Isaac pulled onto a gravel turnout along CA-1 and shut off his motorcycle. I stopped behind him but stayed seated on the BMW. We still needed to find a campsite, daylight was slipping away, and a weather front sat above the coastal mountains to the east.

Isaac opened one of his panniers and pulled out another layer.

The air coming off the Pacific had turned cold enough that I could feel it around my neck and through the openings in my riding gear. Only a few hours earlier we had been crossing the California valley in July heat. Now I could hear waves somewhere below the cliff.

Normally I would have stayed on the bike. Short stop. Engine off. Feet down. Wait for Isaac. Keep moving.

Instead, I took off my helmet.

I set my gloves in the cockpit, swung my leg over the BMW, and looked across the road. The turnout sat near a blind corner, so I stopped and listened before crossing. Then I stepped over the rusted guardrail and walked toward the cliff.

A rocky point reached into the water to my left. A small island sat offshore. To the right, the coastline folded in and out until it disappeared.

I could not see the waves directly beneath me, but I could hear them striking the rocks.

The water changed color with the distance. Near shore it was green-blue and broken with white water. Farther out it darkened. Near the horizon, the ocean and the gray sky almost disappeared into each other.

I stood there for a while.

Then something white appeared over the water.

A puff of mist.

I stared at the spot, unsure whether I had actually seen anything.

Another appeared farther to the right.

Then another.

“Isaac,” I said.

He looked over from the motorcycles.

“I think those are whales.”

He crossed the road and climbed over the guardrail beside me.

We watched.

For several seconds there was nothing. Then a dark back broke the surface below one of the blows before slipping beneath the water again.

We both reached for our phones.

Not because either of us expected a good photograph. The animals were too far away. We zoomed the cameras as far as they would go and used the screens like binoculars.

Another whale surfaced.

I hit the shutter.

We enlarged the photograph until the image began to break apart on the screen.

There it was.

A whale.

We looked back toward the water and waited for another blow.

Neither of us said much.

Eventually Isaac crossed back toward the motorcycles. I stayed.

I found a place to sit near the edge and watched the whales continue north. They appeared only for a few seconds at a time. A blow. A dark shape. Then empty water again.

Watching them move north brought back an image I had not expected.

Boxes.

For most of our marriage, Amanda and I had moved our family from one place to another for work. Ten states in a little more than twenty years. I remembered kitchens packed into cardboard boxes, bedrooms disappearing one object at a time, children learning that a house could stop being home surprisingly quickly.

Each move had made sense when we made it.

A job. An opportunity. A responsibility.

Then another departure.

I watched another blow rise and disappear.

The comparison was imperfect. The whales were doing what whales had always done. Our movement had been our own. But sitting there, I thought about how much of our family life had been spent going somewhere else.

And suddenly I pictured another kind of movement.

Baja.

The whales moving north.

Us following them.

The idea was ridiculous enough that I almost dismissed it immediately.

Then I pictured Amanda.

My son.

Motorcycles loaded for a long trip.

The coast stretching north.

I climbed back over the guardrail and crossed the highway.

Isaac was already near his bike.

I put on my helmet, pulled on my gloves, turned the key, and started the BMW. We headed north again.

The whales stayed in my mind.

A few miles later, I pulled over.

I took a small notepad and pen from my gear and wrote:

“Grey Whales. Baja to Alaska migration. Could we start an epic round the world journey in our backyard following the grey whale? Talk to Amanda about it.”

I looked at the words for a few seconds before closing the notebook.

This was my dream.

I had no idea whether it could become theirs.