What's In Store For Me In The Direction I Don't Take?

“What's in store for me in the direction I don't take?”    - Jack Kerouac

Yesterday I went for a short motorcycle ride.  Because it was a nice day and I had tons of things to do I thought it would be a good day to fill up the gas tank with gas and add a fuel stabilizer.  So I put on my gear and headed to the gas station.  No one said I had to go to the nearest gas station so I headed north and west through Nowthen and Elk River.  All the yards except on the golf courses looked brown and dry.  Many of the potato fields were bare soil but some had a green cover crop growing.  The green color of the cover crop looked irregular as if it shouldn't be there and won't last very long.  I took the river road and before I knew it I was in Big Lake.  I crossed the Mississippi.  As long as I was there I stopped in the city park of Monticello.  I parked under some maples still fully loaded with yellow leaves.  I walked down to the water edge to feel the temperature of the river.  The water was very low so I had to cross some boulders and a good ten feet of river bottom mud before I got to the water.  The water was clear and I could see algae growing on branches under the water.  Jesus bugs scuttered around and the water felt surprisingly warm.  Three groups of people fished from shore and another group fished from a boat.  Kids played with sticks on the rocks.  A man and a woman holding hands strode by walking downstream in the dried mud.  I headed toward home and the gas station.  Logically I could have taken the shortest way home.  But on Indian summer days like this, the pull of the open road is too strong.  I took the other side of the river back home.  In Dayton I saw the Crow River flowing into the Mississippi.  I wanted to follow the Crow for a while and that took me into Rogers.  From there I took the familiar Diamond Lake Road back into Champlin.  Still unable to take the logical way home, I stopped by Point Park in Anoka to see the state champion ash tree standing guard.  And then I got gas and went home.  It's strange how when I drive the motorcycle sometimes I loose control of the vehicle.  The road pulls me like a magnet pulls a piece of metal.  I end up places I didn't plan on going.  Like hypnotism, you have to be open to the road tugging at you.  If you choose to let the road decide where to go, you open yourself up to exploratory state of mind, senses on alert, destination unknown.