The panniers are not yet packed. Which bike to ride—Gold Wing or Spyder—continues to be a furious debate in my brain. Special bike-love routes have been plotted and some routes between those routes are being considered. Rain gear is ready. Global positioning technology is in place. And always on my mind is that low twinge of knowing the road is full of people who are busy scrutinizing their phones, who think a turn signal is optional and a motorcycle is invisible.

But the bike experience is special. We have a different way of examining the world through which we travel that ensures we adjust, accommodate, scan, plan, and navigate. We avoid things with four or more wheels and we seek the mesmerizing and restorative experience of riding a motorcycle.

Our flow is like the way water doesn’t argue with the rock. It doesn’t plan a route around it — it finds the give, the gap, the way through, and it never stops moving while it does it. That’s the whole trick, maybe. Not fearlessness. Just refusal to stay stuck at the same spot in the river.

So the bike will be whichever one is sitting in the driveway when I stop overthinking it. The drivers will do what they do, and I’ll ride a path that keeps them distant because that’s just sensible, not fear. And somewhere past the next county line there’s a view I haven’t seen yet, waiting on the other side of a curve I haven’t ridden yet, ready for me to arrive with my camera.

I’ll just go with the flow. The river’s been doing it longer than I have.