Excursion: Blue Highways

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vespa-I-90.jpg

Photo: Clay Enos

Photographer Clay Enos is riding a Vespa 300 GTS Super from New York to Vancouver on the small, forgotten, out-of-the-way roads that connect rural America. Along the way he’s documenting the people and places he sees from those roads.

Click below for the feature:
Excursion: Blue Highways

  • Ben(pi)

    If you like this, make sure to check out http://vespa-vagabond.blogspot.com/

    Same thing, but in the opposite direction from a couple years ago. Great photo’s, good stories, and she’s now out in Montana with a Coyote.

  • http://sr500project.blogspot.com/ Anders

    Beautiful! Pictures like these makes me realize why I love travelling on a bike.

  • MrP

    Amazing.

  • http://www.robotribe.com robotribe

    A lot of us get caught up in MotoGP and knee dragging (myself included), but sometimes we forget that rides like these that really connect a person with their surrounding are really what set bikes apart from cars, trains or buses.

    On a bike, there’s are no walls between you and everything else.

    Awesome photos.

  • http://cohobot.blogspot.com/ coho

    Beautiful.
    I wish I was in that room full of cheeses right now.
    I bet it smells wonderful.

    The scooter ride is cool, too, but my envy of his having the time to ride a scooter cross-country is getting in the way. Also, his ride pictures are better than mine.

  • Sean Jordan

    Wow! Where was photo #15 taken? (reg/grey rock strata.)

    • http://www.fuzzygalore.com fuzzygalore

      That is in the Badlands, South Dakota, I believe.

    • David Brager

      I would guess picture #15 is the Badlands of South Dakota near Wall, SD???

  • amsterdam

    Don’t know about the Vespa, for me those things are so Urup, so Rome, strange to see them in Americana.
    But sweet stuff, great pics.
    Makes us remember what a great, and admit it,hartbreaking place yours is.
    They give me as the germans call it, Fernweh; we don’t have a word for it in dutch, it’s the opposite of homesickness.

    • http://hellforleathermagazine.com Grant Ray

      Fernweh is also called Wanderlust.

  • http://www.fuzzygalore.com fuzzygalore

    The photos are just beautiful. Seeing the sky touch the ground everywhere you look on the prairie is something you have to experience.

  • Zane

    Awesome. This is what riding is all about.

  • sam

    blue highways the book??? deeeecccceennntttt, and same idea

    http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America/dp/0316353299

  • Ben

    gorgeous.
    i drove the from NYC to vancouver in 2004, but along a slightly (from what i can tell) route, and in a first-gen prius packed to the gills, with a grumpy, sedated cat in back. it was amazing in its own way, but i kept thinking how amazing it would have been on my old honda cx500 cabbage-patch bike.
    will we be getting a route map at any point?

  • http://f800gs002.blogspot.com/ doubleoh2

    That’s the best Excursion HFL has put up.

    Was the iPhone used for any GPS service, I wonder, or any other custom apps, similar to the functionality utilised by the MotoCzysz E1pc?

    Any idea where I can come across a camera mount like that? So many times I’ve wished for a bar mounted camera while on the road…

    Great shots Clay! Thanks

  • http://www.harvestclassic.org Russell Duke

    Great job, and looks like an awesome roadtrip.

  • Glenn

    Thanks. Nice one.

    Another one for the inspired…

    The Achievable Dream
    The Motorcycle Adventure Travel Guide

    http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/

  • Nick

    I’m a product of those wide-open spaces & after spending more than a quarter of my life in crowded SE Asia- it’s pictures like that (and the thought of the epic road trip) which keep me thinking in the back of my mind that I’ll one day return to take that ride…

  • http://danconnortown.com danconnortown

    Love it man. Great stuff! Brutha makes it look easy. Thanks for just getting out there and doing it.

  • http://twitter.com/greatistheworld will

    Thank God it wasn’t done on a Goldwing.

  • http://www.temporarycitizen.com TC

    That’s truly awesome. Certainly goes to show that it’s not really important what you ride, as long as you ride :)

  • http://vespalx150.blogspot.com Steve Williams

    Enos is making what I consider a dream ride, especially on a Vespa. Traveling slow and through roads less clogged with traffic really gives a rider a chance to see the countryside.

    His photography is excellent.

    Someday I hope to do something like this myself. Until then I’ll have to be content with short rides and commuting…

    Steve Williams
    Scooter in the Sticks

  • ernest simmons

    You have inspired me to purschase a vespa.God Bless you for doing something I always wanted to do.At my age now it almost out of question,(67)due to health issures.The pictures were great !!!Take care and rest up.! earnie,

  • http://www.stradanova.com Suzi

    Thank you Clay for your pics!
    I’m from Japan and I get the same exeperience in Italy last summer with Vespa 125 Special.
    I rent it in Florence Vespa rental shop called http://www.stradanova.com.
    They are realy nice people and they gave me a road book with the best Tuscany back roads and I spend all my holidays far from turistic jam!
    I think this is the best way for travel, slow with vintage style!
    Suzi. Tokyo

  • JAMES RANES

    Clay, you really captured the joy, beauty and the sheer fun of riding a Vespa and being able to take photographs anywhere! I have had a Vespa GT200 Granturismo for three years and it is my prized toy! Its get 75 MPG and can cruise comfortably at 65 mph. It will go faster but I won’t. Your photos are stunning! Having good equipment helps but your composition and color is professional! I have a Canon 50D with several L series lens…now I have to find the time to leave my life and go on an adventure!