RIDING IN THE OFF-SEASON

Landscapes and Cloudscapes and Smells, Oh My!

- Dorothy Gale

(not really)

Cloudscape reflections

OCTOBER ROLLS AROUND and many riders begin to mothball their motorcycles in preparation for the long cold months that separate the now from spring. This may be a greater phenomena in places other than California. Still, when that first big cyclonic storms creeps in, blotting out the sun and blanketing the us in cool grayness, it’s easy to let the bike simply sit idle.

Misty on Greenwood Road

YESTERDAY WAS THE FIRST GRAY DAY of the season. It was also an opportunity. I tossed a layer on and covered that layer with leather for the first time in months, and headed out.

Autumn dusk

 The lighting on an overcast day is something special. Initially, the up-close trees and the distant mountains seem muted and dull. But, in reality, their colors just occupy a different realm of the spectrum.

There really is no gray in nature, only the natural hues that evolve and change with an increasing absence of light.

North Cascades in October

Especially interesting are colors and textures afforded by the topography of the cloudscape’s underbelly. Whisking along beneath them, the band of areal moisture looks like an inverted sea. Which, in essence, it is.

Ocean and sky along 101

Clouds are oceans of water droplets trapped above a layer of warmth radiating from the earth. Just as the ocean’s color moods change based on the light from the sun and the light reflected from the shore, so, too, the cloud’s change – adding a new layer of depth and fantasy to the land sky interface.

I ENJOY A CLOUDY DAY. Riding along, I am not running into shade and out into bright blinding sun. I am seeing more things more vividly because my eyes are not constantly adjusting to changing light.

Also, the ambient moisture makes me more aware of a broad palette of aromas: The fermentation of long dry grasses;

Storm over Goose Lake: Nothing new for the barn

The sweet stench livestock huddled against a wire fence;

The low ribbon of pine or cedar smoke from a late-season camper’s morning fire;

Early snow on the ridge

The decomposition of the forest floor’s duff;

Even the diesel exhaust from the logger who just passed.

These aromas would simply warm and rise away on a sunny day. But in the middling days of fall, before – or especially after – a storm, they compose a banquet.

In wait

I DO PUT MY BIKE(S) AWAY for the winter. By this, I mean, I keep the battery tender at hand. But I never replace the oil or put chemicals in the gas to keep it fresh.

I never do much of anything to mothball the bikes because I never know on what November, December or January day, the conditions might be just right for another exploration of the way light plays with both the cloudscape and landscape...

September dawn: Shelter Cove

...while the moisture sweetens the dawn...

October sunset at Old Greenwood (Elk)

...and lingers into dusk.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press