Father Daughter Motorcycle Trip

August 31, 2025

I spotted them from the upstairs deck of a hotel. The father looked in his sixties, his daughter around thirty. They were in the parking lot, standing on opposing sides of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Even from a distance, I could tell they had a close relationship. They were all smiles and chuckles. They could have been rehashing the day's travels, or distant memories from childhood. Either way, they were happy.

I sat watching for a moment, relishing the scene. I had dreamt of that moment with my own daughter for a long time. It all started when I first got a motorcycle.

Something just ignited in me one day. I wanted a motorcycle. Maybe I walked past one on the street. Maybe I had a flashback of riding on the back of my dad’s Yamaha Shadow as a kid. Whatever the reason, I got the itch, and it wouldn’t go away.

My wife quenched it for a while though. I came into the kitchen all sloppy-happy like a dog, and explained to her my new desire for two-wheeled excursions. I expected she would respond with smoldering intrigue, like a girl that just realized she had married a real badass. Instead, she gave a simple, “no.” Quiet, yet definitive. Dang.

For the next 18 months, I tried different approaches. Big googly eyes, flowers, speeches on my exemplary safety and lack of any traffic violations. I might have even tried free back massage coupons. In the end, nothing I said or did would make her budge.

Then my best friend bought a motorcycle.

Five minutes after getting off the phone with him, I was at her side. “If he can get one…” I pleaded. And with a large sigh, she relented, “fine, just know I will never ride on that thing with you, not even once.” I’m not kidding when I say I drove to the bike shop immediately. Later that day, I too became a motorcycle enthusiast. That was 18 years ago, and I haven’t lost an ounce of love for riding. It does stink to live in a place where you can only get half the year on the road because of the weather, but I’ll take what I can get.

Pretty soon after my purchase, I had the vision of my daughter riding with me. I was four years away from having a child, and didn’t have any control over the gender of the kid; but in my mind there was a little girl with her arms wrapped around my waist as we rode. I had a particular movie of us riding to Chelan to get pancakes on a Saturday morning that played on repeat in my head.

Fast forward twelve years, and my daughter is large enough for short trips up and down the road. In fact, I started doing school drop-offs and pick-ups on the bike. I’ll never forget her hamming it up the first time I rolled into the school parking lot. “Wow, look at the motorcycle, can you believe I get to ride on that, yeah that’s my dad.” A proud moment for dadkind.

Although we aren’t ready for long trips down the highway yet, we are having a lot of fun. And it’s as good as I imagined it to be. There is something so freeing about being out on the road together with the wind in my face, rolling through curvy forest roads with her holding on tight.

So when I saw this father and daughter, looking about twenty years down the road from us, I couldn’t help but feel like I was looking at my future. There they were, outside of Kings Canyon National Park. The road in and out is winding, long, and beautiful. We had just hiked for the day, taking in the amazing scenery from the dirt. They had just rolled for the day, seeing everything from the road, without the infringement of car windows. They were a tandem family, riding through life together, living out a dream probably imagined by that dad before his daughter ever came into the picture.

I know that dream, it’s a good one.