After a weekend of slack inactivity and frenzied packing, I strap everything to the bike and head for Columbus to visit my sister and brother in law, leaving around 3:00pm in order to miss Columbus rush hour traffic. But I misjudge just how early Pgh's rush hour traffic starts and get to spend a lovely half hour looking at downtown from 376. The ride is the standard trip to Columbus (albeit with ever more development around the Cabela's building in WV). Lots of road work; this will prove to be a theme for the trip. (Another theme: taking pictures, for once, instead of just carrying the camera around.)
I get into Columbus around 7pm, stash the bike in a neighbor's garage (with a door and a lock) so that it'll still be there the next day (my sister doesn't live in the best neighborhood), and am whisked off to a dinner party where I get to hang out with German exchange students and some of my sister's cool friends, feed some of the local Ohio mosquitos, drink some lovely beers, and become thoroughly amazed by my brother in law's ability to open a bottle with many objects that are not a bottle opener. The party breaks up around midnight; White Castle is suggested and approved.
We all go to sleep before the WC repercussions start. Success.Tuesday, July 27:
Mornings in my sister's house are very civilized. The sibs (and sib-in-law) have to split for work early, so they explain how to get out of the house without making the alarm call the cops and split. I fetch the bike from the neighbor's garage, take a few pictures of the bike, and start loading my stuff onto the bike and putting on my riding gear. (The stuff: two aluminum side cases, one bag of stuff that goes in the top box, one big blue bag of tent parts and sleeping gear. The riding gear: leather pants, leather boots, mesh jacket (because it's too damn hot for anything else), helmet, gloves. The process, refined by lots of trips and a desire to not start sweating sooner/more than necessary: put the hard bags on the bike, bungee the big blue bag down to the back of the motorcycle seat, then change into the pants and boots. Chuck the normal clothes I was just wearing into the bag for the top box, chuck the bag into the top box, put on jacket and helmet and gloves, go.) I'm about halfway done when there's a godawful noise down the street and and around the corner, and a seriously wounded SUV slowly turns the corner and noses into the curb.
My first very brave response is to go hide in my sister's house. (In my defense: people get shot in this neighborhood, and I have a lot of vacation time lined up that I'd rather not spent in a hospital.) After a few minutes of cowering I decide that's stupid, and finish packing and prepping to leave. The driver of the SUV slowly gets out and saunters down the street and around the corner. About that time my brother in law gets home, and I find out that the godawful noise came from the SUV ripping a wheel off on a telephone pole around the corner. We marvel. The cops show up, and, since I already have my jacket and helmet on and am already drenched in sweat, I decide that it's time to go. Good times.I'm meeting Bubba in Normal, IL (which is apparently basically the same place as Bloomington, IL, but which has a much better name), so I opt for interstates. This is fine until 20 miles outside the Indianapolis beltway, when traffic comes to a full stop. Out of all the states doing road work (and they all were), Indiana was by far the worst in terms of organization and signage, and there's nothing like hours of sitting motionless on a highway in 90+ degree heat and crazy high humidity (and direct sun) to make a body feel extra charitable to idiots being idiotic.
After an hour the sun has moved enough that I can hide in the shadow of an eighteen wheeler. After another hour we've finally covered those 20 miles to find: nothing. No construction work being done, no accident, nothing but some guys carting some barrels around and a bunch of signs first warning traffic that one lane will close, then closing the other lane. What the hell, Indiana DOT? What the hell?I'm meeting Bubba at a motel on the north side of Bloomington/Normal, but my interstate is on the south side of town so I opt for a trip north on the main street through town (named Main Street, naturally), the first sightseeing I've really done so far. The hotel is kind of a dump (a theme for most Motel 6 locations, it seems), but the desk attendant is friendly and helpful (another theme for most Motel 6s, thankfully), and Bubba shows up about 45 minutes after I do.
We add all his stuff to my pile of stuff in the room, then realize that the AC isn't doing anything and the room has become swamplike. The helpful desk attendant moves us into a room two doors away where the AC is doing a properly frigid job. All is good. He also recommends a local Italian place that delivers, so we carb up and pass out.Wednesday, July 28:
We're supposed to meet up with some folks in Hot Springs, SD on Friday, which means we have three days to cover a distance that normally only takes two. We still opt for interstates (I'm not sure Illinois has any interesting roads, and I can look at corn at 80mph, thanks), especially since the Weather Channel is calling for doom.
Accordingly, we head into one ominous dark chunk of road, stop under a convenient overpass to throw on rain gear, and get stormed on for about three minutes before the sun comes out and we stop again after ten minutes to take off the rain gear because the skies are clear blue and we're about to sweat to death. We end up in Council Bluffs, opting to stay in Iowa instead of continuing on to Omaha because Iowa says gays can get married and Nebraska doesn't, an act of protest that affects basically nobody. Another Motel 6, similarly dumpy but friendly, but with a Mexican restaurant and a Perkins right next door for our margarita and pancake pleasure.Thursday, July 29:
We have all day to cross Nebraska, so we finally opt for non-interstates, deciding to take Rt. 92 to Rt. 2, which basically goes diagonally NW across the state, to something that heads north and puts us Chadron for the evening. It's a pretty ride: still mostly straight roads, but more interesting hills and a wider variety of scenery than from the interstate. At about the point where 92 meets up with 2 (at Ansley), I come around a corner heading onto a little humpback bridge over a creek, have time to think “hey, that's a lot of tar” and then the bike's handlebars are slapping back and forth; I have enough time to realize I can't save it and then the front end tucks underneath the rest of the bike and I'm off and tumbling. Once everything stops moving and I catch my breath, I try moving, figure nothing's broken, roll over and stand up, slowly. The bike's upside down a handful of yards away dribbling fluids, and I go turn it off, hobble off the road and start taking off my gloves and helmet. By this time someone's stopped, parking his big white pickup truck so that he's blocking traffic for me and the bike. A few minutes later someone else stops, and Bubba (who was leading) has realized I wasn't behind him and come back. We all hoist the bike upright and wheel it off the road; the second guy who stopped turns out to be an EMT so he starts checking me over. I'm shook up and bruised, with a few patches of road rash, but the safety gear did what it was supposed to so there's no serious damage. The bike has some crunched parts (and one of the aluminum side cases has been torn off), but the engine seems to be okay and nothing's leaking now that it's upright, so after I've had a bit of time to settle down we start it up and try to ride it off the bridge and over to the parking lot of a gas station that's about 100 yards away. It starts up fine, but when I put it in gear and let out the clutch there's no forward motion and some metal-on-metal sounds so I quickly stop doing that. We push the bike over to the parking lot instead.
Inside the convenience store (where there's AC and seating) the two locals find a phone book and point out the closest motorcycle shop (about 40 miles away). I call; they say they could send a trailer but maybe not right away. It occurs to me that maybe the crash just knocked the bike's drive chain off the rear wheel; one of the locals grabs a friend of his who happens to have a garage right next to the convenience store and they take a look: yep, chain's off. They get the chain back on and I ride the bike into the guy's garage so he can take a better look at the bike. (It turns out that the guy used to wrench on his brother's motocross bikes when his brother was racing.) He gets the rear wheel aligned, makes sure that nothing's leaking and the oil's still where it should be, gives me some duct tape so I can try to hold the windshield together, helps me stick the torn-off side case back on. The EMT guy checks me one more time for any concussion symptoms, then heads out. (The first guy had to leave after we got the bike to the garage.) I wouldn't mind stopping for the day, but there's absolutely nowhere to stay in Ansley, or anywhere within 80-odd miles. I can't think of anything else to do for me or the bike, so I'm ready to leave. Bubba has the presence of mind to ask the garage guy what we owe him (he says $20; I give him $40); neither of us got any sort of contact info for the two guys who stopped. If you happen to know someone named (maybe) Chesley who's an EMT in or around Ansley, NE, please tell him thank you for me, and ask him to thank his buddy for me too.
It's about 7:00pm by the time we go through Thedford, NE. The folks in Ansley had said it was a big town, but it's a blink and miss it. But there's a (kind of fancy) hotel on the east side of town, it's easily 100 miles to Alliance (the next town likely to have any sort of hotel), and stopping sounds like a good idea. So we turn around and head back to the hotel, where we are the biggest spectacle to walk through the lobby. But they have luggage carts (yay for one-trip unloading) and there's a restaurant next door. The restaurant is out of nearly everything, and the waitress seems to be scared of us (based on how she scurries away), but it beats eating out of a vending machine. The shower in the room is the nicest we've had so far, which is good because I get to spend a fair bit of time scrubbing on road rash.
Friday, July 3o:
I wake up sore. We head west on Rt. 2, which continues to be a very lovely road, wait for some road work (yep, NE's doing it too), and then head north on Rt. 27 (I think), which turns out to be even prettier. It's also heavily populated with locusts (now slightly less than before), and we're both thorougly spattered by the time we get to Gordon (maybe) for gas and a turn west onto Rt. 20. Then it's 385 north into South Dakota and Hot Springs (brilliant move by the SD DOT: converting a multiple-mile chunk of 385 to gravel right before 400,000 people on motorcycles show up; funny!), and a couple passes through town before we can find the hotel, where we meet up with the other guys staying at the hotel.
We wander off to find food, and a few more guys show up before we all retire for the night after an evening of mature and well-behaved entertainment during which I somehow ended up giving Tom a mohawk.Saturday, July 31:
If you have a roomful of people with two real beds and one sofa bed, the guy who just crashed and who isn't on Ambien (unlike just about everyone else) probably shouldn't be the one on the sofa bed. Just saying. Not much sleeping that night.
We eventually get loaded up and head out for Deadwood.
SD is as gorgeous as ever, although I have a cold so I don't get the typical piney smack to the head once we get into the pine forests. Near Deadwood, we pass an upside-down quad on the trail in the ditch down beside the road; Joe and I have similar “wait, that's not right” reactions and break off from the group to go back and check what's up. There's a younger kid underneath the quad; he gets out from under it, but is holding his arm and shoulder. There's also a few-days-dead coyote on the trail; the kid says he tried to swerve around it, went up the hill next to the trail, and rolled over. By this time the kid's group has come back looking for him, so Joe and I head off to the campground. A handful of folks are there already, and it fills up pretty quickly over the next couple days.
Sunday/Monday, August whatever:
Some sitting around, some group rides (which I skip), some short rides on my own. I realize that my plans for continuing to explore the dirt roads around Deadwood aren't going to happen because I'm now too skittish to be riding on dirt. Lots of hanging out and chatting, which is basically the whole point of the trip anyway.
More badness: Mark hits a hidden hole riding across the grass, dumps his bike, and lands badly. He heads off to the VA hospital in Rapid City and comes back in a soft cast: broken foot.
Tuesday:
Alistair (who drove his truck from Vancouver, BC) has rented a bike for a few days, and he asks me if I could help him pick it up in Sturgis. We hop in his truck and head out, only to be greeting by a seriously ominous set of clouds. We're barely ten miles down the road before it starts pouring rain, then tiny hail, then really big hail.
Visibility is down to nothing at this point so we hide in a parking lot and hope that the windshield doesn't break. It stops after about ten minutes and we decide to continue on towards Sturgis. We're only a few miles farther down the road when the rest of the storm comes through, heavier than before. We take refuge in a hotel parking lot and use the hotel's wireless network while the truck gets pounded again. When it finally stops, we only go a few more miles into Deadwood before Alistair decides that there's no way he wants to deal with riding a motorcycle back through all the ice and water, so we turn around and head back to camp.Camp is thorougly wrecked.
Tents are down, awnings are sideways and twisted, there's hail everywhere, and it's freezing cold. The hail has torn a few dozen large holes in my tent's rain fly and there's a sizeable lake inside, and a bunch of other people are in the same boat. It starts raining again, so we grab everything out of the flooded tents and pile it up in one of the cabins. Once it stops raining, everyone starts lining up for the campground's washers and dryers. It's still freezing (since there are big heaps of ice all over the place), and ridiculously foggy.
Wednesday:
The sun's out, the sky's clear, and we make a second attempt to pick up Alistair's bike. After an extended go-round with Alistair's credit card company and some hotel that filled up his card by charging him six times for one night's stay, he's finally on the bike. The group is meeting at the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis; the place apparently has their own reality television show and the group might end up in it. I'm in Alistair's truck, so I end up parking way off across the fields and get inside just in time to miss yet another group shot (just like every single other year). The place is very much pushing the whole “biker” image, which I don't fit, along with food that I can't eat and booze that I don't want, so I'm feeling exceptionally out of place. After a couple snitty comments I decide that I don't need to be there any more and head back to camp, feeling more than a little excluded. I make some lunch and start piecing back together my tattered jacket (it's basically shot, but I do need to ride home in it), and by the time everyone gets back I'm feeling better.
Thursday:
I'm starting to think about leaving. Most of the group heads out for a big group ride; I'm not a fan, so I spend a few hours on some of my favorite roads in the area (like Nemo Road and Vanocker Canyon Road), then finish up the triage on my jacket, pick up my leather pants from a local leather shop (who were repairing a seam on the seat that had been ground open), and spend some more time taping the bike's windshield back together. My intial plans for leaving Friday get derailed by Bubba declaring that he wants to head back east too, but not until Sunday.
Friday:
People have started trickling out of camp, so the goodbyes have started. Bubba is now not heading back east on Sunday, instead going to a friend's place in Taos. The invitation is extended to me as well, but heading farther away from home doesn't seem like a good idea, all things considered. In the afternoon, a small group of us head out to Pactola Lake—some locals have told us about a spot for jumping off cliffs into the lake, so we go check it out.
It's lovely (with nicely graduated cliff heights), and definitely a hangout: there's a guy playing guitar and a bunch of friendly locals, and we spend most of the afternoon there swimming and jumping off the rocks into the water. On the way home, one of the guys in our group doesn't make it around a curve in the road and rides into the ditch, rolling the bike over and breaking his wrist. One of our group goes to get help (no cell service for most of the area), and we meet some very helpful EMTs from the area. Someone else goes to fetch people and a trailer from camp, and we haul the guy's bike out of the ditch and onto the trailer. On the way home it starts raining, then traffic is stopped due to an accident. I get the hint: I'm going home.Saturday:
As usual, I don't get packed up and on the road as early as I'd hoped, but traffic is moving pretty well on 90 East across SD (although the gas stops are chaos; lots of bikes heading west) and I manage to get to Sioux City by 7:00pm or so. (All interstates for the trip home; I've had plenty of excitement by this point.) I stop at my favorite Econolodge on the south side of town, but they're booked up. The Motel 6 on the other side of the highway is also booked. Head back north an exit: everything there's booked too. I curse my lack of foresight (and planning) and ask the nice woman at one hotel if she knows of any place with rooms. She says that the only place that has any rooms left is the Stoney Creek Inn, a few miles north. I ask for a phone book; she just dials them on the house phone and hands me the receiver. The person on the end of the line says they have a few rooms; I ask how much: $120. I take about half a second to consider my options (heading 100 miles south to Council Bluffs or sleeping on the side of the road) and pull out a credit card. After multiple times on hold and three different people I have a room and a confirmation number; I head for the Stoney Creek Inn. When I get there, I see a couple that was pulling into the booked-up Econolodge as I was pulling out. They were also directed here as a last resort, but I called and they just went to the hotel. By the time they got to the hotel, all the remaining rooms were gone.
As it turns out, we probably could've shared my room without ever coming into contact with each other (huge! two TVs!), but I didn't think of it until after they'd pulled out so I just had to rattle around the room myself.Sunday:
More interstates, more flat and corn. I'd hoped to make it to Indianapolis, but the bed at the Stoney Creek Inn was just too comfy. Instead I end up in Peoria, IL, at an Econolodge that I'd stayed at four years ago. It's even dumpier than I remembered, but the bed is flat, the shower works, and the decent Mexican restaurant next door has been joined by a Thai place that turns out to be quite good. I gorge myself on spring rolls and sack out.
Monday:
Indiana DOT once again proved their genius by completely closing the exit to Interstate 70 East from the beltway, instead routing traffic through a series of way too small surface streets. Bravo. By this point the bike is hesitating and running slightly rough on anything but heavy acceleration, so thankfully I don't run into any more delays, pulling into our driveway by 5:00pm. Done.
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