Two Wheels to a Promise

By Joseph Walmach

A week long escape on a motorcycle take Joe and Denise to some well known and lesser known places which includes a marriage proposal as they begin the second half of their lives together. Visit old ruins, camp on a beach, and tour the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as they cover 1,600 miles through rain and gorgeous roads. It is time well spent away from the daily grind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Walmach
• Release date: Aug 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311213600

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Two Wheels to a Promise

Joe Walmach

Published by Joe Walmach at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Joe Walmach

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your user only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Days Gone By

Commuting

The Bike

Commuting

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Days to Come

Days Gone By

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

Corrie Ten Boom

The grooves on the sidewalk raced by in a blur as I cranked on the pedals and gulped the summer air. Are you holding on? I asked. My sister Donna would answer no as I made it another 20 feet or so before becoming a heap of steel and bones on the concrete. At any other time, the impact would have meant tears for my 4 year old self, but the prospect of getting back up to master the ride was distraction enough to make me forget. These were the days before bicycle helmets, when doctors still made house calls, milkmen delivered to your house, and an AM radio was playing our favorite music in front of somebody’s house. We were always outside because we practically weren’t allowed to be anywhere else. None of us put up a fuss however, because if it wasn’t 3pm, there wasn’t anything on TV for us anyway. Bicycles were how everyone got around the neighborhood and I was fascinated by them. Scraped knees and sweat was the look I donned as my sister graciously gave of her time to run behind me with her encouraging words. My mother insisted on confining my newly developed skill to the sidewalk until I became more seasoned, but one day I accidently stumbled upon a way to be unleashed to the open road. I crashed into Mr. Hemple’s car next door as he backed out into view from behind his hedges. After the emergency room visit, which was insisted upon by the driver, my parents had a conversation that concluded I’d be safer out in the open streets after all. Several years later I was on a Raleigh 5-speed Fireball, a gift that ranked at the top of my childhood Christmas gifts that had me daring the cold weather that December as nothing was going to keep me off of it. Some of us began to venture to other parts of town and eventually, by way of a pipeline trail in town, we began to leave town as well.

As the years passed, the herd of bicycles thinned and ultimately it was just my neighborhood friend John and me who still had it in us to explore in this manner. John had a desire to peddle that at least matched mine and we began expanding our riding territory until one day he suggested a ride to High Point, NJ. This would have been 44 miles, if we had taken the highway, which of course was out of the question. John, being the master navigator, came up with a back roads solution that had to have been nothing less than 50 each way, hence, our first century on a bike! I recall the excitement I felt over the scene change as the roads narrowed and cow populated farms dominated the view. As the name of our destination suggests, we had some climbing to do, and our legs ached as we pushed ourselves up the final segment. On the return trip, I officially became the mechanic of the duo when John’s handle bars literally snapped off while muscling up a hill. Prepared with a bag of tools, I managed to fasten the bars back on well enough to complete the day. We were now a travelling team with mechanic and navigator.

Emboldened by our accomplishment, we began exploring maps and further expanding our limits. By the summer of ’79, John had come up with the idea of doing a round trip to Washington, D.C., more than 300 miles and only three days to do it. We had to finish with the aid of a bus out of Atlantic City on day 3, but it was a success when considering all that we learned on this first multi-day excursion. Soon we were taking the car to New Hampshire where we’d set out on the bikes for week long tours including parts of Maine. In ’82, while up in that area, we decided to climb Mount Washington after riding 65 miles that day, as if just the climb itself wasn’t enough. We pushed ourselves hard only to be hit with a thunderstorm about 5 miles up the 7.6 mile trek. John turned back, but I was a little thick headed and pressed on until I got the feeling I was no longer near the storm but inside of it! Feeling like I endangered my life enough, I reluctantly turned around only to blow out my front tire from the overuse of my brakes on the descent. Having left our packs and tools down below, I had to walk