It’s funny how a single motorcycle trip can change your life.

When I was in high school I was certain I wanted to study engineering.  And I was smart enough in math and science to do it.  Engineering seemed like the right thing to do, and it’s certainly not something that a parent would try to dissuade a young adult from doing.

One of my favorite relaxation techniques was (and still is) to throw a dart at a wall map of Ontario, and ride my motorcycle out to wherever the dart landed.  It was a great way to see parts of the province that wouldn’t normally be a destination, and it taught me that the journey can be just as much fun as the destination.

And on one spring evening in 1992, the dart landed just outside of Woodview, Ontario, on a little green square called Petroglyph Provincial Park.

The ride out there was magical; through some of those wonderful twisty Northern Ontario logging roads that ache for a motorcycle.  I remember I had U2’s Achtung Baby playing on my discman, and it seemed entirely appropriate.

But nothing could prepare me for the power of the petroglyphs.  For two hours I slowly circled the rock, carefully watching as the steward made an offering of tobacco and sweetgrass.

Within a few months I decide to major in anthropology and Canadian Native Studies at Trent University.  How that turned out is another story for another day, but I’m thankful that some First Nations rock carvings moved me that deeply.

Ironically, I never made it back to Petroglyph Provincial Park.  Sounds like a fantastic trip to blog about sometime …

Sorry about the brief absence (not that surprising, since I am the absent.canadian).

A good bit of this past weekend was spent engaging in retail therapy.  Nothing exciting, though - mostly just needed things like groceries, cleaning supplies and toilet paper.

And for my friends living in northern latitudes, it’s currently 22 degrees Celsius in Raleigh.  Yes, that’s bona fide T-shirt weather.  I drove the motorcycle into work this morning, and I didn’t even need gloves.

Please - don’t hate me.

We’re such a funny lot of people. We’ll tell you all sorts of things to make you believe that motorcycles are the next closest thing to sex with seventy-one beautiful virgins. (editor’s note: I’m not exactly sure who came up with the idea that one virgin, much less seventy-one virgins would be some sort of good thing … but the mixed metaphor works, so we’ll go with it)

Anyways, I rode the bike in to work this morning. It was three degrees Celsius when I left (that’s about 38 Fahrenheit for the ‘mericans), and I considered my decision as I sat at a stoplight, watching the little white clouds of my breath puff out from under my helmet.

I have a perfectly good car sitting in my driveway that will convey me to work in all the climate-controlled luxury and safety that the Germans can muster. Instead, I chose a rickety little contraption with the same amount of bodywork as a Sports Illustrated model has bikini. The engine makes a lot of noise, it shakes, and it’s bolted directly to the frame - a great way to transmit all of those vibrations directly into my body. Sure it’s fast, but it comes at the expense of being exposed to all of Mother Nature’s glory, including rain, bugs, fog, bird shit, dust, and even the occasional rodent that strays in my path. What’s normally a dull thud in my car is a live wide-screen demonstration of seven hundred pounds of metal and flesh versus a few ounces of four-legged fur when it happens on the motorcycle.

The odd part is that we’re proud of this. My head is held high through the rain and cold, and I wear it like some sort of badge of honor that I don’t need one of those big windshields to ward off the nasties.

The rationale for all of this came just before I pulled into work. A woman in a minivan passed me going the opposite direction, and I had a split-second to observe the going-ons inside. Phone clutched in one hand and kiddie-toy in the other, she had a mixed expression of bewilderment and irritation. I counted two kids in the back - mouths wide open in mid-scream, no doubt. The minivan had all the usual telltale marks of a mommy-taxi: a thousand door-dings from the WalMart parking lot, little stickers on the inside window, and the ghost of a thousand kool-aid stains haunting it.

Considering this rather extreme alternative, there’s something comforting about a few bugs and some chilly knees, and the fact that God himself couldn’t make a cellphone loud enough to be heard over the drone of my bike’s engine. What the motorcycle afford a person isn’t noise and bugs; it’s the peace and quiet from everyday life.

• The house painting is coming along nicely.  By the end of today most of the upstairs should be done.
• I spent about four hours at the climbing gym on Saturday and another two hours on Sunday.  My body hurts - a lot - but it’s a good hurt.  I’m going to take tonight off and head back tomorrow after work.
• My mother is coming down to visit in November.  I can’t wait to see her!
• I’m having strong second thoughts about selling my car and my motorcycle.  I can afford to keep both of them, and I really enjoy them … and the urge to “purge” is passing.  I think I’ll wait until at least the new year to make any decisions on that.

It started as an innocent trip. I needed to find a good diner for lunch; something that would rank at least “three calendars” on the Heat-Moon Scale. I found it just outside of Timberlake, North Carolina.

“County Kitchen” had all of the prerequisites for a great country diner. The tables inside may well have come out of someone’s dining room, and the lunch counter had the chrome fixtures for napkins and salt-and-pepper shakers. Old men sat at tables and talked about whatever old men talk about, and copies of the local newspaper sat on top of the ice cream cooler.

The calendar on the wall came from a local funeral home. The place definitely had potential.

I ordered a “lunch plate” and a glass of sweet tea. I did not come away hungry.

With my tummy full, I decided a bit of adventure was in order. I normally continue up the highway towards South Boston; this time, I turned right on Helena-Moriah Road, and wandered into the heartland of North Carolina.

This particular road twisted and turned past about six miles of the finest countryside I have seen in a while. Old houses with wraparound verandas and symmetrical chimneys shared the landscape with log-cabin tobacco barns and tractors. The finest of these barns had trees growing out of them; I couldn’t help but notice that the Earth eventually reclaims everything that belongs to it.

There were a lot of people rocking on their front porches. Most of them waved to me; I always wave back. I’m not sure why, but it seemed like most of the people I saw were quite elderly. The kind of people that drive Cadillacs with both hands on the steering wheel.

A cemetery on the side of the road was too compelling to not stop at, and I found this gravestone. Rest in peace, John Bumpass.

A bit further down, I came to an antique store. It seemed a bit anticlimactic; maybe a bit too easy, given that every square inch of the surrounding countryside could have been lifted from some 100-year time machine. Regardless, there was a hand-cranked grain thresher outside that captivated my attention.

Old wooden farm implements have a life of their own. Part of their charm may come from their wholesome construction; wood panels and iron fittings are made with materials that come from the land, and their design is entirely plain style and self-explanatory.

I turned the crank on this thresher a few times, and couldn’t help but wonder how many threshing seasons it laboured. The grooves of ancient fingers were worn into the wooden crank, but the fan didn’t hesitate to spin at all. Indeed, it almost seemed excited at the prospect of another healthy season.

I may ahve featured photos of this tractor in an earlier post, but it’s here again - for no other good reason than the fact that I like it. If tractors could tank, this one would have a lifetime of stories to tell. Beat-up as it is, it still sits proudly, waiting to till another field.

My last noteworthy photograph is this old tobacco building. As you’ve probably gathered from my earlier posts, I’m interested in understanding how tobacco could have become such a pivotal crop in this part of the world. There’s no denying tobacco’s importance; what’s more curious to me is how tobacco could have been such a part of people’s day-to-day lives. Then again, maybe this shouldn’t be so surprising, since smoking is one of the most pervasive habits that people have.

It was a beautiful drive down Helena-Moriah Road, and a beautiful day to be on the motorcycle. For my friends in Canada, I can only wish that you were here to enjoy the 20+ (Celsius) degree weather we’re having.