ADVENTURE HERMIT
The Quest to the West
F
or many, the road
less
traveled
is as simple as
veering off of
the interstate and, for
a long time, this was
enough for me as well.
But as time went on I
began to seek out more
and more remote routes
and destinations. I am
not sure exactly where
this obsession of extreme
points and way-way off the
beaten path travel comes
from but I have a theory.
I know for instance I was
conceived in Key West,
FL most likely sometime
in August of 1969. While
most of us don’t like to imagine our parents getting physical,
Olivia Newton-John Style; but I know this little bit of creation
trivia because I was born in April of 1970 and 9 months earlier
my folks were stationed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station.
Perhaps this is what drove me to travel further and further
west, away from the scene of that crime.
In an effort to uncover my motivation I have to go back to
the summer of 2013. I returned to Connecticut where I was
raised and hopped aboard my dad’s Kawasaki KLR650 on
route to Tennessee. From there, I traveled off-road, across
the country to Oregon. “All in” it was about 2 months before
I returned home to Colorado traversing through twenty-eight
states and just over 9,600 miles. I traveled deep into the
woods, over sand, dirt and rocks before ultimately arriving
in Port Orford, Oregon. Which, I thought then was the place
I was looking to find. On the way I had many amazing
adventures, met truly wonderful people all while nursing a
8 Thunder Roads Magazine® Colorado
broken right foot after a fateful decision to go bowling with
some Aspens. When I arrived I truly believed I had reached
the furthest point west in the contiguous United States, far
from the point of my conception some 43 years earlier.
After a 6-week journey, my broken foot and I were thrilled
to be overlooking the Pacific Ocean from our room at the
Castaway by the Sea Motel. Sadly, I soon learned that I was
not in fact at the furthest point west in the Contiguous U.S.
November 2015
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