Frames From the Saddle: Introduction and the Great Basin
I ride. I write. I make a photo or three.
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“The desert asks nothing from you. But it will answer everything if you’re quiet long enough to hear it.”
The little two-lane road cuts through the Nevada desert like it doesn’t want, or need, permission.
Brutally straight, silent, and absolutely and utterly empty. There are no structures in sight. Not even the seemingly ever-present barbed wire fence of the American West.
It’s early in the morning, warm, and I haven’t seen another vehicle in over an hour. Just the low hum of my V-Twin, the wind pressing in from the side, and the heat radiating up off the asphalt and desert sand like nature’s air fryer to keep me alert.
On high. OK, medium. High was the desert outside of Phoenix.
It’s day two of a ten-day ride.
I'm heading toward Wyoming, Beartooth Pass, and the places I go when I need to feel something again. And that means the road, a bike, and some altitude.
Altitude adjusts attitude.
No set route.
No co-pilot.
No pre-formatted itinerary cut and pasted from the interwebs.
And no one to attend to.
Just me, a camera in the saddlebag, and the road unfolding one mile at a time.
📍 Location: Somewhere between Cedar City, Utah and Baker, Nevada
🛣️ Destination: Great Basin National Park (first time)
🗓️ Three days before turning 73, 2022
✌️ 10 day trip riding solo
I Ride Alone
Not for drama.
Not to be heroic.
Just to listen better.
Feel more.
Riding solo means I notice more.
The shift in wind temperature.
The smell of distant rain.
The gentle bass of a faraway thunderstorm.
The way my mind stops running and starts listening.
Out here, the desert strips life down to what matters: light, motion, water, breath.
The desert doesn’t care how old I am.
It offers little comfort.
But it can give me a kind of peaceful presence if I let it.
And that’s worth more than comfort anyway.
“Nevada in August doesn’t coddle. It sharpens every one of your senses.”
The Stop
I pull off to take a minute.
A slight shoulder just wide enough not to have the entire bike in the sand. My bike doesn’t like sand. I am not that crazy about it either, for that matter.
There’s no real reason to stop.
It’s just a feeling.
I am at the bottom of a huge dry lake bed. Miles and miles of straight road behind me and in front of me, and I just wanted to take it in.
Engine off.
A weird silence.
Tik…tik tik…tik…
The hot engine begins to cool, and settles into the stillness.
I remove my gloves, then the helmet, hanging it on the clutch side of the handlebars.
It is so incredibly quiet that the sound of the crunch of sand under my boots seems to echo across the slim strip of asphalt..
There is no wind at this moment. None.
The stillness that precedes a thunderstorm engulfs the valley.
Not a peaceful stillness.
Not gentle.
It’s loud—with my own breath, the creak of the bike cooling, and the static of heat in your ears, the sound of the engine fading.
I grab a bottle of water from the cooler in the trunk, sit back on the bike, and just listen.
And see.
A hawk drifts overhead.
I shift my boots in the gravel.
I breathe.
That’s it. That’s the moment.
No photo needed.
Just a reminder that I’m still here, still alive, and still lucky enough to be standing in this much nothing. Nothing can be everything.
“Out here, survival isn’t assumed. It’s earned.”
I’m headed toward Baker, Nevada, a tiny little town at the base of a huge mountain. I figured on getting lunch there.
I figured wrong. Nothing open.
I’ve never seen Great Basin National Park.
That changes today.
The road to the top is curvy, steep, and incredibly wild.
I can smell every change in altitude.
Such an incredible ride. From the high 80s at the base of the mountain to the low 70s at the top. About 16 miles, and every one of them has a gorgeous view.
I didn’t want that mountain ride to end, but I needed to get into Ely before nightfall.
Storm clouds are off to the left of me when I reach Highway 50 east. In an hour or so, they have become dark, filled with rain, and lightning fills the horizon.
And I’m riding right into it.
On purpose.
It’s three days away from me turning 73.
Seventy three.
(Note, this was three years ago.)
I plan on being on top of a mountain in Montana on that specific day. How I get there is still to be determined. Weather can change, routes may change, and I have several options to get to Cody, Wyoming.
I’m hungry, tired from a long day on the road, and soaking wet through my shirt and jeans.
I’m thinking I may have made a bad decision coming through the storm.
I’m thinking maybe I should spend the night when I get to Ely.
I’m thinking maybe I should find a Walmart and get some rain gear.
I’m thinking about tacos.
But none of that matters right now.
Right now, I’m just a guy on a bike, chasing wind, light, and solace through the wide-open American West.
Tell me that’s not living.
I hope you enjoyed this little story about a motorcycle adventure. I will be posting one per month, and always looking for new material - that’s the fun part.
AI Corner:
Bing includes free video creation for mobile.
Flow turns your speech into editable text. Free plan is very good for notes or location scouting or task lists on the go.
Want some great cuisine right at home? Use ChatGPT to develop menus like the pro chefs do.
Notebook LM
Many of you know that I absolutely love Notebook LM, Google’s surprise AI tool that works with YOUR documents and content. I have had it rework my business books, and by doing so have found a ton of stuff that I needed to add.
Notebook has had an upgrade.
It will now let you share your notebooks with colleagues, clients, and friends, similar to how you’d share a document in Google Drive. You can even set your notebook to “public,” letting anyone with a link see what’s in it. There are so many things that this thing can do.
Art Ideas
You know how so many people say there’s nothing new, it’s all been done. Here is a collection of artworks created on the dusty windows of vans around the world… I kid you not.
A whole other approach to sports photography.
Well, that’s it for my midweek entry.
I am very glad you are here with me.
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Photowalks are a big part of summer. Here are a few new ideas for you to think about.
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