A big desert, a big bend and a big bike.

If you're a motorcycle rider, keep going. If you're not, give it a shot. You might decide to be a motorcycle rider.

The desert is West Texas—the US part of the Chihuahuan Desert. There are vast plains of scrub, cactus and tough critters. Everything has fangs or spines or pointy, venomous defenses. There is little water and there are mountains. Mountains and mountains and more mountains.

The bend is Big Bend. It's what they call this part of the world. It's a big curve in the Rio Grande that wraps around the Big Bend National Park. If you know the area, you just call it The Big Bend.

I started coming out here some years back, cajoled into it by my friend JimBob Moore. He'd been in love with the place for decades and my first trip, in a car, was a little meh. Yea, it's beautiful and grand and hot and I liked it but it hadn't gotten into me yet.

Then I rode a bike out here and that's when you get it. That's when Big Bend gets into you and never leaves.

So the bike is my trusty, beat up 2009 Harley Davidson Road King Police. It's a retired police bike from Pompano Beach, Fl. It's two-toned green and white and looks like an Art Deco SCUD missile.

And the sound. Think 32 Ford Flathead hotrod with glass packs. If you have no idea how that sounds, then imagine the perfect motor sound. That's what it sounds like.

Now imagine riding that wonderful machine through endless open heaven. No people. No cars. Road Runners dart around, occasionally watching for an elk or deer and the occasional family of javelinas lounging on the side of the road, wondering what you're doing in their dining room.

I was riding yesterday. No cars in sight, Warm wind, mountains all around me that motor and I realized how amazing the scene was. It's easy to be in the middle of a bit of real heaven and not realize how great it really is. That's the thing about riding a motorcycle. It's you, the wind, the motor, and the world around you and you can keep the line open for hours at a time. You can think around every issue in life, you can write stories, sing songs, imagine eternity and replay the good and bad in life and fix broken endings.

I always camp out at The Marathon Motel. It's a short walk west from the little town of Marathon, TX and a little piece of heaven. I love the place. Danny, the owner rides too and we take off for a day or a week at a time. I drop my tent out at the edge of the desert, behind the chicken coop. The girls like me because I bring them carrots. They greet me in the mornings waiting for a snack. My tent is open mesh because it never rains and I get to watch the stars move slowly or quickly overhead.

There is a phrase spraypainted on the front of the motel.

"Love lasts longer in Marathon."

If you hang around long enough, you'll get it. I got it. I was the guy with the spray paint. Danny and I were at Burger Night at The French Grocer one Friday night and I snuck off, grabbed the red spray paint can from the garage, painted it and ran back to the dinner. We didn't tell anyone and his phone soon started ringing that someone had defaced his motel.

That was around four years ago and people come from all over the world and take their pictures in front of the graffiti. Love really does last longer there. I keep going back. If you've never ridden a motorcycle, get one and head in that direction. If you want to spark your creative output, listen to the music in your head, or have those conversations with your own soul that you keep avoiding, go there and do it.