Chapter 1

The Journey Begins . . . Sort of

Since you've forsaken us and left us to wander alone in our twilight years while you're off getting all Navy-a-pated - we did what most 'recently elderly' people do and bought a new motorcycle.  She's a 2008 Victory Vision.  This beauty is like nothing you've ever seen.  I tell you the styling on this bike is revolutionary.  She is an ode to art deco.  She is a sonnet of line and form and function with a bass note of devil-may-care intensity.  Cherry Red.  106 cc's and 96 hp.  Cruise control.  Stereo.  GPS.  Heated seats.  Heated hand-grips.  Electric adjustable windshield.  Enough computer chips to build a robot.  

I admit, I'm smitten.  I may, if pressed, leave your Mother for this bike - she's just that hot.  Not that your Mother isn't hot - she is.  But Mom doesn't cruise from 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds unless she's mistaken the caffeine pills for breath-mints again.  How best to sum up the Vision?  She's a big-ass Buck Rodger's lookin' rocket-ship that raises more eyebrows than a beauty-pageant contestant explaining the nuances of quantum physics.  Yeah, that about covers it.  Needless to say, the brand-lemming bar-hopping motorcycle fashion crowd gives us a wide berth.  Evidently, and unbeknownst to us, it's entirely possible the Vision is a virus that may infect chrome.  But you know us.  You know how we are when it comes to other people's opinions . . . we could not care less.  Oh yeah - we're rebels.  We're trend-setters.  We just roll like that.  Plus, we're tired of sore butts and cold hands.  And cold butts.  And sore hands.  Our new baby is a plush recliner on wheels that corners so well and accelerates so quickly it should come equipped with an extra pair of undies and an insurance policy as standard equipment.  Zoooommmmmm!!!!!  

So, what do you do when you have a big honkin' bike?  Isn't it obvious?  You take a big honkin' trip.  And that's exactly what we intended to do.  Go bust some blacktop, you know?  Shred some twisties.  Run afoul of the law if possible.  Oh, the wild yonder called to us, begging us to explore, to investigate, to conquer its mysteries.  You don't keep a thoroughbred locked in the barn, do you?  Same with the Victory Vision.  She may look like a cover-girl model but our baby is no 'garage queen'.  She's a debutante born to tour the world.  The open road is her life-blood.  She is an artist of speed and g-force with the countryside her canvas.

  

Did I mention I love this bike?  But where to go?  That was the real question.  A relaxed weekend on the coast?  A nice day-long drive through the Cascades?  An over-nighter down on the Columbia River Gorge?

Silly, silly Amber.  This is us - these are your parental units of which we speak.  Short trips are for the weak and feeble.  Anything less than 300 miles a day is for sissies.  We had the time.  We had the equipment.  We lacked common sense.  All the cards were falling into place.  This was our chance to really test the legs of the bike as well as our endurance.  Possibly our marriage of thirty years, but that would come later.  So, in the fevered optimism that is our 'reason d'etre', we decided that a 2500 mile, week long motorcycle excursion to the Canadian Rockies, and Banff National Park in particular, on a big-ass spaceship-styled road-eating motorcycle seemed like a good idea.  

No, that's not quite right.  This trip seemed like a GREAT idea.


Protip:  Pay particular attention to the word "seemed".  Funny word that.  All kinds of interesting connotations.

*** continued tomorrow