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Onward! To Yellowstone!
Weathermen.
I’ve often thought being a weatherman would be a perfect occupation, because you only have to get about half the news right about half the time to keep your job. If I was a weatherman, I would go on TV with my perfect hair (which would most likely be a perfect wig) and say, every single day, without laughing, there was, “a fifty percent chance of rain.” I’d never be wrong.
The talking TV weather-head in Sheridan, WY was one of the funny, jocular, comedian types. The worst kind. He ended his forecast with, “Tomorrow there’s a 100% chance of rain over the entire area. It’s good for us, because we need rain badly. But, if you’re planning a motorcycle ride for the next few days…” He then drew his hand across his throat in the most menacing gesture a weatherman can make.
What else can you do but laugh?
I checked a much more reliable weather source, and found, that while Yahoo Weather didn’t exactly agreed with Mr. FunnyWeather’s forecast, things still weren’t looking good.
Wow. 39 degrees in Yellowstone? On Monday, the very day we plan to head through? Can’t be! It was 101 degrees yesterday! Helpfully, my riding buddy reminded me that it was only one day ago that I was saying I’d much rather ride in the cold than the heat, and now I’d get my chance.
We discussed changing plans for a minute, but decided since we didn’t want to turn around and not get to enjoy Bighorn and the Beartooth Pass, which, via US 14A, looked like an incredibly fun squiggled line on the map, or miss what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Yellowstone National Park and Old Faithful; we’d roll the dice and keep moving west.
Oh Yeah!
On this fun road, we fulfilled another mandate.
State Number 50 – Finally Defiled.
Though it seemed (and felt) like the weatherman’s wild guesses would turn out to be right, the rain never materialized. The summit of the Beartooth Pass, at 10,974 feet was cold, and looked threatening, but luck prevailed, and Rain Cloud Follows outran the impending storm.
On the other side of the pass, the weather broke, if only for a while.
Knowing from experience that Rain Cloud Follows luck would only hold out so long, we stopped for the night in Cooke City, a remote little place that turned out to be the only real town with motels between Red Lodge, Montana and Yellowstone. Stopping early turned out to be a good, lucky call.
Cooke City, MN – Home For the Night
Almost immediately, the rain caught us, and engulfed Cooke City. After a quick toast to the ‘Best Day Ever’, we covered the bikes for the night, with no idea how much worse it would get the next day. I slept fitfully, with visions of Mr. Funnyweather’s throat-slashing motion dancing in my head.
The next installment of The Epic Ride can be found here.
Ups… and Downs…
Trying and failing to break the law of gravity wasn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to me, absentmindedly parking my motorcycle on an incline wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me, it was watching Rain Cloud Follows topple over in slow motion, the resultant feeling of helplessness and stupidity for not paying attention to the inclined nature of the shoulder I parked on; the kick in the nuts my pride took that afternoon. That was the worst thing that ever happened.
And if that is the worst thing that ever happens to me on a motorcycle……..
When I put the kickstand down and got off, the bike simply fell over. Fortunately, with my incredible, cat-like reflexes, I jumped out of the way and wasn’t trapped underneath as Rain Cloud Follows took a little nap. The problem was, Abi was about two miles down the road (While he was heading a few miles down the road to turn around, I was parking to try and get some exciting ‘action’ pictures, such as they are.) and when a motorcycle assumes it’s natural resting position on a gravelly incline, it’s impossible to pick up, especially if your muscles have atrophied into marshmallow from too much saddle time, too much Guinness time and not enough ‘activity’ time.
A total of three cars had passed in the four hours we were on these straight, flat, deserted roads. But, as always seems to happen, when you really need help, it arrives. My saving angel was a guy in a pickup truck attached to a gigantic horse trailer that just happened to pull up less than five minutes after the motorcycle fell over. As he got out of his truck, I noticed with a chuckle that my saving angel, a rail thin fellow with a shock of bright red hair and a dimpled chin that looked almost surgically enhanced was a dead ringer for Howdy Doody.
Seeing Rain Cloud Down, he asked with some concern, “You OK?”
Am I OK? Well, let’s see. I’ve dropped my fucking bike for the first time ever, it’s much heavier than I thought, and gas is leaking on the ground from somewhere; the fairings are going to be all scratched to hell and cost a ton to repair or replace, and I can’t pick the damn thing up before Abi, rapidly approaching, sees the bike on the ground.
All things considered, yeah, I’m fine, and indicated so to Howdy. Then, looking down at my crumpled ride I asked, “Feeling strong today? This thing’s heavy.”
Abi, expecting to have his picture taken, raced by with a look of “HAHAHAHA!” on his face as Mr. Doody and I worked to right the fallen bike. After a few grunts and a few re-drops, we managed to get the bike upright and out of the gravel. I shook Howdy’s hand, thanked him profusely and waved as he drove away.
That little gravelly, gently inclined shoulder out there in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming will, at least for me, be forever known as Wounded Cloud.
Well, when you fall off your horse (or let it fall over on its own) the best thing to do is get back on it. Dark Meat Snack, the consummate riding buddy, laughing too hard at my misfortune to immediately stop when he raced by, finally pulled up, barely able to contain his snickering. “Well, are you going to take the picture or what?”
A single upraised finger was all the reply me and my nut-kicked pride could muster.
Rain Cloud Down – Bruised, Scuffed and Scratched But Unbroken
Along with my internal temperature, which was almost at the boiling point, the external temperature continued to rise, until the thermometer read 101. I yelled over to Abi, “You know what? I’d much rather ride in the cold, like Newfoundland, than this heat.” He just shook his head.
The rest of the ride I sort of limped along, mentally kicking myself for being such a dumbass, and for having witnesses to my dumbassedness. I was so absorbed in this internal flogging that it took me a while to register the frequent POP! POP! POP! feeling on my boots and lower legs.
“Idiot!” POP! “You should’ve checked the angle…” POP! “You really need to be more careful, dumbass…” POP! “Uhh. What the hell IS that anyway?”
POP!
I looked down, and to my horror, saw that my boots and pant legs were covered with what looked like mustard stains. With legs.
We’d ridden through a swarm of crickets or locusts that were probably used to low amounts of slow-moving traffic on these back roads and were innocently warming themselves on the blacktop until we roared by, scaring them into reflexively jumping straight into our boots, and straight to their deaths.
For whatever sick reason, this insect massacre made me feel a whole lot better about my day. I started to enjoy each POP! and was almost smiling as we wound our way into a nondescript town to spend another nondescript night, the last ‘good’ night before Mother Nature had her way with us.
The next installment of The Epic Ride can be found here.
The Epic Ride Continues
Having safely concluded the SaddleSore 1000 from Elkhart, IN to Rapid City, SD, Dark Meat and I decided we deserved (and wanted… or make that needed) a day off. When working, our call time is usually fairly early, which means setting an alarm even earlier. When on a motorcycle trip, because we don’t want to waste daylight, we set an early call time for ourselves. So, allowing ourselves the luxury of sleeping in late was, we felt, a well deserved reward. Plus, it gave me time to hack out the ride report of the SaddleSore 1000.
Of course, when your body is accustomed to the rhythm of getting up early, you usually do get up early, especially when there is no reason to. Our hotel was located less than twenty-five miles from Mount Rushmore, so, since the weather was nice and various sitting-related anatomical parts weren’t too tender, we got up early and decided to use our day off to go for a little ride.
Four Impressive Heads in Back, Two Less Impressive Ones in Front
Mount Rushmore was sort of impressive, and sort of frustrating at the same time. To explain my frustration; I am a National Parks Annual Pass holder, and have been for years. This is an excerpt from the National Parks website about the Annual Pass:
OK, sorry ’bout that. Bitchy whiny mode off…
Standing before the actual monument that I’d read about as a kid was impressive:
George
Paul
John
And Ringo
From Mount Fab-Four it was a simple ride over to the other carved-up musical mountainside salute, this one a still unfinished tribute dedicated to Neil Young’s band.
This crazy monument was started in 1948, when monument carving was probably a hot occupation in the South Dakota area. But, much like internet stocks, the Macarena and hopefully Crocs, fads fade, and then what happens? You’re left with a quarter of a monument, that’s what.
Just to show the scale of Crazy Horse, note the full sized bulldozer and crane.
On the way down to Crazy Horse, we passed a helicopter touring center. Since this was our day to splurge, we decided to get high, err… I mean see what everything looked like from the air.
No matter how long I waited, the old, lost-looking goof on the right wouldn’t get out of the picture.
Our thirty minute flight took us over Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore, over the unknown-to-me Needles Highway, then landed without crashing us into the Black Hills.
The Front of Crazy Horse
And The Back
The Beatles
The Needles
The Pigtail
Rain Cloud Follows and the Unnamed Concours
Helicopters are fun, but motorcycles are funner. We took our fun motorcycles to the fun fourteen mile expanse of road known as the Needles Highway, which, if you hadn’t guessed, was fun.
The Needle Eye
Fun. Then, to cap the day, we headed to the mecca of motorcycling known as Sturgis to find a place to stay for the night.
Wow. Sturgis, in my humble opinion, is the little town that got lucky once a long time ago when some bikers stopped by to hang out. That luck mushroomed into a motorcycle rally that most likely saved the little town of 6400 from complete anonymity. Fortunately, we missed that little gathering, because even as empty as it seemed, finding a room in Sturgis was difficult enough.
However, we were able to be part of another gathering. There was a Ford Mustang rally happening that weekend, which, while a bit less well-attended than the other, famous rally held every year, conveniently explained the lack of hotel rooms.
After that excitement, all ten minutes of it, we decided it was time to head out of town, toward something very evil indeed. But first, before surrendering to the impending evilness, there was a quick stop to make on the way.
Wyoming is one of only two states in my long traveling career that I had yet to set foot in (and defile.) And, with this stop, Montana was the sole state left on my ‘To Defile’ list. With Wyoming now safely crossed off that list, it was time to set off for the day’s diabolical destination.
Devils Tower National Monument
Because we were still in goof-off mode, we actually went into the demonic monument grounds, to see what was going on. Normally we’d have just gotten a quick passport stamp then immediately took off on the way to somewhere else far away, like Montana. And, I am happy to report, the Annual Pass allowed us both in free of charge.
People were high up on the ledges of Tower, apparently ready and willing to sacrifice themselves to the Devil.
Careful guys, gravity’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!
From The Devils Tower, we immediately took off on the way to someplace far away.
Here on the back roads of Wyoming, I succeeded in breaking one law and failed to break another. The roads in the middle of Wyoming are so straight, flat and deserted that I decided to hold Rain Cloud Follows throttle wide open and see what would happen.
142 MPH happened, and there was even more to go, but I lost my nerve. My FJR may be a sport-tourer, but there’s a reason that the word ‘sport’ comes first.
Then, when I was done monkeying around out there in the middle of nowhere, on those straight, flat and deserted roads, the worst thing that has ever happened to me happened.
I tried and failed to break the law of gravity.
The next installment of the Epic Ride can be found here.
Keep on Rollin….
We’re currently holed up in Salt Lake City, the first place with internet access since Rapid City, five nights ago.
3060 miles since leaving Virginia BeachIt’s been a fun trip, but not without it’s share of hardships, including hail, a blizzard, and a few other surprises.
Sleeping Beauty joined us last night, and will be napping on and off as we finish the trip.
We’re off to brave the untamed wilds of Nevada today, then trying to hit at least two California mountain passes, including the Tioga, before a nice run down the Pacific Coast Highway caps this Epic Ride.
Then, when I am safely back at Blogger Central on Sunday, I will write up the whole report.
It’s All Over
We made it. 1021 miles in about 18 hours.
Start
Finish
Fuck, what a long day. I don’t know how people ride multiple 1000 mile days, or why for that matter.
Story and pictures tomorrow… right now my Iron Butt needs sleep.
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