You must be expecting some of those spectacular views, as in the not so distant past, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Valley of Fire, Big Bend… just to mention only a few. Well, these are views which I am finding even more spectacular!… They have no colors or textures or shapes… they tingle the senses, beat the heart a bit faster, wet the eyes, choke your throat… all of a certain well being which I cannot even find a word for it. It is more than joy, it is more than satisfaction… is it new to me?… it has been in me before, lately it has however surfaced more strongly than ever.

Volcano’s Old Hotel… open for business.

Most of us, at least I hope, throughout life must have looked inside, trying to find ourselves… trying to find the path we are on, sweep off the dust and dirt to maybe get a clearer picture of the surface we are stepping on with our mental abilities. When I left almost seven months ago, most of our camping has been done in as much isolation as possible. I am not an unsociable person, I love people, I love good people that I sense send out such a positive energy that it bounces off of me… not without penetrating my soul and leaving its mark. But yet, I love what I call “vast lands”… “my space”… and my search was always toward that direction… and we found it many of times. And we will still look for it in parallel with incredible sceneries… geological formations… colors.. textures… When we ride through Yosemite in a couple days I know it will be so… a jaw dropping ride!

Volcano’s Downtown…

However since I have been in California I have been exposed to more people than ever throughout this Journey. I shied away from it at first… Anza Borrego, CA, is a good example where one can go and get lost… but with my desire of going into San Francisco a few times, the choice of getting closer and closer was not an option anymore. And this is, somehow, call it Karma coupled definitely with a positive attitude and an open heart, how I have sensed the spectacular views throughout events leading to them. I cannot ignore them! It would be silly to ignore gears falling within each other with such smoothness, to ignore “people” with such care toward us, to ignore daily facts happening in such positiveness that they leave me speechless…

Inside Volcano’s Grocery store…

I am not making things up!… It actually started shortly after our departure. Our breakage resulting in a crash in Louisiana, exactly where it would be the smoothest landing! Host of one of the greatest mechanic/fabricator I have ever met, not to say the nicest human beings around, Walter, Paulette and their family. Another breakage felt while coming back to camp just a few hundred feet away… in Valley of Fire, another great mechanic and family where waiting for me! Mark and Anjie, how much I miss being there!!! Topped only with the fact that my friend Didier send me his own part overnight! And then another breakage felt again 10 feet away this time from our camp while near Zion, with a welder in town. That incident was only topped by the hospitality of Mike and Sandy near by and the discovery of another great welder adding one more arm to my rig.

Sutter Creek’s Main Street… don’t forget the Ice Cream Store

And while camping just a few days ago, what would be the chances of anyone near by having the right prescription on hand for a kidney infection being a Clinical Pharmacist? We arrived here a few days ago, it was a great ride to Lake Tahoe, deep drops, more curves than sometimes I want to handle, and only when all is ridden that the main bolt holding the chair breaks, to find two incredible people in a transmission shop to work on it for 2.5 hrs, get me back on the road for a mere bill of $50!… and getting a message on my cell the next day from them wanting to make sure that I made it back alright!… Try to top that one. It did not stop. This last breakage needed a permanent solution. Late last night, Fred Weaver rode up here thinking his son might still be here.

The conversation takes us to the breakage, a close friend of him, Bob Paradis in Sutter Creek owns a Machine Shop… a real machine shop as you can tell from the pictures!

I asked if he had any welding equipment… welding equipment he said! Which kind do you need!

Bob at work…

And I am now back from Paradis Machine Shop… Bob dropped everything he was doing, I took the wheel and fender off, Spirit was in the shade with abundant water, not a hollow piece was welded back on but a solid one with a grease fitting!… beautiful work! As he was putting everything back together he did not like the arms holding my TILT (chair’s hydraulic) which was always a conversation topic including the question… “who in the world welded ‘that?’”.

The new piece… nice???

Mounted… with grease and all.

After all was done, he did not like these bend brackets… all comes apart!

Much better… WOW… the holes actually line up…

All is removed and straightened up! The bill?… a picture with him in front of the store… he dreams about the path that I have taken, he did one month in the past and still have the taste for it, this was his donation from the heart to see us continue the Journey. How can you not get choked up when one heart gives to the other?

Finished… just needs some painting.

How can you not be surprised when a rider that I met Saturday in Sacramento while having a tire changed (Oh! A&S BMW in Sacramento… no sense dwelling on that one… $38!… rim off… the most expensive store in the USA I was told… when asked why?… “Just take a look at the overhead” I was told… Will bury that one!!!), rides all the way here on Sunday morning, machinist himself to draw me some pictures of how this breakage should be fixed, and cancelling a meeting he normally goes to with his wife…

How can you not get choked up when a total stranger at the gathering, talking about my recent past holds my hand and comforts me of feelings that suddenly emerged enabling me to talk…

The multitude of e mails received… The great Forums… Spirit receives a heated blanket… another reader is making him a couple coats… a new friend in Seattle taking a week vacation in June to only work on redoing my rig… another rider from Lake Tahoe trying all weekend to line up a better solution for a permanent repair… and it goes on and on… One cannot help wondering… “what’s going on?”

Yes, the Grand Canyon is spectacular, so is Zion and the Kolob Canyons… so are also “PEOPLE” that have touched me, so is also this “PATH” of life that is just evolving in front of my eyes and senses… I just wanted you to know and share all of this… Truly “spectacular”.

I will caption the pictures today… including a ride through Sutter Creek and Volcano… quaint little towns… don’t miss the Ice Cream shop in Sutter Creek… I am going back!!!… soon.

You be well… and hope that also your own lives are as “spectacular” as ours… it can be and should be as.

Be well…

Ara & Spirit

A “DONATION”?… I have been asking if reading this BLOG is worth a dollar a month to you?… in the form of a yearly donation. Maybe it is not! .7% think so and I thank them for helping the increasing Internet costs…

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Ara Gureghian

853 Vanderbilt Beach Rd #245

Naples Fl 34108

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 1:14 am and is filed under travel, spirituality, pit bull, sidecar, motorcycle, cooking, photography, riding, homeless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.