plane. There are not roads that join the city to other parts of the state. With homes built up the side of the mountains, this reminds me a great deal of towns in West Virginia. We tour a local history museum and visit a few sights in town. One stop is the Red Dog Saloon, a historic bar that has been here for many years. As we get a table, the bar tender delivers drinks to the group from the cruise ship, docked nearby. The price for two drinks was quite steep, so I was protecting my wallet as we ordered, but ours were only about a third the price for the same drinks. We got the ‘ferry special’. The distinctions between our two groups could not have been greater. We’re both bearded, wearing jeans and ball caps, and the other table had button down shirts, slacks, and sweaters. It was obvious which group arrived by cruise ship.

The bar tender tells us that, like Ketchikan, there is a new part of town for the locals. Every business you can walk to from the cruise ship is owned by the cruise ship companies. My mom and sister would take Caribbean cruises, and boast of how their room steward told them to shop at certain stores to get the ‘ship’ discount. We learned in Juneau, that it doesn’t matter where you shop since the same company owns all of the stores, so you are always paying the price they want you to pay, regardless of the phony ‘discount’.  Interesting.

I ride on back of Lumpy’s bike a few miles north of the city. We’re looking for Mendenhall Glacier, but the signs point us towards a housing development. Sure enough, tucked back in, we find two mountains with a large pile of snow and ice between them. The ice is a deep blue.  I have been to Glacier National Park, and have seen some snow between the tall mountains in the distance. But here, to see this river of ice, make so much more sense of the enormity and power contained within. The blue color is because the water molecules are packed down by the sheer weight of the snow above it. That is a lot of snow! Gravity pulls the ice down the mountains, advancing about 12 feet per day. Truly amazing.  Later, as we leave on the ferry, we get a great view of the glacier.

We pass through Glacier Bay National Park on our way to our next stop in Valdez. Known for the oil spill, this region is still recovering from that disaster. The accident was outside the city, but it is the closest city the newspapers could reference. The fishing has returned, and we see that the season’s record for the largest halibut is 400 pounds. A fish that weighs 400 pounds! Gees!

Lumpy lets me borrow his bike for an afternoon, and I enjoy a ride around the bay. Even though I am not on MY bike, I can at least say that I have ridden a bike in Alaska.

We catch our third ferry of the trip, taking us to Whittier, Alaska. This is the closest we can easily get to Anchorage. Although 60 miles away, you would have to go around the Kenai Peninsula to reach Anchorage proper.

This is the part of the journey where things are going to get a little tricky for me. As I don’t have my bike, I will have to find other transportation to Anchorage. We dock near noon, and I hear (finally) that there is a bus to Anchorage that leaves at 6pm. That’s good, but that’s generally not how the Universe works. It usually provides what is needed when it is needed, without much hassle or delay. Oh well, at least there is transportation.

As the ferry docks, the passengers are gathering around the doors to get to their cars. A man sees my Harley shirt and asks, “So, you’re bringing your bike to Alaska, eh?” Well, that was the plan. I tell him about losing my bike. He offers, “Do you need a ride to Anchorage? It’s on my way.” GREAT. Now THIS is how the Universe works.

The only road in and out of Whittier is through a train tunnel. The train comes in to town, a gate goes up and cars can drive towards Anchorage. The gates go down, the train goes to Anchorage, and lets traffic drive towards Whittier. Interesting setup. It’s a very odd feeling to drive through a 7-mile tunnel, especially with train tracks beneath you. My driver is an oceanographer, doing research along the Alaskan coast. We have a fun and interesting conversation about his research. He drops me off at the Anchorage airport, where I am able rent a car.  Finally, my own transportation again!

Around Alaska

Lumpy and I get settled into our motel in downtown Anchorage. Lumpy has talked to someone on the Internet and we meet for dinner at a steakhouse. They offer a ‘Texas’ size steak, at 12-ounces, and the ‘Alaskan’ size, weighing in at 28-ounces.

Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, with a population of 400,000 people. In this state, more than twice the size of Texas, there are another 300,000 people. Think about that. Everywhere in this state is remote. A very large part of the population can only be reached by boat or plane. There are no interstates (duh), and the state highways are still numbered in the single digits. There are bike paths along some of the highways, which are used for snow machines in the winter. A snow machine being a snowmobile or anything else that can run in the snow.

The days are very long during the Summer, and as a result the plants and flowers seem bigger and more colorful than in other places. Since it is light so late, and so early, we need to train ourselves to sleep until the alarm clock goes off, rather than when the sun comes up. Many people will line their bedroom windows with aluminum foil, as it is a cheap and easy way to block the light.

One of the places Lumpy wants to visit is the town of Homer, on the southwest side of the Kenai Peninsula. Following him out of Anchorage, something happens to his bike and he’s stuck on the side of the road. We call for a tow truck, and they take his bike to a mechanic, but they are closed today. We leave the bike there and continue to Homer in the rental car.

This is our first excursion out of Anchorage, and we find out how far apart the towns are. In Ohio, you can go in most any direction and find a town within 10 miles or so. In Alaska, that distance on the main highways is typically 30 to 50 miles between towns. Everything is remote.

We arrive in the town of Homer and find a place to stay. Homer is a quaint fishing town, and there is a narrow peninsula, known as Homer Spit, that extends out into the water. There are fishing boats, motels, and restaurants at the end of the spit, one of the most famous being the Salty Dog Saloon. It is an incredibly scenic area, and we really enjoy our visit.

Later in the trip we head north to Denali National Park, home of Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. While Mount Everest is the tallest point on the planet, it begins at an elevation of 20,000 feet. Mount McKinley starts not far above sea level and reaches to almost the same elevation as Mount Everest, so it is a much larger mountain.

Unfortunately, there are huge wildfires near Fairbanks, over two hundred miles north of Denali. But the smoke is so thick that we cannot even see that there is a Mount McKinley.

You can’t drive through Denali. To minimize the impact to the land, and because the roads are in such poor shape, you need to take a school bus through the park. After seeing the mountains and the roads, I am actually quite happy to be on an old school bus, as the roads are narrow and often have steep drops into the valleys far below them. Also, being on a bus allows us to enjoy the scenery and watch for wildlife. We take the ‘long’ version of the tour which goes about 80 miles into the park. It is a long day, but quite worthwhile.

Another destination, just north of Anchorage, is the town of Eklutna. When the Russian Orthodox missionaries came to this region in the 1700’s, they found that the local cultures had a tradition of building spirit houses. These are built over the graves of their ancestors, giving them a place for their spirit to live. The Russian missionaries realized that this was an important part of the local culture, and while they baptized the natives into the church, they allowed them to continue the tradition under the condition that the spirit houses display an orthodox cross. Brightly painted, in themes to match each family, this is a fascinating tradition. The Orthodox church is also beautiful.

Before I left Ohio, one of my good friends, Pete, tells me that years back he was going to Alaska with several friends, to spend a summer after college before entering the ‘real’ world. Along the way, Pete decided to start graduate school, while his friends went to Alaska. They stayed. He goes to visit them every few years, and gives me a list of phone numbers, encouraging me to visit them. This didn’t fit into the itinerary that Lumpy had prepared, so I waited until he started his bike trip home before contacting them.

I call the airlines to schedule a flight back to Ohio. I have a credit card that has some miles (supposedly), and I ask if that will help with the price of the ticket. “Oh yes, you have plenty of miles. You only have to pay airport tax of $55.”  That’s it!  Of the $555 from not taking my bike on the ferry, $500 covered the insurance, and now the remaining $55 is enough to get me home!  The Universe is working!

Hope, Alaska

I meet Rick in Anchorage, and he drives me down to the town of Hope. It’s about a 90-mile drive from Anchorage, and there are only three towns along the way. Hope is at the end of a dead-end road. We arrive in town and Rick drives me around ‘downtown’. “See this log cabin on the left? That’s the original post office from the first Alaskan gold rush. The log house on the right is the old general store, and this other log building is the old social hall.” Then we pull into his driveway. There is no ‘new’ part of town. That’s it.

There are about 300 people living in Hope. Rick’s wife is a teacher, and she has 13 students, one of each grade Kindergarten through 12th grade, and one student in each class (there are 2 seventh graders and no eight graders). It is a nice, modern, three-room school house, but there are not enough students to fill it.  The older kids help with the younger ones. Everyone in town knows who the kids are and who their parents are.

There is a birthday party for one of their friends, and they take me with them. “Oh, your a friend of Pete’s! Great!” There are forty or fifty people at the party, and everyone wants to hear the story of this ‘biker without a bike’. There is much laughter throughout the evening.

The next morning, Rick breaks out some fishing gear and takes me salmon fishing. I do my best at fly fishing, and have lots of fun casting and reeling in. I have only been fishing once in my life, in Lake Erie, when I was 6 years old. All I caught that time was seaweed. This is my moment of Zen. If I still had my bike, I wouldn’t be fishing right now, I would be worried about the roads on the way home with Lumpy. The insurance check will be there when I get home, so I can get a new bike.  This is the moment where I realize that I have absolutely no worries. I’m flying back to Ohio. I have nothing to be concerned about. The only ‘worry’ is that a 25 pound salmon will bite the fishing line. So, of all the things that have happened to get me here, that is really not a bad thing to be concerned with.

That afternoon Rick takes me on a ride to the top of one of the mountains. The scenery is simply spectacular. He tells me that the road is their sledding hill in the winter.  Obviously, you want to be very careful not to go off the steep edge. It sounds like it would be fun.

That night, a band is coming to town. Rick has taught his daughters how to play instruments, and they are friends with the band, so they are invited to play a set or two with them. The old log Social Hall is the town bar. It is a long, narrow, building. There’s a live band and about 75 people dancing, drinking, and laughing. It is a memorable night.

While Lumpy and I got to see many of the sites in Alaska, it was the weekend in Hope that really gave me an appreciation for the people of Alaska. With the long, hard, winters, at the end of a dead-end road, they are used to being isolated and having to take care of themselves. They don’t have the same stress as in a populated city. Nature is their playground, their livelihood, and their nemesis.

A few days later, Rick gets me back to Anchorage and I get to the airport. I can’t sleep on airplanes, so I find a book to read.  The best seller at the time as ‘The Davinci Code’, which is quite long. I start reading in the airport. By the time I arrive in Columbus I have just 20 pages left in the book.

Home at last

I decide that I will wait until after the Labor Day weekend to start looking for a replacement bike. My friend Wagz often gets time to read the newspaper, and he brings me the ads, and has one circled. It is for a 1996 Heritage Softail, with about 18,000 miles on it. This is the same model of bike that I had, just two years older, and had 80,000 miles less than my old one. I call the number in the ad, and ask when I can look at the bike. “Well, tonight is the best night, as I have to work evenings all week.” Great!  I give the bike a test ride. It is practically new, and in excellent condition. He has never taken the bike outside of Ohio (well, I can fix that!) The agreed price is less than what I got from the insurance company. It all worked out.

I get word that Lumpy made it home to Kansas safely. The overnight temperatures in the mountains limited him to short riding days, he said typically between 10am and 5pm. The trip was quite an adventure for him.

When the bike was stolen in Denver, I only called one of my coworkers and friends in Ohio. When I return to work, several people express their condolences over the missing bike. How did they even hear? I don’t even recognize many of them (but appreciate their concern).

A life lesson

One of my coworkers, Ritu, a small woman from India, stops by my desk to express her sympathies that the bike being stolen ruined my trip. I corrected her, and said that BECAUSE the bike was stolen, I had the best trip of my life. There were more stories and opportunities along the way that almost made it worth losing the bike. I explained my philosophy of the Universe, and how I believe that good things can come from bad events.

Several months later, Ritu offered to make lunch for me. She is a wonderful cook, and even the other Indian coworkers love her cooking. While we were enjoying the wonderful, flavorful foods, she asked “Do you know why I am doing this lunch?” No, I really had not thought about it (she knew I enjoy her cooking).  She had some medical issues, and there were some complications. The doctors were not confident that she would recover. She began to think about my thoughts of how the Universe works for the best, and she felt that, should she not make it, her husband and her children would be alright. It was after this realization that her health started to improve.  So this lunch was to thank me for the advice.

I was in tears. My bike was stolen. That is on an entirely different scale from losing her life. Still, the lesson is the same. The New Testament tells us to ‘have the faith of a mustard seed.’ So, when things are not going well, just think and try to believe, that maybe, just maybe, this is exactly what is supposed to be happening, and believe that however it works out, it will be what is best.

May the Universe work for you as it has for me!

 

I still need to get MY bike to Alaska, and home.