Story for Night Ride - Sometimes there is a moment as you are awakening when you become aware of the real world around you, but you are still dreaming.

Once I've reached the last city lights and all I have are my own lights to guide my journey I say a short prayer to the effect: "Protect me, and protect my wheels" and then I enter a world of logical calculation and emotion is reserved purely for the experience. In summer as you climb up through the dark night towards the stars - which appear like cracks in the floor of another world above - there's something magical about literally reaching for the the stars. In winter as you climb through the thick fog - once in a while getting a glimpse of the dark silhouette of the mountains and the distant lights of sleeping towns - you feel what it's like to literally be in the clouds. All these things that make motorists nervous, excite you. The night, the fog, the rain, the crossing wildlife, the solitude. Once you reach the top you look across the land, the valleys covered in thick creamy fog, the mountain tops clear under the starry galaxy, jackals howling across the valleys and the warning call of gazelles throughout the forests. You here alone - a speck of dust yet also a guest of honor- to witness this while the rest of humanity lays down to sleep completely oblivious to the incredible magic that surrounds us. "Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler." Proverbs 6:5