Heroes of the trip

I don’t know if the designation “hero” is overused today.

In the context of this trip, a hero is someone who has gone well beyond the call of duty to make the thing possible, or to provide some inspiration. This piece is to honor their contributions to the trip. In more or less chronological order based on their entry on to the stage in this drama, let me introduce you to the heroes of the trip.

In the inspiration category nobody tops my friend John Mantle of Ft. Mill, S.C. John, a highly regarded newspaper publisher, was laid low by a stroke. At the time of the stroke John was the proud owner of a Honda Goldwing, the gold standard of long distance touring motorcycles, on which he and his wife, Carol, were planning to take many a long ride. The stroke changed all of that. If you want to read a compelling first-person account of a man who has dragged himself back from death’s door, read John’s book Cyclops Awakes. John’s experience reinforced my notion that “Life is uncertain, eat dessert first.” I put that philosophy into action most often when I am eating at The Immaculate Consumption in Columbia. There you order at the counter, and if you order dessert (a chocolate chip cookie of course) you get to take the dessert with you to your table. I always eat the cookie before the meal comes.

John couldn’t take a corner to corner trip, but he was with me in spirit. I thought of him often.

Anne Cushman, my wife, was a constant supporter. It’s not easy being married to a guy who thinks riding alone from corner to corner across the country is a good idea. Then, when I called her at 3:00 p.m. on the first day of the trip to tell her that my wallet had been stolen, Anne swung into action. She made the calls to cancel the credit cards, activated an American Express card and called Val Valenta at the South Carolina Department of Public Safety to get a new driver’s license. That night she drove to Atlanta so she could meet me when I came through to give me a new wallet, a new driver’s license and a credit card. While in Atlanta Anne and Liz chased around until they found a shoe repair shop that could repair the split seams in my riding jacket. Given all the rain I rode through on the trip, without the repair I would either have been very wet or deeper in debt for having bought a replacement. They also secured the supply of Butt Paste shown in the photo posted earlier on the blog. Later Anne flew to Alaska to meet me in Haines, rearranged the ferry reservations so we could have a spacious, outside stateroom instead of the smaller inside room I had reserved, and made that part of the trip special. When I got home there was a welcoming committee and a sign on the door. I’ve made Anne one Hoyle of a promise to thank her for her efforts. I’m going to try to learn how to play cards. I’ve contracted for bridge, but might get pegged on cribbage.

Val Valenta, general counsel for the South Carolina Department of Public Safety and a long-time friend and fellow reader on the South Carolina Radio Network for the Blind made the telephone calls that enabled Anne to get me a replacement driver’s license in Guinness record time. Without a driver’s license entry into Canada wouldn’t have been difficult. It would have been impossible.

Bobbi Jacobs runs the office of the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles where Anne went late on a Friday afternoon to pick up a driver’s license for me. Bobbi is normally a cautious person, but she allowed one lawyer, Val Valenta, to vouch for another lawyer, me, to solve my problem. We haven’t met, Bobbi, but thanks.

Liz Wiggers is my step-daughter. Step is a legal description. In real life Liz is as much one of my children as Todd, Edward or Sumner. Liz was the moving force behind the satellite tracking system, and spent a great deal of time in conversation with Pia Miranda of Aeroastro, Inc. to get a satellite tracker delivered to Columbia, figured out how to work the tracker website, and, when the first device turned out to be defective, arranging for delivery of a working replacement to Florida in time for me to get it mounted on the bike before I headed to Key West. All of this she did by phone from her home in Atlanta. Liz, her husband John Mark and son Jack, along with Anne formed a welcoming committee in Atlanta when I dragged myself to their door wet, discouraged and at least 12 hours behind my initial schedule after just one day on the road from Key West. To achieve some sort of symmetry in this trip, I stopped in Atlanta on my way home. Coming and going I was welcomed by hugs, prayers and chocolate chip cookies.

Pia Miranda works for Aeroastro, Inc., the company that supplied the satellite tracking device for the bike. We purchased the tracker from a company called U-Spy, but without Pia, the purchase would have been worthless. Pia talked Liz and Anne through the start-up process, and, when it became clear that a defective unit had been shipped to Columbia, arranged a replacement to be shipped to my brother-in-law Allen Cushman in Florida.

Officer D. Rhoades of the Cocoa Beach, Fl. police department met me in a downpour on the entrance ramp of I-95 to prepare an incident report on the stolen wallet. I didn’t have any notion that the wallet would be recovered, but I wanted an official report in case I got stopped by police along the way and couldn’t produce a driver’s license.

Allen Cushman is a brother-in-law. Allen heads the family business, the Cushman Fruit Company (take a look at www.honeybell.com to learn about the company’s patented super juicy oranges), dotes on his family and always looks for ways to lend a hand to those who need it. Allen delayed a trip to his cabin in the Georgia mountains in order to give me a place to bunk the first night on the road, and ended up being a delivery man for a satellite tracker and trip saver with the loan of his credit card. Allen is one of the most patient persons I have ever met, but when I suggested that he call his credit card company to warn that the card was about to be used in a lot of strange places to buy seven gallons of high test gasoline at a time, even his patience was exhausted by his inability to contact a real, live human being at Visa. Fortunately no one questioned my use of the card. I did have a close call in Haines when the woman running the campground where I stayed the night before the ferry noticed the Cushman Fruit Company name on the card and started asking questions about the fruit. I told her how great Honeybells were, and suggested she send some for Christmas gifts.

Caroline West is a lawyer in Charleston at the Gedney Howe law firm. Caroline was in her office after 5:00 p.m. one afternoon when a guy she had never heard of called from a Canadian border station in the middle of nowhere to say that the Canadians needed some assurance that he wasn’t a desperado. Caroline might have had plans for after work, but she put them aside, looked for files, tried to contact court personnel, and ultimately convinced Deena of the Canadian Immigration Service that since I was just going to pass through western Canada as quickly as I could, I was probably an acceptable security risk. Those Canadian border guards are thorough though. As I have mentioned earlier, they confiscated my four ounce can of pepper spray that my friend Charlie Gibson had given me in case a bear got too close. Had it been a 40 ounce can I could have probably gotten it into the country, but those border guards knew that no Canadian bear would be dissuaded by a mere four ounces of spray.

Wilbur Buckler of the Alaska Highway Department is a supervisor of a maintenance squad responsible for a section of the Dalton Highway above Cold Foot. Wilbur and his wife are looking forward to his retirement, and are planning to move south. They’re looking at Montana. Wilbur was my host when I was sitting out a thunderstorm in the Brooks Range. The lightening, the sleet and the rain had convinced me that riding a motorcycle on an increasingly slippery dirt road through the mountains was not a good plan, so I parked the bike and ran into the wooden office area attached to a large metal building. If I hadn’t been at that particular point on the road when the storm hit, there wouldn’t have been any opportunity for shelter for about 100 miles. Wilbur welcomed me to his office, put on a fresh pot of coffee, and talked about how he and his crew work 70-hour weeks on the “Haul Road” and then go back to civilization for a week. When I commented to Wilbur that it was unusual to see a bucket on top of a computer to catch water coming through the ceiling he explained that the location we were in was on loan temporarily from a pipeline contractor because the state office had been condemned. I wonder what the other building looks like.

My sister, Mary, and her husband, Ken Owens, met Anne and me when the ferry docked in Bellingham, Washington, about two hours north of their home. Ken got Anne to the airport for her flight home and took a great deal of time and effort to get me where I needed to go to get the bike serviced and a new face shield for my helmet. Mary did a great job on logistics and talking baseball (living in Seattle she is a Mariners and American league fan, but I, a Braves and National League fan was willing to accept her appreciation for Edgar Martinez, a designated hitter). She also spent hours patiently trying to refresh my recollection of family members and events. Some of the descriptions were so funny I would swear she made them up, especially the ones where blame might attach to me.

I’ve told you about George and Trail’s End BMW in Fairbanks. The folks at Ride West BMW in Seattle also get a mention for digging through all of the dirt on the bike to perform maintenance and change tires in one day so I could get back on the road to Columbia. The bike was a hero. It started first time every time and never missed a beat even when running at high altitude, covered with mud on low octane fuel.

Judy (JP) Joiner was an inspiration for becoming the first woman to complete the Iron Butt Association’s Ultimate Cross Country Ride. Given Judy’s accomplishment, it seems by extension that Judy and her husband, Ralph, also became the first couple to complete the ride. They shared their experiences with me and boosted my confidence before I headed up the Haul Road.

My brother Jack and his wife, Sally, were gracious and welcoming even though my visit with them in Albuquerque was far too quick. Their daughter, Pat, has been bringing her laptop over to their house so they can keep up with the blog. Jack has always questioned the wisdom of straddling a gas tank and then exploding the contents in order propel a machine that can’t balance on its own.

I’ve mentioned Liz because of her work with the satellite tracker and the chocolate chip cookies, but my other children also are heroes for their constant support and encouragement. Todd’s many comments on the blog demonstrated his wit and great enthusiasm for the trip. I especially enjoyed his repartee with my sister. Edward and Sumner’s support and encouragement were continuing, but most noisily expressed at a send-off gathering and upon my return. Edward’s fiancée, Tracy Bonds, now has a father (Gary) and a future father-in-law who have ridden motorcycles to Alaska. Beyond the circumstances of this trip, all of my children deserve medals for having grown up with a father whose idea of a perfect vacation doesn’t include a week at the beach.

Carmen Maye, soon to be a college professor, but during the trip the person at Baker, Ravenel & Bender who handled the daily calls from my newspaper and broadcast clients. I am fairly confident that Carmen had decided to make a career change before I went on the trip, but fielding my calls may have cinched the decision. I also owe a nod of the helmet to my partners and associates and the firm staff each of whom did what needed to be done to keep my clients advised while I was out of phone range. Our very capable receptionist Deborah Nelson and her assistants are telling me they have a book in the works featuring callers’ reactions to being told that I was out of the office so I could ride a motorcycle from Key West to Prudhoe Bay. If my most able secretary, Teresa Todd, contributes her telephone conversations to the book, it will be lively.

Rich O’Dell, general manager, and Mike Garber, news director, of WLTX-TV arranged for a very helpful and oft-visited link to the satellite tracker on the station’s website. The station also included a nice piece by Will Frampton on the trip in newscast the night before I left. I have received some grief for not wearing a helmet in the video. Bad role model once again.

Bill Rogers and Rachel Edwards of the South Carolina Press Association were responsible for keeping the blog entries flowing. I’ve thanked them before, but I’ll thank them again because doing the blog has added to my enjoyment of the trip.

There is also an anonymous hero on the trip. After Anne got back from Alaska there was a postage due note in the mailbox. The postage was due on a large white envelope with no return address. It was addressed to me, but Anne opened it. Inside was my wallet. The credit cards, social security card, old lottery tickets and other wallet flotsam had been rearranged, but were all present and accounted for. No surprise, the cash was gone. Thanks for sending back the wallet.

And, if you’ve been following the trip on the blog or on the satellite, you too are a hero. Your interest was an inspiration, and I appreciated everyone who took the time to comment. Maybe we can do this again. The Southern California Motorcycle Association has a Four Corners trip, but I’m not admitting I know anything about it.

P.S. My memory failed in the road sign piece. One sign that was a great source of amusement was the sign on the Dalton Highway north of Cold Foot which read “Farthest North Spruce Tree .” Nature, demonstrating the same perverse sense of humor that the golf gods display, had placed just one more spruce tree about 50 yards farther north than the spruce marked by the sign.

A tale told in t-shirts

Corner to Corner team shirt. Art by Robert Ariail of The State.

Mile Marker 0 Key West

Coldfoot -- Farthest North Truck Stop

Prudhoe Bay -- The road stops here.

Lonliest Road -- U.S. Highway 50 in Nevada

Road Signs

The road sign I came to fear most was the one most prevalent in Alaska, “Loose gravel.”

Encountering loose gravel on a road when you are on a heavy, fully loaded touring bike, even an enduro-tourer like mine, presents a new set of challenges. Your bike can wiggle, slide or fall down. It can sometimes try to do all three at once.

“Loose gravel” signs are common in Alaska during the warm months because Alaskans say they have two seasons, “Winter” and “Road repair.” Hearing that got me to thinking that University of South Carolina fans have long had two seasons, too, “Football” and “Wait ‘til next year.” The past several months so many players got arrested we had to change the two seasons to “Pre-trial” and “Trial.”

Obviously I slid off point there. Must be some loose gravel somewhere in the thought process.

Out west road repair is accomplished by scraping up the old road and putting down a gravel base on which the asphalt surface is laid. Unless you are in Alaska, where the gravel remains the surface except in those areas where a bear grease sealer is sprayed on the mounds of gravel.

The Alaska highway department has other signs designed to elevate the heart rate of motorcyclists, “Pavement break” and its cousin “Pavement brake.” I saw both forms of the sign, sometimes in the same area. Under either spelling the message was the same: a road crew had dug up last year’s pavement and covered the opening with a mound of loose gravel.

Since I was early in the road repair season I never saw any method by which the gravel was either compacted or paved. So, when I saw either sign, I slowed down and tried to spot a path through the gravel that looked like it had been driven on at least once. And, if you happened to be on the gravel pile when a truck or RV came the other direction, you had to be prepared to ride blindly through the dust while being on the lookout for gravel being thrown in your direction. Alaska Highway aerobics.

There were several road signs that we are not ever going to see in South Carolina:
“Watch for snow plows coming in your direction in your lane”
“Flashing lights mean high winds and blowing snow—travel not advised”
“Avalanche zone”

The animal warning signs are specific, and on the trip I was warned to watch for moose, deer, elk, caribou, sheep, buffalo and free range cattle. I would have liked to have seen a musk ox, but I would have settled for a musk ox warning sign. I’d have taken a picture of that. You can bet that I would have stopped too to take a picture of a sign warning of those grasshoppers on Highway 50 in Nevada. What would you think if you saw a sign that said “Warning, grasshoppers next 7 miles?” Maybe they’re filming a Kung Fu movie?

The only bear warning sign I saw was the one on the inside of the door of the Prudhoe Bay Hotel. The sign wasn’t on the door when I went in, but as I was leaving after breakfast there was the sign, “Warning, bears in area.” I walked back to the Caribou Inn knowing that a bear was going to come charging out from behind some giant oilfield machine and convert motorcycle rider to bear just as the motorcycle rider had converted cereal, doughnuts and coffee to motorcycle rider.

In rural Canada there weren’t any billboards of the kind we see along our highways. When you got to a settlement or a town there would be a few hand-painted signs no bigger than four feet by eight feet letting you know there was a gas station, restaurant or beauty shop in town. Everybody must already know where the bar is because I don’t recall any signs advertising bars.

Many places had signs telling you what they were famous for. Every town wants to be famous for something.

In southern Alberta I saw a sign painted on a 48-inch diameter sawmill blade advising that this particular town had the highest ever recorded temperature in Canada. As I recall their high was lower than my customary golf score.

In Cold Foot there was a sign advising that during the construction of the oil pipeline the temperature had been nearly 50 below and the following summer had been over 100 giving the spot the greatest temperature range in the U.S. during any 12-month period. Using statistics someone might argue that Cold Foot is comfortable. My friend Joe Anderson says that a man with one foot in boiling water and the other foot in ice water takes little comfort in knowing he is statistically comfortable.

And, just like comfort is a relative concept, what constitutes a rough road is relative. The Dalton Highway is a very rough road, but I don’t think there are many signs warning of that. In the lower 48 states what you’ll be warned of as a rough road would be welcomed as an improvement in many parts of Alaska.

In the United States we are used to seeing signs frequently telling us how far the next town is, or the next town and the next big town as it is done on the Interstates. That doesn’t happen much in western Canada. I think they don’t want to discourage you because most of the time it is a long way to any other place.

Riding between Cold Foot and Prudhoe Bay there are two sets of mileage signs. One set gives you the distance on the road and the other gives you the mileage on the pipeline. Since the road and the pipeline start in different places, and since the pipeline sometimes wanders away from the road, the numbers don’t match.

Because of a promise I made to a trigonometry teacher during my last year of high school not to ever take another math course, a promise I kept thereafter, I was defeated in my continuing attempt to discern the relationship between the competing mileage signs so that I could predict what the variance would be at the next set of signs. I probably wouldn’t have wrestled with that problem had there been satellite radio reception up where I was.

My favorite road sign on the way north was the one I carried on the back of the bike to the Watson Lake signpost forest. Having a city limit sign perched on the back of the bike was always good for starting a conversation.

My favorite sign coming back was also a Columbia city limit sign.

Did I have any fun?

My good friends Polly and Mike Stout asked upon my return to Columbia, “Did you have any fun on your trip?”

Bill Clinton was widely abused for asking for a more precise definition of a word in a deposition he gave in the Paula Jones debacle, so I am somewhat reluctant to say that my answer depends on how you define fun.

In April 1988 I was getting ready to argue on behalf of the Catawba Indian Tribe in a land claim case before all of the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. I was walking around the big courtroom in Richmond, admiring the setting and anticipating the give and take of argument. I told my co-counsel Don Miller of the Native American Rights Fund that I thought I was going to have fun. Miller said, “If you think this is going to be fun, you’re nuts.”

So, recognizing that my definition of fun might differ from others, I can answer that yes, I did have fun.

Most of the fun in travel for me comes from the people I meet or the people I see doing things that make you take notice.

Riding a motorcycle from Key West to Prudhoe Bay takes endurance. But, the endurance requirement on a motorcycle pales in comparison to the endurance required to ride a bicycle any where. Riding a bicycle on the Alaska Highway or the Dalton Highway takes physical and emotional strength that is not commonly found.

I am in awe of people who get on a bicycle and set off to ride great distances. Lance Armstrong and the other Tour de France racers are amazing athletes, but while they race in what is probably the most taxing athletic event in the world, they do so with a vast support network. A safety net, if you prefer.

Bicycle riders on the Alaska or Dalton Highways, even if riding with a companion, are for the most part on their own.

I’ve previously mentioned Denny, the bicyclist from Switzerland, who I met at the Hot Spot just north of the Yukon River crossing. Denny was riding solo from Prudhoe Bay to Terra Del Fuego in South America. By coincidence I also met the van driver who ferried Denny from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay to start the journey. The driver had also dropped off a fellow in Prudhoe Bay who was walking to Mexico. I saw the walker on the road and in the bar at Cold Foot.

Denny, like several riders I saw, was pulling a trailer with his camping gear. Trailers were common with bicyclists, but not a universal convenience.

The strangest bicycles were the recumbent bikes where the rider is seated in a chair with the pedals in front of the rider rather than below as on an upright bike. My friend Emerson Smith in Columbia rides one of those strange creations because it is easier on his back. Having no experience on one of those things, I have doubts about how it would handle on a rough Alaskan or Canadian road.

As I was leaving Buckshot Betty’s in the Yukon Territory on my way north I met a bike rider I had passed several miles down the road. He was an old guy, about my age, and he was riding alone carrying all his gear on the bike rather than on a trailer.

Of course we had to chat. I wanted to know what it was like to ride a bike, and he wanted to know if there was anything good to eat at Betty’s place.

Turns out the rider had a Columbia connection. Jerry Cash Martin is from Mt. Airy, N.C. and a semi-retired state judge. I say semi-retired because Jerry’s card identifies him as an “Emergency Superior Court Judge.” Jerry told me that he presides over the trials of capital cases. No wonder he is riding a bike by himself to Alaska.

Jerry mentioned that he had a daughter who lived in Columbia. Caroline Bokesh is a law clerk for South Carolina Supreme Court Justice James Moore of Greenwood. Jerry called Caroline to tell her that he had met a lawyer from Columbia riding a motorcycle to Alaska. Caroline told her boss. Justice Moore had lunch with one of my partners, Cravens Ravenel, and recounted the encounter. Cravens was able to share the story on our firm’s e-mail in Paul Harvey fashion by saying that a retired judge from North Carolina who was bicycling to Alaska had met a Columbia lawyer heading north on a motorcycle outside a roadhouse in the Yukon Territory. Cravens said, “You know the rest of the story.”

The day I started up the Dalton Highway I spent a good part of the day waiting for a chance to get a new front tire at Trails End BMW in Fairbanks. The shop is a one man band owned by George Rahn. “George W” I am told, but didn’t confirm for fear of prejudicing my feelings about the man.

George, regarded by many as a true Alaska character, has been in Fairbanks since the 50’s, and his shop, an old-time motorcycle shop surrounded by old tires breeding mosquitoes, junked cars and old bikes, reminds me of what motorcycle shops used to look like. Places where you could catch up with other riders or tell tall tales with the owners and mechanics.

In my youth I never once saw a sign in a motorcycle shop that said insurance regulations prohibited persons other than employees in the shop. George didn’t have a sign either and performs his work asking customers to hold a wrench or assist in some other way. George also explains what he is doing in case you are forced to perform the same task unassisted.

George told me on the phone that he could take care of me in the afternoon. When I showed up at 11:30 a.m., I had to explain that I was early because I was an optimist. George got to me after lunch, but it was worth the wait.

Because I was early at George’s place I met the first woman to complete the Iron Butt Ultimate Cross Country ride. Ralph Joiner of the Atlanta area was getting new tires and getting his BMW serviced by George when I arrived. Chatting I learned that Ralph and his wife Judy had just the day before completed the ride I was on. Judy had become the first woman to complete the ride, and she did it on a Honda cruiser that in my view required a higher level of riding skill than the bike I was on. I got to meet Judy when Ralph and I caught up with her at their hostel and headed off for lunch together. Judy and Ralph have a website on their trip at www.2n2ak.com.

After lunch with Judy and Ralph I stopped for gas in hopes that at some time that day I would get a new front tire and be able to head to Cold Foot. At the gas station I met a very large young man on a bike about half the size of my bike. Larch was a Californian who had come to Alaska looking for work, but was discouraged about his prospects and contemplating riding his 650 c.c. Kawasaki back home.

Larch told me his friends all teased him about being such a big guy on such a relatively small bike. His description was circus bear on mini-bike. Quite accurate from what I saw.

If I ever do another trip accompanied by a blog I promise to do a better job of keeping track of the names of the folks I meet.

You can rest assured that had I been much younger and single I would not have left Dawson Creek without the name of the city gardener who took my photo at the start of the Alaska Highway.

I also wish I had written down the names of the two BMW riders I met in the campground at Dawson Creek, one of whom identified his partner as one of the founding members of the Iron Butt Association. I do have one name from Dawson Creek. Vern Brisbin of Software Emporium was helpful in getting me on-line so I could send reports of my progress to fill in the gaps since Saskatoon.

The wait staff at the “Farthest North Truck Stop” at Cold Foot were friendly, helpful and witty. If I were as good a journalist as Boswell had been for Dr. Johnson on their tour of the Scottish Highlands, I could have mentioned their names here.

In Dead Horse I had witness forms signed by Thomas Sumey and Rick Poquette of Kenai, Ak. who worked at the hotel and Ronald and Mary Jean Burgin who were in Dead Horse in their motor home, having traveled from their home in Marmera, N.J.

The desk clerk at the Best Western in Fairbanks had worked at a motel in Columbia before moving to Alaska to be near her sister. Thanks to her I was able to store all of the gear I didn’t plan to use on my way to Prudhoe so I could lighten the load on the bike in hopes of keeping it upright.

Down in Haines at the campground where I spent the night before catching the ferry south I met Jerry and Lori Priebe of Big Prairie, Ohio. Jerry and Lori have a business called Kuntry Kritters, and they participate in pioneer wagon train gatherings. They were in their van in Alaska.

Waiting in line for the ferry at Haines I met Harley rider and railroad union officer John Hahn of Illinois. John has sent a few comments to the blog site defending my reputation as a long distance rider to my skeptical son Todd.

John had ridden to Alaska to attend a union conference as was on his way back when we met. We shared a few drinks in the bar and saw each other a couple of times on the boat. John is the kind of guy you’d take a detour on a trip to catch up with.

Anne had told me that passengers on Alaska ferries often pitched tents on the deck rather than paying the extra cost for a stateroom. Anne wisely suggested that after the exertion of my trip I might be better off in a stateroom. She didn’t tell me I was too old to sleep in a tent on the deck, a courtesy I appreciate. John got to do that, and explained that everything went well until the wind picked up to the point he was anchoring the tent with deck chairs to keep it from blowing away when he wasn’t in it.

John and some of his friends made the Iron Butt 1000 miles in 24 hours ride between Chicago and New Orleans. The choice of route has a great railroad heritage, being the route of “The City of New Orleans” train memorialized in the Arlo Guthrie song of the same name. There must be something about an Iron Butt ride because as John explained, “It rained so hard we almost drowned.” I know the feeling.

I met many interesting people on the trip, but, no surprise here, my favorite people on the trip were my family members who I hit up for free room and board and chocolate chip cookies: Allen Cushman, brother-in-law (West Palm Beach, Fl.), Liz, John Mark and Jack Wiggers ,stepdaughter, son-in-law and grandson (Atlanta), Mary and Ken Owns, sister and brother-in-law and two of their children, Michelle and Chris and grandson Kyle (Seattle) and Jack and Sally Bender, brother and sister-in-law (Albuquerque). I would have been able to add my twin, Ray, to the list (Austin, Tx.), but because I wasn’t as fast as I thought I would be, he had to go to Canada on business on the day I would have been in Austin. He didn’t have any trouble getting into Canada. My wife, Anne, joined the trip twice, first in Atlanta on day 2 with a new driver’s license, cash and credit card and then in Haines for the ferry ride.

Even without the people I met, I would still have been able to say I had fun. Riding from Haines Junction was fun. Highway 50 was fun. The ride to Four Corners was fun. The ferry ride was fun.

Having my wallet stolen wasn’t fun. The rain wasn’t fun.

The Dalton Highway falls into the fun category because I didn’t get hit by lightening or a truck, didn’t fall down, and didn’t get eaten by a bear. Obviously I have a very low fun threshold.

Birmingham is still dangerous

During the struggle for civil rights Birmingham was a particularly dangerous place for people of color and civil rights workers of any color.

“Bombingham” was an earned label.

Birmingham is still a dangerous place, but for different reasons.

In 17 days of riding and more than 12,000 miles I had avoided a collision with a Dall Sheep, stayed upright on bear-greased Alaska roads, negotiated steep and tight mountain roads in thunderstorms and battled strong winds in several states. I didn’t have any close encounters with other vehicles.

Then I got to Birmingham.

I started the day on the west side of Memphis on I-40. Skirted to the south of Memphis and headed down the road to Elvis’ hometown of Tupelo. The road I rode will soon be an Interstate, and is a much easier trip than the young, slim Elvis took on his way up to the home of Sun Records to take the first steps toward becoming The King. From Tupelo I rolled past towns and rivers bearing names that sounded of the native tribes that had been in the area at the time of the European invasion. There were lots of signs for tribal casinos in business to win back some of what had been taken.

I was in Birmingham because I-40, bending to political necessity, takes a big detour north at Memphis so that the Tennessee state capital, Music City USA, is included in the Interstate Highway System. And, even if you don’t mind the northward swing, you still have to drive through Knoxville where the highway department is trying to complete I-40 in time for the World’s Fair that was held decades ago.

Even if you get through all of that, your reward is that you get to ride on I-40 through North Carolina. If you’re on I-40 west of Asheville, you can count on being stopped for accidents, weather, construction or no apparent reason until you get to I-26 to head home. I opted to swing down to I-20 at Birmingham.

Lots of reasons for the swap. Better road. And, the prospect that there might be some chocolate chip cookies in Atlanta. The Wiggers’ home in Atlanta had been my first stop going north, and symmetry suggested it should be the last stop on the way home. And, there might be chocolate chip cookies.

Then there was Birmingham.

On three different roads, at three different times with three different cars and drivers I almost got hit. The only commonalities I noticed were that each driver was on a cell phone, and each car had paper tags. Is there any meaning to this? Yes, car dealers in Birmingham shouldn’t sell cars to people who admit to owning cell phones.

I dodged the cars, enlarged the vocabularies of the drivers and survived Birmingham. Give me chip seal, loose gravel, steel grate bridges and assorted wild animals any day. You can have Birmingham.

Once I got through Birmingham I knew I was home. Really, one day otherwise sane people will drive from South Carolina to Birmingham for a football game if Carolina gets to be a big enough draw that Alabama will play the Gamecocks in Birmingham rather than Tuscaloosa.

Birmingham to Atlanta would have been entirely uneventful except that the rest rooms in the Georgia welcome center were closed for renovations and the pay phone kept taking my money without completing my call to the Wiggers to tell them I was closing in on Atlanta.

The bathroom problem was solved because west Georgia rest areas still have trees.

The phone problem was solved because the kind state employee behind the counter of the welcome center let me use her cell phone to call. I could have used the satellite phone, but that seemed like overkill.

With high spirits I headed to Atlanta, confident that I knew how to get to Buckhead without going all the way into town to get on I-75. I got off I-20 on Fulton Industrial Blvd., made a couple of correct turns, and then got significantly lost. Finally I got to high ground so I could see downtown Atlanta, figured out what the GPS was showing me, and headed for Peachtree Road.

Would you believe that Liz, John Mark and Jack had been following me on the satellite tracker, and the chocolate chips were coming out of the oven as I pulled into the driveway. Technology is a wonderful thing when it works.

Cookies, milk, some hugs and a nap, and I, like Gen. Sherman in the Lewis Grizzard version of the Battle of Atlanta, headed east on I-20.

The road ahead of me was clear. The sky was even blue. Why was I getting hit by rain? Looking in my mirror I saw my own personal rain cloud was still with me. For a while it followed. Then it would dart ahead. We played raindrop tag until I got to Columbia. Imagine that?

As I rolled into the driveway I was met by Anne, Edward and his fiancee Tracy. I had been gone a little less than a month, but it felt much longer. Especially when I was sitting down.

It was June 28, and the banner on the door said, “Welcome Home Iron Butt.” I wish.
P.S. I’m glad to have had the chance to share my thoughts and experiences with you. I enjoyed the comments, especially the exchange between my son Todd and my sister Mary. I’m glad I may have been an inspiration to others to travel to Alaska. And, I’m going looking for the retired Army First Sargent in Texas. He can buy the first round. I’ll buy the others.

I don’t wish to wear out my welcome, but I have a few more entries I’d like to share: 1. Heroes of the trip (the folks who really made a difference), 2. People I met on the road, and 3. Signs, road and others, of interest.

P.P.S. I have been told by many folks that they have been excited about the trip or that they have felt like they were a part of the trip because of the blog and the satellite tracking, or that they were praying for my safe return. Thanks to each of you. I believe firmly that your energy, your thoughts and your prayers allowed me satisfy the oldest of motorcycle benedictions, to keep the rubber side down and the paint side up.

Route 66 Revisited

My twin, Ray, and our sister Mary were born in Hominy, Oklahoma. We lived in Cleveland, but Hominy in the 1940s was big enough to have a hospital. Cleveland wasn’t, so we were born in Hominy.

Like many Okies, our family moved west from Oklahoma on U.S. 66 through cities like Oklahoma City and Amarillo and towns like Erick and Santa Rosa. We didn’t go all the way to California like so many in the earlier dust bowl migration from Oklahoma. We stopped in Albuquerque where Ray and I lived until we went into the Army as teenagers.

Route 66 through Albuquerque was the main street, Central Ave.

Even though we had moved from Oklahoma we still had ties to the state. Our mother’s brother Aubrey lived in Erick, the second town on 66 east of Texas, and our parents had friends in Cleveland. As a consequence of these ties we regularly traveled Route 66 between New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Our father worked for Sandia Corp., a defense contractor, and one year he worked in southern California. We moved to California for part of the year, and we got there on Route 66. The year was 1952, and cars weren’t airconditioned. I remember canvas water bags affixed to the front of cars so that air cooled by evaporation would flow into the radiator. Even with the windows open it was hot in the car. Noisy too.

The Route 66 of my memory was a narrow, two lane road running east to Oklahoma and west to California. Sure there was a television show and a song, but those didn’t have any real connection to the reality of travel on 66 in my youth.

Going east we would get started early in the morning, and on most trips would stop in Santa Rosa, N.M. for breakfast. Usually we stopped at the Club Café, the signs for which featured a smiling fat man.

After Four Corners I stopped in Albuquerque to spend the night with my brother Jack and his wife Sally. We went out for an obligatory meal of chile rellenos and sopapillas. Mexican food in New Mexico is better than Mexican food any other place in the country.

Jack is an early riser, so he was up fixing pancakes for me by 5:00, and soon I was once more heading east from Albuquerque on the route that was once Route 66, but is now I-40. As with almost every other day on the trip, it was raining.

Albuquerque is west of the Sandia Mountains in the Rio Grande Valley. Heading east you go through Tijeras Canyon. When the road was Route 66 it could be a nerve-wracking journey with tight turns, mountain on one side and drop-off on the other. As I-40 the major concern is cross winds whipping through this mountain pass.

One of my sons, Todd, was especially interested in having me ride part of historic Route 66. I think that nostalgia for historic Route 66 is a characteristic of people who never spent much time on the road, but I will admit an affinity to Route 66. My racing number was 66 before I was so violently retired from racing.

When I got to Santa Rosa I exited I-40 on historic Route 66 to get gas, and in a nod to the past to find the Club Café. I found the sign with the fat man, but the restaurant was no longer the Club. I went in anyway, and learned that the sign was all that remained of our old haunt.

Eastbound again I was looking for the antelope we used to regularly see on our trips. I didn’t see any this time, and noticed that the high plains of eastern New Mexico seemed to have many more cedar trees than I remember. What in my memory was grassland was now dotted with cedars.

Just as I entered Texas the wind out of the south picked up steam. Had I been sailing I would have been on a broad reach, a favorable point of sail. On a motorcycle it was a pain. I was forced to lean the bike to the right to keep it on the road. Passing big rigs required some care because once you get in the wind shadow of the truck, you can’t be leaning right or you will run under the truck. When you get to the front of the truck you need to be ready for the blast of air coming around the truck as well as the wind from the side. It reminded me a lot of paddling out of a big eddy in a raft or kayak on a whitewater river. I suppose I could have stayed behind the trucks, but what fun is there in that?

There are two great automobile works of art in America. Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska is a replica of Stonehenge built out of automobiles. I dare you to look at Carhenge without smiling. You will probably laugh out loud.

West of Amarillo is Cadillac Ranch. I tried to take photographs for you, but in the rain I couldn’t get anything worth sharing. Oh, what is Cadillac Ranch? I don’t know whether the creator bears any animosity toward the brand, but he has buried about a dozen big Cadillac sedans nose down in the Texas Panhandle. You can tell the thing is a work of art because the cars are inserted at a uniform 30 degrees from vertical.

In the old days Route 66 through Oklahoma was surfaced with concrete with tar in expansion joints which were placed about a car length apart. My most vivid memory of Route 66 through Oklahoma is the rhythm of thump-thump, thump-thump as the tires hit the expansion joints. I suspect that my parents have a slightly different memory of the road: thump-thumps interspersed with calls of “Are we there yet?”

I was giving some thought to a detour to Cleveland to visit the graves of my parents and my older sister Alberta, but road construction in Oklahoma City caused me to miss the exit to head toward the northeast corner of Oklahoma, so I continued to fight the cross-wind and headed on toward Arkansas.

My atlas indicated that the distance from Albuquerque to Columbia was slightly in excess of 1600 miles. I had gotten an early start, and had made good time, so I decided to get as close to Memphis as I could before fatigue and darkness caught up with me.

I ended up about 75 miles west of Memphis. I stayed in a motel that was a classic example of travel lodging available before America became franchised and homogenized. There was a room with a bed and a TV. The towels were small and rough, and there was no designer shampoo. Best of all, it cost $33. Second best, it was between a gas station and a restaurant.

Had I been riding on Route 66, I probably would have still been in Oklahoma.

Four Corners

Territorial animals mark their territory.

Animals in the wild often mark their territory with urine or musk. Urban gangs resort to spray paint. My sister whose husband rides a Harley claims that when those bikes leak oil they are merely marking their territory.

Politicians and governments mark their territories with signs and lines on a map. And these imaginary lines have behavioral significance. An American citizen, for example, can drive a rental car from this country into Canada, but a Canadian citizen cannot except in an emergency.

You can get a drink in a bar in the North Star Borough in Alaska, but possession of alcohol is illegal in the North Slope Borough.

The Arctic Circle, while not a political boundary, has a meaning to travelers beyond its astronomical significance. Same with the Equator. Sailors make crossings of these lines the occasion for ceremony. In a way I did the same thing by stopping at the Arctic Circle to take my photograph in front of the sign marking the line. I neglected to stop at one of the businesses on the Dalton Highway north of the circle to get a certificate of my accomplishment. I’ve crossed the Equator, too, but don’t have a certificate.

On this trip I crossed boundaries for 25 states and four Canadian provinces. I’ve read Jack London stories, so crossing into the Yukon Territory was more exciting than crossing into Alberta or British Columbia. I told you about crossing into Saskatchewan.

My favorite boundary spot is Four Corners.

My friends Bill Rogers and Carmen Maye think the term four corners applies exclusively to a basketball formation used by the University of North Carolina under Dean Smith.

They think that because they think North Carolina basketball is important, and they have never been to that spot on the Navajo Nation where ordinary appearing white folks contort themselves into a variety of positions trying to put body parts in four states simultaneously.

For the opportunity to engage in this outdoor version of Twister each person has paid the Navajo Nation three dollars. I like that.

Four Corners is the only point in the United States where the boundaries of four states share a common intersection thereby making it possible to be in four states at one time. If it weren’t for cameras folks would probably walk up to the monument, take a look, say, “Kinda neat, huh?” and move on.

But with cameras each visitor’s multi-state presence must be noted. Sometimes to extremes of duration and contortion.

I waited in a growing line behind a family with about six children and several adults, each of whom had to be photographed individually in multiple poses by a stout woman armed with four cameras. The quickest kid to photograph was the sullen teenager who was too cool to put an extremity in each state. He drew a sarcastic cheer from the line.

The most creative pose was by a very limber young woman who started with her back to the camera, placed a foot in Colorado, another in New Mexico, did a back bend and placed a hand in Utah and Arizona while smiling upside down for the camera.

I was in line to photograph two objects I had carried with me on the trip. I thought having an object in four states at once would amuse their donors. My grandson Jack Wiggers (age 6) gave me a pet rock for luck, and except for the portion of the Dalton Highway where I was afraid it would vibrate off, it rode attached to the instrument panel by hook and loop closure devices (a/k/a Velcro). The second object was a pink and yellow flower knit for me by Cate Griffin (age 8), the daughter of one of my law partners.

After getting the photos I waited out a brief thunderstorm under the awning of a trailer selling tacos on Navajo fry bread. I stayed more or less dry and had a good lunch.

As I rode away I was amused by the notion that the Four Corners monument is where it is because it is close to a road than can bring tourists, their money and their cameras. In my imagination the real boundary common to four states is located several miles away down a sheepherder’s trail in a canyon known only to Navajos and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. That is no more fanciful than having one spot where you can be in four places at once is it?

Pet rock at Four Corners 

Flower in four states 

Ok, It's Lonely

U.S. Highway 50 in Nevada is billed as “The Loneliest Road in America.”

What a great PR gimmick. Take a negative comment by AAA reported in a 1980’s Life magazine article and make it a selling point. Chambers of commerce and others along the road started handing out “Highway 50 survival kits.”

Heading east between Reno and Fallon there is urban sprawl and heavy traffic. You get the notion that you’ve been sold a bill of goods. “Patience, grasshopper.”

Between Fallon in the west and the Utah border on the east, you think these guys might have been right.

It is lonely.

On a motorcycle it is fun.

If you’re ever looking for a road where you can ride a motorcycle 100 miles per hour, other than the one between Albuquerque and Santa Fe we used when I was a kid, Highway 50 might be the ticket. Understand I’m not encouraging you to ride a motorcycle that fast. But, if you ever wanted to.

The fast parts of the road are straight, flat, in good condition and empty. And, you can see 10 miles down the road. There are no trees, no berms, no billboards. Just wide open spaces.

If you get tired of going fast, this road is for you too. The road runs at right angles to about five mountain ranges. The passes over these ranges are higher than any mountain on the east coast.

The roads leading to and coming down from these passes have steep grades and hairpin turns and switchbacks.

If your mental image of a map of Nevada is like mine, there is a neon sign down at the bottom near the point for Las Vegas and everything is a brown, flat, out there wasteland.

That map is wrong. At least in years like this when there has been snow and rain. The valleys that run between the five mountain ranges are covered with green grasses and wild flowers. The vistas are magnificent whether you’re in the valley looking up at snow-capped peaks, or on the mountain looking down a valley that stretches to the horizon.

Make no mistake, there is a lot of out there out there. Why do you think all of those hotshot fighter pilots go out there for training and the Top Gun competition? If you are agoraphobic, let someone else drive while you nap.

There are also funky places to stop. Prostitution is legal in Nevada. The whorehouses even say they sell T-shirts. Anne and I stopped in one in Beatty some years ago to buy a T-shirt. They took our money, but never sent us the shirts. Those dirty whores.

I didn’t do any research on whether there were bordellos on Highway 50, but some of the places along the road looked to me like they had too many cars and RVs in front of them to be selling only gasoline and snacks. I had a similar thought about a place I passed on the Dalton Highway, but there are some questions that should be avoided lest the truth get in the way of a good story. Bill Fox told me that.

My favorite stop in Nevada was in Austin. The town is about 100 yards long, split by the highway. Everything on the north side of the road is uphill. Everything on the south side is downhill.

Part of the reason I liked Austin was because I stopped at the Toiyabe Cafe for a cup of coffee and a freshly-baked cinnamon roll. The restaurant had a supply of pamphlets from the local chamber of commerce which included the work of Jim Andersen describing what it was like to live in Austin. I don’t want to steal too much of Jim’s fine work, but here’s a sample. “Like an Easter egg hidden on a billiard table, Austin is hard not to find. All motorists traversing U.S. Highway 50 eventually funnel onto Main Street, Austin, whether they want to or not.” If you want more, you can write the Chamber of Commerce at Box 212, Austin, NV 89310 for a copy of “Lost in Austin.”

I also bought a T-shirt in Austin, but took immediate delivery.

When I got to Ely I was tired. I needed a nap. I found a park covered in thick, green grass next to a baseball field, rolled up my jacket for a pillow and took a power nap. A National Guard sergeant let me into the armory to use the rest room, and then I was on my way east into a thickening haze of smoke coming north on the wind from wildfires burning along the Utah border.

Then there was the most unusual road hazard of the trip so far. At first I thought I was seeing loose gravel on the road. Loose gravel on pavement is a significant problem for motorcycles, especially when turning.

This stuff didn’t look like the light colored rocks I was seeing along the route, so I thought it might be some decorative stone, perhaps volcanic, that was being hauled from the area. After seeing the stuff on the ground for many miles, and noticing that it didn’t behave like gravel when I rolled over it, I took a closer look.

The stuff was moving. I wasn’t seeing a truck load of gravel spread over miles of highway. I was seeing what looked to me to be grasshoppers. Grasshoppers by the millions spread out along Highway 50. Obviously not the loneliest road in America for bugs.

At the Toiyabe Café I learned that these creatures swarming across the road were related to grasshoppers, but were locally called “Mormon Crickets.” Once I heard cricket I recognized the aroma that had been in the area. The fresh scent of sagebrush and other desert plants had been overridden by the smell of a bait shop cricket box.

I had called these things a road hazard because if you squash a bunch of them with your tires, say in the middle of a turn, the coefficient of friction changes dramatically, and your bike slides. Your tires might be gripping the bugs, but the bugs aren’t gripping the road for you.

After Nevada I was planning to head more or less diagonally across lower Utah to pass through Capitol Reef National Park, the Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley, but a combination of nightfall and another violent thunderstorm resulted in a change of plans. I got on I-70 and headed almost due east. At Green River I called it a night.

And, it had been more of a night that I had sought. As I-70 descends from 11,000 foot mountains east of Salina there is a long, steep, twisting downhill stretch that would be fun to ride on a sport bike on a dry day. It was not nearly so much fun at night, in a thunderstorm on a fully loaded endurance tourer.

You would be reasonable to ask why I didn’t stop. There were no towns. The highway rest areas were all on the tops of mesas exposed to the lightening. My options were limited to facing the lightening on an exposed mesa or trying to slowly ride down the mountain. I chose the latter.

If you haven’t ridden a motorcycle you may not appreciate the quandary presented by riding a curving road at night. To turn a motorcycle you lean in the direction of the turn, you don’t turn the handlebar. The tighter the turn, the steeper your angle of lean needs to be. If you go too slowly, you fall over. While you are leaning over to take the turn, your lights are pointing straight ahead. Add rain and passing vehicles to this mix and your heart rate goes up while your grip tightens.

As I was negotiating this challenge a car pulled up close behind me with its high beams on. The car stayed with me all the way down the mountain without dimming its lights. In a car I might have been annoyed. On the bike I was most appreciative because the extra light made the ride easier. When we got down on the flats and the car passed me I understood why I had been followed. The car was towing a motorcycle trailer, and the driver of the car was providing anonymous assistance to a fellow rider. Thanks.

Back Road to Reno

In the eyes of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department the seat of power in the digital world resides in Redmond, Washington, the home of Microsoft.

On the Microsoft “campus” hoards of digital futurists are busy at work designing software to make obsolete all of the software you bought this morning. Given the widely publicized contraction in the dot com world, you would think there would be a surplus of wizards working in Redmond.

That was my hope to recover all of the wonderful blog entries and photographs stored on my Treo cellphone.

Remember, as I reported earlier, the phone ended up under four inches of water in my tankbag when I was forced to take cover from a thunderous sleet and rain storm at Atigun Pass on the Dalton Highway. I was encouraged when I was able to get some signs of life from the phone while visiting my sister Mary and her husband Ken Owens in Redmond. Surely I could get the data recovered in Redmond if any place in the country.

Unfortunately, the Verizon office in Redmond didn’t have any digital wizards. The service department did tell me that it could sell me an upgrade for my Treo or another phone at retail cost, but couldn’t make my phone work. I wondered what good the upgrade would have been when the phone wasn’t working.

I didn’t want to lose the phone, but of more immediate concern was the stored data. The Redmond Verizon technician said he couldn’t help with data recovery because west coast Verizon technicians “aren’t allowed to open these east coast phones.” Who knew? Who believed?

I’ve been told Cingular has a much broader cell and data coverage area. Had I been able to connect with the Verizon network at the times I had text and photos to send, I wouldn’t have been carrying stored data with me. Obviously that guy in the Verizon television commercials who is walking around asking, “Can you hear me now?” hasn’t been near my route.

I’ve just been told by a Verizon technical support person that the phone did “a hard reset on its own,” so my data is lost. But, enough about my former cellphone carrier.

As the title to this piece indicates, our destination is Reno. I was headed to Reno to catch U.S. Higway 50 which is billed as the “Loneliest Highway in America.” A claim like that had to be investigated. That claim is at least as solid as my claim that I was going to Reno to catch Highway 50 and not because of the gambling and drinking that are available in Reno.

After a tasty breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with Mary and Ken, niece Michelle and her son Kyle at a restaurant where my nephew Chris is the chef, I was southbound on I-5.

There are no doubt a lot of interesting sights to see and places to visit in Washington and Oregon, but since I was anxious to prove my oft-stated contention that Seattle is only half way to Alaska, my goal was to ride from Seattle to Columbia in five days. Since I missed my goal of riding from Key West to Prudhoe Bay in 10 days by ten percent, I could have justified another one-half day for sightseeing and still proven my point. But, amortizing that one-half day over the 12 states I would be passing through on my way home, I would have had just an hour per state. What are you going to see in an hour anyway? Five days it was to be.

That pace meant that the only sights to be seen were the ones that could be seen from the seat of a motorcycle between showers while contending with I-95 style bumper-to-bumper 18-wheelers and RVs.

There were some very impressive snow-capped mountains on the route. All of them are volcanoes.

You may have heard of Mt. St. Helens. You couldn’t see that one because of the clouds, but the route to it was clearly marked along with signs suggesting that one get local reports on volcano conditions before setting out for the place. “The forecast for Mt. St. Helens today intermittent clouds of sulphur, variable ash and occasional showers of hot rocks.”

The most impressive mountain on the route is Mt. Ranier just southeast of Tacoma. At 14,410 feet you will notice Ranier when you see it. Some people in Seattle swear they have lived there their whole lives without seeing that mountain because of the clouds. Even though I was in spotty showers during the day, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of that imposing lump. Back in 1992 my friend Glenn Tucker and I climbed Ranier. When we got to the top a woman pulled out her cellphone to call her mother. We asked, “Who would carry one of those things?”

Another impressive mountain is the one you’ve probably seen on the Shasta cola cans and bottles over the years. It is big, tall (more than 14,000 feet) has lots of snow and is just off the back road to Reno. You can’t miss it. Nice looking mountain. If we had one of those in South Carolina it would take up a big chunk of real estate. If you put it in Florence, you could probably ski to Myrtle Beach.

Most of the back road to Reno is through National Forest land with the Lassen Volcanic National Park thrown in for good measure. The road always seems to be running between a rock and a hard place. Signs warn of free-range cattle on the roads. Not the sign you would expect to see in a National Forest.

I had been spoiled by riding around in Canada and Alaska because it doesn’t get dark. Down in California it got dark. Late, but it got dark.

I have enough lights on the bike to guide a 747 in for a landing, but I haven’t been able to get them aimed well enough to allow me to ride comfortably in poor light through areas where there are deer, elk, caribou and free-range cattle. After catching sight of my third or fourth deer standing in trees at the side of the road I decided to call it a night even though I was about 80 miles short of Reno. Besides, if I stayed in California I wouldn’t have to ask myself if I wanted to go down to a casino to try my luck.

I stopped at Susanville in honor of my good friend and neighbor Susan Crewe. Susan is from California, and as far as I know not from Susanville, but the coincidence was sufficient to justify stopping for the night. Had I thought they were taking bets on rain in Reno I’d have been there.

In response to my question about what people in Susanville did for a living the motel desk clerk replied, “They work at the prison.” I was expecting to hear logging, hunting guide, mountain climbing guide, snowmobile mechanic or miner. I hadn’t expected prison guard.

All sorts of surprises on the back road to Reno.