After a quick breakfast and a goodbye to the Canino family dachshunds Tootsie and Dave, we were back on the road. The winds continued as we hauled down 70. We hit stopped traffic on 270, the road that circumvents St. Louis' downtown area. Regrettably, this circumvention also meant missing the famed Gateway Arch that would welcome us back into the east. But crossing the Mississippi River was the natural landmark that marked our arrival, and more symbolic than that constructed by human hands alone.
Another day of averting foul weather. I sat outside our motel, as the clouds raced by the waning moon, staring at the bike. The compression problems were beginning again, but I was confident that I would return to the coast before it became a hindrance. As the reality of the nearness of the trip's end began to sink in, memories flooded back of staring at the bike with a similar awe as a child in our family garage. I would sit atop Daddy's motorcycle, pretending as though I were riding it into the sunset. Over two decades later, I was en route home from the west coast. With so much stimuli on a daily basis, I had barely a moment to contemplate this simple fact: I was, among so many other intentions for the excellent adventure, realizing a childhood dream. In the preface to Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche's one-page parable indicating states of personal transformation bears the moral that "for the creative act, a sacred 'yes' is needed." All it took to realize this dream, this collection of dreams within a dream - a sacred Yes.
Snake checked the weather. One of the worst storms to date would be whipping its way through our area sometime tomorrow morning and heading east. We have a short ride tomorrow, so there is fortunately some time to let it race ahead of us before reluctantly chasing its tail.
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