It sure didn’t feel like it when I decided—somewhat on a whim--to embark upon a cross-country motorcycle journey.   Sure I was doing it alone, and on one of the fastest and sexiest yet most uncomfortable Italian bikes made, but what an adventure it would be!

My unscripted route took me along the familiar back roads of Oregon to a blistering hot Boise, through the dramatic Sawtooth Mountains and over Teton Pass into Jackson Hole, which shined as more than just a sleepy winter ski town.  

Next was the long but scenic route through Wyoming into Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where I’d take a day off the bike out of my leathers to enjoy the 4th of July festivities with some friends. 

Three hours and 62 miles after venturing into Rocky Mountain National Park I swore I’d never set foot, or wheel, in another National Park in the summertime again.  Curious tourists stopping traffic to take photos of Bambi.  Seriously?  Please God, just let them go the speed limit.   Is 35 miles an hour too much to ask?

Chased a storm across Colorado and counted the cornfields in Kansas until my mind went numb.  Clean and green Kansas City proved a pleasant surprise, and the large urban park in St. Louis was a welcome relief for my running legs that wanted nothing more than to MOVE.

Illinois was fleeting, Nashville full of music, but Knoxville proved my most memorable stop where I was almost taken out by the town crazy while in search of my morning espresso.  Despite a kind local shop owner who ran out and prevented my certain death, needless to say I wasn’t sad to say so-long to that city.

Around the Smokey Mountains I went then briefly onto the highly touted yet extremely foggy Blue Ridge Parkway.  If only I could have seen the views below, let alone the road in front of me.

I learned there are only two hotels in Chapel Hill proper (where do all those parents and alumni stay?) then met a friend on his boat in Baltimore…a lovely city not deserving of its less-than-stellar reputation.

From there I began the final and most harrowing leg of my journey into Manhattan to deliver the bike to a close friend to whom I was selling it.  Said friend a) was traveling in Europe with his family when I arrived, b) hadn’t told his wife (also a dear friend of mine and true adventure woman in her own right) he was buying my motorcycle, c) doesn’t know how to ride a motorcycle, and d) had his first child just 12 months ago at the ripe ol’ age of 46.  Can you say mid-life crisis?  His wife sure can.

Crazy?  Nah.  10 days and 4,015 miles later my friend got a new motorbike and I got an adventure I’ll remember for a lifetime (along with a really sore butt).