Wow! This is one of the most captivating books I have ever held in my hands. It is the product of one of the most determined woman I have ever met on one of the most exciting adventures I can imagine. Claiming to have met Anna Grechishkina is actually something of a stretch. At the 2014 Route 66 Festival in Kingman, Arizona, she joined some festival attendees for dinner. Our “meeting” consisted of a second or so of eye contact and a group hello. But I learned of her dream and her plans to fulfill it and I have followed her journey from that point on.
That journey had started just over a year before when she left her home in Ukraine to travel the world on a motorcycle. In that time she had traveled east through Russia then south through Asia and Australia. From Kingman she would cover much of the US then turn south and ride along both coasts of South America before jumping across the Atlantic to Africa. I believe she was in Tanzania when The World from My Bike was completed. As I write this, Anna has just reached Sudan.
I confess to being surprised by the book even though I certainly should not have been. Pre-publication descriptions made it clear that the book was not organized either chronologically or geographically. I know I read that, and have to think I understood it, but it apparently didn’t really sink in. Until I actually opened it and started “reading”, I foolishly expected a standard model travelogue with dates and miles and maps and such. As Anna herself explained in those pre-pub descriptions, The World from My Bike is organized “…according to the emotions I felt at different stages of my journey.”
On the other hand, maybe I intentionally resisted that understanding. I must also confess that I might have turned away from a book I thought was nothing but personal emotions. But regardless of whether I accidentally or intentionally sidestepped the description, I’m sure glad I did. My silly preconceptions might otherwise have caused me to miss out on something wonderful.
There are 365 photographs in the book. I didn’t count them. That number is given in the book’s preface. That three paragraph preface is just about the largest collection of words in the entire volume. It might be exceeded, but only slightly, by the five paragraphs that appear on the back cover. A date and location is given for every photo and most are accompanied by a bit of text. Sometimes the text relates to a specific picture.
The town was alive, rich and arrogant. But diamonds which were the main reason for the town’s existence started to deplete , and the town of Kolpanskop in Namibia eventually turned into a ghost town as its inhabits left all their possessions behind and rushed for another shaky hope. Little by little sand took over what was once the subject of admiration and luxury
But more often it expresses a thought that is augmented by the picture.
Everywhere I go I am a stranger. Well respected, welcomed and even admired, but a stranger. No matter how many interesting stories I tell, I am a passer-by and observer, and soon I will be gone. The most I can expect is to leave good memories behind me.
And sometimes it simply provides some practical real-world advice.
If you wait a few more minutes and don’t rush back home straight after the sun went down you’ll see kaleidoscope of colors and forms which might surpass even beauty of the sunset.
The photographs are beautiful by themselves. There are, of course, numerous images of stunning scenery, but there are also street scenes and photos of people including several riveting portraits. The word “exotic” popped into my American mind many times.
There are 150 pages in the book. Those I did count. They are not numbered. There are four sections — Happiness, Challenges, Lessons, and Fun — but there is no table of contents. It would be meaningless without page numbers. This is not unique. In fact, the organization is very similar to that of Hues of my Vision by Ara Gureghian, another motorcyclist. It no doubt registers more with me here largely because of my own faulty expectations of something linear. This organization is clearly the correct one. There are a few places where two or three pictures work together to complete a thought but, for the most part, the book can be opened anywhere and happily experienced without turning a page.
The book can be purchased at The World from My Bike and I absolutely encourage you to get one. It’s a dandy.
This could be the charm associated with third attempts, or it could be the out associated with third strikes. Seriously, though, I doubt it is either. Neither of my first two books, 
I’ve walked in a 
I wish I had $6 or even 6¢ for every time I’ve stood by an old motel or diner and wished that the aging walls could talk. There are no talking walls here but 2 for $6 on Route 66 does contain the memories of someone who spent a whole lot of time with some very interesting walls. Author Debra Whittington married into the motel business; The man she married was born into it.
We fought a war to get this country going then gave every land owning white male above the age of twenty-one the right to vote. A little more than four score years later, we fought a war with ourselves that cleared the way for non-whites to vote. Several decades of loud, disruptive, and sometimes dangerous behavior brought the granting of that same right to non-males a half-century later and another half century saw the voting age lowered to eighteen after a decade or so of protests and demonstrations.
Of course, putting something in a constitution does not automatically make it a practice throughout the land and I am painfully aware that resistance followed each of those changes and that efforts to make voting extremely difficult for “the other side” are ongoing today. I don’t want to ignore partisan obstructions and system flaws but neither do I want to get hung up on them. I meant my first paragraph to be a reminder that a hell of a lot of effort, property, and lives have gone into providing an opportunity to vote to a hell of a lot of people. Far too many of those opportunities go unused.
In the title I claim to not care how anyone votes. That’s not entirely true, of course. I have my favorite candidates and issues. I’ll be disappointed in anyone who votes differently than I do but not nearly as disappointed as I’ll be in anyone who doesn’t vote at all. I’m reminded of parents working on getting their kids to clean their plates with lines like, “There are hungry children in China who would love to have your green beans.” I’m not sure what the demand for leftover beans is in Beijing these days but I’m pretty sure some folks there would like to have our access to ballots and voting booths.
You can’t judge a book by looking at the cover. Or, sometimes, by reading the title. That was the case for me with Onramps and Overpasses and the impression I got from the title and cover pretty much explains why it stayed on the unread pile so long that I don’t remember where it came from or why I have it. The cover is a nicely done long exposure photo of cars on a divided four-lane highway passing through what looks to be a rather scenic area. The title reinforces the image of high-speed limited-access roadways. The subtitle, “A Cultural History of Interstate Travel” does a better job of describing what’s inside but the preconception created by the cover and title led me to overlook the word “cultural” and misinterpret the word “interstate”. In my opinion, Perrier goofed on the cover and even more so on the title. Those are, however, virtually the only mistakes she makes here.
In the previous episode of My Wheels I mentioned that both that chapter and this one would suffer from foggy memory regarding timing. I also mentioned that in this installment I would try to at least explain how the vehicles were related even if I couldn’t explain when. That I will and I’ll even tie up a loose end from several chapters back.
