It's not the sort of place normal people find themselves. Not on purpose anyway. I'm not normally happy about being thoroughly, shamelessly lost on an obscure mountaintop trail at 12:15 a.m. with a trio of maniacs, two Cliff Bars, three severely traumatized cans of Coors light, a rapidly diminishing supply of fuel and patience and one dying flashlight. Squinting at its feeble yellow patch of light on a ragged topographic map, trying to figure out which squiggly line leads to the town containing our hotel, any normal person would wish for happier circumstances. It suddenly occurs to me that the adult male Cougar (Puma concolor) can jump 20 feet from a standing start and hit 43.5 mph. I keep this to myself and switch on my headlight for a better look at the map.
Thanks to perseverance, prayer and various global positioning satellites, we regain the paved road that leads to hot showers and warm beds. There is much rejoicing when our headlights wash over the hotel, even if it has all the architectural appeal of a Kazakstani correctional facility. We are alive. Nobody is wearing plaster or handcuffs. Everything else-including a face full of warm suds from my celebratory Silver Bullet-is just fine with me. There are more important things to get wound up about.
According to a Time magazine story I read to kill some time in my doctor's office, 600 Americans die falling out of bed every year. Peanut butter has killed three people as I write this, and recalls of potentially deadly ice cream loom on the horizon. This just in: Motorcycles aren't dangerous. Life is dangerous. There's nothing like a string of 12-hour days to put some seriously nasty backspin on your perspective, even if you're lucky enough to get paid for beating up on other people's motorcycles.
Fighting Hollywood traffic for a half-hour to cover 6 miles of Highland Boulevard 10 times every week, according to my unscientific research, is something less than therapeutic. So on the odd occasion when I'm not flogging the streetbike du jour or writing about it, getting dirty is the preferred stress-reduction technique. No prescription necessary. Repeat as necessary. Assuming you find a way over, under, around or through the thundering herd of impediments.
According to the latest U.S. Bureau of Transit stats I can Google up, there are upward of 243 million passenger vehicles rolling around this country. And way too many of them end up between precious recreational opportunities and me on any given Saturday morning. It's still possible to get away from the 3,844,829 humans who inhabit Los Angeles. These days that means rolling out of the garage while the normal "American Idol" watcher is fast asleep and heading for places normal humans wouldn't be caught dead. Or maybe that's the only way.
Places such as the top of this mountain, for instance. Next time we'll find a way to coax the right topographic maps into the GPS software and maybe pop for fresh flashlight batteries. Otherwise? I really can't complain. The Okavango Delta is supposed to be nice this time of year. Somebody get me Helge Peterson on the phone. It's time to get out of here.