Sometimes, in a man's life, to conquer is to live free!

Sweet Home is a delightful little city in the Willamette Valley region of Oregon. 

I arrived there around 3PM and spent  much of my time snapping photo after filtered photo of the town hall, cemetery, riverbanks and surrounding communities, all totalling around 170 shots. I did not get an official interview on video or audio, but there were a number of individuals who went out of their way to talk with me and answer the questions. I also learned more about this community than I can remember. Thankfully, I recorded everything I remember about these meetings as soon as I left each person.

The pictures? Not as memorable as the following pictures, for, I captured Freedom in my own way.

With the advice of a clerk in a convenience store (and a free cup of coffee) I filled up Mozi's fuel tank and headed up into the unfamiliar territory named Green Peter Reservoir. The midnight ride included thirteen miles and at least one hundred twists and turns through huge pine forests and inclines that tested Mozi's abilities to accelerate under the stresses and strains of the higher altitudes found in the left coast. 

OK, we had a great ride, searching for a spot to camp that was not marked "No Camping".

There it was, hidden on the right side of the road, which I believed, even in the darkness, must be overlooking some beautiful lake. Of course there was a lake, formed by one of the many dams that were erected to trap the cold waters of this mountainous legend that feeds the Middle Santium River. I shut Mozi down about 20 feet from the metal fire pit, set here by the Army Corp. of Engineers as part of the safety measures to keep campers happy and the forests safe from burning logs that might roll downhill into the underbrush and spreading flames like, well, a wildfire!

I gathered firewood and broke tiny twigs off of dead tree limbs that hang low to the ground like a tattered trench coat. I reached into my motorcycle jacket where I always have a stash of McDonald's napkins. I pulled a few out and placed them in the fire pit, covered them with a handful of twigs and made sure the larger pieces of wood are stacked close by. Now, I began my search for the butane lighter that sat on my garage workbench for several months awaiting it's proper storage place in an address that would be, from now on, called Mozi. 

I could see my breath in the night air, by the dim light of my head mounted LED illuminator. I sipped the remaining coffee and crumbled the paper cup to be added to the fire pit fuel pile assembly. Searching continued for the famed lighter, with no positive results. I checked my Blackberry cell phone for a local temperature reading via the Weather.com site. No cell signal. No lighter. No warming feeling inside or out.

My mind was warped in so many ways at this moment. I was questioning my abilities to plan or pack for this trip. What else had I forgotten to pack, or do? I had packed a collection of every gasket and rubber seal for this motorcycle and all tools needed to install them, if the need came to be. I had extra socks, too many tee shirts, 3 pairs of jeans and spare batteries for my camera. All of these items appeared in my mind as I placed them in their proper place of travel on my two-wheeled chariot. Where was the lighter? 

I spoke out loud in the forest primeval,

"I am not riding back into town for a lighter or for matches."

"I will not be cold on this night."

"I will not be beaten down."

It came to me like a hiccup, without thinking about it!

I opened the saddlebag and took out my tool bag. I placed my lineman pliers in my right back pocket as if I were ready to pull romex wire through the wooden framing of your house to add an electrical outlet. The screwdriver would not be needed for this MacGyver Project, but I slid the multi-tip driver into my left rear pocket just in case, or for balance. Yes, this is to become a night of balance. There was a small roll of 18 gauge steel wire in the other saddlebag. It was once 30 feet long, but had been used to tie Mozi's right exhaust pipe onto the engine head after the threads failed under the constant vibration and lack of maintenance by the current owner. 

On each side of Mozi is a crash bar, called this because it helps to protect the exposed aluminum heads and cylinders in the unlikely event of the kickstand settling into sand or mud, allowing the weight of this ancient machine to become one with gravity and rotate from a clearly vertical pose onto one of the horizontal flavor. We all do that when we are tired. Mozi is tired at this point and I am still skiing on the slippery slopes of caffeine. I tied one end of the steel wire onto the lower half of the right crash bar, just in front of the head.  

I attached the other end of the 10 foot piece of this wire onto a spare spark plug, by wrapping it a couple of times around the base of the threaded end of the Bosch NE8, high performance igniter.

With a metal tent peg in hand, I walked away from Mozi until the wire was tight and drove the peg into the ground with the spark plug held securely against the peg by the shear tension of the wire. 

 

I cut another 10 foot length of wire and wrapped one end of it around the upper end of the same spark plug.

One MacDonald's napkin is all I predicted to be needed to convert a spark into a flame with the aid of a bit of gasoline taken from the almost full tank.

I walked back over to Mozi and attached the other end of the wire to the coil wire I had pulled off of the distributor cap.

With the clutch lever pulled tightly and the ignition turned on, I hesitated for a moment to allow the gasoline-soaked napkin to suffocate the spark plug with its vapors.

I pushed the starter button and Mozi's starter turned the crankshaft In turn, this rotated the distributor shaft where there is a lobe protruding off to one side near the top heading around until it reached the pivotal of contact with the ignition points and a small spark in that location sent an electrical charge to the coil which generated about 25,000 volts of DC power through a makeshift circuit with only one weak point that the electrons had to jump across. The Bosch NE-8 opened its heart and soul to bark out one spark and sent a shock wave through the silence forest.

I screamed out with delight, as I turned Mozi off for the night. She had, once again, served me well.

I picked up the flaming napkin with my screwdriver and carried it over to the fire pit to increase its brilliance amongst the frigid tree fibers and splinters of deforestation.

Additional wood was gathered by a man who was occasionally warmed with each trip down from the steep incline across the road labeled as Quartzville Drive, Oregon.

With enough hot coals piling up on the bottom of the fire pit, under a continuous stream of potential beaver dams and eagle nests, I took a break to just stand there and enjoy the fruits of my warped mind and creative panic attack.

I set up my tent and covered Mozi to protect her from the evils that lurk when the flames would die down.

Who was I kidding? I piled up enough large logs to keep the flames high all through the night. When the morning sun broke through the soaked green moss on these trees between me and the lake below, there began a steady hum of logger trucks driving up and down this super highway that stretches from the cut zone to the corporate milling operation in a nearby town.

After packing my belongings and feeling more like I really do belong, Mozi and I took a ride to the upper damn to get a view of the gorge below the reservoir I came to love on that one night, Green Peter Reservoir.

Mozi on...