Dedicated to Creme Puff. If they don't come back— or maybe even if they do— one day I promise we will do this.

It's a Ducati Multistrada (the one we both drooled over sleek pictures of online until people started asking why we were trying to hug a computer monitor) that we load up, wolfing muffins and tea as we work, with dawn just breaking and strings of mist being tugged from the familiarly scruffy mountains. The motorbike is narrow but sturdy, and does not complain as duffel bag after duffel bag is secured to the back. I think her name is Kaylee.

We set off at last, two girls and a motorcycle with the wind tightening our clothes, and take turns driving and sitting in back. Cars zip by us; other bikers hover beside us on the winding Vermont highways as if discreetly trying to race us and we always let them get ahead and "win" because we know enough about structural engineering to play by the rules.

By the late morning, we've crossed the bottom tail of Lake Champlain into New York. We stop for lunch at a fast-food joint in Utica. The open bike does little to contain sound, but we blast pop-rock songs on the radio anyway and ignore the disgruntled looks when we pass through cities. Time blurs between Maroon 5, Adele, Green Day and One Direction, who we argue about (you like them; I don't) in the way that people argue when they don't expect to convince anyone of anything and don't really care. Read more »