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September 29, 2017
Thursday 9/28/2017
JB and Sapna agree to meet me out in San Francisco.
It's always fun to meet up with friends for a night out in the city.
But first, I have a few hours to kill. So, I roll up to the San Pablo reservoir. Always, I fly over it and see it from above. But I've never seen it from the ground. I punch some directions into my GPS, and now I"m rolling through the hills above Berkeley, looking at the San Pablo Reservoir.
Then, back down into Oakland, and now over to San Francisco. I roll around San Francisco for about 3 hours, just shooting like mad. I like to shoot the murals in the city. And it's sort of fun to reconnect with the different neighborhoods in the city. I'm in Lower Haight. Upper Haight. Mission. All over the place. Just shooting like crazy.
I don't have plates on the bike. So, I'm always afraid that the police will roll up on me and pull me over, but somehow they don't. I'm not clear why. But they don't.
It's so hard to know when to reach out, and when to pull back. This is the hardest part. This is my struggle. But, I keep going over the numbers. It's just insane not to do this. I'm thinking the whole trip will be $10K. So, why not go? What could be the excuse not to go? This has nothing to do with the project. The project is over for me. That's all behind me now.
This is the hardest part, it seems. It's easy to fly over the terrain and look down, twice a week, and think "Oh I should go there" and "That looks like a fun ride", but then, we all get caught up in the detritus of everyday life and, somehow, things get pushed aside. So that, every time I take off, I look down at the mountains and wonder why I never saw them. Not this week. Not last week. Not ever.
So, the trick is to try to remember to live your dreams. To go to visit the places you saw from altitude. That's the hardest part, it seems.
But JB is right there, trying to remind me what it's all about. Everyone gets let go. We're contractors. It comes with the territory. It's the nature of the beast.
"If you don't go now, then they're going to hire you back onto the project, and then you'll have missed your chance to take this trip," JB offers.
"Fuck them." I think. That's just what they'd want to do, I figure. They'd want to make me come back to work without getting a break," I muse. The bastards.
Now, I have to go and make this ride. I have to make this happen. I may not have another chance to do this in my lifetime. If I spend $100 a day, for 60 days, that's only $6,000.00. So, there's no reason not to go.
"You have to go make this trip," JB implores me. "We're all living vicariously through you, man."
He's right, of course. I have to do this. I have to make this trip. ALways, it seems like the craziest idea ever when you start out. You're ordering things...parts, pieces, gear....trying to get ramped up for some crazy cross-planet trip. No one else is doing this, of course. Always, it seems that you're all alone, and gearing up for armageddon.
"You need to make sure to hit Death Valley," JB implores me. I'm like..."I don't even think I know where that is..." I offer.
JB is right, of course. I have to do this. I have to make this happen. All it takes is courage. If not now, when?
There is one other consideration. I would not live much longer lanesplitting in LA or San Francisco. It's just too dangerous. I do it. I ride every day, and I lanesplit every day that I'm in California. But this cannot go on. It's only a matter of time before someone takes me out. By comparison, South American seems like a relatively safe gamble.
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 29, 2017 at 1:06 AM
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