‘Round She Goes

Santa Barbara artist Gail Lucas, 81, has written a fascinating book Over the Hill and ‘Round the Bend or… Gullible’s Travels about her five-year motorcycle odyssey with fellow rider Terence Geoghegan three decades ago.

The 475-page tome recounts how the dynamic duo met when she was 49 and he was just 29, when she had had been given her first motorbike and embarked on the trip of a lifetime with winters in southern Europeans venues, summers in the northern ones, and home by way of Russia and Alaska.

Gail, a UCLA graduate, who has illustrated three children’s books and published another, Trevor the Traveling Tree, compiled her new book, filled with her illustrations, from her extensive journals and attending the late Barnaby Conrad’s famous Writers Conference, winning first prize.

“Then it was just a matter of pulling it together and editing it,” she says. “Then it got shoved under a bed for a few years, until my niece persuaded me to get it published.

“I thought Terence was crazy when he suggested this epic trip, but he persisted. When it was time to leave in 1987, I told my children, Meredith and Lucas, he’d probably dump me in Ireland, but we had a great time and we got along splendidly living in a tent and drawing for people on the street for very little money.”

Gail is still in touch with Ventura-based Terence, a lawyer who plays viola section leader in the SB City College Orchestra, whose house burned down in the Thomas Fire.

“Once in a while, he’ll take me for a wild ride on his latest motorbike!” she adds.

Gail plans to launch the book with bijou bashes at Tecolote and Chaucer’s. Prepare for a wild ride.