Motoring.
We went for another bike ride yesterday after church. (And by "bike," I mean Harley, of course.) It was cloudy and overcast for most of the ride. Only during the last of the 4 hours did the sun warm our faces, which was a nice change to the sandblasting wind that had marked the day.
A car is a cocoon that travels, a capsule where you control the ambient temperature and the sounds from the radio. On a motorcycle, you abdicate that control to the world around you.
Riding piques all your senses. Smells of hay, cut grass, manure (and skunk!) are more potent when you ride. There is no filter to clean the air or vents to shut off. The noises of barking dogs, lawn mowers, 18-wheelers and construction jackhammers are not muffled by glass and steel.
And the colors... the colors are truer than when viewed through a windshield. For instance, I've always thought that the "colors of autumn" were gold, orange, red, burgundy, maybe some lingering green. But there is purple out there! Deep, rich purple blooms along every roadside.
As we were riding, I began to form the idea for this blog. My mind was wandering about the metaphor of life being a journey... or maybe life as flying by... or life lived with risk as opposed to security...when, all of a sudden, there was a huge accident right in front of us. Two 18-wheelers, a mini-van, a pick-up truck and a car were all toppled into the grassy area between the lanes of I-76. The mini-van looked like an accordian. Broken glass and the back hatch of the truck were scattered on the road. It had just happened. The plumes of smoke from locked rubber tires and median dirt were still rising.
As we weaved through the wreckage, thankfully watching everyone emerge from their cocoons safely, I realized that we had been spared by just a couple of minutes. We had stopped to make a phone call to my stepson to tell him how far away we were from the restaurant where we'd meet. We wanted to time it so that we all arrived at the same time. But we got his voice mail. We stopped a few miles later to try the call again, this time successfully. So what originally seemed like an annoyance turned into a potentially lifesaving minute.
Right about then, the idea of a cocoon sounded really good. And within a few minutes, we were at Big Boy munching on burgers and strawberry pie, thanking God for His protection and His decision to leave us here a while longer.
A car is a cocoon that travels, a capsule where you control the ambient temperature and the sounds from the radio. On a motorcycle, you abdicate that control to the world around you.
Riding piques all your senses. Smells of hay, cut grass, manure (and skunk!) are more potent when you ride. There is no filter to clean the air or vents to shut off. The noises of barking dogs, lawn mowers, 18-wheelers and construction jackhammers are not muffled by glass and steel.
And the colors... the colors are truer than when viewed through a windshield. For instance, I've always thought that the "colors of autumn" were gold, orange, red, burgundy, maybe some lingering green. But there is purple out there! Deep, rich purple blooms along every roadside.
As we were riding, I began to form the idea for this blog. My mind was wandering about the metaphor of life being a journey... or maybe life as flying by... or life lived with risk as opposed to security...when, all of a sudden, there was a huge accident right in front of us. Two 18-wheelers, a mini-van, a pick-up truck and a car were all toppled into the grassy area between the lanes of I-76. The mini-van looked like an accordian. Broken glass and the back hatch of the truck were scattered on the road. It had just happened. The plumes of smoke from locked rubber tires and median dirt were still rising.
As we weaved through the wreckage, thankfully watching everyone emerge from their cocoons safely, I realized that we had been spared by just a couple of minutes. We had stopped to make a phone call to my stepson to tell him how far away we were from the restaurant where we'd meet. We wanted to time it so that we all arrived at the same time. But we got his voice mail. We stopped a few miles later to try the call again, this time successfully. So what originally seemed like an annoyance turned into a potentially lifesaving minute.
Right about then, the idea of a cocoon sounded really good. And within a few minutes, we were at Big Boy munching on burgers and strawberry pie, thanking God for His protection and His decision to leave us here a while longer.
posted by ThreeGraces @ 9:44 AM
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