Hi, I’m George Bryson, a career journalist in his sixties. A married father of three young women. A longtime Alaskan born and raised in California. A lifelong lover of literature, science, nature and sport. A home-body who occasionally wanders.
And this is Harley, a blue 2005 Harley Davidson 883cc Sportster motorcycle and sometimes traveling companion. We first met through Craigslist in the spring of 2011. Late that same year, we shared each other’s company on a 12,000-mile (three-month-long) road trip ’round America, primarily in search of stories about our country, but also just to have fun.
The first 50 or so postings in this blog are a record of that trip.
At journey’s end, I parked Harley in my brother’s garage in Portland, Oregon with the private intention of continuing our adventure in a year or two. We’d managed to go almost everywhere I originally intended — from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, the prairie railroad towns of Nebraska, the cornfields of Iowa, the Capitol steps of Wisconsin, a tailgate party in South Bend, a blizzard in Buffalo, family graveyards in New England, city parks in New York, slave quarters in Virginia, blues clubs in Memphis, a Faulkner-fest in Mississippi, Thanksgiving in Louisiana, a motorcycle waltz across Texas, saguaro forests in Arizona, California coast of my childhood.
Where we weren’t able to go, however — solely due to a huge Rocky Mountain snowstorm near the end of the trip — was the high desert country of southern Utah and northern Arizona. There I’d hoped to put an exclamation mark on the journey by pitching my tent in some beautiful little sagebrush canyon, partly in honor of my desert-loving dad. So that’s what we’re doing this time around — in the late fall of 2014 — on a three-week ride from Oregon to Utah to California and back. And you’re welcome to come along.
Travels with Harley 
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Hi Uncle George! I am living on the coast in Northern CA, so when you’re passing through here, you are more than welcome to stay with us! It was so great spending time with your beautiful wife last week! Looking forward to following your blog, and hopefully seeing you soon! Love, your niece Ashley
Tucked away in Aniak, Travels with Harley provides a good source of vicarious adventure. I’m catching up with the journey by going backwards. Perhaps the New York posting brought to mind Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road.” So much of his energy and passion are echoed in your writing. Carry on! Joan
From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.
Hello George. I was very nice meeting you and sharing motorcycle stories on the AmTrack headed to Seattle. I hope you made every connection you had once you got to Tukwila, making it safely home to your family.
~ Cheryl
Yes, that was supposed to be an ‘It” but I suppose you knew that. 🙂