I take a trip to Anchorage - bikers blast past me, cloud dancers dance atop the clouds

I had a to take a disk of photo proofs into Anchorage, to deliver to a client. As I returned on the Parks Highway, two men on a Harley and Kawasaki blasted past me so fast and loud that I could not even react to snap a frame. If this is the case, you must wonder, then how did I get this picture of them in my rearview mirror?

It was in a highway improvement construction area, where the speed limit was 55 and signs warned that double fines would be given to all speed violators. This fellow was in the lead. When he had put about 300 yards between he and I, his friend right behind him, he suddenly braked and began to pump his hand up and down over the road, his fingers spread out and his palm facing the pavement.

There was a cop ahead, sitting off to the side of the road, waiting for double-fine candidates.

The other biker slowed down, waved a thank you and then both pulled right, out of the fast lane and into the slow. Now I passed them, which did not worry me because I was doing 55. Now, they could not have been going more than 45. 

A bit of an overreaction, I thought.

But maybe they felt like cop targets.

Maybe they are cop targets.

They stayed behind me for a few miles, then, still in the 55 zone, decided that no more cops lie in wait ahead and, once again, blasted past me. I was now pushing my luck, doing 59. It felt like I was sitting still when they passed by.

Hey, Sandy - I bet you would like a bike like this, wouldn't you? What a sight you would be, roaring through Bangalore, the fabric of your saree - cut and tailored especially for motorcycle riding - rippling in the wind. 

And just a little bit before, back in Anchorage, I had to stop behind these guys while they worked out whatever problem it was with the driver of the car in front of them that had caused them to stop.

I think they performed a good deed, that the driver ahead had experienced car problems of some kind and they got him going again.

This is pure speculation on my part, because right after I stopped, they got back in the car and, flying the Stars and Stripes with the Confederate Flag painted in triplicate on their roof, hood and trunk, set back off to wherever it was they were going.

And shortly before that, I was passing near the Anchorage Park Strip when I looked up and saw two people dangling below a hang glider.

"What kind of idiots are these?" I wondered, even as I wished that I could be up there with them.

Then I saw that it was not idiots at all, but fabric people, cloud dancers, dancing with the clouds from the tail of a kite.

And this was even earlier, in Wasilla, as I waited at the stoplight at the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways to change so that I could continue on to Anchorage.

Comments

[Sandy]

Hi Bill,
You said it! I'd love to own / ride such a bike! Here in Bangalore, the roads are not very broad so I would keep this dream of mine to realise when I come to Alaska to meet you! I'll take you on a Harley & rest assured!

And about the Kite, that reminds me of my childhood days...we used to compete flying kites! Oh...I want to fly a kite now! :)

[TPaine18]

Read your comment in the Times -- you need to grow up and quit thinking of the world through your own eyes and experiences -- the other 330,000,000 of us are trying to get some work done. Your square space reflects that you live in a bubble. Down here in the rest of America, we are keeping our country great by doing the real work and not casting every issue in terms of our own anecdotal history and ancient partisan labels. Sorry to bite so hard, but your Times commentary reveals a need for lifting the veil for you and as soon as possible.

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

Should anyone else drop into the comment section of this now six day-old post and be curious as to what TPaine18 refers to, it is the comment that I left on the August 21 piece by New York Times Columnist Bob Herbert.

By the time the Times closed the comment period, over 400 readers had left comments. I would have been thrilled to have even half-a-dozen or so Times readers click "recommend" for my comment, but so far, 363 readers have and that makes it the number one, most highly reader-recommended comment on the thread.

I am very pleased. You can find it right here:

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/opinion/22herbert.html?sort=recommended

I will drop the link into my next post as well.

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

And Sandy - I look forward to that ride. Maybe I can fly the kite from the back seat as you drive the bike, and then we can switch and I can drive and you can fly the kite.

How about that?