Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Nov 1, 2003

Part 1: Sunnyvale

31 October 2003

I learned something today. If you set a deadline to do something, do not wait for the optimal moment. As soon as you are ready, go.

Don’s bike had been off the road for a few days while he tackled a cylinder head replacement and the various bits and pieces that went with it. I had packaged my book in a nice transparent freezer bag, complete with an explanatory paper printed with up little bats and a Hallowe’en message. I was ready about two-thirty, but asked Don if he would be ready, and he sort of thought he would.

I could have gone alone, but I waited a long time for Don’s bike to be ready, using it an excuse to not set out on my own, to not get started, to shoot myself in the foot. And then, around four o’clock, I suddenly realized that I’d left it too late. I didn’t actually want to leave a book in the wild with only an hour left until sunset, on Hallowe’en; a little bird of intuition (or self-doubt) suggested that it might not be well-received, or might be misinterpreted as “mischief.” Out of practice as I was, too, riding in the dark just didn’t seem like something I wanted to try.

Then Don discovered he’d need to replace some more gaskets. We ended up riding to Honda in Sunnyvale in rush-hour Friday traffic, two-up, instead. It was an inauspicious, but educational, start.

One of my life’s lessons is to not over-plan; to not pin down the details of my adventures until they die the slow death of boredom. I have always liked to plan, because it’s part of the adventure, but I’m learning that every detail need not be signed in triplicate beforehand, too, and I’d wasted hours of my time during the previous months, planning for a trip that never happened. If you wait too long for the elusive and non-existent perfect moment, then many opportunities are lost.

Well, I forgot. I planned. Shame on me.

I picked a not-quite-arbitrary date (Hallowe’en has the feeling of a new beginning for me), then I waited and waited until it was too late. Sometimes I could, well, kick myself.

If I am to do this, I need to remember that it is my quest, not anyone else’s, and while company is nice, it is
neither essential nor expected. So, either I should remember to go on the day and time I set, or wait until some point when we can go on the spur of the moment. If I want a specific date and time, it must be done under my
own steam, and not waiting on the weather or the company or for my toes to emit the correct vibration.

Oh well. Life is a learning experience.

01 November

Don’s bike was mended. Not just cobbled together, but mended–at least for the next few thousand miles.

Bit of background here: Don’s bike was in trouble when we moved into our home in May 1999. Eventually my bike, Arnie, became the commuter bike. I lost my ride and I lost the will to ride (there were other reasons too–I was pretty sick for one, and for a while Arnie was the only working vehicle.) Then in early August 2002 I started riding again–so now we were sharing a bike. Don’s bike sat there gathering dust (those sixty-hour work weeks tended to get in the way of anything involving mental and physical effort).

A few months later, my own bike broke, and Don cobbled together a repair for his bike just the day after it did. But it had no real range due to the repair being no more than a makeshift fix. Four months after I broke my first gear,
we got Arnie back in working condition; now, Don had tackled the repair that needed doing and we had two working bikes for the first time in a very long while.

So there we were, with two motorcycles that work but that we both didn’t quite trust. Max and Arnie, Don and Linda, riding side by side. We filled up first and then headed up to Central. It’d been ten days since I rode anywhere–how’d that happen? I was rusty.

We took Central to burn the oil off Don’s bike and ~~zoom~~ practice a little. Then we left and headed up city streets to find Sunnyvale’s sole state historic landmark in Martin Murphy Jr. Historical Park.

Mr. Murphy founded Murphy’s Town around the gold rush era; this has always tickled me pink. Did Murphy’s Law bring me here? Originally from Ireland (duh!), his family moved to the Midwest before heading out here as pioneers. They produced many offspring who played all sorts of important roles during the gold rush and early days of California The State. His home, which he ordered in kit form from New England, burned down in the sixties, but the park now houses our town museum and the Sunnyvale Historical Society is trying to raise funds to rebuild a replica of the home elsewhere in Sunnyvale. They already got the barn up.

So, while Don examined and adjusted his newly-resurrected motorcycle, I wandered quietly past a family enjoying a happy party-picnic and deposited my book surreptitiously outside the museum entrance. One down, however many to go. There are 1062 more in the guide book, but that was published in 1995 and, well, I don’t think they have stopped designating landmarks since then, Toto.

I stood and took photographs, albeit a little self-consciously. I admired the soft, golden evening light and how it complemented the eucalypus trees, and contemplated the very quiet-seeming beginning of a big adventure.

And then I went back.