The road to self-discovery is long and winding. I started one leg on that road 40 years ago this week when I kick-started a 9,600-mile journey to Alaska and back on a 1968 BSA 650 Thunderbolt.
 
I was 21, my partner 19. He was riding a BSA 650 Lightning.
 
For me, the hum of the highway was a call to adventure and introspection. Riding a motorcycle is a solitary pursuit, one in which the deep, rhythmic drumming of the pipes below your legs can put you in a Zen-like state. You are alive in the moment so close to the wind, the sun, the rain and the pavement racing inches below your feet. I had no windshield, no cowling, no radio, no heater, no cell phone, no lap-top and no Gortex. There was no one to talk to but myself.

I craved this solitude. The path that I had been on was not one I blazed. It was one overgrown with the expectations of others. I had a full-time factory job that paid enough to live in an apartment complex with a pool, pay for college and buy a two-year-old Chevy Malibu convertible and two motorcycles.
 
What I didn’t have was passion for the path, so I quit the job, dropped out, sold the car and went on a quest.
 
Easier to do then, than now and I guess you can find yourself here or there. However, I chose the road for adventure, the challenge of the 1,400 mile dirt and gravel Alaskan Highway and a shot at working on the pipeline, which was winding its way through environmental impact studies.
 
Mile Zero is at Dawson Creek in northeast British Columbia. At that time, only the first 83 miles were paved. Now, it is now mostly paved and 132 curves have been straightened. Suicide Hill, at mile 148, is still there with the sign “Prepare to meet thy maker” but many hills have been graded. Looking back to 1971, however, the word “highway” was not an accurate moniker. In drier areas, the washboard road rattled bones and loosened nuts and bolts. My partner lost his headlight after one such stretch. In other areas, the gravel was swallowed by sand pits or mud bogs and as we hit these soft spots we fought to keep the bikes under control as our wheels suddenly sunk below us. We tipped a few times to avoid disaster.
 
Potholes were another concern. Hit a large one at 40 miles an hour and you could blow a tire or bend a rim and find yourself stranded. There were few motorcycle shops on the highway.
 
The glare from the low western sun was, at times, blinding, particularly when the semis threw up dust when the road was too dry. Semis provided another challenge. Truck traffic had increased dramatically because the International Longshore and Warehouse Union was on strike and goods normally shipped via Alaska’s inside passage were rerouted by truck. We gave them wide berth, particularly when they were cascading downhill throwing stones and rocks with such force they could break a windshield or headlight or puncture a gas tank. We saw one man driving a Volkswagen with a blown-out windshield. He held a piece of Plexiglas in front of his face as he drove at a slow rate of speed. At the bottom of one hill, we saw the smoldering shell of a semi whose driver had gone too fast for the road conditions.
    
We rode through rain and sleet and the extreme temperatures typically found in the Canadian Rockies. The nearly 900 miles we drove on the Alaskan Highway was the most challenging leg of the trip, and the most fun. But, when we arrived in Whitehorse, Yukon the cold and rainy fall was upon us, we were low on money and we discovered the job outlook in Alaska was dismal. We took the narrow gauge railroad from Whitehorse to Skagway, Alaska and boarded a ferry to take us down the inside passage to Prince Rupert, B.C. where we continued heading south.
 
We ran out of money in Washington, picked apples for a month and continued south, looking for warmth. But, good weather in the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico at that time of year was elusive. We were so cold we put our feet on the engine blocks, rode one handed to warm the other hand against the block and sang rock songs to generate body heat. We weathered these challenges and took time to revel in the beauty of such places as the Grand Canyon and Death Valley. And, we climbed a mountain, soaked in hot springs and slept under the stars.
 
So what did we learn in three months on the road?
 
Looking back on it now, the challenges we faced led us to this simple truth--to experience life to its fullest you must conquer fear of the unknown. Alaska was a challenge that was bigger than us, given our young age. It forced us to test ourselves. It gave us the confidence to tackle other challenges knowing that we don’t need to know everything before we leap into the next adventure or the next career. We just need to know enough to take the first step and have the confidence to take the next step when we have gained enough knowledge to do so.
 
Since that trip 40 years ago I have also learned this: the road to self-discovery takes a lifetime to travel.

Comment at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed