Yesterday I told a story of bravado. I thought I could take my fully-loaded motorcycle a gravel road down to the beach at Port Orford, Oregon for the glory of a bragging rights photo of my front tire in the Pacific Ocean.

You’ll remember that I mentioned a cool outcropping of volcanic rock at the beach that I envisioned as a backdrop. Hold that thought.

I set my newsletter service up to automatically tweet a copy out on Twitter. Sort of a message in the bottle. Someone whom I never met and didn’t even follow on Twitter re-tweeted it. In normal language, that means she shared it with her followers.

One of them turned out to be an Oregon motorcyclist, photographer and blogger, Dave Patton. Dave re-tweeted the story, which is how I was introduced to him.

The outcropping has a name

Now here comes the cool part. Dave told me that the volcanic outcropping is far more than that. Battle Rock, is its name, and got the title because it’s the site of the historic battle between the first landing party of white settlers and the local Qua-to-mah band of natives.

Dave’s picture of Battle Rock

So now the story has a new ending, thanks to a man 3,000 miles away who happened to see a tweet.

Six degrees from Kevin Bacon

Remember the parlor game Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon?  This is evidence that you don’t have to be a big shot Hollywood actor to reach people or for them to reach you.

I’m in this tribe of people who travel by motorcycle, or who aspire to, and those who enjoy the memory of having done so. Like any extended family I’m always meeting a new member.

Seth Godin wrote a book about tribes. Here’s his Ted Talk on the subject.

Google Plus (my favorite social media channel!)  and learned that I might have had difficulty making my way back up the hill, something I clearly hadn’t considered! One of my tribe there recommended I buy a recovery system for such future adventures. One of my tribe there recommended I buy a recovery system for such future adventures. 

Today, maybe you’ll reach out to a member of YOUR tribe and lend a helping hand. If you do, please let me know how it turns out.