“God, if you get me out of this…”
In 2015, I rode my Suzuki V-Strom 1000 cross country on US Highway 6. It is mostly a two-lane highway that stretches across Western open deserts to Midwest farmland through cities, big and small, before closing out in green, hilly countryside on the East Coast. Back in the day, Hwy 6 was used by travelers driving from Long Beach, California to Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod… 3,652 miles. The route was shortened in 1964. Today, it runs from Bishop, California to its Cape Cod terminus.
I’m an old school type of guy… just give me a map and some directions… I’m good. Well, not this time. US Highway 6 is marked with a collection of confusing signage. It might be designated US Hwy 6, Historic Hwy 6, Business US 6 or Old Trail 6 as well as a couple of other locally named variations on the Hwy 6 theme. Without GPS and a map function on my smartphone, I might still be wandering around somewhere between the Sierra Nevada range and the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. At least three times (maybe four) I would roll into a small town and say to myself, “Hey, this isn’t on Hwy 6!” Sure enough, I would check my bearings and discover I had missed a turn somewhere between 10 and 20 miles behind me. The detours were annoying but not too time consuming. Those course corrections became part of my larger adventure.
I planned my trip to skirt the lower portion of the Chicago area before stopping in Indiana for the night. It was dusk and just starting to get dark when I pulled into a gas station on the edge of Westville, Indiana. I didn’t need any gas… it was only about 16 miles to my destination in La Porte, Indiana via Kingsbury. However, I noticed a few raindrops on my windscreen, so I stopped under the pump island awning to pull on my rain gear. It’s always better to don some rain gear and not need it than the alternative. I was banking on the theory that if I stopped and took the time to slip on rain pants and a jacket that I wouldn’t need any protection against the weather.
I was wrong.
June had been a very busy thunderstorm season for this part of northern Indiana, but it was now July and the weather was milder. By the time I got back on the road, it was raining… steady. That’s OK. I have ridden in rain before. If you have quality rain gear, you’ll stay dry except maybe a couple of places where a small amount of water might sneak in. I was not worried. I had taken the precaution of gearing up for some precipitation.
I would ride to Kingsbury, Indiana, then north about 5 miles to La Porte, Indiana where I would check into a hotel for the night. The total distance from Westville to La Porte was well under 20 miles. Even with the rain, it shouldn’t take too long to get to some dry sheets and a cold brew or two. I was wrong again. After only a mile or two, it got dark… real dark… the depths of hell dark. I looked in my rear view mirror and the lights from Westville had disappeared. I was swallowed up and completely enveloped by the blackness. Now, the rain came… real hard. Actually, the rain was coming at me nearly horizontally from my left to my right. I was not being pelted by thousands of raindrops… instead, the rain was gushing sideways like a geyser.
The rain deluge and darkness got my attention, but I was more worried about the accelerating, ferocious winds. So much for quality rain gear… with the gushing rain torrents and near gale force winds, I was getting soaked. I had to heel my 500-pound motorcycle into the wind to keep from being pushed off the road or worse, being pushed over onto my right side. Every 10 seconds or so, I would lean hard against a gust only to feel the wind abruptly drop off. That would force me to correct back to my right while anticipating the next blast of wind from my left. The new blast would force me to heel once more to my left.
This was insane! What was I doing? I said silently to myself, “God, if you get me out of this…” I didn’t finish that prayer as the entire sky and landscape were instantly illuminated in a blinding, super bright, and ghostly electric whiteness. Then, seconds later, the loudest cannonade of thunder I have ever heard rolled across the sky above pushing down on me. Just as suddenly… the flash-bang was gone.
I thought the rain and the darkness and the wind were my only concerns, but the very real possibility of being struck by lightning flashed through my brain. The only metal object on this roadway was my motorcycle. The sky lit up again followed by booming thunder. This time, I tried to make out my surroundings when the countryside was momentarily and eerily visible. Nothing… just the road, some trees, and a farmer’s fields.
I was so startled by the lightning and thunder that I stopped focusing on the rain which had continued unabated. Between the bolts of light and explosions in the night air, I could only see a short distance in front of me. My headlight was a thin and all too short finger of yellowish light that seemed to extend only 20-25 feet in front of me. I could see nothing outside the beam. I looked straight down but the ground water obscured the roadway. I could see a wake trailing my front tire. Without any visual reference to anything but the water, it looked like a motorboat’s wake plowing through rough and unsettled waters.
I slowed down… a lot. Even so, I thought if I hit an unseen pothole or drove across some railroad tracks hidden by the water, I’m going down. There were no other vehicles on the road. That’s not a good sign… that meant the locals were staying inside as long as a powerful thunderstorm was directly overhead. Fortunately, I could still see the fog line on the right hand edge of my lane even though it was submerged in water. That gave me the confidence to push on. I gambled on the prospect that moving toward Kingsbury was better than stopping in the middle of this storm.
Then, I started to second guess myself. Maybe I will see a porchlight or some kind of shelter next to the road when the sky lights up again. I was looking for anything that might have a roof. There was more lightning and thunder, but no place to stop.
I made a wrong turn at an intersection and pressed on into the darkness. Something told me to go back to the intersection. I’m convinced God heard me ask for help to get out of this predicament. I turned back into the teeth of the storm, and when I got back to the intersection, I saw a sign pointing to Kingsbury. I was back on track.
It took a little more than an hour to drive about 16 or so miles through that storm to La Porte. Was I scared? Absolutely. The thunder cells were clearing and moving east by the time I got to La Porte. I stopped a local taxi driver to ask for directions. He calmly described how to get to my hotel, but he kept looking at me as if I were crazy. I guess I might be a little crazy and thankful. God did get me out of the storm. I’ll never walk on water, however, that night, I rode on water. Maybe God was saying he will guide me through personal storms, too… all I have to do is ask.
Copyright © 2025 by Ray Fowler
