Day One on the Road With the Dogs

It takes a few days after every adventure for me to sit down and write about the experience. I go through a form of writer’s block while I get caught up with everything I left undone. I also need time to process the journey. It’s a learning experience every time we go on the road. I decided to take a few moments today to talk about our first day on the road with the dogs.

Advice on packing for a motorcycle trip

The first thing you should know about a motorcycle road trip is the need to pack light. You only have room enough for what you can squeeze into the bag that fits on the luggage rack and the two saddle bags. A top heavy bike can become dangerous. There are a lot of things you need to leave behind, like makeup, bottles of shampoo, and extra clothing. Mandatory items include a tooth brush, paste, and enough changes of clean underwear to make it through the trip.

Tire check on Day One on the Road With the Dogs

The importance of checking your tires before you pull out onto the highway tops the safety list. A blowout on the Interstate can be a disaster when you only have two wheels. (Rooster and I know about this from experience.) We make it mandatory to check the tires for the proper tread and air pressure before every trip.

Dark skies overhead on Day One on the Road With the Dogs

The skies overhead are dark and cloudy. We’ve checked the weather, and know about the possibility of rain. We might ride through a downpour, but we’ve all been wet before. The radar looks like we might get lucky if we ride east into the state of Ohio. That is what we plan to do. You can’t predict the weather by the look of the sky these days anyway.

One of the essential element of a motorcycle road trip is meeting up with the Road Dogs. We have been riding with them for twenty years now. We decided a good meal was a necessity before we hit the road.

The rain chased us across the state of Indiana and into Ohio. We managed to avoid downpours, but we came to places on the road that were wet. We rode through small towns, past barns, and near water. It was all good and we stopped for the night in one of the chain hotels.

The most striking feature of the hotel where we stayed became the water lilies in the water outside the main lobby. I felt like I’d walked into a Claude Monet painting. We sat and watched them until the mosquitos drove us inside. The water lilies around Lake Erie make it differ from Lake Michigan. We saw them everywhere we looked.

Thus ended our first night on the road. We were excited about our plans to go to Put-In-Bay the next morning. All of us needed a good night sleep because we discovered we weren’t as young as we used to be on our last road trip ten years ago. Old people need their rest.

Who is Molly Shea?

Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh.  To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.

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