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August 24, 2005

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A very bad and abstract picture, I took this shot, playing around with the slow shutter speed, while I was bored and riding at night. The oncoming trucks on a two lane highway are very menacing at night. That's actually the moon at the top of the image.

So my comfort level just went to the extremes this week and I am finally at home and recovering. I had just finished riding from Scio, Oregon to Tucson, Arizona, about 1,400 miles, in about 26 hours. I rode all the way through without any sleep. Leaving at 9:30 AM on Tuesday and arriving at 11:30 AM on Wednesday. Doing all this without a drop of caffeine or any stimulants whatsoever, with a fever and an annoyingly painful problem in a very bad place to be sitting on a bumpy ride for that length of time. But am I tough, or just plain stupid? Well, that always seems to be under speculation. And as my friend, Larry confirms, "If you're going to be stupid, you'd better be tough."

So, while riding on and into the night, just past Reno, Nevada, I found myself dealing with that same anal problem I have had for many years. But, no matter how fast I rode, irony had finally caught up with me once again.

I have always had very strong issues concerning high beams on the highway. And even those annoying running lights that seem to do no good to oncoming traffic. How many people never seem to remember that they have them on? Forcing some of us to flash them, in an attempt to remind them that they are being inconsiderate to other drivers. Well I was having the same problems this night. Car after car, I was flashing my high beams at them, trying to get them to dim their lights. Well, dim them, most of them did. But some of those annoying people just didn't seem to get it, and it was so very annoying. I mean, how could they be so bold and so rude? Well, like I said, irony caught up with me.

As I was riding down an empty highway, with my high beams on, the approaching traffic was cresting a hill, and I reached for my dimmer switch. Whereas, upon flipping the switch, my headlight went out completely. Startled, I flipped it back on and off a few times. Yep, you guessed it, my low beam filament had burned out. Now I was stuck with only a high beam light, on a bike that has only one headlight. And, apparently that high beam seems to be extremely bright. 

I soon found myself being flashed more than a bead salesman at Mardi Gras. At first I began to flash them back, trying to display that, as my light went out completely, I had a problem. But, after numerous flashes back, I began to determine that they must have thought I was just stupid and not realizing their complaint. So I devised this clever strategy of flipping it off and on a few times, and leaving it off for a brief moment, as if I was trying to remedy the problem. But then something occurred to me. By flipping my light on and off in such a manner, or at all, stressing the filament could possibly cause my only existing light to burn out as well, leaving me with no headlight at all, and stranded out in the middle of the desert. So I ceased flashing it altogether, though I was reaching for it all night, out of reflex.

So, for every car that passed me after that, and definitely the ones that flashed me, I gave them a silent apology and just kept riding through the night.

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