Riding a motorcycle around the globe for a year has introduced Donna-Rae to a wide variety of eating and sleeping.  The routine for the start of an average day on the road had been for her to shower, then try to find coffee and something she could eat in the morning.  An allergy to gluten limited her to food without wheat so hunting a morning meal to accompany her Parkinson’s medicine was often a major chore.  Meanwhile Gregory preferred to sleep instead of eat.  He had learned that coffee, while a nice way to start a day, was an expensive luxury he could live without.  Usually on the road by 10:00 AM, the pair would start to get hungry around noon.  Gregory could “gas and snack” through the day, eating something off a mini-mart counter while paying for gas.  Donna-Rae needed something more substantial to go along with her mid-day medication.  This difference in eating style and needs was often a point of stress with the pair.  Gregory would want to use the middle of the day to “make miles,” while Donna-Rae needed food.  Sometimes the unhappy solution was a fast food stop, like McDonalds, which were plentiful through Europe.  While both stayed away from the burgers, french fries and salads were often the choice.

     Another consideration was the price of eating: a restaurant meal for two could easily cost $25.00 for lunch, while “Mickey D” could give them what they needed, in half the time, for half the cost.  And as Gregory had written in one of his long distance motorcycle traveling articles, “The one thing McDonalds always has, besides inexpensive fast food, is a clean toilet with toilet paper. It’s a good choice for saving time and money, a cheap biker’s one-stop-bite-and-wipe.”

One of the rules of the road Donna-Rae learned from Gregory after their year on the road was to use a nice toilet when she saw one, whether she needed to or not.  Another rule she learned was to always carry her own toilet paper and a few coins of the local money.  Sometimes the WC (water closet), like the one pictured above, required a small entry fee and paper money would not work.  One American habit she could not break was asking for the “bathroom” when in countries, like here, where bathroom meant the room where people took bath versus a “toilet” where she really wanted to go.  Usually the person she was asking understood, but every once in a while they would screw up their face, not understanding her Americanized English or why a person wearing motorcycle riding gear in the middle of the day would want to take a bath.

The longer Gregory traveled with Donna-Rae and she with him the more each other recognized about their differences as a man and woman, not that they both did not know it before.  When Gregory would talk endlessly with his motorcycle guy-friends about tires, chains, oil, gas and women, she would patiently listen.  The same patience was sometimes true with Gregory when Donna-Rae would go into a store to purchase one item she said she wanted, then spend time wandering the rows looking at whatever else was on the shelves, sometimes leaving with things other than what she initially went to purchase.  Gregory’s patience with her shopping was often lost and he would mumble, “Where are we going to put this stuff?” or “Remember what I wrote about in my motorcycle touring book about ‘space and weight’?”  On their tightly scheduled ride towards the North Cape as they road past gift and motorcycle shops, each was aware of their differences, yet their desire to attain their goal wished those away.

This sticker was on Gregory’s motorcycle and reminded Donna-Rae each day of why there was truth in the theory of men being from Mars.  She said she could relate to the sticker, except would replace “wife” with “husband” and “cat” for “dog.”