Highway Celebration!

February 24, 2012

Sometimes I look back over my trip photos and wonder, "Did I take that?"

The above image fits in that category. It's India. It's in my trip folder. Then it dawns on me that even though I was on a solo trip, I didn't take the photo ... because I'm IN it. That's my ratty, travel-worn light blue cap and my smelly polypro shirt.

Then the memories come flooding back. Cold downhill from the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. I coast around a corner and the highway is blocked. Not by a mud slide or a construction crew, but a wedding party.

There's not much vehicular traffic on this road to begin with, and the road is the only pavement available, so it's the perfect place to set up the band and to dance.

I'm immediately surrounded by wedding guests who thrust beverages in my hand. I've got my camera out and begin to take a photo, when one of the groomsmen insists that I dance and someone else takes my camera. For a brief paranoid moment, I wonder if I'll ever see it again.

Much dancing and drinking follows.

I wander back to my bicycle an hour later and find my camera safely tucked away in my front handlebar bag.

It is not until I return home a month later that I discover the photos taken by someone in the wedding party.

Most of the images are blurry, but all serve as delightful reminders that while traveling ... you never know what's around the next bend.

Photo by someone Willie Weir handed his camera to

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SIGHTS AND SOUNDS is posted every other Friday. Willie Weir is a columnist for Adventure Cyclist magazine. His latest book Travels with Willie: Adventure Cyclist will inspire you to hit the road and just might change the way you approach bicycle travel. He lives in Seattle with his wife Kat. You can read about their adventures at http://yellowtentadventures.com.