Riding Young and Stupid, My Frist Motorcycle Trip

Riding Young and Stupid, My Frist Motorcycle Trip

I know that today most of you see me as this good looking, wise older guy. But believe it or not, that was not always the case. At one point, even I was a foolish younger guy who threw caution to the wind and set out on motorcycle trips without planning or forethought.

I know, I know. It’s hard to believe, but it was once true. Case in point, my first motorcycle trip riding from Longview, Texas, to Galveston over Memorial Day weekend way back in 1981, more than 40 years ago. I was just 22 years old and I owned a very cool Kawasaki Z1 r 1000.

I and my friend Gary decided to grab our sleeping bags, jump on our bikes and make the more than 5 hours journey to the Gulf Coast with no reservations. Our plan was to leave after our workday finished around 5 p.m.. Find a secluded spot and sleep peacefully

Next to the lapping waters of the Gulf of Mexico. At least the first part of our loose plan came to fruition as we made the five plus hour journey arriving near Galveston between 11 and 11:30 p.m.. We found what looked like a nice spot and spread our sleeping bags

Out on the sand for a bit. Things seemed to be going well, but there was this one thing that we did not count on, and that is sand flies. Even with our bags pulled up around our heads, the tiny little pains in the ass were absolutely relentless.

Well, finally, after a couple hours of being slowly eaten to death, we just could not take it anymore and decided to head into Galveston proper and see if we could find a hotel room. Yeah, at 3 a.m. in the morning.

Well, as you can imagine, on Memorial Day weekend, there were no rooms to be had. Anywhere so tired and cold, we decided to head from Bolivar Peninsula, where we had been trying to find some restful sleep and make our way over to Galveston proper, which, if you are not familiar, is an island.

The only way to get from the peninsula to Galveston was via the Bolivar ferry, which luckily was still running 24 hours a day, at least way back then. The ferry master looked at us and took pity. At least we thought he did. He moved us up to the front of the ferry

So that we could get off quickly before all of the cars. And this sounded great at first, but unfortunately, the salt waters of the Galveston Bay didn’t play well with the ignition system of my Japanese motorcycle. When I tried to start the bike, I found that the spark plugs

Had apparently gotten fouled from the splashing salt water. We ended up pushing it off to the side of the exit ramp and had to wait for about a half an hour for it to dry out before it would start again. But it finally did.

And we headed in to see Wolf Park, which is the location of several of World War Two naval vessels. Now, our thought was that by going into the park, we could find some tables or some place to lay down or maybe some bathrooms to clean up a little bit.

But to our continued torture, the gates were closed and did not open until sunrise, which was still a couple of hours away. Also, to our surprise, we found that there was a line of cars also waiting to get into the park, not knowing what else to do and just about ready to drop.

We pulled the bikes over and tried to lay our heads down on a grass covered hill. I think maybe we got a few minutes of shut eye, but it certainly wasn’t enough. Well, finally the sun came up at around six or 7 a.m.

And while sitting outside the gates of Seawall Park, we had another great idea. Rather than hang out in the park, we would ride to the beach and see if we could find a bathroom or maybe a shower. Well, as I’m sure you can imagine. Nothing was open.

Everything was locked up tight until 9 a.m.. By this time, we just couldn’t take it anymore. With no sleep, no food, nothing available to clean up or relieve ourselves. And looking up at the darkening and threatening skies on the horizon,

We realized that even if we stayed, there was not going to be much action on the beach, at least on this day. Now, I’m sure some of you were going, Well, why didn’t you check the weather report before you left? Dude, this was 1981. There was no Internet. There were no cell phones.

You figured out what the weather was going to be like by looking up at the sky. And when we did that in Longview, it was beautiful. Well, even our underdeveloped 22 year old brains knew we had to get some sleep and we needed to get away from the coast.

If we had any chance of finding a room for the day. With those goals in mind, we decided to ride to Beaumont, Texas, which is about a two hour ride. Now, to be honest with you, I am not sure how we made it.

I don’t remember anything about the ride itself, but we did finally get to Beaumont and were able to find a hotel room. I think by this time it was close to ten or 11 a.m. and we had been awake for more than 24 hours. All we cared about was getting some sleep.

So we hit the beds and stayed inside with the drapes closed until mid-afternoon. I think we finally rolled out of bed, showered and walked over to get some food at around 4 p.m.. I don’t remember what we ate or where we went, but I do know that it hit the spot.

After filling our bellies, we saw that there was a movie theater within walking distance and decided to catch the five or 530 showing of Wait for it. Yes, The Lone Ranger. Now, this was not the one with Johnny Depp. That was in 2013. This was the one starring Klinton Spilsbury.

Yeah. No one knows who that is. I could not have told you back then who he was or what the plot of the movie was still to this day. Also I can remember is that it had the Lone Ranger in it, Tonto. And other than that, it was a pretty bad movie.

Now, at this point, you would probably think that our sad story would be over, but you would be wrong. After the movie, we again crawled back in bed and slept through to the next morning. Upon rising, we packed up and started for home.

Well, it was not very far out of town that it started to rain. And I do not mean a light, damp rain. No, this was torrential drenching rain that followed us for the next 5 hours. All the way back to Longview. And by the way, being that we were these mature,

Smart adults, did we have any rain gear with us? Well, fuck no. Of course we didn’t have any rain gear. We didn’t need no stink’n and rain gear. Okay, so that is the sad story of my first disappointing, disastrous motorcycle trip. We rode for 5 hours to not sleep on the beach,

Not even to sit at the beach or enjoy the beach in any way. Rather, we watched a bad movie and rode home like a couple of drowned rats in the rain. I guess the question is, were there any lessons to be learned? Well, of course there was.

So first we were young, stupid and fearless. Today, if I said to you, let’s ride down to Cape Cod on Memorial Day weekend without any reservations, you would say that I was crazy. But as a 22 year old sleeping on the beach, well, it sounded cool. Boy, was I wrong. Second lesson?

Get some fucking rain gear. So third lesson, The life is not a cliche like adventure happens when plans go awry. I mean, sure, all of this makes a great story, and I can laugh about it now. But when I was going through it, well, it was not much fun at all.

Looking back, putting ourselves in this situation where we were traveling without sleep or thinking ahead was just stupid. And we were lucky that something bad didn’t happen. As an older and wiser person who obviously has made his share of mistakes.

I know that place in yourself in these kinds of situations is not adventurous. It is foolish. Riding motorcycles has its own inherent risks that we have to deal with. And part of the reason we do it is to push ourselves beyond what we would do normally.

But you also need to be smart about it. When I was young, we did not have any experience and were willing to take more risks. At 22, I didn’t have any sense of my mortality and I did not even think about potential consequences of my choices or lack thereof.

Now, at 64, I know that every action I take has ramifications. Some that we can anticipate and others that we cannot. As an older rider, my goals have changed. I love to travel, see the beauty of the world and have fun.

But I want to come home safely so that I can go out and do it again. Ride safe, my friends, and keep squeezing that lemon.

Back in 1981 I took my first motorcycle trip from Longview Texas to Galveston for Memorial Day weekend. We jumped on your bikes after long day of work and rode the 5 hours to the beach, where we hoped to camp out for the evening. Well, that is when things started to go downhill.

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