This is for when I came to the Susquehanna River and the dawn had laid sheaths of fog alongside its banks.  The forest rolled south towards the water and dallied in the fresh light.  I pulled to the side of the road and dismounted, just to see the early sun sparkle on the water below.

This is for when I rode down away from Morgantown and the leaves were turning.  Everywhere color glinted.  The wind was cold and I occasionally had to step off riding to bake my hands on the engine.  Occasionally I'd catch flashes of red or gold wafting off branches and lolling in the sky.  This is for the dirty pick-up truck with the old dog in the back that pulled over to make sure I was okay.  This is for the old man who drove it, with the salt-and-pepper beard and dirty plaid shirt.  I looked like a regular street tough, with my torn leather jacket and clawed up helmet, but he just saw a kid baking his hands and stopped to see if everything was okay.

This is for the woman in the McDonalds in Hagerstown who took pity on a cold kid without enough money to buy coffee.  I was able to get my bike started, even though I had to chip frost off my seat, but my hands weren't up to the trip.  The pain as the cold laid waste to my fingers made me cry and I had to pull off.  The McDonalds was the only place that was open.  This is for her who saw I needed something warm and offered it to me.

This is for the couple I huddled with in the mountains outside Breezewood, when the rain came down like minature waterfalls.  I could no longer see through through my helmet visor and had to lift it.  The rain cut my eyes.  I rode on the edge of the shoulder for as long as I could, but when the rigs started pulling off and water rushed down the mountain, I realized I needed to stop.  It was night, and cold, and I leaned against my bike for protection and that last bit of warmth emanating from the still engine.  I saw you both pull up near a rig.  You, she, stayed on the bike and you, he, got off and paced.  I grabbed a tarp out of my bag, ran over, and covered the two of you with it.  You, she, was shaking.  This is for the couple, who when the rains stopped, followed me five hundred miles until we parted ways near the Indiana border.

This is for the road in Missouri, caked in oil.  I got quite personal with you when I came in to turn and you decided I looked better on the road than on the bike.  I watched the asphalt speed through my helmet visor.  This is for everyone who sped by while I, dazed and sore, tried to piece together my head and body enough to lift my battered bike off the road.

This is for the woman who honked at me incessantly when my bike's radiator blew on the bridge overlooking the St. Louis Arch.  Fuck you, too.

This is for the old man in Eureka, Kansas, who asked me where I was from and where I was going.  Old man, I was from Chicago and I was going to Phoenix.  This is for your story about a broken woman and speeding recklessly through a corner.  That may have cost you your leg, but I saw the smile on your face when you saw my bike outside your restaurant window. We riders, no matter where we are in our lives, with bikes, without bikes, are always riders - if only in our dreams.

This is for my little spot by the Potomac, next to the 14th street bridge.  This is for my little study-spot; my little make-out spot with the lights of the city floating lazily on the water.  This is for the views of forested Teddy Roosevelt Island and the warm rumbles of everyone driving by. 

This is for the red soil of Oklahoma, the tall crosses in Texas, the red rocks shattering the sky in New Mexico, the long desolation in the deserts of Arizona, the wind ripping through the grasses in Kansas, the jutting forests of Missouri, the empty farms in Illinois, the rivers of Ohio, and the french-fries in Indiana.  This is for the mountains in Pennsylvania, the smell of the ocean in Massachutsets, the fog in Maryland, and that damnable bridge in Delaware.  This is for the blood-blooded taste of Conneticut.

This is for all my brothers and sisters in the wind.