Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Woman Motorcycle Adventuress Passes Away

DONNA-RAE POLK: January 10, 1942 – October 13, 2017

In 2003, after Donna-Rae Polk had been diagnosed with advancing Parkinson’s disease, she asked me to drive her around the world on the back of a motorcycle. I had already made four motorcycle circumnavigations of the globe and knew it could be quite difficult; more so if my passenger had a life threatening disease. I thought of her request, “Are you crazy?”

At age 61, with three grown daughters and numerous grand children, I saw her dream to circle the globe on the back of my motorcycle to be foolishness. She saw it as an adventure she wanted to do before she could not, even though she had never been on a motorcycle before. However, born in a military family, she had a highly developed adventurous spirit and traveled the world throughout her life, so a ride around the world on the back of some old lone wolf’s motorcycle fit with her DNA.

During July, 2004 we had ridden a Kawasaki KLR 650 motorcycle to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, as far north on the North American continent as one could drive a motorcycle.

My plan was to show her how tough circling the globe could be, take her through the snow, rain, and ice and including a bit of camping with mosquitoes and bears in Alaska, believing she would admit to herself her dream could easily become a nightmare.

Upon our return to the Lower 48, when we left Seattle, Washington she was still in high spirits, so I really tried to beat her up over the next two days, riding 950 miles one day, and 550 miles the next. Arriving in Castle Pines, Colorado at her home she slowly slid off the back of my motorcycle and said, “When do we leave for the bottom of South America?”

It was I who was beaten and my plan to beat her dream physically and emotionally out of her had failed.

I said, “Ok, let’s take a week to decompress from having been together and traveling for the last month, and then meet next week for lunch. I’ll make up a list of the things I saw during our month on the road that you did wrong, things that bothered me. If you can change, maybe then we can make plans to ride as far south on the South American continent as we can, Ushuaia, Argentina.”

The idea of a possible long list was supposed to wave her off making plans for South America and then the rest of the world.

Donna-Rae, barely able to speak after the two long hard days of 1,500 miles of wind, rain and cheap roadside burgers from Seattle to Castle Pines, said, “OK, but I have one request for when we meet for lunch.”

I thought her request would be something easy, like “Stop more often for a toilet,” or “Less McDonalds,” or “Can we carry an air mattress?” and I could laugh and say, “No,” and her dreamed adventure would be over.

“OK,” I gentlemanly thought, “I won’t laugh when she throws in the towel and says the roads ahead would be too harsh being with me, too physically tough for her.”

How foolish was I not to know how tough a 61 year-old adventuress grandmother could be. She said her request was, “When we meet for lunch next I want to have a list, too.”

We spent 14 months together, tagging the furthest points north and south we could reach by motorcycle on the continents of South America, Africa and Europe, and then crossed Asia to eventually arrive 30,000 miles after our start back in Castle Pines, Colorado.

Upon reflection, one of the most amazing elements of our journey was we still talked and were friends until she passed over to The Other Side on October 13, 2017. I look forward to seeing Donna-Rae when I make my passing. I fully expect her to be waiting for me when I arrive, with another list.

[Notes: Chapter 12 in my latest book DOWN AND OUT IN PATAGONIA, KAMCHATKA, AND TIMBUKTU describes, with color photographs, Donna-Rae’s Ultimate Dream Ride around the world and can be found here: http://bit.ly/1Q1hZ2O

A longer post at on HU forum at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/gre...04-09-30.shtml recounts some more of the details of my sordid plan for our Alaska adventure.]

Photograph below was taken by Donna-Rae Polk, somewhere on the road as we circled the globe.