OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Trip Start: 2012-07-29 Trip End: .
Barren. The landscape before me is apocalyptically empty en route to Moab. A flash of colour from a hill lures me to trek and discover a crafted flower and a jellyfish fossil. The wasteland undulates lazily into the distance. I foresee a long, unremarkable ride ahead. I love it when I’m wrong. Adjectives begin to fail me as unimagined geographical…
Road, onward, curves through more spectacular scenery. The trees Aspen is named for remind me I’m missing fall back home; golden leaves shimmering in the wind. I just keep passing places I feel I could hang up the hammock for a month in. The mountains and all their layers of beauty call to the very core of my being, a…
Like Santa Fe, all I knew about Denver was that it was called Denver. In deference to its surroundings I always imagined a low-slung town, fields leading away to the jagged mountainscape. Wandering into an unexpected city in my path, I discover it is in fact huge. A Harley rider sets me on back course to Boulder as I wind…
The massive state of Texas shrinks in time and memory as I make my way forward through New Mexico towards the Rocky Mountains. Just entering the state I notice an interesting change. Despite the occasional relief or geometric pattern appearing on the overpasses in Texas, there are few obvious signs that it was ever anything but The Lone Star State.…
Another early, golden morning. It feels good to rise with the sun. An unexpected guest joins me as I cook rice on a stove made from a beer can. I pick up a pair of shades against the sun from a Family Dollar. Some queer chromatic aberration makes rainbow hues show up all over when I put my visor down…
The endless highway drudges on, hypnotic, soporific. I catch myself struggling for consciousness, but I’m too stubborn to pull over. I’ve been on the road for hours and gotten nowhere – evacuation traffic just never ends. Lessons in riding tired are almost learned the hard way as I make my slow advance towards Houston, but my foggy consciousness manages to…
I’m falling into a rhythm in my strange new home. My mornings are beauty and stillness. Wake up; watch the sunrise over the lake, diluted by city haze. Climb down, let Lost out of the electrical room I store her in for the night. Simple boiled rice and vegetables for breakfast; roam the deserted grounds. It’s hard to break the…
The sepia almost-light of cloudy dawn pulls me down from my dreams, but not to the ground. Carefully, I exit my shelter, remembering my lullaby – Don’t get out of your hammock and die, don’t get out of your hammock and die… ——————————————————————————– Yesterday began with a delicious coffee and conversations with perfect strangers on sex and religion, attended by…
New Orleans; it might as well be Mos Eisley for the reactions I’ve gotten from people when I tell them my explorations take me there. A local girl I contact makes reference to a surplus of axe murderers. The local tongue-in-cheek rag runs a piece on Sudden Bullet Death Syndrome. Still, reputations have a tendency to collect momentum and outgrow…
Alright so the last post was photo sparse due to most of the recent shots being corrupted. I was lucky, and the majority of the nuclear shots came out, though I lost some keepers for sure. The Refinery Incident behind me, I make it to a McDonalds and do a last minute websearch for a place to crash, as I’m…
Time in transit again. I ride, digest the events of the journey so far, and lose myself in translation as the odometer spins steadily. A rusty bridge with vines interlaced through the latticed steel beams stirs me from my reveries and off track. Further investigation leads me to discover the Wild Turkey Distillery, and as usual Lost proves herself a…
The hint of sun on the horizon triggers my photographer’s internal alarm and I snap awake, grab my camera, and head for the fence I saw last night. There’s a camera trained on the main entrance, so I have to run through the field of ticks. It’s still early but already heating up. Despite this I am wearing my full…
So my stay in Kentucky is brief but eventful. The night of the 6 flags caper, Buddykermit invites me to crash at his pad. The place is pretty sketchy – enough so that I decide to bring in my saddlebags off the bike. Then it turns out my host is a gun nut – but hey, I’ve always wanted to…