I’ve been post­ing a lot to face­book late­ly.  It’s easy.  And it has a way of draw­ing me back in despite cavok.com being my pre­ferred method of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  I have a post com­ing up about my time in Har­lan, Ken­tucky, and the time I spent with my good friend J.D. Napi­er there. I had the incred­i­ble for­tune to meet J.D. after get­ting myself com­plete­ly lost on my first trip to Har­lan.   More on that lat­er, but for now a quick shot of us togeth­er with the Giant Blacksmith’s Anvil J.D. has con­struct­ed right there on site.

J.D. Napi­er and Jor­dan with the world’s biggest anvil?

For now though, I’d like to record a few thoughts from today’s trip toward Chica­go while they’re still fresh in my mind.  Parts of this are pulled from a face­book post, and I’ve added a few things in too..

A chilly start in Har­lan, KY

Had an incred­i­ble day out on the move today. Leav­ing Har­lan this morn­ing, fog coat­ed the fall coloured for­est on Pine moun­tain, and filled the Hol­lows beneath. The air was frigid and numbed my face as it flowed over ThirstyGirl’s wind­shield. Rid­ing over the gen­tly curv­ing moun­tain roads, I expe­ri­enced a moment of pure joy that I’ve not felt in decades. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I yelled whoops of pure elate­ment in to my hel­met visor. I’d set a cam­era up on the motor­cy­cle fend­er to cap­ture that sec­tion of the ride, but it end­ed up not record­ing so you’ll have to take my word that it was one of the most incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful scenes I’ve encoun­tered in my life­time.

Mar­tins Fork, Har­lan KY in the ear­ly morn­ing

Head­ed for Chica­go, I had the incred­i­ble for­tune to catch up with some incred­i­ble peo­ple. First a cof­fee and an ever so short vis­it with my good friend Jeff Ross in Bar­bourville.

Jor­dan and Jeff at The Ugly Mug

And anoth­er stop for lunch with an awe­some dude, Chase Sat­ter­white in Lex­ing­ton. (Oops, we should have grabbed a pho­to too..) It was fan­tas­tic to catch up with both of you guys, and I appre­ci­ate your tak­ing the time out for a vis­it today. That was icing on the cake.

Bed­ded down in Lafayette, Indi­ana and man­aged to get the last room in the hotel.. The Pres­i­den­tial Suite. Oh yeaaahh… The only thing this room is miss­ing is a spe­cial some­one to share it with. Giv­en the epic nature of today’s trip, I’ll con­cede this isn’t a total neces­si­ty!

I feel as though I do lead a charmed life, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to tru­ly appre­ci­ate it. I’m filled with grat­i­tude for every­thing that I’ve expe­ri­enced today and lead­ing up to today.