When I’m behind the wheel of a car its easy to zone out on familiar roads and not really see much.
It took being on the back of a Piaggio mp3 scooter to understand that I was missing a LOT. First of all, the scooter is the bastard lovechild of a Harley Davidson and a 4-Wheeler. It’s a Vespa on steroids that can hit 120 mph if she must. She’s an older model with a few things I’d change, but she’s also my first so I’ll deal.
Her name is Meep.
I really couldn’t argue.
It’s the noise her horn makes, pure Looney Tunes Road Runner “Meep Meep!” (I shit you not.)
I’ve been riding the same backroads for about a year and I realized that my idea of landmarks is probably going to be different than anyone else’s…There are the pocket cemeteries that dot the countryside. The one on the bigger road has the tree outside its gate that, in the winter, looks like a hand pushing out of a grave and into the light – palm to the sky with the fingers splayed open. There’s a corner where, in the winter, there is pair of large trees, one with black bark and one with white…..I call them the twins.
The vulture tree is along the highway west of the next town up, a huge tree that seems to play host to a family of vultures. It’s next to a run down barn along the curve of the road. From the saddle of Meep I have to consciously remember it’s coming in order to be able to catch sight of the critters. I learned that if I pull over they will actually fly over to investigate. Intriguingly creepy.
I stumbled on a hole in the wall curve along the backroad that seemed to be a cemetery, a white church and a sign that said Starfield, Mo. My writers mind immediately began outlining it as a landing point for alien life. Maybe it explains the prevalence of all the damned intelligent looking dairy cows that watch me closely as I ride by.
Leaves make such a difference in the landscape. I can see more without them, but it does look so much bleaker. It works if I’m in a gothic-y mood I suppose. I need to get better riding gear though, so I can get out in cooler weather. The views would change…..
What I want to sort out is way to take my good camera out with me. I’m not a confident enough rider yet that I can have it around my neck for the fast picture here and there. So I still use my camera phone. Not perfect but
-shrug-
Another day…who knows what’s around the corner…
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