With the high probability that this was my last day alive, I couldn't remember if I had kissed my wife in the morning or not, and that really bummed me out.
My two friends and I rode our motorcycles from the San Francisco Bay Area to Santa Cruz the very day after the coldest night in recent times. Although we bundled well for the sunny day, we hadn't planned to extend the ride past sunset when the temperature fell abruptly, producing a wind chill factor in which only two types of people ride: the insane, and the walking dead.
We ate lunch in Santa Cruz and enjoyed the sun on our faces and watched the local volleyball players on the beach. When we finally geared up for the ride home, we had been busily talking and hadn't notice that the sun was already low in the sky. We decided to ride north on Highway 1, to stay by the ocean because at this time of year the air near the water is typically not as chilly as that up on the hills. Then the only section we'd have to brave would be Highway 84 which shoots us through the hills and over onto the peninsula, home.
If you're judging the length of the day by the position of the sun in the sky, then the winter rotation of the earth can deceive you into believing that you have more daylight time; but, as the sun gets closer to the horizon, it sinks exponentially quicker. By the time we rode past the small town of Davenport, the sun had already dipped below the ocean, leaving us to ride in twilight. At this point the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees and we can no longer see the crest of the mountains to our right or much of the ocean to the left. Davenport was the midway point to home. We tucked in and rode a little faster.
Then Jim, thinking that Pescadero Road would deliver us to Highway 84 faster, turned right and led us into the dark hills. The temperature dropped another ten degrees within one mile. What Jim hadn't thought about was how Pescadero Road snaked through the hills, under trees that had been blocking much of the day's sun. These parts of the hills were naturally much, much colder, wetter and full of sharp bends in the road that made the ride much longer and more dangerous. As soon as we turned off Highway 1 and onto Pescadero Road, I knew this was a bad mistake, but Jim led with momentum. I took a deep breath and followed.
The moment we started climbing through the twisty hills, my visor fogged up. This meant that, in addition to the wind chill factor, I now had to ride with the visor open. The wind hit my face like ice water and I lost my breath. My eyes watered and it was nearly as hard to see as when the foggy visor was down. The gloves were beginning to fail at keeping the cold temperature from reaching my hands and within minutes my fingers were stinging numb and cramping; they were so cold I didn't even want to change gear or hit the brakes.
Drivers of automobiles cannot appreciate the visual reference received from a normal field of vision, because on a motorcycle this visual information computes in your brain to aid in balancing. At night, in the hills with absolutely no surrounding lights, this field of vision is severely limited, so balance becomes an inherently dangerous task. With watery eyes, a severely cold and trembling body, a loss of visual balance and diminishing judgment, the risk of crashing was high. I tried to avoid staring at the trees whizzing by in the headlight. But the thing that I now remember clearly was when our headlights flashed on some deer standing on the side of the road; I must admit that at that time I was too cold, tired and nearly too delusional to care about the deer.
I was just trying to remember if I kissed my wife in the morning.
