Note: This story from the back files comes from a trip Mike did back in The Year Of Our COVID, 2021—Ed.

Kim and I are still out on our round-trip cross-country ride, wandering our way across the USA. We left Vermont on June 26th, and I am now sitting in Shelby, Montana, having reached the Pacific Ocean a few days ago. We’ve had some great pavement and backcountry riding. And we’re now in return mode with a somewhat more direct path to our little house in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

As often happens with travelers, we’ve seen beautiful scenery, met with interesting people and learned a few things along the way. But, like my findings in the这是小事情的故事that I told you about earlier, meeting with some new people has led me to a startling new conclusion.

Apparently, I’m not as young as I used to be. When I left on this latest journey, I was still quite sure that I was a relatively young and perhaps a little overly robust guy. But this trip is teaching me that perhaps, just perhaps, the world isn’t seeing me the way I see myself.

Take, for instance, a brief stop we made in a New York park on the edge of Lake Champlain. It was hot, we were drinking a lot of water, and as a result, we needed a bit of a break. As we slowly rolled into the public park, there seemed to be a bit of a soiree in process. A group of about 20 people milled about and sat at tables in a large covered and shaded patio area. It was clear that beer was the drink of the day, and plenty of it was available and flowing.

Near the patio area, several cars were parked together in close proximity, but there was still plenty of space to park the bikes. So Kim and I pulled up to the edge of the assembled group of cars and began to take off our riding gear. It wasn’t more than a minute or so when a small boy, probably about eight or nine years old, ran up to us. With a stiff upper lip and a slight look of disdain, the young whelp proclaimed: “You can’t park here!”

I will admit, I was a bit startled at first. Who does this little urchin think he’s talking to? I’m a grown man, and he’s just a pup. My initial reaction was to grab him by the scruff of the neck and cart him off to his parents. But it’s a different time, and things like that are frowned upon now. Not so long ago, it seems I was a pretty intimidating guy. But now it appears that eight-year-old kids want to kick my ass. I’d learned lesson one. I’m not so intimidating anymore.

But class still wasn’t over. Ultimately, we moved our bikes to a new, more appropriate location. One that was further away from the drunk party-goers and closer to our main target, the much-needed bathroom facilities. We made our own little parking space closer to the state provided and segregated thrones and began taking off our gear.

It wasn’t a minute later when a drunk 20-something male and his equally drunk, or perhaps slightly-more-drunk girlfriend approached us. Each carrying a tallboy can of beer, they stopped to check out our bikes. Well, at least we thought they were stopping to check out our bikes. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, they had some questions and a proclamation to make.

First, they asked: “Are these your bikes?”

Kim and I looked at each other, silently wondering whose bikes they thought they were considering we were still in the process of removing our Aerostich suits, and there were no other motorcycles around. I said that yes, the bikes were ours. And expecting that they were going to ask where we were going, I added, “We’re heading across the country on them.”

With my response, the “man” looked incredulous. By his expression, you would have thought that someone had unexpectedly shot him in the chest, and he just recognized that the blood he saw on the ground was his.

“They’re your bikes?”

I looked at him and told him again. “Yes, yes, they are.” By this point, the drunk guy’s mouth was literally hanging wide open. He blinked a few boozy blinks and swayed as he turned to look at his girlfriend. Then, in a most astounded voice, he literally exclaimed to his girlfriend…

“Look, old people ride dual sports. They ride dual sports!”

Oh, dear. He’s come right out and said it. We’re old—lesson two. Drunk people think we’re old.

我想他的话,它了me as funny and made me mad at the same time. I didn’t know whether to be happy about being an old person still riding a dual-sport or angry because they said we were old. It was an odd feeling.

But over the next couple of weeks’ travels, I’d pretty much gotten the two lessons out of my head. First, we’re not old, no we’re not. Second, pay no attention to whelps and drunk people. Got it. OK.

But then it happened again. This time, we stopped at a South Dakota Wal-Mart to re-supply our road-going necessities and some power bars. We know that Walmart is not the most cosmopolitan place on earth, but it had the stuff we needed. I know a lot of old people go there, but so do young people. Besides, we had arrived at the Wal-Mart on motorcycles in the rain and impending thundershowers. Old people don’t do that, do they?

We ran into the store, took off our wet Stiches, and placed them in the shopping cart. As we wheeled our way through both young and old people, we passed a father and his young son riding inside the cart. He was staring at our helmets and Stitches in the cart. The father saw this and said to us, “He’s checking out your riding gear.” I asked the little boy if he had a motorcycle. His dad said that he had a bicycle and wanted a motorcycle.

That little chat got us to talking about motorcycles and our travels. After a while, he asked us why we were in town. And before we could say anything, he said, “Are you here for the trike rally?” Oh my. Does he really think we’re so old that we need three wheels to get around? Strike three. Now I really have to wonder.

But you know what? We don’t care what anyone thinks or says. We’re going to keep riding motorcycles for as long as we can. And at this point in time, it seems that we will still be doing it for many years to come. And we’ll do it on dual sport bikes.