Which Way Are You Turning?
Which Way Are You Turning?
On opening up, closing down, and the signs we drive past without stopping
I’ve been wondering about that man ever since.
The responses to “Eat the Beets” and “Say Yes to Something” have stayed with me — inspiring, surprising, and in one case, sharper than anything I’d written myself. It came from a reader named Rosemary. She’d already said yes to most of what I’d suggested. Then she gave me a line better than my own: as people age, they either spiral inward, tighter and tighter, or spiral outward, opening themselves to a broader world.
She’s right.
I’d say it slightly differently. We either open up or close down. And most of us don’t even notice it happening.
Which way are you turning?
Some years ago, I was on my way to Prudhoe Bay. On my motorcycle, of course. The top of the world. The end of the road. Well above the Arctic Circle. Or so I thought.
Somewhere outside Fairbanks, I saw a sign that said Circle and made the turn. The Arctic Circle, obviously. There’s only one road that gets you there. This was the road. I was on it.
I was not on it.
I was not on it.
The road I turned on was one of the worst I’d ridden in weeks — deep sand, sharp rocks jutting through the surface, corrugated stretches that rattled my teeth and my confidence. For over four hours I white-knuckled it north, averaging maybe 28 miles an hour, dropping to 20 on the worst sections, telling myself it’s gotta get better.
It didn’t get better.
Welcome to Circle City. The end of the road.
When I finally pulled into a small settlement and spotted gas pumps and a general store, I felt relieved. I was exhausted, dehydrated, and ready to be done with that road forever. I needed water. I needed energy.
The man behind the counter was Dick Hutchinson. Silver beard, ball cap, reclining in a squeaking office chair like he owned the place — which, as it turned out, he pretty much did. He ran the trading post. Built the town’s phone system. Ran the power company. He was, in the fullest sense of the word, the man in Circle, Alaska. Population around 80. Located on the Yukon River. At the end of a road that had just eaten four hours of my life.
Dick Hutchinson, Circle, Alaska — the man at the end of my wrong road.
He looked out at my motorcycle and grinned.
“So you made it.”
I was rattled from the ride, still feeling the road in my hands, my shoulders, my teeth.
“That road damn near killed me,” I told him. “How much farther to Prudhoe?”
His smile widened.
“You want the good news or the bad news?”
I looked up from my wallet.
“Bad news. You’re on the wrong road. You just made a 200-mile wrong turn.”
In an instant, the last four hours replayed in my head. The sand. The rocks. The corrugated stretches. The front tire wobbling under me. The twenty-mile-an-hour sections where every muscle in my body was clenched just trying to keep the bike upright.
All I could think was: I have to ride that road again?
“Good news,” he said, still grinning. “The road to Prudhoe is in much better shape.”
For the next hour, I didn’t go anywhere.
We talked about motorcycles and wrong turns and photography. Dick was an expert at shooting the Aurora Borealis — stunning images, a big following, a whole life built around watching the sky in one of the most remote places in North America. He and a friend had also been following and filming a family of peregrine falcons for years.
“Last year none of the eggs made it,” he told me quietly.
Then he offered to take me out that evening to watch the nest.
I said no.
I convinced myself it was too late, too far, too much road left to ride. I packed up, said goodbye to Dick Hutchinson, and rode back into the sun — the same brutal road, now blinding in my eyes instead of behind me. My front tire wobbling through sand and rock while I squinted. Back on the road. I told myself I’d made the right call.
I hadn’t made the right call.
Somewhere on that road heading back, I noticed my shadow running alongside me. Growing longer as the sun moved. Bigger than me. Bigger than the bike, bigger than the gear, bigger than all the miles I’d put between myself and everything familiar.
Just a shadow on an Alaskan road, following me home.
Just a shadow on an Alaskan road, following me home.
I thought about Dick. About the falcon nest. About the invitation I’d turned down.
Then I thought about calling my mom. I’d been out of touch for weeks. She was probably wondering.
We close some doors without realizing it. Some invitations we decline before we’ve even had a chance to say yes. And sometimes — not always, but sometimes — you ride away and spend years wondering what was in that nest.
Alaska taught me what it costs to close down.
Uganda showed me what happens when you finally stop.
Some years later, another road had been punishing me for hours. This time, I was in Uganda.
Washboard road, massive potholes, dust that coated everything. The kind of road that tenses you up and requires every last bit of concentration just to stay upright — and when that’s all you’re doing, mile after mile, it drains you in ways that have nothing to do with physical distance.
I was yelling at the road. Literally yelling. Screaming at it through my helmet.
Goddamn it. Come on. What the hell. I hate this!
I passed villages where people just stand roadside watching the world drive by. Normally I stop. I like to stop. Meet people. But I just wanted this road behind me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to start a conversation I’d have to finish, didn’t want to do anything except survive the next pothole and the one after that.
That’s what closing down looks like from the inside. Not a decision. Just exhaustion choosing for you.
Eventually my body made the choice for me. Once again, dehydrated and rattled to the bone, I pulled off on the side of the road at the edge of a village, shut the bike down, and got off.
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People came over — they always come over when you’re on a loaded motorcycle, with flags from dozens of countries on the panniers, dressed in protective gear that looks like a space suit. I did something I try never to do — I ignored the crowd gathering around me and my bike. I was still half-closed, focused on finding my water bottle, just breathing, trying to come back to myself.
Then one man looked at the flags and asked the question.
“Where’s the Uganda flag?”
I looked up. Took a long drink of water. Told him I hadn’t found one yet, but wanted one.
He scratched his head, looked up, and something shifted. A flicker of nationalistic pride. A chance to do something for his country.
“I can get you a Uganda sticker,” he told me. He’d have to go get it. Could I wait?
I was ready to get back on the road. But slowly my patience and curiosity returned.
I said yes.
For the next thirty minutes I stood at the side of that road and talked to strangers. About nothing important. About everything that mattered.
When the man came back with the Uganda flag sticker, he held it up like a question.
“Where do you want it?”
I looked at him.
“You pick the place.”
He circled my bike. Then stopped. He chose carefully. Pressed it on with both thumbs. Stepped back to look. Nodded.
That was the moment.
Not dramatic. Not cinematic.
Just a man and a flag and thirty minutes I almost didn’t give.
I never found out who the Alaska Man was. I’ve thought about him across five continents, one hundred countries, and more miles than I can count. What he looked like. What he knew. What we might have talked about if I’d just turned the bike around and knocked on that door.
I’ll never know.
That sign was an invitation I declined without even slowing down — and I’ve been paying the small, quiet price of that ever since.
That’s what closing down costs you.
Not danger. Not disaster.
Just the conversations you never had. The falcons you never watched. The flags you almost didn’t wait for.
Dick Hutchinson invited me to stay for the nest. I said no and rode into the sun. A man in Uganda asked me to wait thirty minutes for a sticker. I said yes. He picked the spot.
Rosemary said we either spiral inward or outward.
I’d say we either open up or close down.
We do it in big moments and small ones. On roads and in restaurants and in conversations we almost don’t start. We do it so quietly that most of us don’t notice until we look back and realize our world has gotten smaller.
Or bigger.
It depends on which way we turned.
The signs are out there. They always have been.
Some of them are hand-painted outside modest houses on Alaskan roads. Some of them are a man asking where his country’s flag is. Some of them are a spare concert ticket, a Thai restaurant in Venice Beach, a plate of beets you haven’t tasted in fifteen years.
The question was never whether the signs would show up.
The question is whether you’re open enough to stop.
Even today, I’m still wondering about Mr. Alaska.
Which way are you turning?
All of the photographs in this piece were shot by me — on the road, in the moment. No AI. No stock imagery. What you see is what I saw.
If this resonated, share it with someone who might need the nudge. I post this and more on my Substack as well. You should go over there. And if you’re already subscribed, you can upgrade to paid — it’s how I keep writing, riding, and saying yes to things.
What he discovered became The Astounding Mindset — a way of seeing people in an increasingly transactional world.
Bestselling author of FORKS: A Quest for Culture, Cuisine, and Connection. Creator of The Astounding Mindset.
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Allan Karl, WorldRider
Culture. Cuisine. Connection.
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