NOTE: This site's focus has shifted to Dungeons & Dragons, fantasy role-playing games, and fantasy fiction. If that sounds like your kind of thing, check out my D&D and gaming content or sign up for my free monthly newsletter for dungeon masters. The rest of this old content, motorcycling, aviation, and the like, is still here, just not browsable from the main navigation anymore.
There’s a saying that if you didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen. I think that maxim was created by astronomers, but it’s likely someone came up with the idea long before scientists started looking at the stars.
In my case, I began carrying a journal on my first motorcycle trip back in February 2007. I took it along on a solo weekend trip to visit my sister. The inspiration for journaling my motorcycle adventures came from reading Neil Peart’s autobiography, Ghost Rider.
It’s amazing how much comes back to me when reading over my old journal entries. I can recall the scenery, people I met, places I ate, things I saw, even smells. Sometimes I can even recall the song I was listening to in my earphones as I went around a particular curve on a specific trip.
I no longer own a motorcycle and have stopped riding as a result. Although I don’t regret getting out of motorcycling, I still miss it. I get a lot of enjoyment thinking of the memories of the many roads I’ve traveled and adventures I survived.
Motorcycling isn’t for everyone, but many people enjoy various forms of travel, whether it be on foot along a local hiking trail, or via jet plane or sailing vessel to distant lands across continents or oceans. I suggest to those who do like to travel to get into the habit of journaling their adventures. A handwritten notebook is subjectively ideal. Don’t rely on just the photos you take with a cell phone. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but a few hundred — or even a few dozen — words can convey far more than a photo viewed out of context at a later date ever could.
