Hwy 1 at night

The fog was white and damp, letting me see just enough to keep from driving off the road. I was on Highway 101 somewhere north of the Bay Area.

It was late, way past dark and I was riding north on the winding road with no idea how long I must go before I could rest. 

The cold cut through my leather jacket, chilling me through and making it harder and harder to turn my head for those checks to the side that are all the more critical when you're on two wheels. 

I tucked behind the small windscreen on my motorcycle to escape the cold wind, but tucking in made me go too fast, triggering an inconvenient reflex in my wrist.

Even a rundown motel is welcome
at the end of a long night ride.

There were no lights at all on the highway. The only way to know the curve of the road was by following the highway reflectors, gleaming bright amber when my headlamps hit on them.

The darkness, the fog - I had no idea what lay to the sides of the road - soft shoulders? Or steep, deadly cliffs and a black ocean below?
The gleaming pavement beneath my wheels, that was life. Whatever there was behind the veil of fog, that was pain, injury, even death.
I wasn't frightened. I wasn't nervous. But I was...concerned. That's the only way I can think of it.

I must have rode inland because the black void of night began to fill in with thick, knotted tree trunks that loomed closely from the edge of the road, crowding me with their massiveness. 

Now, instead of flying off into space, a mistake would send me crashing into a tree as wide as a small home. 

Out of the darkness neon lights appeared. A gas station beckoned.
I rolled up to the pump, stiff from the wet and the cold. My ears numb from the hours of road noise.
I stopped as much to warm up and feel my legs again as to fill up on gas. I checked my map, pulling it from my pack and spreading it on my tank.

I was close to a small town, but my travel times were all screwed up. Everything was taking me longer than normal. And yet - I had a kind of faith. I was cold. I was hungry. I was a long way from a bed. But if I had to, I knew I could ride all night. 

My bike would not let me down.