At first, I was excited about saying yes to Dave’s proposal, even though I’d only known him for less than a month. No way was I going to let the opportunity to ride a motorcycle around the world pass by.
Even though it scared the shit out of me. Night and day for weeks to come.
Most people usually take time to mull over questions like this. I said yes right away.
This sort of spontaneous decision-making wasn’t new for me.
I once bought a house with two people I’d traveled with for only ten days.
I accepted an invite to ride a bicycle across Europe even though I only knew how to mountain bike short distances.
I climbed Peru’s highest mountain with basically no high-altitude experience and backpacked solo through Africa and South America with simple-minded ignorance and unlimited curiosity.
This was all typical Libra behaviour. We whimsically agree to something, then worry obsessively about it later.
Whenever I agree to do something adventurous or challenging, I spend an equal amount of time worried and doubtful as I do excited and confident. The more committing the endeavour, the more nights will pass in the dark with my eyes wide open.
Everything was happening so fast. Two months ago, I didn’t even know David Scott Sears. Now I was planning to ride around the world with him over the next two-years. It was like agreeing to marriage—a major commitment with someone who has your back and has demonstrated this to you time and again.
Dave and I had no such history together.
The Beginning
We met on a dating site.
A fortune-teller could have told me this and I’d have left the room.
Before I moved to Vancouver, BC, from Revelstoke, BC, I was a judgy bitch about internet dating.
Maybe it was because this now-very-popular way of meeting people was still coming into its own back then.
But the truth is finding Dave was basically as easy as shopping online and having something like my future partner delivered right to my door.
We were destined to meet. On our first in-person date, we both thought the other looked familiar.
Dave and I discovered we’d both lived in Canmore, AB, around the same time and were avid mountain climbers and skiers.
More specifically, one month before I loaded up my Ford Ranger and moved to Vancouver (after eleven years living and working and breaking up with climbing bums in Revelstoke), Dave moved to my former mountain town for work. We may have crossed paths in Revelstoke, but Dave was still married and I had tunnel vision on a new life elsewhere.
When I met Dave, I would have put riding a motorcycle around the world in the same category as winning a lottery.
First Date
Our first date was beautiful.
We wore shirtsleeves ascending the snowy slopes. All day from every direction, we could see the volcanic cone of Mount Baker sitting mighty and unobstructed just a few miles away.
There were some ambitious route choices at times, which had me struggling in body and mind; a more accurate sign of things to come.
We climbed a small peak for lunch. I ducked behind some trees to pee. Returning, I found a picnic set up in a sunny, flat spot that included several different types of cheeses, meats, crackers, bread, olives, pickles and wine, complete with little plastic wine glasses.
Dave had told me on the phone the night before not to bring any food. I’d brought some snacks just in case.
Now my protein bar and small bag of beef jerky seemed as appealing as dumpster scraps with this spread laid out before me.
We had non-stop questions for each other. Things went well the entire day.
However, I think Dave flat out fell in love with me after I peed behind his truck on our drive home. (I’d love for someone to explain the law of bladder physics to me so I can understand how one beer in my belly can turn into three in my bladder.) I was busting and asked Dave to pull over on the side of the road leading down from Mount Baker.
I thought I was being strategic hiding behind his truck, but didn’t account for the family driving by. I still see the faces of those two little boys, mouths and eyes wide as I presented my bare ass.
That was April 14, 2014 — a day that contained many signs foreshadowing our future together: a little reckless and with no small amount of physical and mental challenges.
And then what?
Did we go on that motorcycle trip? Did we make it all the way? Did we stay together?
The rest of the story can be found in my book, Riding Full Circle: What the World Taught Me About Motorcycles, Risk, and Someone I Barely Knew.
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