SOTW 6: Highway Vagabond — Miranda Lambert (2016)
“On the map and off the grid with all my friends”
I love this song… pop country and all! Lambert absolutely captures the momentum and rhythm of the “roaming town to town” exploration we were looking for. Our motorcycles were trapped somewhere in a U.S. Customs warehouse 1,500 miles away. We had no idea if or when they might show up, so we took immediate action to build momentum.
“I wanna go somewhere where nobody knows / I wanna know somewhere where nobody goes”
...and we did! We didn’t hesitate; we rented bikes and hit the road. We weren’t even going south toward our destination 7,000 miles away. We knew we’d have to circle back to Bogotá the second word came through. But for us those days, the not-knowing didn’t matter.
“There’s something ‘bout the way I feel when the wheels go round and round and round”
We didn’t even have our proper riding gear, it didn’t matter our wheels were going round on some kick ass, Austrian-made KTM 890s that Aaron had found.
“Highway vagabonds. Living like hippies. Moving right along to the next big city”
Lambert’s vagabonds never have to go back; they don’t even need direction. We did. That’s the difference, and it’s also what made every day of the loop Tucker devised worth savoring.
Chapter 6 of Honest Miles drops on Sunday.