Frenchy's Rant

As I am sure most can appreciate, lots of preparation and planning goes in to an undertaking like this one. Routes, distances, maps, time management and all that, but my most important trip prep, besides making sure the Macallan flasks are full, is socks.

At the start of every long ride I buy myself a package of new socks. Every two days or so, rather than stuff my bag with dirty socks that reek of unimaginable horrors, I simply throw the poor, abused pair away.

This system, personally developed and refined over years of long motorcycle rides, has served me well, up until this trip. When the Epic Ride ended, as I always do, I took off my boots for the final time and threw out the pair of socks I was wearing. Since I wore flip flops to the airport, I didn’t realize that I’d miscounted. The pair I was wearing was the only pair I had left, leaving me with no socks until I got home from work, three days later!

At least I wasn’t out of Macallan to toast what, so far, has been the ‘Best Ride Ever!’

Still, maybe my system needs a little more refinement. I’ll have to work on it during the next Epic Ride.

There isn’t really that much left to tell. Once in California, there were only a few hundred miles between us and the conclusion of the trip. It was hard to believe, but if we went in a straight line down the highway our Epic Ride could easily be over by lunchtime.

So, I scoured the map for the least direct route; hunted for the longest path between points, and liked what I came up with.

The Tioga Pass is the southernmost of California’s famous five passes through the Sierra Nevada mountains. ‘Tioga’ is an Indian word that loosely translates to ‘Really Fun.’ Dark Meat Snack, the group’s expert in all things Indian verified this translation. This particular pass easily lived up to its name.

Tioga!! The entire pass was Tioga. Very, very Tioga!!

California has plenty to offer in the way of Tioga class roads, which is why Rain Cloud Follows and, in honor of surviving the blizzard in Yellowstone, Abi’s Concours, newly christened Snowball will be spending the winter there.

Rapidly running out of time, there was only time for one more of those Tioga class roads, the Pacific Coast Highway.

Before twisting our way down what would be our last really fun road, we stopped off in Monterey, where we stumbled into a really cool hot rod show on Main street.

I love finding these random happenings. They always make me smile, to think that whether or not the masses are aware of it, people are always out there, somewhere, doing what they love. And if other people come and enjoy it, so much the better. Looking for any excuse to make our trip, what we love doing, last a little longer, we spent a while admiring the beautiful cars on display.

Then it was on to the PCH, and the last of my thousands and thousands of pictures.

And that was pretty much that. We made it safely to the end of our trip a mere ten days after starting.

The Entire 4474.28 Mile Epic Ride Route

I am happy to say that at the end of this long and at times trying trip, we were, and still are, speaking to each other. In fact the last conversation I remember having before we boarded the plane to go back to the drudgery of work and the real world was, “Hey, how far is it from here to Banff and Jasper? Think we could do it in ten days, or do we need more time…”

The morning after dawned cold, but clear. The worst was over, and having come this far, and gone through this much, I knew things could only get better from here.

During the night it was really cold. How cold was it? So cold that before we left, Dark Meat Snack pulled a what looked like a giant snowball, remnants of yesterday’s really fun, really shit weather out from between his rear view mirror supports. And of course he threw it at me before I could get a picture of it.

Off to Salt Lake City, to pick up Fiona and wrap this trip (and report) up!

The Grand Teton Mountain Range was a sight to behold, made even better by the distinct lack of falling snow.

The early stop the day before didn’t allow as much time to goof off as we’d grown accustomed to, so we picked up the pace. The temperatures rose as the day went on, which was a very welcome change. While winding our way south, we evidently passed through some treacherous hunting grounds.

On the entire forty-mile stretch of hallowed sign-hunting ground, the only sign that hadn’t been blasted was this one:

I’m guessing it’s because she’d return fire.

Dark Meat Snack and I made it through unscathed, and with an unusual flair of perfect timing, arrived in Salt Lake City an hour after Sleeping Beauty.

Beauty and the Beast

That night our group joined one of Salt Lake City’s social clubs. Salt Lake City, in fact most of Utah, has some strange rules when it comes to alcohol. We sat down at Murphy’s Bar (subtitled ‘A Step Down In Social Clubs’) and tried to order a few pints of good ol’ liquid cheer. The bartender asked if we were members, usually not a good sign.

“Uhh… no, we’re not from around here. Why?”

“You have to be members for me to serve you.” he replied. “Don’t worry, you can join on a temporary basis for $4.”

After taking down my name and address, and paying the man $4, we were officially members, and therefore allowed to have a refreshment, which we immediately did.

Most of the night was shrouded in a warm, pleasant haze.
Abi enjoyed more than his share of members-only cocktails that night.

Beauty and The Dark Meat

The next morning, and by morning I mean early afternoon, the internal haze had cleared, and we were off to the races. Literally.

Fiona and Abi had a world land-speed-on-foot race. Abi lost handily, but blamed poor traction for his loss. Or should I say he blamed his defeat on the agony of ‘De Feet?’

The ground looked solid, but was in fact a thin crust of salt covering thick, soupy mud. How do I know it was a crust of salt on top? Skeptical, Fiona didn’t believe it, so, I am almost embarrassed to report, I watched as the love of my life gave the ground a… taste test.

Hello? HELLLOOOO?!?! Come on, get your minds out of the gutter!

Moving on, we made rapid progress down more straight, flat roads, this time of the Nevadan variety.

Fiona shot these pictures of the tiny but very cool town of Austin, NV from the back of my rapidly moving bike.

All told, Sleeping Beauty shot more pictures in her three days of the trip than Abi and I did combined. I asked her why she takes so many snapshots. She replied, “I have three choices to keep me from being totally bored back here. Take pictures, take a nap, or look at this all day…”

Then, the love of my life continued, “Hey, since the bike is all scratched up now, maybe you’ll let me drive it sometime and you can sit back here for a while!”

I love that girl.

As an aside, here is Fiona’s favorite picture of the trip, a candid shot I took while walking by a temple in Salt Lake City. I have, ahem, no earthly idea what her fascination is with this particular snap.

None at all.

Moving on, the next day we made an exciting discovery in the hills. No, not silver, but the old fashioned silver mining town of Virginia City, NV. This place was so fascinating we spent a few hours wandering around, checking out the Bucket of Blood saloon and viewing the ‘Suicide Table’ – a poker table said to have caused more than its fair share of deaths back in the day.

Leaving the somewhat gruesome history of Virginia City behind, we cheered as we crossed the final state border of our little ride, happy to know that in just one more ride report installment, the Epic Ride would mercifully be over.

The final installment of The Epic Ride can be found here.

Wow, look at this! Two posts in one day! How prolific! Below this little piece of fluffernutter is another installment to the Epic Ride, where our heroes find themselves deeper in the white, fluffy stuff than they planned. Don’t miss it!

While writing the latest installment to my War and Peace-like ride report, I used Google to look for a synonym online. Not only did I find the synonym I wanted, but, as a bonus, I was given options to buy things related to my word as well:

Thanks but no thanks, Google!

The report for the Epic Ride, which is once again talking longer to write than it did to ride, should conclude sometime this week. Then, with plenty of it coming up, and none of it seeming too pleasant, it’s back to the usual, mundane bitching about work and travel for a while.

Though it was getting late and cold and rainy, that’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before, and usually we’ll stubbornly soldier on a few hundred more miles. Deciding to stop for the night in Cooke City was an unusually smart choice in a long career of un-smart ones. (It must’ve been Abi’s idea) Not only was the food in this little town excellent, the flow of beverages plentiful and the scenery varied and fascinating, but as it turned out, Cooke City was the only place with vacancies within a hundred miles when we went through. Two hours later, that changed as every room in town was taken.

While enjoying a fine, postprandial Montecristo Number Two, and sipping some fine single malt digestion aid, we watched as a poor guy, with a poor girlfriend on the pillion, slowly rode past. By then, it was dark, late, raining and cold. Half an hour later, we watched as they slowly rode by the other way. I empathized with his predicament; to one side of Cooke City lies forty-five barren miles of the Beartooth Pass Highway, no fun in the dark, and by then no doubt below freezing and snowy at the top, and to the other, Yellowstone. Being Labor Day weekend, the National Park accommodations were no doubt full. Feeling bad, I said to Abi, “You know, we’ve got plenty of extra room. If that poor bastard passes by again, we should try and help save his relationship…”

But, the poor souls never passed again, so we didn’t rack up any Karma points. Those Karma points would have come in handy the next morning, because we woke up to this sight:

It was cold, so we did this:

When Tired Eyes Aren’t Smiling…

Then we headed out toward Yellowstone National Park through this soupy excuse for a road:

At this point, I have to say that, for next year’s Epic Ride, Edelweiss in someplace warm was sounding better and better. Then I remembered – An adventure doesn’t seem like an adventure when you’re actually having it.

And what an adventure the rest of the day would be.

Yellowstone was stunning. Chilly, sure. Cloudy, definitely. But stunning.

Then it was time for yet another first, this time witnessing Old Faithful do its thing.

Obviously, I was thrilled.

We sat on the cold metal bleachers surrounding Old Faithful with a few hundred other shivering but interested folks, as the little, unimpressive mound smoked and belched steam in little, unimpressive spurts.

Then, exactly on time, Old Faithful got excited, and spouted steaming hot beer all over the crowd.

Funny thing about it was people sat there waiting half an hour in the cold for the show, but got up and walked away before the five minute spectacle was over.

Part of the reason everyone left early was no doubt the very dark, ominous cloud that came in over the mountain. The line of rain falling could clearly be seen, and by the time Dark Meat and I made it back to the bikes, the shower began.

But the shower wasn’t from the normal rain clouds that constantly follow me, it was much different, much worse.

Hail.

Now we were in a similar predicament as that poor guy the night before. Stuck in a National Park, miles from the exit, more miles from a town with hotels, rapidly running out of daylight, and, just for good measure, now the rain is freezing.

Awesome!

Using the most scientifically advanced decisional-based method available (flipping a coin) we decided to chance leaving the park. Jackson was less than 100 miles south, and there would be 100% more available rooms in Jackson than in Yellowstone, no doubt about it. We got on the road, hoping the hail would pass, but that hope was futile.

Visors steamed up, gloves, jackets, pants and boots got wet and then froze as the altitude rose to over 8400 feet and the temperature plummeted to 32 degrees.

And it got better. When the hail stopped, the snow – YES! SNOW ON THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER! – started.

The ride was every bit as much fun as it looked. Leaving the park, we chanced on the Flagg Ranch, which, surprisingly, had available cabins. The reason for the availability? The price was so unbelievably high.

But still, any port in a storm, even a really overpriced one. Happy to be alive and thrilled to have a room, we gladly got off our bikes and parked them for the night.

The heat was turned up high as it would go, and the room looked as if a clothing bomb just exploded as we walked down to the Flagg Ranch bar to overpay for a wee bit o’ the single malt. It was only then that we could sit and reflect on what an adventure our day had been. We started laughing uncontrollably, a mixture of tension release and reaction to our blind luck and stupidity as we hoisted a toast to the ‘Coldest Day Ever.’

The next installment of The Epic Ride can be found here.