It’s pretty to think that you can do it all by yourself without anyone’s help.
I’d like to think I could do this journey without Greg. I wouldn’t want to and I’d hate every minute of it – like Maverick flying without Goose – but I like to think I could do it.
If I could, it would be some very different version of this trip and not one that I could love so dear.
The help we give each other and the help we receive from others makes it something more special than doing it all alone.
If I ever doubted it, I learned this lasting lesson when my motorcycle’s radiator gave out on a late summer afternoon in Utah.
The temperature warning flashed on the interstate so we pulled off and parked under the narrow shade behind a Chevron.
We bought Stop-Leak from a nearby O’Reilly Auto Parts but that didn’t work. After a few other internet-recommended quick-fix attempts, we accepted that we needed help.
Rescue came first as a wonderful man named Jeff whom I contacted through Bunk-a-Biker.
“Sure, I’ll give you a tow into Salt Lake,” he said after I explained the situation. “I left the trailer at my brother’s, so hang tight and I’ll be there in a couple hours.”
Jeff drove 100 miles to pick up the trailer from his brother, 40 miles to collect me at the Chevron in Payson, and another 60 miles to drop my bike at Eurosports Utah in Salt Lake.
That was how he spent his Friday night and he wouldn’t accept gas money for it either.
After stashing the motorcycle in the dealership’s after-hours parking lot, Jeff handed Moxie and me off to our next rescuers.
We met Cody and Amber earlier that summer when they were touring Canada by motorcycle. They welcomed us into their Salt Lake home for several days and treated us like family.
Meanwhile Cody arranged with a friend of his, nicknamed “Hollywood”, to remove the radiator from my parts bike, which was stashed in North Hollywood, and he FedExed it out to us.
Could we have managed our way through that breakdown without help from Jeff, Cody and Amber, and Hollywood?
I suppose so – but our lives would surely have been the poorer for it.
