Buckskin Rides Again

I left Mississippi with my grin intact. By the time I crossed into Alabama, my edges were fraying. I’d logged 1,500 miles since my last real rest in Santa Fe, continuously battling the wind.

I managed to dodge the rain until the last five minutes when I turned left into the Hampton Inn on the edge of town, where I fell easily into sleep after dinner. By morning, I thought I’d found my balance again. I hadn’t. Fatigue lingers in disguise.

Down in the guest lounge, the buffet attendant was overfunctioning in his attemp...

This isn’t a full dispatch—just a pause at the rest stop.

The holidays are a time when everyone’s attention scatters, including mine, and I want the final miles of Buckskin Rides Again to land when you’re actually able to take them in.

The last two dispatches arrive on January 4 and January 11.

Before I pull off the road, I want to show you something I didn’t have when I first wrote about it.

Visiting my parents after Thanksgiving, I finally took a photograph of the Victorian sleigh that lives...

I crossed the Arkansas–Mississippi line on a long, hot stretch of two-lane and stopped at a four-pump gas station in the middle of nowhere—a place where the snack aisle leans hard toward pork rinds and Little Debbies.

Three men, well past seventy-five, had hauled their aluminum lawn chairs outside the store to watch the traffic go by. A couple of younger guys—grandsons?—stood behind them in a kind of social solidarity. I pulled in under the canopy, gave them a wave, and fueled up, checked my chain lube, and grabbed a couple of dollars for a sn...

Become a free subscriber and you’ll never miss a thing.

Two hours after I left the person I’ve come to call “Jaguar man,” I outran the storm that had chased me all day and rolled into Norman, Oklahoma. The sky had cleared, but the unease lingered—what I’d shaken off in weather still clung in thought.

Pulling under the hotel canopy as the light shifted to gold, I could see at least three decent restaurants within walking distance. After days of eating what Mom always called “starch bloat,” I was ready for real f...

I left Canyon in the late morning since I had to wait for the final remnants of the storm to clear. Somewhere east of Amarillo, the crosswind hit me sideways. A steady push, not gusty—almost like it had intent. I gritted my teeth, leaned hard, and watched a truck in the distance rock and settle—like it had reconsidered its loyalties. As the highway straightened near a sign for Panhandle, Texas, a different kind of memory broke loose, one that everyone in my family has tried to forget.

Back in 2020, five years before this ride, I was...

Buckskin Rides Again is FREE! Subscribe so you don’t miss a thing

If you remember Pixar’s Cars movie (2006), you’ll remember Radiator Springs—the dusty little town bypassed by the interstate, fading until someone slowed down long enough to see its charm. Tucumcari, New Mexico, isn’t Radiator Springs exactly, but Pixar clearly had places like it in mind.

The town wears the same stubborn hope, its civic pride painted straight onto stucco. More than a hundred murals brighten Main Street and back alleys—cowboys, longhorns, diners, the ghosts of Route 66 motels. They...

Missed a Dispatch? They’re all right here.

It took me a bit longer than expected to get out of Santa Fe. I’d meant to tip the housekeeper but realized too late that I was down to thirty-five dollars in cash to get from New Mexico to North Carolina. I spent most of the morning trying to get money without an ATM card ( I don’t travel with one)—discovering, belatedly, that banks don’t really do cash advances anymore. When I finally found one that did, my card wasn’t on the right network.

I’m offici...

Missed a Dispatch? They’re All Here!

I traded my riding gear for capris, a tunic, and espadrilles, and followed the scent of woodsmoke to the fire-pit patio for dinner at La Posada.

The post-sunset chill had thinned the crowd to two other couples and a handbag-sized King Charles Spaniel they called The Enforcer. Apparently, he’d earned the name for his nightly patrol—barking at the feet of anyone still out of bed after 10:30.

I have thoughts about dogs in restaurants, but at least this one had manners—and a purpose in life. By...

Missed a Dispatch? They’re all right here.

The road rose and fell through the high desert like a long exhale. Dust, water, and the faint sweetness of horse dung drifted through my helmet vents from Farmington, New Mexico’s McGee Park, where Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses were taking their morning laps. That’s where I turned onto U.S. 550 South, headed for the tiny town of Cuba and, beyond it, the volcanic rim of the Valles Caldera.

The number 550 tugged at memory. Years earlier, I’d ridden its Colorado stretch—the Million Dollar Highway between Ou...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

I left the Painted Desert behind with the wind still buffeting my body, daring me to press on when it would’ve been easier to pull over and wait it out. But “waiting it out” might take a couple of weeks—who was I kidding?

This is where I should mention the small but mighty invention of heated grips. I’ve learned over time that if I keep my hands and neck warm, my core temperature will stabilize. I may still be chilly from all that wind, but my teeth...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

A few days earlier, JJ and I had been scrolling Zillow listings—single-story homes close to shopping and health care—as if the right floor plan in the right location could fix the future.

Now, rolling through the admission gate at Painted Desert National Park, I could still feel that conversation humming under my skin.

Dad’s energy to move was flagging while Mom’s resistance was rising. He can shoulder a lot before stepping in, but when he does, it’s decisive. He wasn’t there yet. N...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

I broke gravitational pull from Phoenix on a crisp Saturday morning. That’s the only way I can describe it—breaking free not just from the pull of geography, but from the ambient sorrow of watching my parents age, and the quiet ache of leaving my brother behind to carry so much.

But mercifully, for the next few hours, I wouldn’t be leaving him at all.

We’d trailered the bikes to Fountain Hills to skip the mundanity of riding a semi-beltway. You should see JJ’s t...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all here.

My brother JJ and I had colluded before I arrived in Phoenix, and Dad was on board.

We wanted to help our parents downshift into a simpler life. One that didn’t depend on Dad maintaining the air conditioner via YouTube tutorials, or Mom dusting curio cabinets filled with memories no one else knew what to do with. The first step was neighborhood shopping.

Now my brother is an enthusiast. He can get you excited about choosing floor mats for a car you don’t even drive—...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

My parents’ home is built in the architectural language of controlled ease—desert-toned stucco, stacked stone, and tidy xeriscaping, built for light, comfort, and low maintenance. You might imagine what it looks like inside and think: neutral palettes, clean surfaces, a ceiling fan slowly turning over an open-concept living space. Something equally streamlined and uncluttered.

There’s some of that, but my mother’s taste leans more collected than minimalist, more storied than spare. Let’s be clear: the house isn’t cluttered, but it is full—of framed prints...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

Back at Gila Valley Feed & Hardware Store, while I waited for Deborah and Clayton to open the Simpson Hotel, I had momentarily considered pressing on to Globe, two hours northwest of Duncan.

I ran the idea past the hardware proprietor and his eyebrows shot up. “That’s not a good road at this time of day,” he warned. Highway 70 runs through the San Carlos Apache Reservation, and evening brings a higher risk of collisions—cars, elk, and free-roaming horses.

I’m glad I waited. The road I took...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

Descending the piney heights of Ruidoso, New Mexico, I left the cool shadow of the Lincoln National Forest and came into the wide-open hush of the desert. The air warmed. The land flattened. Green gave way to gold. Within an hour, I was skirting the blinding dunes of White Sands, a surreal stretch of gypsum desert that looks more like snowdrifts than sandbanks.

From there, I followed long, empty roads across southern New Mexico, the terrain widening into the northern fringe of the Chihuahuan Desert—wind-scoured basins, dist...

From Roswell, I took Highway 380 west, eventually merging with 70. Somewhere near Picacho, New Mexico, I laughed out loud in my helmet.

The name reminded me of when my boys were little and obsessed with the Pokémon card game and cartoon. One of the characters—Pikachu—sounded close enough to this dusty town to trigger a flood of memories.

Grammyland and Pikachu

I thought about the endless games, the breathless show-and-tell moments, the way their entire world could be held in a plastic binder. My mom never learned to play the game with them...

I could tell Roswell was close—not just because the mileage signs spelled it out, but because little green men and flying saucers started popping up in yards, storefronts, and even mailbox stands—long before I hit the city limits.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Roswell story, I’ll make it brief: In the summer of 1947, a strange object fell from the sky into the New Mexico desert near the city. What followed was a tangle of conflicting reports, military secrecy, and the birth of America’s most enduring UFO legend.

Less Alien Crash Site, More...

Missed a dispatch? They’re all right here.

The Arkansas-Oklahoma forecast hadn’t lied—crosswinds were already flexing by the time I rolled out of Mena, Arkansas. I kept my expectations low: make decent miles, stay upright, and find fuel and food where I could.

I started the morning with the second two.

The Ozark Inn didn’t offer breakfast, which was fine by me. I’d had enough powdered eggs from hotel buffets already. A quick search pointed me toward Bledsoe’s Diner, two hours west in Atoka, a town within the Choctaw Nati...

Did you miss a dispatch? Catch up here.

The Buckstaff bathhouse left me lighter, clearer, scrubbed clean inside and out. Something in me shifted forward and I felt the road calling me again, asking not for reflection, but motion.

I wanted to put myself within reach of Wichita Falls, Texas, the next day—somewhere near Mena, Arkansas, would do. That afternoon’s ride through the Ouachita Mountains was transcendent—miles of gentle sweeping curves unfolding beneath a soft spring sky with enough big trees on either side of the road to buffer whatever wind came along...

If you’ve missed a dispatch, catch up here at this link.

By the time I pulled into the Hampton Inn just outside Little Rock, the wind had finally quit—but it had left its mark. The women at the front desk looked at me like I’d just walked out of a storm cellar. “You rode through all that?” one of them asked, shaking her head. “We were watching those trees bend.”

I smiled, but my head was still swimming. After days of wrestling crosswinds, I was grateful for a room that didn’t sway. I...

Need to catch up? Here’s what you missed.

On the third day of my travels, heading west toward Little Rock, I stopped at a Mississippi Cracker Barrel. I've got my order down pat—greens, pintos, cornbread, half-sweet tea—so I rattled it off as soon as the server arrived.

She was a petite woman about my age. When she brought my food, she noticed my full-face helmet on the seat beside me. “Isn’t that hot?” she asked, fanning herself. “Back in Texas, we don’t have helmet laws. I love the wind in my face.”

...

I hadn’t just been putting off a trip to Arizona. I’d been avoiding the real journey for a long time.

My mind’s quick—I track patterns, connect dots—but when it comes to uncomfortable truths, I’m slow to register them.

Achieving Liftoff

Breaking gravitational pull is always the hardest part. It happens at both ends of a journey—first in the leaving, then in the returning.

Originally, I had intended to leave on April 2. But a storm front loomed over the Ohio Valley, Southern Appalachians, and Ozarks—a wall of weathe...

I’m in my early sixties, riding into my elderhood with the throttle open and the map unwritten. I’m no longer proving anything, but I’m not done becoming, either.

If I could choose a superpower, I wouldn’t ask for flight or telekinesis—I’d ask for invisibility. Not because I want to disappear, but because I want to witness the world unfiltered. Not the performance people give—or even the subtle shifts in animals when they know they’re being watched—but the quiet reality of what life looks like in its unaltered state.

It started in...

Hello, friends of Buckskin!

I’m counting down to launch day—July 20! As a thank-you for riding along (or considering riding along), here’s an early excerpt from the series, Dispatch #17, when I was in Santa Fe. This comes in the middle of the dispatch:

…Come dinnertime, it was sprinkling. Luckily, I’d packed my oversized Bass Pro Shop rain jacket—roomy enough to fit over my armored riding gear. I looked a bit like a walking tent in street clothes. Not exactly a fashion statement, but at least I was dry.

I’d tried to get...