Bonus pictures Supertrip

June 2010

supertip 3

Day 6 

We are in Monument Valley first thing in the morning.  If you are unsure of what that is you can watch some John Wayne movies.   Or better yet, if you are inclined to actually see it with your own eyes head to the the only place in the U.S. that you can stand in four states at one time, then proceed to Kayenta, AZ and hang a right.  Monument  Valley isn’t on the way to anything, so all those commercials and movies depicting folks making cross country trips right through the middle of it are lies.  You would only be there if you wanted to be.  The main highway through it doesn’t even run east and west.  It runs north south, headed south into the Navajo reservation, and north to Blanding, Utah, where it meets up with other roads across southern Utah that you would only be on if you wanted to be in southern Utah or you drive a truck for a living and you service one of the sparsely populated towns in that part of the world.  

Lucky for motor tourists everywhere, there are now a couple of highways through this strange part of the world.  Unlucky, however, for the desert and those few souls who settled here.   They can live off the land if they know how to find water and if not too many other people show up.  There are barely enough resources to go around.   Some such homesteaders are hard pressed to keep up their original agrarian dream these days.   Fortunately for the desert dwellers, we are only passing through to show our respects and not to stay.    

There is no straight way through southern Utah and that fact alone should be telling.    There is instead a strange maze through bleak deserts and red Canyons with no comparison anywhere on the planet.  If you can read a map, you might find your way out.  On this trip however due to time limitations we will take the northern Arizona route, not quite as scenic from the saddle but it gets the job done.  

At lunch in Kayenta, three stragglers roll into the restaurant, dirty and tired looking.   Turns out they were looking for us.  Nick, Rick and Lee started somewhere around Indianapolis and have been trailing us for a day or more.  They did not catch us yesterday however, because they decided to use the highest route through Colorado.  From what I remember this route took them near or above the timber line on their machines.  Now, for those of you who have done a bit of mountaineering or at least read about it, you may know that the weather changes at the drop of a hat up there.  Freezing thunder storms are not unusual, and lightning is also not a rarity.   These three all happen to have sissy bars on their bikes.  It is possible that nature might mistake a long, skyward pointing metal rod on the back of your motorcycle as a lightning rod.  Well, lucky for them they were off their bikes admiring the scenery when the weather decided to take one of it’s unexpected turns, and instead of striking one the machines, lightning struck Lee.  It is not known for sure that Lee was directly hit, but the story follows that he saw a bright light and woke up in a puddle on the ground.  

Lee survived being struck by lightning and they rode on into the cold and dark turns of the San Juan mountains after sunset where they would eventually camp behind a closed gas station.  The next day they rose early, more likely motivated by the frigid mountain air than a desire to catch  up with us.   Setting out in the chilly air is simultaneously thrilling and miserable.  Convincing yourself to actually twist the throttle in that air, as your outer extremities begin to stiffen is somehow counterbalanced by the sunrise and smell of the pines.  Now they will join us on our bolt for the media capital of the world.  After Los Angeles, they are  off to San Francisco.  Lee is moving there.  I am impressed, even inspired that his moving van is a motorcycle.    These three will prove to be a welcome addition but more about them later.  Into the wind blasts that create the dunes, erode the red rocks and pit the windshields of the trucks that frequent the desert in the scorching desert afternoon.   

 We democratically decide that we should all see the Grand Canyon.  For most of us this is our first time to the Fabled Canyon of American Motorist dreams.  The pavement takes you practically right up to the rim where we crammed 10 motorcycles into two parking spaces.   Sorry folks, but you will have to leave the comforts of your air conditioned vehicles and walk the last twenty feet to the air conditioned lookout area and gift shop from here.  We had not felt air-conditioning in quiet some time so instead  of the lookout we wandered down a set of well trodden trails on the south rim.  We never got too far from the souvenir shop, but far enough to leave other pedestrian tourists behind. Our new friends Rick and Nick toyed with death, playing on the crags and edges just below our position on the south rim.   Duane  stood on the edge of the great red and orange chasm, resting his palms on the back of his head and gazing into the void.   Is he relaxing for once?  Does young man from the dark woods of  Locust Fort Alabama stop to consider millions of years of rushing water which carved out this gulch?   Are his thoughts are silent?   We leave him to his meditation.  

Meantime, Warren leaves to pay his regards to the gasoline gods.  Instead he falls asleep at a closed gas station with no view.  We try to find him but he decided to nap behind the station rather than by the gas pumps where he could be found more easily.  Who can blame him really.  We did a lap around the gas station parking lot and did not manage to rouse him or see him for that matter.  When he wakes up we are down the road looking for him at yet another “scenic” side road.  Warren wakes and rides on past us, not far however before trouble ensues.  To answer the abrupt stop of an SUV whose driver must have been taking in the Grand View, Warren stomped his brake pedal: nothing.  Warren didn’t find it necessary to use the back of the Suburban to stop his motorcycle, choosing to split lanes with oncoming traffic instead.  Thankfully, this complete and total loss of  cycle stopping potential did not prove harmful to our traveling companion. When we finally found him at the next gas station he was disassembling his master cylinder.  Unfortunately, the brake could not be repaired by any means at our disposal at Grand Canyon Village gasoline and convenience stop. Warren looks  at the rest of us with resolve.  “There is nothing I can do.  Lets go.”  Waves of disbelief spread over those of us in earshot. We understand that it would be futile to dissuade him.  Warren will now fully embrace his status as a force of nature much like the wind, difficult to stop.  He rides on, no brakes, which he continues to do from the Grand Canyon to Victorville, CA. 

All day we have been plowing headlong into wind and sand of the north Arizona desert.  For of us on lighter bikes this has been an amusing experiment in physics and gas mileage.  Before the Grand Canyon our group is a mammoth accordion, opening and closing, spreading apart in each gust of wind, cramming back together for gasoline stops.  After leaving the south rim Grand Canyon we find dusk descending on us, the afternoon wind storms recede and the group unites into a perfect staggered pattern for the first time.  The group rides into the pink and purple dusk, not even close to the end of our ride for the day.

Around midnight we land in Laughlin, NV.  Group splits, some to camp, some to the casino.  Creighton, Lee and myself head to camp on the Colorado river.   Actually calling it camp is a stretch, with the gambling lights of Laughlin in view, this is one of those state park things with more pavement and steal, picnic tables, campers,  hookups and facilities that we probably won’t use than actual trees or anything else you might expect of a park.  Lee and I converse about the dilemma of expectations on a trip like this.  I am sure he didn’t expect to get hit by lightning.  Surely Warren did not expect a non response from his brake earlier today.  I am also sure that at this moment, this camp is absolutely perfect for sleeping, despite my projection onto it of being a paved slab of nature eating monster.  I overanalyze, but Lee is happy to have a place to lay his head.  Lee’s peace is infectious.  In reference to past cross country cycle jaunts he says, “I learned a long time ago to just go with it.”  That’s it.  Thats is what I was fighting when Taichi left us in Kansas.  It’s why some of us get restless during our 30 minute gas stops.  Groups like this don’t function on the desires of a single individual, and that’s exactly what makes it worth traveling with them.  No leaders necessary, only the will of the whole, balanced by individual idiosyncrasies.  Shreds of common interests thread the group together, the journey we are on, the place we are going, the pleasure and humor of the company. I consider the question of individual vs. whole and attempt for a second to defeat my selfishness.  More people should be like Lee who is now asleep on his bedroll next to his bike.

I am beat too,  ready for a good night’s sleep.  However,  just before I put my head down next to my bike,  I hear a rumble in the distant dark night.  Here come the loud bunch with beer and firewood strapped to their motorcyles.  Next thing I know I am standing on Warren’s shoulders pulling kindling off a palm tree.   Another late night.  

Day 7

Duane wakes up and throws his underwear in the river, then chases it and drags it out again, washing his undergarments in the waters of the Colorado.  We will be in Long Beach by the end of the day.  On the way from our camp to the mighty freeway at Needles we take a road that rides more like a pothole obstacle course than a highway, so it is no surprise really when Warren’s oversized adjustable spanner shakes loose from his pack and bounces off the pavement, sending every bike behind him sprawling and dodging.  Warren jams ahead, concentrating on the holes ahead of him while Alabama Nick straps the wrench to his mess.  We stop for breakfast at a roadside Cafe in Needles, California, which declares itself, “HOT SPOT, Known for absolutely nothing, 20 miles from water, 2 feet from hell.”

 Jerimiah first points out a slapping sound and a loss of power in his bike at our second gas stop past Needles.  He mentions that his bike may have run a little a low on oil, but he has since topped the oil off.  That’s encouraging...  Maybe a piston pin has wiggled (or melted) loose.  In the fabled past people have been known to ride years with a slapping piston, or so I have heard.  Jerimiah decides to ride on, but will not ride years with this one.  

As the next stretch of desert freeway opens before us I snap a picture. The group eases up to freeway speed and all seems right with the moment when a plume appears around Jerimiah’s bike. In an instant it looks like a giant cloud of smoke has enveloped his cycle from my position directly behind him.  Not milliseconds later, those of us riding behind are bathed in oil. The ill fated rod has come away from the piston and sliced through the front of his engine case, making rubble of the bottom end of his engine and locking his drive train. Through the greasy blur on my sunglasses I see Jerimiah enter a 75 mile per hour skid. The spray trail of lubrication assists his graceful slide to the shoulder of the freeway.   The three oil drenched cyclists behind him pull over to congratulate him on his stellar performance, but his thoughts are already consumed by something else.

Jerimiah looks stressed for the first time since I have known him.  Of course the emotions have nothing to do with his bike’s his engine having self destructed.   He chooses this moment to tell us that he has a warrant out in California.  The news puts a damper on the otherwise jovial mood created by witnessing an engine blow up on the freeway.  With a certain sense of camaraderie Rick and I pile Jerimiah’s saddle bags, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc. onto our bikes and our bodies and wherever else we can find room. Jerimiah entered this trip well prepared.  He awkwardly climbs aboard J. Body’s cycle along with J. Body’s luggage, displacing J. forward onto his gas tank. They said this was fun.  I don’t believe him.  

 The rest stop we find one mile down the road will only be enjoyed by the folks who were behind Jerimiah when his engine blew up.  Along with enjoying the oil bath together, we also have the pleasure of sitting around a picnic table in the California desert and recounting the once in a lifetime experience.  Everybody else is miles down the road.  While Jerimiah works the phone lines with triple A, using his sharp Chicagoan charm to temper the conversation, J. Body and Rick climb a fence to go rattlesnake hunting in the Mohave.   I take pictures from the other side, maintaining my status as a law abiding citizen.  We spend about an hour there, drinking the water offered to us by the rest stop clean up crew.  We enjoy strange stories about their families and probe them about the joys of government work, filling in the time before a triple A truck arrives with Jerimiah’s motorcycle already strapped down.  Jerimiah will make friends with the the tow truck driver on the way to Victorville, California.  Rick parts ways with us at a Barstow exit to find the rest of the Indiana faction where Nick’s frame has cracked on this unforgiving freeway.  J. Body is a road warrior, never issuing a word of complaint and enjoying every moment of this trip since day one.  We ride together, leaning sideways into headwinds of the Mohave.  L.A. here we come.   

Body and I meet back up with Jerimiah and the tow truck in Victorville.  Bacon lives here and we will pick up the rest of our companions at his spread on the edge of the desert.  Bacon keeps his friends on their way to destiny.  He will cart a Jeremiah to town for tomorrow’s festivities.  His cycle parts collection also has Warren back on the road with full braking potential, which will now be offset by a new short term road companion, Ryan.

I say offset because Ryan is having slight transmission or clutch issues and where stopping is no problem for him, going means leaving rubber at every stop.  A true bat out of hell, Ryan is a fan of the higher end of the throttle.  He blasts off down the last 60 miles of freeway into the sprawl of the second largest city in the United States.  We grip our throttles tight hold on through the maze of traffic and freeway ramps.  Its dusk again, but this time the valley that opens before us is full of lights as far as the eye can see in every direction.  

 Warren and Ryan split for their friend Will's house only a couple of exits past the Long Beach exit where we will make the last mile to the Hotel de Jon Tubbs.   Jon Tubbs, a one time resident of our hometown,  now resides in the land of perfect weather, a great deal of motorcycle history, and the hit television series True Blood and Monster’s Garage.  I don’t know Tubbs as well as some of the others in this crew but I might make a character judgement based on the fact that he is willing to let this group of haggard, sunburnt vagrants  sleep in his house and he is further willing to fill us with beer.  This makes him the final completing piece of our Western movement.  We appreciate his hospitality by drinking his beers and exhaustedly insisting on staying up to celebrate our landing  in Long Beach.  From the road right back into a garage.  Tomorrow we will celebrate with the masses.  

Day 8.  

Born Free is a gathering of vintage custom motorcycle enthusiasts.  In attendance are a large quantity of vintage custom motorbikes and their owners.  My friend for years before and years to come, Alabama’s own Nick Resty, wakes up early, without stirring the rest of us and rides to Signal Hill   (a place with a different name but seems to be only four blocks from Tubbs’ house) for the bbq.  Nick is, in a manor, an overarching reason for this entire adventure. Nick always makes sure that everyone knows we are getting together.  This trip was no exception.  Nick celebrates.  I spent last Christmas eve at Nicks house with his fiance and his mother, while I waited for my mother’s delayed flight from Texas because  Nick is there for you.   Nick heralded the word Supertrip, went on a mission, and extended the invitation.  Several RSVPed and some of us even came along.  Nick could probably write this story himself.  There is no question that he is more observant of intricate details than I am.  This morning the diligent Nick is up early hoping for a place to park his bike.  He leaves us to our much needed sleep.  

When Creighton, J. Body, myself, and Tubbs drag ourselves to the show, it was already populated with thousands. I spent the day in a haze, one third road haggard, one third amazed and one third drunk. It appeared to be several city blocks long and every inch was covered with living relics of machinery.   I paced from end to end repeatedly trying to get a grip on the level of the event, staring into the details.  After filling my mind with dreams that looked like David Mann paintings, I left the museum of the street, carefully curated by a thousand individuals. I find my friends crammed like tinned fish into the back ally where the beer was being distributed.  We spent the rest of our time doing absolutely nothing but enjoying the company of our cross country companions in the chaos and joy that surrounded us. 

Supertrip Part Two

     There on the western horizon, under a hot, clear sky, sixty miles away, crowned in snow (in July), was a magical vision, a legend come true: the front range of the Rocky Mountains. ... The image of those mountains struck a fundamental chord in my imagination that has sounded ever since. -Edward Abbey from The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West

Road Philosophers:

Warren speaks of the road as if it were a spirit itself.   It may be the collective memory of those restless, jobless, impulsive, insane, desperate or adventurous travelers from the natives and mountain men to the Dustbowl and today’s two lane highways. Whatever the reason, dream, survival, figment of the imagination, they left a spiritual residue behind.  It must be the feeling you get when you are crossing the Great Plains and you see the remains of an old stone farmhouse with no roof left in the distance.  This feeling is present on backroads anywhere in America, but for me it is piqued in the tremendous expanses of the Western United States with its boom and bust artifacts left standing as monuments.  You can’t help but think of those who have run the route you are on now and why they did it.  Wandering  who stood where you are standing and looked at what you are looking at 150 years before is intense.  You become a part of a that collective memory in your mind.  That collective spirit is felt more heavily by some and Warren may be feeling it today.  Or perhaps he is just feeling  the chill of the mountain air.  Either way, he is tearing up.  

I met Warren  two years previous on a campground in Tennessee at an event called the Big Mountain Run.  He gave me a Jr.’s Cycle Products t-shirt and we didn’t speak again for a year until I met him at the same place the next year.  The next time we met our exchange was a bit more than a few words.  Warren is  a craftsman, a thinker, a geek, and a wanderer rolled up into one.   He is quiet, but when he does say something with that thick Midwestern accent it’s worth a listen.  I tend to talk too much, making us opposites.  Similar motivation, different personalities.   

During our annual conversation at the Big Mountain Run, we find out that we have a common interest in riding our motorbikes to California at the exact same time.  We want to go to a motorcycle event called Born Free.    My friends will be going as a big family of outcasts, vagabonds, perfectly normal law abiding citizens, and some who cannot be pigeonholed so easily.   So we combined our ventures and some Midwesterners where added to our otherwise Southern bunch.

Five days into the trip I am glad to be getting to know Warren and Jerimiah.   Even though Warren is a bit younger than me, he seems well versed.  He can navigate too, which it saddens me to say seems to be a dying art.  He doesn’t mind taking the lead.  He seems motivated in action more than words.  All admirable traits in a young man.     

 This is not my first trip across the country by two wheels. The road has taken care of me in the past  and has taught me some important lessons.   This is a process of making ourselves vulnerable to the unknown.  Some folks fear this kind of vulnerability and their sense of adventure becomes civilized.  Others of us get a small taste and the spirit adventure is awakened and branded into our psyche.    We become addicted to the feeling of life through movement.  A continuation of our boyhood fascination with wheels, machines, bicycles, boards, trains, planes, cars, trucks, etc., we become the movement that our eyes fixated on as children.  We choose faster and faster vehicles, starting perhaps with skateboards or bicycles trying to propel ourselves away from environments that restricted our freedom as kids.  Then to motorcycles.   Not that we can escape the mediocrity in reality, but it is the pursuit that helps ease our minds. The tools of flight become extensions of ourselves.  Somehow dangerous hobbies lend adhesiveness to our friendships.  Vulnerability has kept our sense of freedom awake.  Vulnerability also makes us comrades.  

This is where the phycological benefits of wandering come in.  I think that Warren’s philosophy about “the road” is getting at something deeper in content.     I can’t say how many strangers I have met going cross country who have put me up, gave me parts or tools, or pointed me towards camp.   Those souls who help you on your way: the steakhouse owner that points you towards camp, the welder who repairs your frame,  the old boy and his wife in Arkansas that let you crash in their half built cabin and give you a bbq sandwich in exchange for a listening ear about the old days of motocross (thanks Gary), the bear that smells your camp but doesn’t eat you, all embody the spirit of this philosophy.   Contrary to the 24hour image blasted out of of every media vein,  I have found strangers to be generally kind, with only a few exceptions.  Being in the middle of nowhere allows us to taste a little peace and quiet from those barking televisions.  Out there, reality is nice enough.   

The roads that we use as conduits are  also the veins that allow what Edward Abbey and even John Muir warned us about.  Good for riding motorcycles, the mellow grades were originally designed for trucks to carry the land away with the optimal gas milage.  The very  scene of adventure that we are soaking up is disappearing by the same roads we are using.  Next year the smog from L.A. may prevent more than a 10 mile view in the open desert.  This fact lends a tinge of paradox to the trip as L.A. is where we are headed.  Our obsession with the internal combustion engine is taking us there.  Internal combustion will allow us to explore the some far reaches as they are now.  Just like our skateboards were the vehicles we used to try and make something palatable out of urban and suburban waste. I fully advocate the use of two wheeled vehicles to reduce your personal carbon footprint. 


At this point in the trip, Warren is solidly in the lead.  We are blasting our way through one of the most beautiful states in the Union: Colorado.   Sometime the day before, the rest of the crew saw the Rocky Mountains open up in front of them from the Great Plains.  Heading west out of Pueblo, they entered the canyons of the Colorado plateau, following stream beds that would lead them to the high places and camp.  

 I began with this vision early this morning.  This will be my long day of the trip, crossing the expanse of Colorado from east to west and into the southern Utah desert with my friends tonight.   It was nice to have a moment with my thoughts.  The last 400 miles solo have reminded me of my past ventures on two wheels without company.  But this time I felt something a little different.  I am ready to rejoin my friends. This run has been intensified by the company.  A lesson in the stuff that my friends are made of, and why they are my friends.  I wouldn’t  choose any other company.  Actually, I didn’t really choose them.  Our commonalities set us on a trajectory course down Colorado Highway 50.

 We wound up the mountains to Gunnison, a small town in the upper atmosphere which I assume is named for Captain John W. Gunnision who in 1853 scouted this area for a good east to west place to lay railroad tracks, before there where any train tracks spanning the country.  No doubt the highway way we have followed today has roughly paralleled his route.  We ate lunch at a diner that I forget the name of.  We got to know some locals there. Jerimiah was loud and the food was good.  Then onto one of the best souvenirs shops in the continental U.S.  Coon skin hats were dawned and various animal tails were flagged from the ends of the bikes.  Then on to Montrose and Cortez via the Telluride route.  The jagged, snowcapped San Juan Mountains are the backdrop. 

 At Cortez the mountains are fading behind us and the high desert is now in our sight.  On a whim, we took a no name rode across into the Navajo reservation in Utah.  A shortcut if you will.  Sunset on the edge of the desert.  The country in this part of the U.S. has no comparison anywhere.   I could spend months happily exploring any of the four corners states on wheels or foot.  The environment is just hazardous enough to keep you spiritually involved at all times.  Desert sky, mountain air.

The sun goes down and we sandwich Duane in the middle of the group because he has no headlight.  Actually, I think he does have a headlight filament stuffed in his baggage, but would rather ride without lights tonight.  Duane cares about his friends way more than he cares about himself.  He cleans up toxic waste for a living, which I guess also indicates that he cares about the world more than he does himself.  He has a love hate relationship with his bike and he has a love hate relationship with his best friend Chauncey, whom he grew up with in Locust Fork, Alabama.  He has a tattoo of sweet tea.   He is also very photogenic.  It’s difficult to truly understand someone who is only living in the moment every time you see them, but it is not hard to love them.  Again, he is a quintessential example of making yourself vulnerable in order to live life to the fullest. 

We land in Mexican Hat, Utah.  Mexican Hat is a jumble of old buildings next to the San Juan river.  The river is on its way into the cataracts and canyons of southern Utah, headed for a meeting with what used to be the raging Colorado river.  Now I believe it meets with a massive puddle of mud called Lake Powell.  Dammed. Canyon lost.  Somehow I end up in Mexican Hat every time I pass through the southwest.  I can’t help it.  It is on the way to nowhere.  At the Mexican Hat Lodge we ate steaks and burgers off of a swinging grill, drank 3.25% beer just before we retire to a boat dock on the river, at the friendly recommendation of the bartender.  Not totally satisfied with the desert accommodations, Jerimiah disappeared back to the steak patio, only to return with the bartender, a golf cart, and a load of  mesquite firewood, nice for cooking steaks or for desert river beach fires.  

WHAT WE CALLED SUPERTRIP 1

Part One

Day 1
June 5, 2010. My phone buzzes at 7:30 a.m.  I am in bed. The text message reads, “I have already made 150 miles.“  Before I am awake Warren and Jeremiah (Milwaukee and Chicago) have already put some road behind them.  The Birmingham crew has 400 miles to go today.  If the Midwesterners want to meet us in Arkansas, they have 670 miles, but they have done 150 already.  At that rate they are going to beat us to Arkansas.  

Meeting time for us is 9:00 a.m.  In an unusually responsible manner for my friends, I hear bikes rolling into the driveway at 8:30.  The road is wide and open today.  This is the beginning of what will be a 5000-mile round trip journey to Signal Hill, California and back.   Our group includes 7 young motorcyclists from Alabama and by the end of the day will include two from the midwest.  The only direction we have is the direction that brought us together in the fist place: the desire to travel on two wheels.  We each have our own idea of what kind of bike is ideal to take across country, and none of ours are “touring bikes” per se.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s the people on the bikes that matters here.  The content of their character, if you will.  I know and love several of these guys like kin or better, others I barely know.  None of it matters. 

On to make the diagonal cut from Birmingham to Memphis, corridor X.  60 miles in the first break happens.  A weld snaps on a fender mount, causing a cloud of black smoke and a disheartened rider.   Not that it couldn’t have been fixed, but the operator of this motorcycle, Chauncey, views this as a bad omen.  Soon, Big Joe and a truck are on the way from Birmingham.  We are off for Memphis.  After one sketchy gas stop in Memphis and the I 55 bridge over the Mighty Mississippi River we are eating fast food-style BBQ in Arkansas.  You know, the kind where the restaurant resembles a Dairy Queen more than a backwoods shack, and the beans and slaw come in tiny styrofoam bowels with lids.  

Taichi’s SR500 is leaking an absurd amount of oil.   He and Jonathan (known to most of his friends as J. Body) went about creating a barrier between his engine and back wheel so that his tread doesn’t become dangerously slippery.  Strangers in a truck offer us a bundle of heavy zip ties and a piece of plastic fender to rig.   They weren’t used but this was one of the many kind gestures that we would receive on the road. 

In the Ozark Mountains we find the highway that will take us to camp.  We sit at the intersection only forty-five minutes before Warren and Jeremiah roll up.   Not bad timing considering they rode a full 350 miles more than us today. 

Up the mountain we go.  The final leg of today’s ride takes us into the cool air and the darkness, up a twisted mountain road.  Then it repels us down the other side of the mountain on a grated dirt road (sometimes referred to as a washboard road).   Let the fishtails commence.  Don’t use your front brake if you have one.  Not too difficult for some of us with suspension but for the others it may have been a bit more slippery.  It didn’t fowl anyone’s mood anyway.   We make it to camp.  Immediately a ranger rolls up to remind us that this is a family camping area, we are parked wrong, and we need to be quiet, to which  Jerimiah replies in his usual politeness, “Where is the closest place to get beer?”

Actually, at this point I have just met Jerimiah, but he proves to be an unstoppable freight train of energy and humor for the remainder of the trip, even when his engine blows up.  A true Hayduke who reminds you that taking chances is one of the benefits of living, Jerimiah will be unyielding for the remainder of the adventure.   The park ranger answered his question after some hesitation.  The three of us that thought the graded dirt road was fun went for beer.  

Day 2

We wake up to the sound of the boy scout troop that was camped five feet from us, packing and leaving.  Admittedly, we knew they were next to us because the park ranger had said it in passing the night before.   We did not, however, realize that they were only a couple of yards away.  By the noise they made striking camp and heading  out onto the trail, they may not have had the best night’s sleep.  Anyhow, I wasn’t worried that we kept them up, mostly because I know that some of them will be like us in 10 to 15 years.  We already share a common interest in nature, campfires and pocket knives.  All that’s left is for them to begin asking questions that their scout troupe can’t answer to their satisfaction.  Disillusionment is soon to follow.   Not long after that, perhaps a motorcycle and a life in pursuit of the most ambiguous answers.  

The whole point in going to this particular camp was the swimming hole.  Built by CCC workers under Roosevelt in the Depression, there is a dam that blocks off a side stream that meets the main river.  The dam creates a cascade and a deep blue hole, walled on one side by a couple of rock faces which are good for jumping.    In general I am not the biggest fan of dams but I do find them interesting as engineering specimens.   This one is of the backwoods stone and mortar variety and provides the opportunity for 5 or 6 grown men (a liberal description at best) to act like they adolescents from a Mark Twain novel.

After some time at the swimming hole we pack, then hit the road.  Not 7 miles out, Warren runs out of gas.  Everyone from Warren to the back of the group stops to break out the spare fuel cans.  When they catch up, they arrive to us fixing Taichi’s bike after a low speed spill in a tight corner.  I think part of a sleeping bag strap tied to his front fender got caught in his front wheel and it yanked his steering.  He fouled up his leg a bit and might have managed a slight face plant from the looks of his eyebrow.  

Next was lunch at the country store where they sold almost everything including gas.  We eat some delicious hamburgers and catfish sandwiches at tables that looked more like they are set up for fellowship dinner than for eating in a convenience store. What a store.  I find some replacement tools, after realizing that I have left my tool bag in my basement at home, for the first time in 5 trips across country.  J. Body finds a can of “fish assholes”, apparently a legitimate form a canned food, for our campfire eating pleasure later.  We stay at this store a while acting like kids in a candy store as each treasure is dug out of each dark corner.  We could have stayed there for days but the Great Plains beckoned.  

  There is a punching bag game at Stoney B’s bar in Independence Kansas.  Before even having his first beer Jerimiah scores the highest of the night.  The score is challenged however, by a guy resembling a skinny John Cougar Melloncamp.  The gentleman dawned a supreme angry face for his girlfriend and challenged the punching bag to a death match, topping Jerimiah’s score.  Taichi gave it the old college try with a roundhouse kick, officially declaring himself to be the only Asian person in a 100 mile radius.  Duane played too, but I think most of us agreed that it is more entertaining to watch Duane Judo fight with bottled water and his own garments as he has already begun to do as a daily routine.  More about Duane later.  Its going to take some time and deep reflection to describe him.  

 The kind locals of Independence point us to a nice camping spot on a lake.   Meantime, Warren disappears to the parking lot to buy a local’s beer collection.  This is important because we were only at Stoney B’s because we could’t find any stores that could sell beer on a Sunday night.   The helpful folks of Independence, Kansas add to what will be a repeating theme of helpful people we meet on this excursion.  These folks can be added to a growing list from my past experiences on the road.  I am beginning to believe that there is a pattern.  Nice strangers.  Once again into the cool night air for a camp sight.  These last couple of miles of the day feel the most rewarding.   

Having too much fun and loving our campsite, we stay up till the wee hours.  Only a couple hours after falling asleep we awake to violent winds that remind me of  the tornado storms of my West Texas boyhood.  The sky is barely lit with dawn and an evil storm is imminent.   I barely get a look at the face of God in the sky before    Warren throws a tarp over  Taichi and myself and pegs it too the ground to keep it from getting hauled away with the wind.  The bottom falls out of the storm and we sleep it out.   Thanks Warren.  Again, the content of the character of the people that I am with on this journey is unparalleled. 

Day 3

Tiachi’s bike won’t start. It was hard enough to start in the first place.  A true 10 to 15 kick bike.  We pull the spark plug to check for ignition spark .  Spark proves  good at this point.   My memory is vague but I am sure we must have drained the carb, as it may have taken on water (didn’t we!?).   Our legs are kicked out as we have been taking turns.   Warren and Jerimiah practice the art of pegging with Tiachi’s bike in a parking lot.   Pegging is pushing one motorcycle with your left foot on the passenger foot peg or whatever you can find while operating a separate motorcycle for pushing force.  Those of us from Alabama had never seen this before because we have hills readily available to roll start vehicles with.  Not so in the Midwest or the Great Plains.  The second check for sparks tells us that we have lost spark.  Maybe some wizard of electronic ignitions can tell me what happened in between? Maybe my theory is totally off.  We  work until 4 or 5 p.m.  Still no spark.  Time for most of the group to make miles.  They will make almost three hundred miles more across the plains of Kansas.  From what I hear, they dodged dear, Jerimiah tried to ride a ten years olds bicycle and got told no and then they got robbed on the price of a campsite called “Gun Smoke”.   Sounds like a usual Haints adventure. I wasn’t there because I stayed behind with Taichi.  

 Taichi and I have known each other for about eight months. In this time we spent one or two nights a week working on his motorbike it until it was what he wanted.  In that time he learned how to solder and use an angle grinder. In turn I tried to understand Japanese mannerisms.  We had many late night discussions through a translation barrier that actually proved to deepen the conversation, because you have to think more about what the other is trying to say.   He also helped me to prepare for the culture shock I would deal with when I moved to Japan a month after this adventure.

Taichi made curried noodles over a campfire that night while I rewired his bike to battery (it was battery-less, the capacitor may be the culprit of the ignition failure).   Still no spark… coil ohms out good, his electronic ignition may be toast.  Does anyone in Independence Kansas have CDI ignition for a 1980 sr500?  Nope. Didn’t think so.  Thanks for using the technology at your disposal to look though, Warren.  I am upset at the idea  of leaving my friend behind.   I eventually accept that he road will take Taichi a different direction.

Day 4

Goodbye Taichi:  It should be noted at this point that this is the first time for our friend Taichi to go on a motorcycle trip of any kind.   Taichi is a native of Tokyo, and possibly the best sushi chef in the Southeast U.S.  He dreamed of building a café racer out of a 1980 Yamaha SR500.  When he met us he added the desire to ride the bike to Long Beach, CA to his dream.  Unfortunately the bike was only finished a week and a half prior to the run.  Regardless of troubles that were apparent with the bike before, Taichi’s determination and the blessing of the road got him 700 miles out.  Not bad for your first motorcycle trip.  He didn’t seem particularly sad when we parted ways.   He said he was thinking about checking out some other American cities.  We loaded him and his bike onto a tow truck, he put it in storage and the tow man gave him a ride to the Greyhound station, by which time I was 150 miles towards Colorado. 

Day 5

When I woke up in the one of those cheap motels from the golden age of motor tourism that I had found at midnight the night before, I had a message from Taichi.  He is passing through De Moines on his way to Chicago.  I was back on the road at six.  Dawn is my favorite time to get on the road, though it doesn’t happen often.  It’s a bit cold and the light exaggerates the beauty of your surroundings, that is, if you are not blinded by fog.  The moisture in the air makes everything smell intense, like a freshly  cut field or a wood stove being stoked.  You can smell it for miles.

I met the group at their camp 4 hours later.  They where just getting packed and drinking coffee around a recently extinguished campfire.  This is becoming the normal wake up routine.  Late nights, late mornings, late departures.  One thing you learn by traveling in a group of any size is that your limitations are not individual.  Traveling together, you begin to homogenize into the personalities and habits of the others for the time being.  Its part of the joy of having company.  It’s not going to be your own personal schedule, but the collective motivation that drive your onward movement.  So,  onward into the great state of Colorado.  

Supertrip day 10, 11.  Missing Warren, Jeremiah, Lee, Nick and Rick, the company we had on the way out, but having more fun than ever.   Arizona.  New Mexico.  I hate that I didn't get any pictures of our camp this night because it was the best of the whole trip. June 2010

Garage Company Los Angeles June 2010

  Garage Company Los Angeles June 2010