Eufaula biker takes trip of a lifetime

Patrick Hayes clicks through the first of more than a thousand photographs on his laptop computer, taking care to recall place and time.

Reliving the captured images of ferry crossings, mountain ranges, oceans and sunsets, Hayes almost shivers, once again feeling the cold, wet nights in the mountains and the 115-degree desert days in Arizona. Man versus the elements.

“This was the beginning, right here,” he says, pointing to a picture of his 2008 Harley Davidson Softail Custom.

The photograph, dated June 19, shows a black motorcycle fully loaded with leathers, rain gear, tent and other likely necessities for a trip across America on roads less traveled. The bike sits beside his home of several years, a motor coach parked at Lakepoint Resort in Eufaula.

The picture is a testimony of the traveling spirit of the man living inside who recently completed a 25,715-mile cross-country odyssey. The distance driven was greater than the 24,901-mile circumference of the Earth at the equator.

“I just hit the road,” Hayes said in explaining his preparations. “I wanted no encumbrances and had no preconceived notions. I just wanted to ride.”
And ride he did.

On Sept. 27, Hayes completed a 101-day trip that took him to all of the lower 48 states and the four extreme corners of the contiguous U.S. — Madawaska, Maine; Blaine, Wash.; San Ysidro, Calif.; and Key West, Fla.

The former Colorado chiropractor had not ridden a motorcycle in years until he purchased one at the Dothan Harley-Davidson dealership last fall. A fan of monster snowmobiles and ATVs, Hayes found the Harley a natural progression when the road led him South in retirement.

“It gave me that open-air thrill,” said Hayes, who speaks with a heavy Louisiana accent that the miles and the years haven’t erased. “I’d take these day trips on my bike and I liked it. I started going to the Keys, my mom’s in Louisiana or I’d go see my buddies or my brothers. It fit me.”

The riding fit his adventurous spirit.

After logging nearly 10,000 miles in seven months, Hayes decided it was time for a longer, more substantial ride.

“I only knew when I set out, I was going to do the four corners,” he said.

Hayes departed on a sunny Thursday afternoon with his first scheduled stop in Atlanta. From there, he rode the Blue Ridge Parkway north, going through Washington D.C., Harrisburg, Penn., and into upstate New York, arriving at the first corner from the Canadian side by way of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec. It was 2 p.m. on July 5.

Somewhere in the Northeast, Hayes’ mission expanded. “As I traveled, I talked to locals who would say, ‘Did you see this? Did you go there? You gotta see this. You gotta go there.’ And I did, and that’s how it kept growing.”

And the miles kept clicking. Hayes rode 1,000 miles into Canada, to the farthest point in northeast North America. He spent some time at Niagara Falls and went around the Great Lakes before heading west.

He rode across to Sioux City, Iowa, and over to Rapid City, S.D., before turning down to Colorado Springs for a doctor’s appointment. He then headed back north to South Dakota in time for the 68th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in early August.

He went to Yellowstone National Park twice and after a stopover in Montana to visit his daughters, Hayes picked up his second corner in Washington at 4:06 p.m. on Aug. 21. At each corner, Hayes photographed his watch, showing the date and time, and the bike’s odometer.

As he reloads a disk into the computer, he concludes he must have visited about 16 national parks and countless national forests in the U.S. and Canada. He marvels at the photographs of flora and fauna — purple pansies, herds of elk on mountainsides and hummingbirds at dawn.

Two and a half months into the trip and seven service stops later brings Hayes to Southern California for the third corner. It was 12:18 p.m. on Sept. 5.
As he rode east across the desert, Hayes said he wondered what was the distance of the Earth’s circumference.

“That’s when I first started thinking about it,” he said.

By mid-September, Hayes was forced to alter his route to avoid Hurricane Ike. After watching his odometer pass 20,000 miles in Conway, Ark., Hayes rode through Memphis, and on to Tupelo, Miss., Elvis’ brithplace. Soon, he decided to ride a little further.

“I was sitting on my mother’s front porch in Louisiana smoking a cigar, two days after Ike. At that point, I decided to do all the states. I said, ‘I gotta do this.’ It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

The next day Hayes saw seven states, continuing his journey as he weaved northward to pick up Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island — states he had missed on the trip to Maine two months earlier.

As his excitement grew over nearly accomplishing his task, Hayes put in his longest day, driving 924 miles in 20 hours from Virginia to Florida. He reached Key West at 2:26 p.m. on Sept. 25.

It was also in the Keys that Hayes realized he had driven the Earth’s circumference. It was his final goal.

“Looking at these pictures and being there is so different,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t compare it. You just can’t.”

Throughout the trip, Hayes stayed mostly on two-lane roads and figures he averaged about 375 to 400 miles a day — taking days off along the way to visit family and friends, mark his 54th birthday and receive treatment for a medical condition.

Nearly two dozen times in his travels, he either crossed his earlier path or did some backtracking. Some nights he camped; others were spent at hotels. Hayes calculates he was riding steady for about 70 days about eight to 10 hours a day. He rode in the early morning fog, through a pounding hail and into rain — lots of rain — along the way.

And there were days and days of sunshine.

Sometimes the sun was apparent in the skies above. Other times, Hayes felt the warmth on a wet day in Gettysburg or in a mist walking among the giant Redwoods. There was sunshine in the endless beauty of the Oregon coast and in the greatness of the Catskill Mountains in New York.

Most days, the camaraderie of fellow bikers and the encouragement of the people he met along the way was as life-sustaining as the sun itself. Their smiles and well-wishes emboldened the often weary traveler.

As Hayes talks about the trip, each photograph he reviews represents a moment that has become more than just a memory. His voice rises excitedly as he recalls these moments, as he looks at each picture, then finds that place, that mile-marker memory on a highlighted map of the United States.

He readjusts the computer screen for a better view and notes that he has a good recollection of highways and parks, but not so much cities and towns. There were simply too many to recall.

But he tries.

“You grow into that sort of trip,” he said. “The freedom and zest for it grows every day. It just kept getting better — mile by mile, day by day. It never occurred to me to quit.

“The sights, sounds, smells, thoughts and the people that made up the ride. … I don’t want to forget. The thirst to do something like this again is great, and that will stay with me in a way that is different from those I met in my travels who wanted to do something like this.”

As the miles wore on and each state’s welcoming sign blurred in his memory, Hayes said hope and sheer survival became developing themes on his ride. As he donned what became his daily armor — chaps, vest, doo-rag and gloves — for that day’s leg of the journey, Hayes said the freedom he felt was intoxicating.

“The power of that feeling grew stronger with every day and every mile. It felt so good every morning to wake up and ride another day.”

And the only way to make a journey of this magnitude, he said, is one day at a time. “One day at a time,” he repeated.

“The trip broadened my zest for life,” he said. “It affirmed my attitude for survival. People came up and thanked me for taking this ride that they hope to do some day but may never have the chance.

“They discovered possibilities within themselves because I was doing the trip. They lived vicariously through me, and I will never forget their smiles as I drove away — both of us knowing we will most likely never encounter one another again, but at that very moment, we both had hope.”

That hope did not die when the road brought Hayes back to Eufaula on Sept. 27.

“After I did those three things — the four corners, the 48 states and the circumference of the Earth — it was OK to go home. I never liked for my trips to end,” he said. “The last five days of the trip, I was melancholy because I knew it was coming to an end and I didn’t want it to. I didn’t want to move on from this wonderful thing I was living.”

Hayes hits a stopping point in his story.

“This was the beginning, right here,” he says pointing to a picture of his Harley parked beside his motor home.

“Everything happens for a reason in life,” he concluded.

EDITORIAL NOTE: In 1995, Hayes was diagnosed with Systemic Scleroderma, a terminal form of scleroderma that causes hardening of the tissues of the skin and internal organs. Hayes is currently planning a winter trip to Thailand and Vietnam and a motorcycle trip into the far-reaches of Canada and Alaska for next summer.