I was somewhere in the middle of a three-month motorcycle ride when I met him. I’d been living on a BMW GSA 1200 and had traveled from Austin, Texas, to the West Coast, all through Northern California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, and was heading east in Wyoming when I stopped in a hipster part of Jackson Hole to get a sandwich. I’d parked my bike in front of a sandwich shop across the street from the park with all the deer antlers at the entrance.
The town was full of tourists buying expensive “Indian” blanket jackets. I was just there for food.
The bike is a giant beast, covered in dirt and a true “Beverly Hillbillies” amount of junk on the back. Sleeping bags, a camp chair, a tent, a hammock, and months’ worth of clothes, and a lot of tools in the big aluminum panniers. For much of the trip, I’d let people use a felt-tip pen to write on the aluminum saddlebags, so they became a bit of an art project. Strangers from all over the country would write their favorite sayings about travel on the bike, and it wasn’t unusual to come out to the bike and see someone standing there, reading the panniers. I’d hand them the pen and let them add to the collection.
“Those who do not move do not feel the chains…”
One of my favorites. And of course, I had the whole Jack Kerouac “The only people for me are the mad ones,” quote that I can never read aloud to the amusement of my friends.
So I come out to the bike in full riding gear with my sandwich, no doubt covered in mud and bugs, and there was that guy.
Mid 40s maybe. Carrying two big shopping bags and staring limply at the bike.
He had the look of a man who had just seen a film of his own death.
He spoke.
“How long you been on the road?” he asked
“Not really sure, maybe a month and a half,” was my honest guess. I’d lost track by then.
“Where you going now?”
“Heading east. Too many fires out west.” Which was true. I’d ridden through big forest fires, and it took several months to get better. I’d been inhaling burnt bears and taco trucks for too long, and I figured the hot springs of Wyoming would help.
“When are you going home?”
“Not sure… When I get tired, I guess.”
I’d been through this several times before, and people would scratch their heads and laugh and tell me I was just like Forest Gump.
But he had a different take.
“That’s the greatest wealth there is… To have no agenda.”
As I’ve thought about this over the last few years, I realize how right he is. I’ve known really rich people who always had to be somewhere, doing something they didn’t want to do. And here I was, just wandering around the country, sleeping in a hammock and eating whatever kind of food I could rustle up in dying little towns, being cold, dirty, hungry and often lost, and I was about the wealthiest guy I knew.
So go ahead and work your ass off, stress yourself out, and ruin your health to buy an expensive car, a bigger house, and a showy watch, and eventually you may come to the conclusion that none of that is true wealth.
Being able to wander freely and not care what day or month it is is wealth. To wake up on the side of a mountain and take in the view and realize you have food for the day and just take a zero day and stay there until tomorrow because you can, that’s wealth. To have a business you love and spend your days doing something you enjoy AND pay your bills…
That’s wealth.
