It has taken me over six months to complete this journal entry. From the first moment I began to write it I knew that when it was completed I would no longer be a Michigander, but a North Carolinian - a southern hillbilly! The bike ride took place during the last days of October and the physical move in December, but the journey from the Great Lakes to the Piedmont is still underway as I begin to appreciate the good points of my new home while I still long for my friends at home.

Leaving home is never easy for one that revels in greeting familiar surroundings. Even though I truly enjoy exploring the unknown highways ahead; I have always found my greatest joys are kept in the memories of my hometown and the friends and family that populate it, now and forever. A simple 30 minute ride around the lake that was my childhood environment never fails to bring a smile as I remember summer days and boisterous times from all stages of my life. Learning to water ski; my first days of driving a car, the endless summers of 1964 and 1965 when I was pretty much on my own because of my mother's hospitalization as she struggled with cancer, driving on the ice the night before my wedding, and scattering the ashes of my late mother. All of those memories, the good and the bad, keep me well rooted to a couple thousand acres of woods and water known as Crystal, Michigan.

It took 25 years for me to return home after I first left in 1968 and I dread the thought that I will not live long enough to again call myself a Michigander, I am leaving home again at the age of 55. The first task of a long list was to relocate my GL 500 Silver Wing to the new home, some 900 miles away.

The excitement of a long mile motorcycle ride, much of it through the mountains of Appalachia, was enhanced by the brilliant autumn colors. The frustrations, stress, and worries due to ill health that had become my life in Michigan were left behind, ground into dust by the steady rise and fall of the engine revs as I ran quickly over the country roads that had been my playground through 40 years of riding.

I stopped several times while still in Michigan. Heat packs kept me comfortable in the sub-freezing weather but tended to shift and I was eager not to burn an unprotected area. A piece of good advice here...don't put a chemical heat pack real close to the 'boys' if you get my drift! Placing a single packet beneath you on the saddle is a good idea; it keeps your butt comfortably warm and blood circulating properly. The real secret to using heat packs is to place them wherever they can sit comfortably over shallow arteries, transferring heat easily to the blood and therefore throughout the body!

Comfort aside, it occured to me that half of the stops by the roadway to adjust the position of the heat packs were not necessary. I was avoiding that moment when the pavement changes at the Ohio border and I would finally leave the state. When a slight bump jolted me it was time to look foward. New roads and fresh memories lay ahead.

The rest of the ride could be a great story involving super twisty roads, wonderful solitude, exciting vistas and thrilling moments of adventure - as every motorcycle trip should be. And it was all of that, but I find myself unable to share the narrative right now. At some point I'll be able to blend all of those elements into a nice report on riding down US-52, but for the moment I think my best path is one that continues to look toward these new roads ahead.

I find myself riding more now than I ever did in Michigan. The roads here in North Carolina are just too numerous to count and they are all paved, the result of a gas tax that tops 31 cents per gallon. I've come to the conclusion there are NO straight roads, and level is reserved for the seaside byways near the Atlantic ocean. I have yet to find a town here where the locals don't wave from the front porch on a sunny day and it only seems proper to greet complete strangers with a few words of "howdy do."

I'm settling in and making the new memories. I must, because the alternative is to dwell in a past that is no longer accessible. But there are still those moments, like now, when I notice the weather at home is 80 degrees with bright sunshine and I recall just how beautiful sunlight is when reflected off the gentle waves of a lake called Crystal.

Remember, "Ride today - Tommorow you may not be able!"

-LW