pubs shut at 10:30 p.m. during the week, and 11. p.m. on the weekends; retail stores closed by 5:30 p.m. during the week and all day Sunday. Television was over by mid- night, heralded by the playing God Save the Queen before shutdown. Patrick has been surfing hundreds of 24-hour TV channels since he was old enough to hold the remote. Stores never close. He has a laptop computer for schoolwork; I was sucking ink into a fountain pen at his age and recording everything in notebooks. The first calculators were cumbersome affairs with basic functions, and now they are apps on phones. We saved money from our paper routes to buy singles from record stores; he surfs YouTube, Pandora or iTunes from his phone. As my hero, friend, mentor and inspira-
tion, Shelby provides one last story before the road north to Scotland calls. We hear how he had all his money stolen in India and traveled on to Katmandu with ten
rupees to his name on faith and the kind- ness of strangers. Some days later Patrick wrote about Shelby’s stories in his journal (Shelby is an author, so he obviously told many stories that were completely insane, but the amazing thing, they are all true) and I feel the great man’s wisdom imprint- ing on Patrick’s soul. It’s a journey of 350 miles through the
heart of England, and as my sister is expect- ing us for dinner, we use the motorway. We take 90-minute stints in the saddle and relaxed breaks where we discuss the land- scape and our thoughts. Middle England is very industrial, but by late afternoon, the mountains of the Lake District rise along our horizon. Arriving at the Scottish bor- der I fight to find something to remember from the numerous trips I made up and down this route as a teenager, hitchhiking from London to see my girlfriend. As hard as I look, I don’t connect and the twisting, winding two-lane road has been replaced
with a slick, fast-moving motorway, my memories nowhere to be found. I am mak- ing new ones with my son, and we point at old farmhouses and churches that appear from time to time. I’m relieved that Patrick is content and engaged both on the bike and during our breaks. Since the time I arrived unannounced
the day before my sister’s wedding, after being missing in Latin America without word for months, there’s no way to surprise her. We just pull in at reasonable hour and within minutes it’s as if I’ve never been away. Patrick comfortably slots in with his cousins, and we sit late in the Scottish twi- light catching up on all the family gossip. I’m happy to have the long, fast-paced day behind us, as for the next few days we are going to be striving for quality—not quan- tity—in our miles. The first time I rode east across Scot-
land, it was late in the year and so cold I had to pull in at the Glasgow airport to
Below: In Houston, Scotland near my sister’s home. Right: Canon on Edinburgh Castle (A photo by Patrick and a popular Facebook image.)
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BMW OWNERS NEWS April 2016
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