About 30 miles east of Wall I ran out of gas. Just me, my bike and the prairie. I wheeled off the road and parked the bike, facing east so that the warmth of the morning sun would hit me. We talk of the Badlands, the carvings on Mt. Rushmore, trips to Sturgis but words cannot describe the Badlands. Much like trying to explain what it means to ride is what it is like trying to describe the Badlands. The year I rode through was a locust year, these bugs were larger than my thumb and at night were flying about everywhere. I can see how other cultures use them for a protein source. I was hungry but not enough to cross that 1st world bias. I did sleep some and woke as the sun rose over the buttes. The colors effused through the rock was as if a giant box of Crayolas had been melted across the strata. Colors I had never imagined to exist, blending and swirling in a finger painting of the gods. This was the crowning moment of awareness that there was something bigger, more complex, more in tune… nature, God, the ether, Chi it was all here consuming and giving forth, and there it was: the most spiritual moment in my life and I was out of gas – living the Biker Life.
See you further on up the road...
