Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Oh wow. It would be so cool to go to New York.”
He looked back down at his skateboard, kicking it back up into his hand, “But I'll prob-
ably just end up staying here.”
As I finished the kebab Richard had just bought me, I hoped that one day he would learn
that you won't go anywhere unless you believe in yourself. Unless you're willing to do the
work—to make the commitment, to put in the effort, to have the patience—you'll end up
stuck in the same place. Maybe that therapist was right. It wasn't about a wedding. It was
about what it takes to live your dream.
But I knew what it was like to be young and lost—to live with wanderlust and not be
able to make the right decisions to indulge it. The world is filled with people who dream of
being Hemingway, but more often settle for far less. And it's not their fault. We have bills
to pay and children to raise and parents to look after—and we lose sight of the quiet burn-
ing dream inside that craved something more. It was that dream that had forced me out of
bed just hours before, and would push me along on the much more difficult days to come.
We finished our kebabs, and Richard walked me to Kindness One to see the infamous
yellow motorbike in the flesh. I offered him a ride in the sidecar, and then it happened. The
bike broke down. Again. On the first day. Richard helped me push it to the side of the road,
but he could see that I was not in a good state.
“Yo, dude, your bike doesn't look too well,” he offered.
No shit dude, I thought to myself.
As a puff of smoke leapt out of the engine, Richard gave me that universal look that
says, “Well, I wish I could help you, but you're kind of on your own. . . .”
To make matters worse it was now 8:18 p.m., and I was in danger of losing my place to
stay for the night. For a moment, my outsides were calm, but then like a volcano bubbling
up from below, my anxious insides began to pour out, and I had what they call in England
a “wobbly,” or as Americans might know it, a meltdown.
“This can't be happening!” I yelled, surprising Richard and myself with my outburst.
“My first day, my first day!”
Sure, people stopped and looked. Sure, I kicked the curb a couple of times (or twelve).
But I didn't care. What on earth could be wrong with my bike? I was screwed. The bike
wouldn't start, and my hopes of staying somewhere for the night were fast receding with
the Nevada sun.
Finally, I stopped yelling and remembered what the mechanic had told me in LA: “Re-
member, never ride the bike with the petcock switched off. Never!” I don't expect that you
