Free Wheelin'

Here at BRC all of us, even the cats, would say this with the 'voice-over' when the television show about the disappearance of Oceanic Flight 815 came on.

I loved that show even if it had a lame ending, and I thought all of it as pure sci-fi mystery and fictional writing … until Malaysia Flight 370 did the same thing.

Anything can get lost. Seriously – where are your keys, right now?

A few months back a good buddy of mine, Jeff, riding cross-country with another friend Denis, posted that he had somehow lost one of his saddlebags along the way. It was not like it got stolen, or they suddenly realized it was missing. No, this bag jettisoned off his Triumph Tiger like a depth charge looking for a deep-running submarine.

Denis watched it as it scurried past him at a serious pace and up, then over an embankment and into the brush. Of course, both riders stopped, circled back, and went to retrieve the bag. But like a commercial jet in the Pacific, it was… LOST!

We learned later that both riders, sharp and attentive men, combed the roadside brush for hours to no avail.

Missing, missing, missing, missing

Whoa

Missing

- Bruce Springsteen

When we heard the story of Jeff’s wayward bag, we wondered how something so large, like the sidebag of a Triumph Tiger could simply… disappear. Gone like the wind. Fade like Scottish Mist.

Then I had something along the same line happen to me.

We had been heading eastward for the past few days, meandering through the Ozark and Missouri and along the spectacular tiny backroads of the Blue Grass State of Kentucky.

We had made a quick stop at our niece’s home, near Paducah, and then the required stop at Nicky Hayden’s statue in Wellsboro.

Everything was going swimmingly - with such stupendous roads to me a photo-op with every turn, hollow, and ridge – I signaled Shira ahead of me so I could grab a few images of her riding this two-lane nirvana.

Shooting images while riding might not be in the MSF handbook, but I have gotten pretty good at sliding small cameras – point & shoot toys – for a long time.

Left hand holding the camera at a few well-practiced positions and fire away and see what we got later that day – off the bike.

My good friend Mike has told me repeatably, "One Day You're Gonna Drop That…”

I know he’s right.

In all the years I have been shooting these stolen images I have only had one incident, and even then – I was able to retrieve the SD Card from the now scarred paperweight and had another item for the dead & obsolete shelf in the office.

Most of these cameras are around $100, more or less. Not chicken scratch, but simply a tool and means to an end and expendable.

This particular camera was not.

Years back Shira dropped a pricey Sony camera off the back while riding pillion in France. I think she was more shattered by this than the camera.

Still, SD Card recovered, place on shelf assured and new camera bought – eventually. 

So, as I began to lean to the left slightly, steering more with my feet than hands, the front tire bobbled over a small bump… Everything slowed down in that "Oh Shit" way.

I clearly saw, and have seen again, and again, and again in my mind, the bright orange Nikon W300 popping out of my white Held gloved hand...

My body twisting and getting a small grasp on the Nikon; only to have it slip away and then, quickly glancing in the mirror, to see it bounce once and… well; I do not really know; as my attention was instantly back to piloting the BMW and getting it quickly and safely stopped and on the side of the road.

Shira disappeared into the distance.

I began to walk back along the road.

The bright orange and easily seen Nikon was MIA.

As I looked along the roadside a woman slowed and stopped her car to see if I was okay. I told her what I had done and asked her to tell my wife, if she came across her riding up ahead, what had happened.

I later learned that she did find Shira on the side of the road. When she said she had seen me back a few miles, Shira simply asked if my motorcycle was upright or in a ditch.

Nice. The deep concern touched my soul.

A short time later Shira came back and now two functional adults could not find a super bright, highly-visible Nikon W300.

For half an hour, we looked up and down the roadside. Eventually, I had to make the call.

Yes, like Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Jeff's bag… the camera was lost.

Before we had left on this trip, and after hearing of Jeff’s loss, Shira and I both clear taped our business cards in every bag on our machines. If they are ever lost then found – we hope they would be returned.

But, somewhere on the side of a small road outside Pleasureville, Kentucky (I kid you not) someday someone will find this camera and, who knows, maybe the SD Card will give the finder a clue to who owned this camera.

But more likely like it’s now being used by Frank Lapidus.