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Two Gentlemen Tour Scotland on Motorbikes – The Beginning
It’s cold.
The stinging numbness in my fingers stopped hours ago, a fact that would be alarming if my brain wasn’t also slowly freezing up. The BBC weatherwench got it exactly right when she forecast, “Dreadful cold for the next several days, with a frightful easterly wind in the northern parts of the UK. Edinburgh and north are the coldest they’ve ever been for this time of year. A miserable few days is ahead.” I doubted her at the time, but pulling into the rest area after riding two hundred miles, I knew she was right. Ride a motorcycle from London to Scotland and back in April? Who’s great idea was this anyway?
At least my rental, a Yamaha FJR 1300 offered reasonable protection from the wind, with a full fairing, a windshield, and I had all my cold weather gear. Abi, the poor bastard that always ends up roped into the greatest of my grand plans (or dumb ideas, depending on how you look at them) had it much worse than I did. His rented bike, a Suzuki SV 650 had no such comforts, not even a tiny windshield to help deflect the wind. And even worse, he’d managed to forget his bag with all his riding gear at home, forcing him to cope with these ‘dreadful’ cold temperatures using brand new, untested gear. As we slowed down to park, I could see his face in my mirror, and it wasn’t a happy one.
“Dude, seriously, fuck this,” my friend – the Punjabi Popsicle – said with a grimace. “Dude, I’m fucking COOLLLD. I can’t feel my fingers, the fucking wind is brutal, and for the last ten miles, I wasn’t even happy to be alive.” At least his arms weren’t folded over his chest, because when that happens, he’s all done. Past the point of no return. Game over.
Great. This is only the beginning. Day one. Our return flights are booked seven days from now. The bikes are paid for, and thanks to the crappy exchange rate, for what we paid to rent them, we could have almost bought the damn things. The rental policy? No refund. Period. We’re two hundred miles into what, if my wild guesses are close, will be about eighteen hundred miles touring some of the world’s best roads and scenery. But that would mean we’d have to survive the first day, and the prospects of that were looking grim at the moment.
“Let’s go inside, sit down, get a coffee, and warm up a bit. On the bright side, it has warmed up a little since we left London, don’t you think?” I tried to sound positive, though I was lying through my chattering teeth. The temperature hovered around 45 degrees, where it had sat for the past few days. Abi met my cheerleading with a scowl and a middle finger salute as we trudged into the rest area from some much needed warmth.
With a gigantic steaming mug of Costa coffee in hand, I tried to make sense of this idea, which sounded so reasonable when I had it several months ago. Twice a year, the WWE makes a trip ‘across the pond,’ this April’s trip took the show to London, providing us both with flights to the UK, conveniently near Raceway Rentals. All we had to do was work, then stay an extra week, rent motorcycles, figure out how to ride on the opposite side of the road more or less immediately, negotiate confusing roundabouts, relentless traffic and mysteriously named highways leading in misleading directions, follow a folded map in a tankbag while riding, and decide whether or not to trust a GPS with a devious sense of direction, and go enjoy Scotland.
Simple.
I was actually surprised pulling out of Raceway Rentals on my FJR that I didn’t turn directly into oncoming traffic. When planning this trip, my one real concern was riding on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. So far, I hadn’t been smashed into bits by one of those omnipresent red double-decker buses. Things were going just swell! Of course I had a little help. I made cheat notes in my helmet. I drew an arrow pointing to where the center of the road should be, and another where the side of the road should be.
This way I could hopefully line myself up at every intersection. It was scary, but it worked. When I wasn’t screaming like a little girl in terror at the traffic surprises, I was marveling that cold or not, I was at this moment actually riding a motorcycle in England! Those trees? English trees! That tunnel is a British tunnel! Those motorists trying to squash me? All from the United Kingdom! Brilliant!
I came back to reality and looked up from my coffee. Abi’s arms were folded. Uh-oh. It’s negotiation time.
“Let’s get a little further up, not all the way to Scotland or even Carslile, just another hundred miles or so, like say to Kendall, then we’ll stop for the night. Maybe tomorrow will be warmer.”
After booking into the world’s lamest Travelodge, conveniently located next to a petrol station and nothing much else, we took a cab into town. ‘Town’ consisted of an Indian restaurant and a pub. Everything else was locked up tight.
Indian food and I do not agree. I try to like it, and though I try, it doesn’t last very long in me. My record from ingestion to forceful ejection is ten minutes. Literally. But this meal wasn’t quite that bad, and at least Abi was happier than before. However, that night I was awakened by – sorry, but there is no way to put this delicately – myself puking. There I was, sound asleep, then the next thing I knew – BOOM! – I was awake, reverse engineering my papri chat and chicken tiki masala. Nobody was more surprised than me. Damn you, Indian food! Never again.
By morning, my stomach had quieted down, my fingers regained sensation, and we were ready to roll. The BBC weatherwench wasn’t much more encouraging than the day before, but a schedule is a schedule, and the best parts of the ride were still two days away, with miles of highway between us. The day is crisp and cold, but at least it’s clear. Rain would be the kiss of death for the trip. I lent Abi my winter riding gloves, since I thought it might make him happier, and if he’s happier, then I’ll be happier too. I’m just that kind of guy. Plus, the first time I wore those gloves, I found they’re too thick for me. I can’t ride while wearing them anyway.
Both our bikes were equipped with ridiculous theft alarms. Every time the bike is shut off, the alarm arms itself. Then if the motorcycle is moved or touched at all, for instance if you want to put gas in or remove luggage, the loud alarm goes off. Pure comedy at a petrol station. But the best part? After deactivating the alarm to take the luggage off, the alarm stays off until reset, which I never remember to do. So, my useless alarm didn’t protect my bike at all, unless we stopped for gas.
Just before the Scotland border, we pulled off the main highway. I was slowly getting used to riding in Opposite World, but it was still a challenge. Abi had no problem with it. With my helmet cheat notes, intersections got a little easier, but the roundabouts were still tricky, because once in the Circle of Doom, traffic always attacked me from unexpected directions. Each roundabout successfully negotiated felt like a little victory.
And then, we saw it. The Sign. Welcome to Scotland! Hoooray! We quickly pulled off to get the obligatory picture.
Once that task was accomplished, I did something I’d been dreaming of doing for years. I claimed the Kingdom of Scotland for the Kingdom of Rhode Island by placing a Rhode Island state flag sticker on the welcome sign.
Now officially in Rhode Scotland, the road improves greatly, distracting us from the cold.
We wound our way through sheep pasture after sheep pasture, banking and weaving through some incredible eye candy. As we rolled through this idyllic paradise, the clouds begin to roll in, the already low temps dropped, and my fingers lost feeling again. This is FUN! On the way to Edinburgh (pronounced Edin-burrrrrrrrrhhhh!) we passed the Official Cloud Factory of the Scottish East Coast.
We ask them to shut the machine off for us, but it’s doubtful they will. They have work to do!
The Scottish have it pretty easy when it comes to finding accommodations. Just stop into the nearest Tourist Information center, tell them what you’re looking for, and for a wee fee they’ll find a place, call to make sure the price is acceptable, and book it for you. Our agent called a place in Edinburrrrrrr for us, saying, “I have two gentlemen on motorbikes that will arrive around six. Do you have secure parking for their motorbikes?” I love it! We found the place with the no more than the usual amount of U-turns, and were comfortably seated down at the pub prepared for some single malt thawing therapy.
Tomorrow, Edinburgh, up close and personal….
Final Ride (of the Year) – Part Two
Waking up to a bright but windy day, we set sail for the Conch Republic. I noticed that Biscayne National Park was close by, so we made a quick detour so I could collect one more National Parks Passport Stamp. Our route took us right past the Homestead Racetrack, holding the final round of the NASCAR Nextel Cup championship. We sped by row after row of motor homes sporting madly flapping flags of their favorite race car drivers.
I’m not exactly sure why, but seeing the NASCAR circus once again brought back a long forgotten memory. Maybe it was the smell of race fuel, or the sound, that wonderful roar of a racecar at full throttle. In a past life, about a hundred years ago I when was an eager, young, wet-behind-the-ears television production tadpole, my dream was to work on racing broadcasts. Through luck, lies and plain old stubbornness, I managed to finagle my way on to a NASCAR TV crew, in a position called field A2. My job was to run cable for miles through sewers to connect a series of microphones set up around the track, then spend the rest of the work week driving my golf cart back and forth from the TV truck to those microphones, trying to figure out why they didn’t work. Sounds worse than it was, in fact, it was one of the best times of my life. Someday I’ll have to write a blog about those good old days. Ahh… memories. Anyway, the specific memory triggered by the site of those huge flags anchored to the large land yachts involved Pocono International Raceway in Pennsylvania.
Typically, the TNN TV crew traveled to the track on Thursday to start setting up for Sunday’s big race. The hardcore tail gaiters in their gigantic land yachts usually arrived in force later that day. One particularly brilliant individual arrived extremely late, probably around one AM, and probably not extremely sober. Instead of doing the sensible thing and waiting until morning to erect his giant flagpole, the guy decided he had to pledge allegiance to Jeff Gordon’s 24 car before he blacked out from all the Coors Lights he drained on his drive to the track. So, he got out his pole, attached it to the back of his camper, and proudly hoisted the flag fifty feet in the air, directly into the high voltage lines overhead. Needless to say, Jeff Gordon lost a fan that day.
To celebrate the Ford 400 race at Homestead, the track we drove right past without stopping to work, I proudly flew a Dale Earnhardt flag for the rest of the day, making sure to keep it away from power lines.
It felt good to motor past the track. Biscayne National Park consists of a few islands accessible only by a boat that runs on Sundays. There is also snorkeling available, as well as a light house tour, also running on Sunday. I quickly stamped my book and we were on our way.
Route 1, the only road leading Key West is just like every other road in Florida, a mostly straight line. The Overseas Highway consists of a series of bridges linking the chain of islands together. It is listed as one of the top five scenic drives in the country, and has the added distinction of being one of the end (or beginning) points of Route 1.
It’s also pretty slow going, and while the lower half of the highway was quite scenic, we all found the ride to be dull, almost sleep inducing.
One of the two most interesting things to me on the road is the bridge where the famous chase scene from the movie True Lies was filmed. The original Seven Mile Bridge, damaged by a hurricane in 1935 sits unused next to the current bridge. The old, abandoned bridge became a perfect movie set for the climactic ‘escape from Key West scene in the movie. A very young looking Governor Ahhhnold Schwarzenegger swoops down in a helicopter and heroically saves Jamie Lee Curtis just moments before a fighter jet fires missiles at the limo she’s held captive in, destroying a section of the bridge. At least that’s how I remember the scene, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie. But the old bridge, with the center section still missing, is unmistakable.
Also unmistakable, just a few miles further on that same bridge, was a full-sized tree somehow magically growing from the sidewalk. It’s amazing because there is no dirt anywhere to be seen on the bridge, just ocean in all directions.
The only other thing on Route 1 that alleviated the road’s monotony, at least for a few minutes, is Perky’s bat tower. In 1912, Richter Perky, a developer with more money than sense, decided that Lower Sugarloaf Key would be a perfect place for an exclusive resort, except for the mosquito problem. He decided the best thing to do about the problem would to be to import bats to eat all the mosquitoes. Perky ordered a thousand bats from New Jersey and built a tower to house them in. The bats spent exactly one day in Percy’s tower, and never returned. Perky’s resort opened in 1939 and due to the unchecked mosquito infestation closed for good in 1940.
Shadows growing longer, we hit the road for the final seventeen mile slog to the end of the road.
Finally arriving on Key West, we asked at the front desk what was best to see. The Sunset celebration at Mallory Square was the unanimous answer. We quickly parked our bikes and rushed to the party. From 4:30 to sun set, Mallory Square was alive with a carnival-like atmosphere. Street performers and music, and something called a ‘Bladder Buster Beer’ which I can attest is an accurate name. We stood with a crowd and watched as the sun transformed from bright white to golden orange.
Behind me a guy was talking to his friend, saying, “It’s so great to see all these people out here, all gathered to watch an event that has happened millions and millions of times in this planet’s history. It’s so ordinary, the sun setting, yet look at all the people standing here to celebrate it.”
We all applauded as the last sliver of bright red sun sank beneath the horizon.
Then the guy said to his friend. “Wow. That was great. Now let’s go get drunk.”
Didn’t sound like such a bad idea to me either, so we made our way to a Duval Street landmark, the Hog’s Breath Saloon for another bladder buster.
Two guys were on the tiny stage playing all manner of stringed instruments. The guy on the right played mostly acoustic guitar, while the other guy alternated between an electric violin, a mandolin, and his own acoustic guitar. He was so talented I bet he could pick up a tennis racquet and hammer out a tune.
We sat at the bar and enjoyed the band while debating how to spend our evening in Key West. The guy sitting next to Fiona started chatting with her, and pretty soon he was acting as our unofficial Key West tour guide. “At ten, the Sauce Boss is playing at Margaritaville. He’s a chef by trade, and a great blues guitarist. Twice a year he plays down here, and I never miss it. During his show, he makes a huge pot of gumbo on stage, then at the end of the show, he passes it out to everybody.”
Gumbo and blues? That and a few more Bladder Busters sounded like the recipe for a perfect evening.
The Sauce Boss experience lived up to our expectations, mixing good cooking with great blues music. The guy was a complete maniac, playing his steel guitar in the audience, chasing women around, and of course cooking a huge pot of gumbo too.
The Sauce Boss wailed on the guitar.
He jammed on the washboard.
He hammered on the gumbo pot.
He and the drummer did a duet on the booze bottles behind the bar.
During one of his many dramatic guitar flourishes, the Sauce Boss borke his wireless microphone. Abi, who deals with exactly this type of problem weekly with the WWE, jumped up, figured out what went wrong, and saved the show.
The gumbo was excellent, the Sauce Boss was a complete madman and excellent showman. The night was highly entertaining. Best of all, no bladders were officially busted, though a few got a workout during the night. By the end of our night, the freaks of Key West were out in force, and we enjoyed their strangeness as we headed back to the hotel.
To quote Dr Seuss’ excellent book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, “Today is gone, today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. Every day from here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
Final Ride (of the Year) – Part One
With only one page remaining in the 2007 calendar, this year’s riding season is rapidly drawing to a close. Fiona, Abi and I figured we could squeeze one more ride in, by combining fun with work. The WWE Pay Per View ‘Survivor Series’ being held in Miami presented the perfect opportunity for the final ride of the year, even if Florida’s flat and straight roads are somewhat less than stellar for motorcycling.
On Wednesday, Abi and I flew from… err… flew from…. well, we flew from a WWE show someplace to Abi’s home in Orlando, where my beautiful blue Yamaha FJR 1300 has been patiently waiting for the next ride.
Since our cross country excursion, Abi has decided to join the twenty first century and install a GPS system on his BMW Rockster, affectionately known as Fireball. Most people would do this project a few weeks before a ride, to make sure that:
a) the ordered unit arrived in time
b) all the necessary parts were included in the shipment, and
c) the unit worked as advertised.
But of course, we don’t do things that way. It’s too easy. Abi placed an order on Monday for a Garmin Zumo GPS, and rushed shipment so it would be at the house on Wednesday morning. When we got there – big shock – there was no GPS. DHL had tried to deliver the package, but needed a signature before leaving it. While he was on the phone to the DHL offices trying to figure out where his package was, I realized something. Something bad, yet so typical for me, especially before a motorcycle ride.
My damn cell phone was still in the taxi that dropped us off.
Great.
I called my missing phone and the taxi driver answered with a thick Jamaican accent.
“Hallo mon! Yah, I got de phone right ‘ere. You wanna me delivah it back ‘choo, mon?”
“Yes, that would be great!”
While waiting for my Jamaican deliverymon, another deliveryman arrived. The bright yellow DHL van appeared at the top of the street. We cheered as he turned into the driveway.
“You guys were waiting for me? Aww gee,” said the driver, “People don’t usually applaud me like that. I hope I can find your package now!”
He did, and Abi immediately set out to mount his new toy, right in the middle of the street.
My taxi driving deliverymon returned soon after, and handed me the phone with a quizzical look on his face. “De phone rang, and I answered it, mon. Some creeezy lady was talkin‘ an’ laughin‘ to me. I tink it be you, mon, dat why I answer da ting. But no, it be a lady, an’ she be sayin‘ creeezy tings! Anyway, here be your phone back, mon.”
Crazy lady? It could only be one person. Sure enough, Fiona had called me to let me know she’d be landing in Miami on time that night. She thought Abi had answered my phone and was fooling around. She said she told the driver stuff like, “Oooh, I LOOOVE your accent, baby! Keep it going!”
It probably made his day.
Though the GPS install slowed us down, we were still determined to try and find some good roads to ride to meet Fiona in Miami. Florida’s roadways were definitely designed with blue haired old biddies in mind, which means lots and lots of straight and flat roads. Deal’s Gap, the most famous motorcycling road in the US bills itself as having ‘318 turns in 11 miles.’ Florida’s slogan could easily be: ‘11 turns in 318 miles.” It’s that flat.
Route 98 looked fairly promising, however, wrapping around the shoreline of Lake Okeechobee. Firing up our bikes for this final ride, we took the first of Florida’s eleven turns – out of Abi’s driveway.
It wasn’t long before that famous Florida liquid sunshine started to fall, making the straight roads slick and wet. Grimy spray covered our face shields as speeding trucks roared by in the opposite lane.
As the sun set, the rain stopped. As the rain stopped, the bugs woke up. As the bugs woke up they flew across the road, doing whatever it is that bugs do when they aren’t sleeping. As they flew across the road, my helmet slaughtered millions of them.
Yum.
The road around Lake Okeechobee probably would have been scenic, if my face shield wasn’t almost completely opaque from massacred insects and grime, and if there wasn’t a ten foot levee around the lake, completely blocking it from view. But on the bright side, the road had about five curves, and one of them was almost exciting. As darkness fell, we bailed for the interstate, and made it to Miami in the straightest line possible, which is easy in this state.
The Continental South Beach – Oceanfront hotel sounded great when we booked it. I had visions of a grand old-style hotel with chandeliers and a tuxedo clad doorman. Yeah right! The baseball hat clad doorman brusquely told us that motorcycles weren’t allowed to park in front of the hotel, for insurance reasons. Never mind the $70,000 Porsche 911 or the equally expensive Corvette Z06 parked in the lot, lopsided insurance rules absolutely forbid our much smaller and less expensive bikes from parking, no questions about it.
I went inside the Continental and tried to use the old ‘get-me-the-manager’ trick that worked so well in New Orleans, only to be met with a scratchy laugh from the gruff, cigarette smoking old hag at the front desk. “You want the managah? Hah!” she wheezed, “She’ll be heah tomorrah. Try back then, hun.” With a deep wheeze that sounded like a death rattle, she turned away from me. The Continental might have been a nice hotel in it’s heyday, but that heyday was most likely during the Great Depression, back when the phlegmy front desk clerk was forty or so.
We picked up Fiona at the Miami airport, making sure to stop at every crosswalk at the terminal. A sign warned that failure to yield to pedestrians would result in a fine of – get this – $115.50. Fiona still thought it was cool to be picked up by motorcycle at the airport, but nothing extraordinary happened this time. No sexy stranger ran out to take our picture this time, nobody tried to include us in their dinner plans, we just returned to South Beach to try and find parking for our bikes.
The first garage attendant told us that the city of Miami Beach didn’t allow motorcycle to park in garages. This made Abi mad, so he asked where the sign for this rule was. The guy said, “There is no sign, pal,” then switched to rapid fire Spanish until we left.
The second garage we found welcomed us with open arms, provided we paid them $30 a night to park there. We did.
The next day we turned once to get out of the parking garage, then it was a straight shot down Route 41 to our planned destination of the day, an airboat ride in the Everglades.
Gus, our friendly airboat captain, gave us the usual ‘this is my first time out here’ spiel, but with an added twist. “Please remember, alligators are wild animals and should be treated with respect. I forgot that rule once, and got my elbow shattered by an alligator tail.” He held up his crooked left arm as proof.
With that warning in mind, we were off to shoot some alligators (with the camera of course.)
It took about thirty seconds for Gus to locate our first alligator, sunning itself next to the airboat dock.
Gus was easily as excited as we were about the sighting. “It’s going to be a good day today, I can feel it! We’ve seen one, but there are a bunch more out there, so hang on!” Gus then slammed the throttle wide open on the small block Chevy 350 equipped airboat, and the world suddenly became a blur as the 400 HP engine roared to life.
Gus stopped a few times so we could take pictures, and to give his prepared lecture about the Everglades. When he finished with the speech, Gus pointed out a white flower in the water, saying, “See that white flower? It’s called a white pond lilly, which is a funny name, because it’s not a lilly at all. And now you know as much as I do about Everglades plant life.” He sat back down in the captain’s chair, fired up the boat and turned us around. The fan noise startled all kinds of birds hiding in the tall grass.
Gus took us to an alligator nest he knew of. He claimed the nest had three eggs in it last time he checked. The eggs were nowhere to be found, and Gus was ecstatic. “They hatched! Excellent! Look at that! Right there! A hatchling! Look at him! Thats amazing for November, but ever since the hurricane, the cycle has definitely been off.”
Sure enough, the angry mommy was nearby, and she was intently watching us. When we started drifting away from the nest, she swam in front of the boat just to let us know she was there. Leaving the angry alligator to tend to her new babies, we slowly motored away.
Gus, an expert, managed to find a few more alligators on our hour long trip.
We searched for the seven hundred pound thirteen foot long alligator called ‘The Monster” for the remainder of our trip. Unfortunately, The Monster was the only gator that eluded our relentless guide. However, we did find one more gator happily sunning itself as our airboat pulled back into the dock area. Gus was overjoyed at the amount of alligators we’d seen on our tour.
Rounding the final corner before we docked, Gus nearly jumped out of his skin. “Wooo! Look! Look! Right there!” Lying on the shore was the biggest alligator we’d seen all day. “The Monster! Look at it! Wow!”
Then a bit less enthusiastic, he continued, “Great. Now my boss is going to make me chase him off, and he’s mean.” I wasn’t completely sure, but I think Gus was talking about the Monster.
After our tour we stayed for the short informational alligator show, on the off chance that the ranger giving the lecture got eaten by an angry gator. Of course that didn’t happen. But as we walked back to the bikes, we almost witnessed a German tourist become the Monster’s next meal.
Gus must have conveniently forgotten to tell his boss about the Monster being on park property, because as we were leaving, we saw a woman posing for a picture not three feet away from the fourteen foot long wild alligator. I waited patiently, hoping to see the woman become gator food.
And it almost happened. The giant gator slowly stood and started lumbering toward the naive woman. That thing was HUGE! She saw it start moving ran screaming to her tour bus. This was the only picture I managed to snap of the beast before I also ran screaming to my bike.
The plan for the next two days included a visit to Key West, and the southernmost point in the Continental United States – and of course drinking as many of the southernmost beers as possible on Duval Street.
Cross Country 2.0 – Day 1
I hate flying. Just the thought of it fills me with dread. My current ‘favorite’ airline could easily change their slogan from ‘We love to fly and it shows’ to ‘We’re not happy until you’re not happy.’ Getting into a gigantic metal tube in one place, sitting for hours in a cramped and uncomfortable seat designed by evil monks to extract maximum torture, then getting out in a completely different place, all without having seen or experienced anything is more than enough to make anyone feel a little anxious, never mind the delays and all too typical lost luggage. For the second year in a row, my riding buddy Abi, my girlfriend Fiona and I decided to do something about it, by taking some time off to get on the highways and back roads and ride across the country.
On that part of the trip we rode through pouring rain and desert heat. I have to say she’s a hell of a trooper, because she never once complained, and the Hayabusa passenger seat is definitely complaint worthy. After that trip we decided that a more comfortable sport touring motorcycle would be a good idea. With a somewhat heavy heart, I traded my beloved Hayabusa in for a brand new Yamaha FJR 1300, which would soon become our weekend getaway machine. In the first year, Fiona and I put well over 10,000 fantastic and fun miles on that bike.
Besides being coworkers, Abi and I have been riding together since 2003. Our first long ride, a month after he got his motorcycle license, was from RI to South Boston, VA, with Abi riding his Honda Shadow, me on ‘Stormbringer,’ my Harley Heritage Softail. Two years later we decided we’d commute to work one week, from Rhode Island to Little Rock, Arkansas – a 3300 mile round trip. Abi’s current ride, a 2004 BMW 1150R Rockster, received its nickname ‘Fireball’ on that trip. Stuck in New York City’s never ending traffic, Abi suddenly swerved to the side of the highway. Not sure what happened, I pulled off too. Running back to him, I was sure I couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Did he just say fire?” Sure enough he did. Smoke was wafting up from someplace in the middle of his motorcycle. We managed to douse the small fire with our water bottles, and the rest of the trip was less eventful.
Since then, we’ve ridden over 20,000 miles together, to less ambitious places like Washington, DC, and more ambitious trips like Baja California and across the US, from RI to California last October. Upon finishing that epic ride, Abi moved to a brand new house in Orlando. His beloved Fireball stayed in California with Fiona and I for the past year. We gave him ample visitation rights.
Finally settled in Orlando, Abi wanted to reunite with Fireball, and Fiona and I wanted to take our new Yamaha for a long run, and the idea for our second cross country ride, from California to Orlando was born, the time frame – two weeks later – was decided on, and planning began. The planning stages of these trips fill me with a different kind of dread. Not to say that in the weeks before we leave I’m not excited, but the huge distances, time constraints and of course the ever present danger of journeying by motorcycle all weigh on me until sometimes I just want to cancel the trip. However, as soon as we suit up, saddle up and pull out of the driveway, all that pent-up dread instantly disappears, and I know we’re doing the right thing.
Now, on to the story!
Day 1
Covina, CA to Quartzsite, AZ – 228 Miles
Since Abi and I flew in from Chicago and Fiona had worked all the previous night, this day was really to get paced and prepared. Any miles put in would get us closer to our first goal of Sedona, Arizona, though technically we didn’t have to start until the next day. As excited as we were, there was no way we were going to just sit around. Our trip finally got underway around 3 PM, and we soon settled into the rhythm of the road. We watched in awe as a huge harvest moon rose over the highway. Hundreds of trailer trucks receded in the distance as we sped toward the Arizona border. About an hour after the moon rose we stopped for the night in a Super 8 motel in Quartzsite, AZ.
As near as I can figure, the town of Quartzsite exists for two reasons. Number one – to fuel trucks and feed truckers, and number two – to make people passing through glad they are from somewhere else.
Larry, the Super 8 night manager was an older guy with sad eyes, faded sailor tattoos on his arm and one lone tooth sticking out of his bottom lip. As we checked in, I wondered what turns Larry’s life had taken to lead him to manage a hotel in Quartzsite. Judging solely by appearances, it seemed Larry had led a rough life sometime in the past, but had turned his life around and was pretty happy about it now. A sign on the wall said the Super 8 was independently owned by the Wong family. As we were checking in, we could hear Mrs. Wong firing off volleys of rapid fire Chinese from somewhere in the back. Larry laughed at one particularly manic outburst. “I never can tell if she’s yelling me or happy or what.” Check in was again interrupted by a guest calling the front desk. Larry listened a moment, then replied, “No, sorry ma’am, this hotel doesn’t carry the Playboy channel.” He shrugged his shoulders and laughed again. “Sometimes this job is just nuts.”
Of the two restaurants in town, we chose American cuisine over Irish, mostly because Burger King™ was closer than McDonald’s™. We had a forgettable first night meal in a generic restaurant in a truck stop town, and swore off food chain conglomerates for the remainder of the trip.
Back at the Super 8, the three of us properly celebrated the start of our trip with a few Coronas in the parking lot. A younger kid carrying an open can of Keystone Light and wearing a black t-shirt with ‘Get Lucky’ printed across the front came over. He appeared a bit hyper, but it turned out he was just excited to have new people to talk to.
With a swig of Keystone Light, Rich started off, “When they told me about this job, my first question was what is there to do at night. They told me Quartzsite had Rock Shows. I was like, cool! Rock Shows! Are they like local bands or what? They looked at me all confused when I asked that. Bands? No dumbass, rocks, like quartz and shit. I knew it was gonna suck here after that.”
His job was with a construction company building sidewalks for the town. He and the sidewalk crew worked five days in Quartzsite, then went home for two. This pattern continued for six straight weeks, until the first half of the project was complete, then, mercifully they had a break. After their break, they’d come back to the sad little town and put sidewalks on the other side of the street. Earlier, we’d seen some of their work in front of Burger King™.
“The only thing we’ve found to do so far,” said Rich, “is some kind of English pub right in town, with a bartender that talked like – real Scottish and everything. That guy talked fast, he was like ‘Hlaarg Herr Glarg Blarggh?‘ I didn’t understand a damn thing that guy said all night. I never heard nobody talk like that except in movies.”
Right then a few of his construction buddies appeared. He asked them where they’d been. As they walked past us one of them said with a giggle, “We been out spelunkin’.” The Giggling Spelunker noticed we were drinking beer in the parking lot and said, “Yeah, don’t let the hotel people see you drinking beer in their parking lot. Trust me, they’ll call the CC on you.”
I had to ask. “The CC?”
“Yeah, you know, the Quartzsite Cops!” That spelunkin’ is dangerous business. We quickly drained our illicit beers and decided to call it a night.
Fiona and I soon drifted off to sleep, only to be woken up some time later by a loud CHIRP!
“Wha… What was that?”
“I dunno.”
CHIRP!
“There it was again!”
Finally we traced it to the smoke alarm. The battery must have been dying, emitting a mournful CHIRP every minute or so as it expired.
I climbed up on the bureau, twisted the cover off and removed the battery. “There. That should do it.”
As soon as I climbed off the bureau I heard it again. CHIRP! “What the hell?” I climbed back up and removed the cover again. Figures. The damn thing was also wired into the building.
I called the front desk to explain the problem. Larry said he’d be right down.
Larry arrived with stepladder in hand and quickly assessed the problem. “Well that’s no good. I’ll fix it.” He climbed his ladder, grabbed the smoke alarm with both hands and ripped it off the ceiling, leaving a few hanging bare wires in the hole where the alarm was. “There, that should fix it. Now you can get some sleep. Good night.” As Larry took the possessed alarm out of the room, it issued one final CHIRP!
We were lulled back to sleep by the sounds of hundreds of trucks we’d passed earlier in the day roaring past our hotel in an endless drone of interstate commerce.
Cross Country 2.0 – Day 2
day 2
Quartzsite to Sedona, AZ – 211 Miles
Warm air and sunny skies greeted us on the first full day of our trip. Abi was just attaching the last strap of his giant yellow duffel bag to his bike as we carried our bags out to my waiting Yamaha. Clearly he’d gotten up earlier than Fiona and I did.
Before heading away from Quartzsite, we made a quick stop at the Love’s convenience store for some gas, and saw the most incredible raffle. For $5 a ticket, you could buy a chance to win a fantastic 1976 Dodge van complete with working engine, working AC but in need of ‘a little TLC.’ With my luck I’d probably win the thing, so I chose to pass on buying a ticket.
This day shaped up to be excellent. By making it to Quartzsite the night before, we would have very little highway for the next two days, taking back roads the rest of the way into Sedona. My uncanny ability to pass exits came into play again, as I sailed right past the exit for Route 60. The fourteen mile detour proved worth it, because we stumbled on to the nearly deserted but excellent Kofa Café.
Places like this fascinate me. Out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but farmland for miles in every direction is an empty café with seating for seventy five. How does a place like this manage to keep running if the only customers present that morning were three semi-lost bikers? Certainly their excellent food isn’t enough. As she served our enormous breakfast, I asked Lucy, our distinguished grandmotherly waitress how the Kofa Café remained in business.
“Well, it’s because of the snowbirds.”
“Snowbirds?”
“Yes. You know, retired folk. The snowbirds will start coming in around Thanksgiving, and they’ll stay all winter. Some of them come from as far away as Canada or the East Coast, and they fill up all the nearby RV parks. This place will be packed with snowbirds from Thanksgiving to about Memorial Day. That’s our busiest time. Believe me, we like to see ’em come, but it’s better to see ’em go!”
Finishing our enormous breakfast we said goodbye to Lucy and the Kofe Café. I never heard it pull up, but parked outside was one of my dream bikes. Not a Ducati 1098, this machine is probably the finest creation to ever come out of Orange County Choppers.
The bike owner appeared, and after pulling the starter cord a few hundred times, roared off into the distance.
Finally on the right road, with a belly full to bursting, I felt very happy to be alive. Route 60 proved a straight, flat and mostly featureless two lane road with a speed limit of 65. In the desolate stretches between towns like Desert Wells, Salome and Hope, we would crank it up to about 80. Coming into these small towns the speed limit dropped to around 45, and so did we. Not only does slowing down save riders from local revenue gathering speed traps, but it also gave us a glimpse of these sad little towns. Passing through we saw boarded up hotels, houses made of plywood, and in one fenced off yard, a yard sale that looked as if it had been set up for years, just waiting for a carload of buyers to pull up.
Leaving the town of Hope a sign read, “You are now beyond Hope.” A hundred miles down the Road Beyond Hope our route improved somewhat. Route 89 from the town of Congress on to Sedona was without a doubt one of the best roads I have ever had the pleasure of riding on.
We stopped for a little break and some pictures at a scenic rest stop. While trying unsuccessfully to get a shot with all three of us in it, a car pulled up. Three men got out, and the one in the Harley T Shirt immediately came over. Fiona asked him to take our picture. As he stepped back to snap the shot, I noticed he wore an empty holster on his belt. I dubbed him Pistol Pete. After taking the shot, he said to Abi, “Well, if ya can’t ride an American bike, at least you’re riding a German one.” Not really sure what he meant by that, but before I could ask, he launched into a long and rambling one-sided story that included the best place in southern California to get a classic car repaired, straight edge hardcore music, his church and old time mining techniques. Heading back to his car, Pistol Pete ended his soliloquy with, “This is Arizona guys, anything can happen here.”
Pistol Pete’s Best Shot
The road snaked through the mountain town of Jerome, AZ; also known as America’s Most Vertical City. Almost four hundred people call the one square mile town of Jerome their home. Located between Prescott and Flagstaff at the top of Cleopatra Hill, this little town looked like what I would expect a town in the Alps to look. Of course, I’ll have to wait until next spring to find out for sure what those towns look like.
Just outside Sedona, we stopped to get my first National Parks Passport stamp of this trip. How could we not stop at a place with a great name like Tuzigoot National Monument? The best thing going for the place was definitely its great name, because the monument wasn’t authentic ruins, just a recreation. We decided that it was pretty shitty to call a replica an actual National Historic Site, and from then on we substituted the word Tuzigoot for anything that was shitty.
We checked into the Sedona Super 8 about 4 PM. The guy at the desk warmly welcomed us smelly bug-crusted bikers, even allowing us to park in a ‘No Parking’ spot right by the office, so he could personally keep an eye on the bikes all night. We asked him if there were any worthwhile sunset tours in Sedona. He recommended Pink Jeep tours, and while Abi and I felt this might be a bit feminine for our manly tastes, Fiona got right on the phone to them. They said if we could get there in half an hour, we could take their last tour of the day, ominously named Broken Arrow, an aggressive 4×4 sunset tour.
Can’t Get Much Gayer Than This!
We walked into RavenHeart coffee, next door to the Pink Jeep office. The kid behind the counter looked remarkably like Butt-head. If they ever make a live action version of Bevis and Buthead, I know where to find one lead character. On a bulletin board behind the counter he had written, “Beauty is in the Behind of the Beholder.” As soon as I walked in, this cartoon character clone told me a weird sort-of joke, “You know, I’m so tired that when I hit the road I squeal.” He then laughed, “Huh-huh hu-huh-huh,” similar to his cartoon counterpart. I didn’t get the joke, and got out of the store before he told any more.
The driver of our real life Barbie Jeep gathered us up and started off with a typical introduction speech. “Hi I’m Chip, and I just want everyone to know that this is my first official tour. But that’s OK, because by law I’m only required to bring back 80% of you. I’m a little nervous, but I think most of you will be just fine.” I’m sure that all tour drivers are required to make such mandatory jokes, and everyone had a laugh.
When I shook Chip’s hand, I realized he was missing the tips of the fingers on his right hand. I briefly wondered if maybe he hadn’t been joking a minute ago. Instead of inquiring about his missing digits, I asked him how he got this job. “About a year ago, I realized I was turning yellow under the fluorescent lights in my cubicle. It finally got to be too disgusting for me. So, I left the thrilling world of accounting, moved to Sedona and got this job.” Smiling he went on, “Now, I drive four wheel tours for a living, and in my time off I ride my new dirtbike, a KTM 640 Adventure.” I’m not too sure how you could lose your fingers in an accounting accident, but the missing digits didn’t slow Chip down at all.
Chip pointed out various desert plant life on the tour as we bumped over and around rocks. The only thing girly about this bright pink Jeep is the color; Chip did his best to destroy the vehicle on the rugged paths, bouncing us all over the back seats in the process.
We parked at one point to watch as another Pink Jeep climbed up a particularly large boulder, then bounced and skidded down the other side. Chip said, “Sorry, but I’m not yet certified to do that one.” Our disappointment didn’t even have time to register before Chip mashed the accelerator. “But I’ve always wanted to try it, so let’s go!”
A guy in his personal 4×4 pickup truck followed us down a particularly steep and tricky descent. We parked to watch him possibly roll his truck down the hill. The driver showed considerable skill, as he managed to get past the hardest parts without getting stuck or pirouetting his way to the bottom, much to the surprise of Chip and the rest of us. “Wow. We usually end up pulling the wreckage out of the ravine when locals try that hill.”
Even in a bright pink Jeep, the entire tour was incredible, culminating at an expansive and breathtaking landscape called ‘The Two Nuns.’ While most of the trip had been a little grey and cloudy, the sun burst through the clouds as we were at the most scenic of vistas, making our pictures that much better.
I asked Abi and Fiona for one word to describe the tour:
Fiona: Exhilarating
Frenchy: Incredible
Abi: Rocks
The temperature dropped considerably when the sun set, and the ride back to the hotel, sans helmet or jacket, was cold and miserable. It didn’t matter. I was so tired, when I hit the road, I squealed, whatever that is supposed to mean.
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