A native of the Boston area, Susan Foss was an executive
secretary with Honeywell when, at 23, the yearning for
the road became unbearable. Foss quit her comfortable,
well-paid and secure position to see her country by
motorcycle and to "live it, inhale it,
feel the magic of its beauty and people."
"I was going to get married," Foss said.
"I was financially sound, loved my job, but
something was missing. My to-be husband told me
I should quit my job and stay at home. All of a
sudden, I felt I just didn't know myself and I didn't
know the country I lived in. I decided I needed to go
tool around in my own backyard."
In 13 years of touring, Foss has logged more than
100,000 miles on her 1978 Honda 750 motorcycle,
visiting 49 states and most of Canada. Most of the time
her only companion on the road is Comanche, a black mutt
who pilots a milk crate strapped to the back of her
motorcycle.
One of her recent stops was Phoenix where she visited
a friend, Walt Tuesley. "The country is so
beautiful, and people just don't realize it,"
says Foss. "I often don't stay in motels, either.
My home is out under the stars. I bathe in streams and
lakes."
Foss published a book about her adventures titled
"Road Magic." The book covers the first three
years of her adventure. Her second book,
"Road Magic II," recently published, takes in
the following four years. "I believe 100 percent
in what I'm doing," she says. "I'm not
writing these books to please an editor or myself or
to make money. I just want to share what I've seen and
experienced out there. Through my books I hope people
get out in their country to see nature as I've seen it -
up close and in person. When you see that double rainbow
or a grizzly bear or a bald eagle flying by you, it does
something to you that sitting in front of a television
can never do. You suddenly get in touch with yourself
and find out who you really are. It really opens you up
when you see - in person - the majesty of nature spread
before you. I've learned more about geography, the
environment, and history traveling than if I've read all
the books written about them combined."
Foss's favorite place is Alaska. Her third book will
deal exclusively with the two years and 17,000 miles
she spend and rode through the state.
Susan Foss believes that traveling alone has given her
the peace of mind to develop her special philosophies,
which are in her books.
"Avoid danger zones, but if you get into one, deal
with it head-on, one-on-one. People ask me if I've ever
been hassled, raped or robbed or any number of other
questions like that. 'No,' I tell them. I have found out
that 99 percent of the people I've met treat me like
royalty. I try to project happiness to people, and they
seem to feed off that. I'm happy even when I'm
struggling because I'm doing and being exactly what and
who Susan Foss wants to do and be. I'm in my country,
traveling it, seeing it, taking it in, inhaling it and
that makes me happy. And that's what "Road Magic"
is all about, the beauty of the people and land of this
nation. But it's also about adventure, love and
loneliness, of being prosperous and living high on
luxuries, and of being without money and surviving on
bare necessities, of coping with and fighting against
the presures and expectations of society, of education
from experience, of life in the fast lane of the cities
and the remote environments of the wilderness.
"And it's about truth. The news media projects
mostly malice, you see. They report only the worst,
even though that worst makes up only a microsection
of our land and people."
"And I'll fight to the end to get that information
out."
Susan Foss has sunk everything into her self-published
books - besides one-on-one encounters, that's how she
gets her message out. She earns money to publish her
books by accepting truck driving positions throughout
the nation. She is licenced to drive the big 18-wheelers.
But if she can't find an open position driving the big
rigs, she'll accept anything she finds in the way of
employment - "waitressing, digging ditches ...
no hard work is beneath me."
Walt Tuesley, her Phoenix friend, admires her ability
to pick up on the good things in life. "She
absorbs the magic - then projects that magic to others.
Her intelligence is not academic, but it's worldly,
humanistic, common sense logic."
Susan Foss didn't give this writer much encouragement
concerning getting her story published in one of the
newspapers or magazines. "The motorcycle magazines
only feature male riders and their concerns while the
women's magazines focus, nearly exclusively, on
'relationships,' 'what men want,' 'cooking' and such.
And the major newpapers dwell - absurdly - on the evil.
"
Susan Foss, it appears, is content getting her word out
one encounter at a time.
And as you're reading this, just know she's somewhere
out on the road finding more magic.