Mom Takes Off On Motorcycle, Writes Book

Like most moms, Diana Bletter, of Westhampton, spent many years packing lunch boxes, wiping dripping noses, picking up scattered toys and breaking up sibling fights. But one day, her house fell silent — the last of her four children and two step kids were off to college. She was left not knowing what to do with herself.

"I felt like I was at a fork in the road. I wanted to do something," she said.

It was then in October 2008 that she came across a woman in Westhampton Beach, sitting on a motorcycle. Bletter approached her and soon learned that the woman was about to ride her bike to Alaska.

Bletter said she was "intrigued," but it wasn't until she spotted the woman two weeks later that something "clicked" inside her.

"The only problem was that I never rode a motorcycle before," she said.

Determined, Bletter said she signed up for lessons.

With a motorcycle license in hand, she was ready to pack up and head across the country on a ride with her husband that would change her life so much so that she wrote and released a book about it, called, The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle.

"The book is a journey about finding myself after all our children left home," said Bletter. "I want to inspire women and men that life isn't always what happens to you. It is about what you make happen in life."

With the wind in her hair, Bletter said her 51-day trip to Alaska opened her eyes to so much. Not only did it help her to "get back to herself," but she said she was able to experience America's vast nature. At night she and her husband would sleep in bed and breakfasts and motels and by day, they would ride in the open enjoying the views of hot springs and bison roaming. They also got up close and personal with a few grizzly bears.

The locals, said Bletter, joke that motorcyclists are just meals on wheels for the bears.

When she reached Alaska, she told The Hairpin in an interview, she cried — she had done what she set out to do.

"Whether you want to train to do a walk to raise money for breast cancer or take a watercolor class — whatever you want to do — go after your goal," she said.

Home from her trip, she spent the next three years penning her book, also writing articles for The New York Times and The Huffington Post.

Her book, which is her second — she wrote her first book, The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women in 1989, was published in February and is available on Amazon here.

She is now working on two more books.