I used to ride (on the back) of a motorcycle, smilinize. When Mike and I were in high school, he had a little Honda, and if I wanted to keep dating him, I had to get on, so I did. I spent a scare-to-death year clinging to his belt and digging my nails into his back. But I know what Dianne means about the feeling of freedom. Freedom full in your face.

Along with wildfire, bikers are a sort of subplot in "Ribbons of Highway." The reason? Sturgis Bike Week. Have you ever been?

An excerpt from "Ribbons:"


It was on the Beartooth that we really started to see the bikers. We joined a group of Harley pilots on the front porch of Top of the World Store & Motel (“Population 6” - the Milam family). Inside, the family was doing a brisk business in soda, snacks and t-shirts.

The bikers were headed for South Dakota and the mother of all motorcycle rallies, Sturgis Bike Week. The Doobie Brothers and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band would headline. From the Beartooth to the Great Lakes, we’d share highways, byways, gas stations, campgrounds, rest areas and tourist sites with bikers from all over America. Under their leather jackets they packed Nikons and Minoltas, and they stopped at the same scenic overlooks and beauty spots as the rest of us.

They provided Adam with a five-state rolling smorgasbord of chrome and parts, gadgets and detailing, spokes and sidecars. I was nervous, telling him not to get too close to the parked machines. There were so many of them lined up everywhere we stopped that if one went down, it would take at least a dozen with it. I had nightmares of having to pay for a mass of toppled, bruised Harleys because I was the mother of the kid who’d set the domino line in motion. I respected their outrageous expensiveness by parking far away and making a wide arc around them as I walked to the bathroom or coffee machine or gift shop.
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