Sunday, June 9, 2024

Rocinante and the Volcanic Slag

 


I saddled up and loaded the steel steed with requisite equipment and bags, including a sandwich for the road. We passed the first brief leg of the trip racked with doubt and trepidation. If everything went as planned, it would be our longest ride together. Of course, if things went other than as planned, the ride could be our last.

We both took fuel, burdening the visa and lightening the lunchbox. With a half sandwich to fortify my commitment to a potentially rash decision. I revved my buttercup Rocinante onto the open road. Although all the apps augured sunshine, the dark clouds foretold differently and with greater authority. We discovered rain within the hour. It was but a taste of the adventure to come and barely wet my helm.

When we left the busy thoroughfare for the mountain passes, our course attracted nature's eye. On the ascending trails it seemed the storm had already passed, but when we mounted to the high plateau we rode straight into nature's wrath. She struck with increasing ferocity, attempting to sweep Rocinante from the way, forsaking rain in favor of gale force blasts.

Onward, ever onward we rode until at last we reached the mountains of the moon. My buttercup Rocinante rolled against the blast in a high desert of volcanic slag. Heaps of cinders and stately lava domes were decreed in this forsaken landscape above a sunless sea. The dark domes bulged and cracked as if from the force of monstrous aliens arising from the basalt confines with death and destruction for humanity.

At last we escaped the gale of nature's wrath and the valley of the shadow to complete the ride to Eldorado. Fortunately, the weather for the return trip was much better. I met a traveler in Carey, who rode a Bonneville Triumph, and had a nice conversation with him. I saw no maids with dulcimers and I had seen some years before the cave of ice. Nevertheless, you may want to close your eyes with holy dread for I on junk food have fed and found it all very high priced.

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