Key West to Vancouver: A Young Man's Motorcycle Trip in Search of Meaning - in the Age of Aquarius Paperback – October 17, 2024

This is the true story of a young man who had arrived at a crucial crossroad in his life. With no clear vision of his future, he had attended two years of college in the late 1960's motivated to stay in school only to keep his 2-S-deferment to protect him from possible combat in Vietnam. Consequently, his GPA had been falling, and to protect it from continued damage, he dropped out, and now he was draft bait. He painfully wondered what his future would be, and what he could make it be. He wondered whether he would be pushed through life and drowned by the tsunamis of the "establishment," or if he could somehow pull himself up by his bootstraps and set his own course.In the early spring of 1970, he set out on a cross-country motorcycle trip to see the land, to find his freedom and to work out his future, and, in so doing, he found the core of himself. I was that young man. I was twenty-one years old.This book tells of my challenges in leaving the security of my home and family and the adventures of fending for myself across the North American Continent. It tells of the terrain I negotiated, from subtropical ovens to frigid mountain passes, from fertile green farmland to pale desolate desserts, of my lodgings which ranged from countryside campsites to cheap motels, and of the many people I encountered, most of them nice and amicable, a few not to nice, and all of them interesting and unique.My ride extended from my home near St. Charles, Illinois, to Key West, Florida, to San Diego, California, to Vancouver, British Columbia, and back to home; a ride of almost fourteen-thousand miles and over two months long. On all but the first three days, I rode a 1969 Harley-Davidson Sportster XLH.Perhaps the heart of my trip was the hours of solitude, mile after mile on that long lonesome highway. The ceaseless drone of the Sportster's throaty engine and the flurry of wind I was generating gently shifted my mind into neutral gear, which allowed an endless flow of thoughts to cascade in. By dwelling, and then pondering on them, I learned much about myself; I arrived at a deeper understanding of the essence of who I was, the values I had lived by and those I should live by, and I thereby came to a better understanding of the meaning of life. I had left my home racing toward freedom, consumed with passion to flee from parental and other "establishment" authority, only to find, near the end of my ride, that my home was my rock, and that my rock was the real source of my freedom. Read more