Rambling. Well It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time...

[swedeonabike]

Simply this is the story of how I said goodbye to these

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and traded this

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for this

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until I'm either broke, happy with myself and the world, or dead (as my mother seems to be expecting).
The reasons for leaving made perfect sense to me. In my recent past I had a sort of mental breakdown. There were many contributing factors but the big one is that I was trying to live up to everyone's expectations regardless about how it made me feel. When I failed I hid it. It simply was unforgivable in my mind to admit to the people in my life that I do fail. Growing up it always seemed like my parents expected me to fail so I could not let them know they had been right. And my girlfriend of over four years expected great things from me so I couldn't let her see that I was weak. After all she wanted someone that could support a family financially. Oh and would settle and have a family and not ride motorcycles or do anything dangerous and certainly not travel around. But I don't blame her. I never let her know that I wanted something different. Instead I just bottled it down. Here I was trying to live a very concise, organized respectable life while something intangible lurked the the back of my mind telling me to run and do my own thing. I had my little breakdown, even attempted suicide, broke up with my girlfriend, and started to live for myself. Still it seemed like I was just running from myself and I was never really comfortable with myself. So rather than keep running I decided to sell off everything I couldn't fit onto the back of my motorcycle and hit the road with what little money I have and work my way across the country.

[Buckstoy]

Good luck with your rambling!

[loudnlow7484]

I'll be watching this one closely. Best of luck.

[slomon]

good luck and i hope you find yourself. looking forward to the rambling.

[swedeonabike]

The day before I'm supposed to leave I had planned on taking this girl for a ride around the lake. I get to her house , get her in leathers and helmet, on the bike, hit the starter and the old bike (Johanna) fires right up......then dies as soon as I put it in gear. Hmmm, was acting like the plugs were fouled so I push it on home. Only then do I take off the seat to find this

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If you can't tell that's more motor oil in my airbox than whiskey in my Grandpa's coffee. Determined to still make my escape I decide to just take my Blackbird down to Texas, leaving Johanna to be fixed by a friend, then swing back through and change bikes. So now I get this view

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That night my friends throw me a little get together which I was in no condition that requires showing on the internet ( http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=556487 ) . Anyway I manage to pull myself up the next day and onto my high-speed steed and make the bikes part from each other for a whille (those 1999 1100cc Hondas really like one another you know)

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Oh, and yes the Blackbird is painted with truck-bed liner. Step one to becoming an acceptable ADV bike?

[Matt]

Ride safely and have a great time.

Hope you find what you are looking for.......let me know when you do and I'll come and get it as well.

[swedeonabike]

WARNING : This next section is devoid of photos as I didn't have my own camera yet so stick with me here.


I leave my home of Lawrence (KU Jayhawks and hippies) and get a whole three miles out of town when I notice my GPS is frozen. I pull off into a nearby church parking lot to try and fix it (a rather fruitless endeavor) . In this same parking lot is about 50 bagpipers. Playing the funeral song. Yep, the funeral song and I now have not GPS. Not even out of the county and I'm already getting this crap? Giving life in general the old ADV salute I figure F it. A lively pace puts me in Parsons, KS (the very SE corner) and at my grandparents in plenty of time to help with farm work. The next day I super-slabbed it to San Antonio. I spent a few days visiting my mother and some friends there and in Austin before heading back. Nothing eventful happened and in all honesty it didn't really feel as if my trip had started seeing as how it was the same route that I've taken many times.

I get back to Kansas and my friend tells me I had somehow just extremely over-filled the oil. We all make mistakes I guess. Either that or some sneaky gnome was adding oil to my bike at night. Either way a simple oil change and new air filter was all I needed to get Johanna road worthy again.

Somehow fate worked it out so that right when I get home the director of the summer camp calls asking if I could work a few retreats. So I stuck around awhile made some cash, bought a second-hand camera, and have been reloading Johanna to leave again. Looking a little Grapes of Wrathesque due to my banjo case, the fact my laptop won't fit in my saddlebags, etc, I'm now all set to head East to lands yet unventured.


End of Photoless Section

[Mullet]

It sounds like you did the right thing, at the right time. Enjoy!

[Gravytrain]

Good for you for doing it.
Live life on your terms

[nicholastanguma]

Swedeonabike, trying to off oneself is never the answer. Riding motorcycles, however, usually is. You made the wiser choice!

Hope this trip will be epic for you. Blow out them cobwebs, son.

Totally subscribed, dood!

[Lopoetve]

Originally Posted by nicholastanguma

Swedeonabike, trying to off oneself is never the answer. Riding motorcycles, however, usually is. You made the wiser choice!

Hope this trip will be epic for you. Blow out them cobwebs, son.

Totally subscribed, dood!

I'm in, for the quote in your sig.

[swedeonabike]

I picked up Johanna and had planned on only staying a couple of day, but that turned into a couple of weeks of packing way too much crap.

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Now I'm back on the road heading East. With a bald front tire. Yep, that's right. I found a place with a new tire but they said it would be over a week before they could mount it. So I gave them the ol' ADV salute and took the tire to have it mounted somewhere on the road, figuring I could at least get to Nashville on the current rubber. So looking a bit Grapes of Wrath-esque, I head into Missoura towards the Lake of the Ozarks to stay at a friends lake house.

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By the time I reach Clinton my tire looks ready to go at any moment, so I pull into the gas station and ask this old timer if he knows of a bike shop. This had to have been one of most hilarious gentlemen I have ever met. His name is Ron and he was heading to a Wichita nursing home the next week and was NOT happy about it. As he put it "Those ungrateful *#&(# kids of mine think I'm as useful as a carrot. Well, I'd like to see them get up at 5:00 every mourning and walk a mile to work. But somehow I'M the one needing looked after. If you ever start to think of your dad like that, just stop talking to him, that's better than this babying bull@#it" I head to the bike shop he pointed out but they were closed. Not a big deal considering it gave me a chance to camp in the woods nearby and enjoy the singular New Belgium 1554 beer I brought.

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For those of you wondering why I have so much stuff, it's a mix of having large items that I got for free/ on the cheap, and the fact that my saddlebags are completely filled to the brims with food my Grandma bought me before I left. Basically my plan is to eat the large and heavy items first and slowly bring things down from the pack. Tonight's meal

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The next mourning I assault the shop's owner before he even has time to open for business. He doesn't complain and even goes ahead and mounts it right away. By 9:00 and for only $20 I'm back moving East. And who do I see on my way out of town? Ron, hard at work as a school crossing guard. God help the 2nd grader that pisses him off.

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I take Highway 7 south to Highway 60 which runs along southern MO.

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I stop for a quick hour hike in the Mark Twain National Forest, and eat a lunch of canned chicken salad in Poplar Bluff

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This entire stretch of road was extremely beautiful and curvy, enough to make me wish I wasn't so loaded down, with still-slick rubber, and even that I was back on the Blackbird (though the little crosses along side the road reminded me why it was good that the Blackbird was back home). I meander my way to Nashville without touching the interstate. 9:00 P.M., 12 hours from today's departure I'm at my friends' house with chicken burritos waiting for me.

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[freaking RT]

[ziepan]

Originally Posted by swedeonabike

I see you decided to throw the cat out of the travel gear. Good choice they never travel well.

[freaking RT]

anybody heard from swede?