On killing time in stupid ways...

Well, it's been a little while since the last blog, and for that I apologize. Thanks to all of you who said something; that means a lot. To be truthful, I have a few brewing, but this one just kinda fell out of me.

I may have mentioned in a previous blog that I spend a lot of my free time on the bike. I don't know if you'd call me a biker; I mean, I ride a lot, and I even have a black leather jacket with all the zippers and stuff, but that's about where the similarities between myself and the typical biker stereotype end. I don't own a Harley, and I rarely ride in large groups, like the biker gangs you sometimes see riding in one large mass on sunny days. As a matter of fact, I ride alone most of the time. I don't hang out in bars or roadhouses with names like "Smokey's" or "The Broken Oar," and you will never see my bike lined up next to the rolling jukeboxes parked outside of Jimmy's in Naperville, big shiny trophy bikes whose owners spend three hours polishing for each hour of riding. No thanks.

Anyway, so my ass spends a lot of time on the bike. Where do I go, you ask? What do I do when I get there? A lot of times, there's no "there"--I'm just motorin'. I thought, if you're interested, that I would share some of the things I do and see when I'm out being the Great American Highway's guest.

For example, this evening I spent some time at my buddy Adam's house, enjoying a beer or two and kicking the absolute shit out of each other in Street Fighter. Simply fabulous evening, weatherwise, so I rode the Moose, and when we parted ways at 1:30 in the morning, I was still ready for some action. What is there to do around here at so late (or early) an hour?

Go trolling for Resurrection Mary? Why, isn't that funny; I had the exact same idea myself. Courtesy of that most wonderful invention, the camera phone, here are some action shots.



It takes a while to get all the way out to Justice, where Resurrection Cemetery is located. I took the expressway. It's kinda deserted at 2:00 in the morning, but...



...here's a random poor schmuck clipping along with me at 70 mph.



Here's someone else I passed. The speed limit is 65 mph, but not everybody goes that fast.



Hey, you have to find ways to keep yourself occupied when there's no radio to listen to. Here's what my speedometer looks like at at 30 mph.



Here's what my speedometer looks like at 100 mph.



Here's what my front wheel looks like at 30 mph.



Here's what my front wheel looks like at 100 mph.



Here's what my back wheel looks like at 30 mph. Yeah, by this time I'm a little bored. Riding on the expressway is kinda monotonous. I do not have a picture of my back wheel at 100 mph, though; that would be dangerous.

I won't bore you with the story of Resurrection Mary here; it's the quintessential Vanishing Hitchhiker tale. Mary is commonly seen on Archer Avenue, also known as Route 171, anywhere on the road between the Willowbrook Ballroom and Resurrection Cemetery. To get to that stretch of the road, you have to go through Archer Woods.



It can get kinda scary, not only because ghosts have been seen along this road, but also because deer populate the area in huge numbers. Deer are beautiful creatures, and I am content to watch them for hours. On this trek, a doe strolled out in front of me, totally cool, ears flicking leisurely, just a-moseying. I pulled off on the side of the road, not only because I was afraid of hitting her (Think about it--hit a deer in a car and it's a visit to the body shop; hit one on a bike and you're lucky if you're only in the hospital for a couple of days), but also because I just wanted to watch. She stood there in my headlight for a while, head up and ears pricked, legs so graceful and thin you'd think you could snap them between your fingers, eyes deep and liquid, reflecting my high beam in a shimmer of gold. She didn't spook until I shut off the engine, and then she was gone like a cool breeze.



Along Archer Avenue, right before the woods get really heavy, you see this. This is the gateway to Saint James Sag church, and it's known not only for its construction out of Lemont Limestone, the yellow brick that can also be seen in the Water Tower downtown, as well as Joliet Penitentiary of Blues Brothers fame, but also for the fact that a passing state trooper once looked inside the gates one night and saw seven robed, hooded monks standing (?) on the tarmac. At his shout, all seven floated away, much faster than a man can run. I take a peek in there every once in a while, but I've never seen any monks.

Riding a bike is usually great, but it has its drawbacks.



Traffic signals don't often recognize motorcycles, so you're often stuck at an intersection waiting for the light to change until someone in a car pulls up next to you. I waited at this intersection for about five minutes. Then a nice gentleman pulled up in a Toyota Highlander, and the light changed after about 15 seconds. Thanks, mister.

I got to Resurrection Cemetery without seeing anything, but weird things sometimes happens when you get close to the cemetery. Sometimes the lights in the mausoleum, known has having the world record of the largest area of stained glass of any building in the world, will flash on and off as you drive by. Trust me; with that much stained glass, you notice when the lights flash on and off at night. I didn't see any of that, but as I rode by I heard my cell phone, still in my pocket, make the noise it makes when you take a picture. Odd because a) it's not a loud noise and the bike is obnoxiously so, so there should be no way I should have heard it, and b) the camera function, or any other function, does not work when the phone is closed. At the next stoplight I checked and found it had taken two pictures on its own. They were just black, though, as you'd expect of a camera taking pictures inside your pocket.

Anyway, I don't always do weird macabre shit when I'm riding.



This is right up around Minocqua. Wisconsin. Beautiful black spruces, generally glorious countryside, but I'm here to tell you, do NOT ride a motorcycle way up north where you have no idea where you're going and get caught out after dark. Motorcycles have no map lights, so when you have to reference your directions, you have to get off and hold your little cheat sheet in front of the headlight so you can read it. Decidedly inconvenient.

On the rare occasion (too rare) I go riding with my brother and/or my dad. These were taken when creeping the old neighborhood in Winfield, Illinois.



Here's my dad on his Nighthawk. Yes, the look on his face accurately depicts the question he asked me at the next stoplight--"What the fuck are you doing?"



This is my brother Michael at a stoplight on his sweet 1975 Honda CB750 Super Sport. Okay, not really an action shot, but that thing is too damn fast to catch on film.

Can you believe that I used to think camera phones were stupid?