Day 40...a sprint to the finish line

Day 40...Saturday, July 19th

I suppose you could say I was ready to be done.  I awoke this morning at 3:45MST and as James Taylor wrote:

   Dark and silent late last night,
I think I might have heard the highway calling ...
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
And signs that might be omens say I'm going, I'm going
I'm gone to Carolina in my mind.

I wasn't going to Carolina though...I had Colorado on my mind.  I got up, got dressed, turned my trusty motorcycle north on US-87, and at 4:30AM set out for home, the wife, and perhaps the next great adventure.  The theme music today is provided by the late Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole.  My favorite version of two happy times songs...Over the Rainbow...It's a Beautiful World

Leaving at such an ungodly hour is not my normal methodology for going somewhere.  But something drove me to do it.  Maybe I'm just a sentimental dummy.  At any rate, it was in the mid 60s with a high overcast, and REALLY dark.  It was the only time on the trip I couldn't wear sunglasses.  It seemed weird.

The sun never really came up... the overcast to the east precluded any dramatic rays of light hitting me from the side as I rode.  The sky just got lighter and lighter.  The temperature rose to 66 degrees and stayed there for hours.  It was actually a little chilly.

it's a little blurry because of the low shutter speed necessary in the dark, but the instruments say at 5:49 it was 66 degrees and I'd already driven 90.4 miles doing 80mph @4K RPM

I stopped for the first time in Amarillo at a great donut shop.  Don't judge me.  After all the adverse feedback regarding my love of cinnamon rolls and Dr Pepper I had shied away from such breakfasts in the name of health and maybe dropping a couple of pounds.  But this morning I was chilled and a little dopey from getting up so early and I NEEDED the calories.  And it was good.

I stopped every 100 miles for 10 minutes to stretch my legs.  At the 300 mile point (halfway) I stopped for an hour to get over the aches and pains of sitting on a bike for 5 hours.  I set the cruise control on 75mph and just rode.  I listened to every tune on my iPhone.  I ate a snack at a wildlife management area in Colorado.  But I never stopped.

what would normally be sunrise... not so much this morning

I suppose they call it the Great Plains for a reason.

You get to see the world in a different way when you are on a motorcycle.  Mostly it's because the world doesn't care one way or the other if you live or die, so it's up to you to see everything all the time.  I see blowing tumbleweeds as potential threats.  I fear the coyote running across the road in front of me less I hit him, or a raccoon, or any other critter and lose control of the bike.  But you also get to see some neat stuff. Like mounted cowboys on a ranch in Oklahoma.

And then there are the cattle... and cattle poop.  Once again I must bemoan the fact that you can't smell what I smelled today.  The wind was perfect and carried a cone of  "eau de bovine" for a long way down the road.  Personally, I'm not offended by the overwhelming odor of fresh cow plop... but there are those who find it offensive.  And most would agree that silage is no bed of roses either.  A freshly opened silage pit will let you know your nose is working.  But I digress.  Suffice it to say that on at least two occasions I had to laugh at the expressions on the face of out of state motorists as they became one with the feedlot smell. 

 

 

 

 

It was the longest day's ride of the trip.  I rode 600 miles in 11 hours.  Not my brightest moment and I don't recommend it.  But I suppose it was all part of the adventure.

 

Before I wrap up this blog and try to synopsize all the things I saw and learned on this trip I gotta ask:  What's with all the shredded truck tires on the highway?  Seriously, do truckers not 'preflight' their tires?  Do they buy crappy tires?  I found myself noticing all the shreds, clumps, strings, and wads of old tire rubber along the road.  They come in all sizes and shapes and the large ones can be an obstacle to motorcyclists.  I didn't count them... or photograph them... but I am in awe of the amount of shredded, belted, tires that line our nation's highways.  Rant over.

 

It is late now and I want to wrap up this, my final day on the road of Buddy's Bike Trip ... the great adventure.  So I shall write tomorrow on the meaning of life and the lessons I learned from this trip.

Day 39...an end-of-course correction

 

Day 39, Friday July 18th...I come to the realization that it's time to go home.  It's time to head to the Rocky Mountains...Rocky Mountain High

I left El Paso this morning with a question mark still hanging over my head.  Do I head south and complete the 'along the border' part of my ride or do I turn due east and bisect the route I followed south to the Gulf, thus completing the around the US part.  On the one hand, I DID set out to do the edges and I've done that until this morning.  However, by completing the edge trip I'll add a minimum of 4 more days to the trip, two of which will be new to me and two more just to get back north to where I'd be if I just headed east.

Heading east will have me home in two or three days.  What to do?  I needed more time to think.

I got on the bike and drove to the point on the map where I needed to make the decision.  Texas has some mountains and I got to drive past them this morning.  Rocky Mountains they are not... but they are beautifully rugged and just beg me to go climb them.  Traffic was moderate on I-10 this morning and the only traffic jam was at an immigration checkpoint about 30 miles southeast of El Paso where all the traffic got narrowed down into two lanes.  I don't know what they were doing, but some cars were subjected to rigorous screening.  When I got up to the checkpoint I was, again, waived on through.   The overwhelming memory I'll have of today's drive is the incredible number of trucks heading southeast with me.  It is not exaggeration to say there was a stream of trucks spaced out at about 1/8 to 1/4 miles apart.  Hundreds of big trucks.  Of course passing them caused me to be buffeted about in their slipstream.  Not pleasant.

 

 

you too can own a piece of Southwest Texas

 

 

I drove 100 miles.  Then 120.  Then at about 130 miles and just at the point where I have to make a decision, the answer came to me.  I was ready to go home.  I felt my task of circumnavigating the US had been reached for all practical purposes.  An urge to go home to my wife and home came over me and when the highway divided into south I-10 or east I-20 I put the bike over onto a heading of due east.  No regrets.

 

I sent my friend Perry an email asking if I could spend the night with him in San Angelo and got a quick affirmative.  Then, when I stopped for gas a little later I looked at a map and saw that by getting off the interstate in Midland, Tx, I could be back in my home town in the same amount of time that it would take me to get to San Angelo.  So I cancelled my reservation at Perry's and turned off the big road and headed north and east.

 

This was oil country.  There were oil field service vehicles everywhere!  Just about every pickup truck was logo'd and carried an auxiliary diesel fuel tank in the bed.  I'm not sure why.  I saw wells working, some with stationary pumps, and even quite a few drilling rigs working.  The sheer number of wells I saw from the road begs the question: How many wells ARE there working the Permian Basin.  It's a lot of oil.

 

As I got closer to my hometown of Tahoka I was struck by a sense of 'homecoming'.  I've heard you can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the boy.  I think there's a lot of truth there.  Also, like Dorothy discovered in the Land of Oz. "there's no place like home."  If I need some comfort, need to 'feel the love', or just need to get in touch with who I really am, then a trip to Lynn County, Texas does the trick.    Stopping by to pay my respects to, and talk with my parents seemed the thing to do as I stood at the cusp of completing my adventure.  I'm not sure they would understand WHY I made the trip, but I know they would have been proud of me for doing something that not many other people choose to do. 

 

Not much happens in this part of West Texas.  But if you know where to look you can find history (of a sort).  In the city of O'Donnell, TX (just 15 miles south of Tahoka pop: 800 or so) there is a bust of a 'famous' American... Dan Blocker, the actor who played Hoss Cartwright on the TV show Bonanza.   So there is someone famous other than me (snort) that comes from this area. 

 

Tahoka isn't much of a town at first glance.  Main Street is much diminished from when I was a kid growing up here.  There are much fewer open businesses.  As a matter of fact there are fewer buildings than there was in the 1960s and 70s...they just fell down or were razed for safety's sake.

 

 

 

The old bank building and the corner drug store stand abandoned.  There are only a handful of open businesses along the street now and a stranger would never know that at one time we had two movie theaters, a furniture store, a jewelry store, two barber shops, a 'variety' store, two drug stores, at least three car dealerships and two dry cleaners.  But time has not been kind to retail in Tahoka.

abandoned drug store and bank building (still have one of each though)

the old dentist's office and clinic (there is a new hospital)

the old "Rose Theater" where I saw my first movie Old Yeller

the old Piggy Wiggly building

 

there are still businesses, just not as many

 

 

What hasn't changed is the Lynn County Courthouse and the Tahoka Schools.  The courthouse stands looking exactly like it has for nearly a hundred years. 

 

The schools have changed little and what change there is seems to be mostly cosmetic.  An alumnus of our Elementary Schools would have no problem in recognizing the buildings.  And the High School is darn near historic.   A drive around the school showed there are still 3 pieces of original playground equipment upon which I played as a kid.  Metal horizontal bars, a horizontal ladder 'monkey bars', and a metal slide were all there in the 1960s when I played on them... no telling how long they were there before I got old enough to play on them.

 

One change that I didn't see coming was the decision to go 'wet' and allow the sale of alcoholic beverages in my hometown.  I suspect that the two liquor stores in town are causing a lot of grave spinning out in the cemetery.

 

Tahoka is about 30% smaller in population than it was when I left to go to college and the USAF.  A lot has changed.  But it is still HOME.

 

Day 38...At highway speeds

Day 38…Thursday, July 17^th.     I travel via interstate from Tucson AZ, through NM, to El Paso, TX.  It was a blur.  But I DID get to see El Paso, the city immortalized by Marty Robbins...El Paso

The day did not get off to an auspicious start.  I went out to ‘preflight’ the motorcycle first thing this morning.  I do this every morning to make sure the fluids are all within normal operating range, the tires have the right pressure, and all the big pieces are firmly attached to the bike.  When you are putting yourself out there at highway speeds you owe it to yourself to make sure the bike is safe to ride.  I’ve given the bike a pounding over the past 38 days and when I get it home it is going to be overdue for a good maintenance.   Anyway, I started to put the key in the handlebar lock/ignition and it slipped from my old and shaky fingers.  It went down, down, down, into the bowels of the engine compartment by way of the forks and gas tank.  Since the bike is all enclosed there was no way to fish it out.  Luckily, I had a spare key in my wallet and I got the bike ready for the road.  Then I drove about a half dozen laps around the parking lot bouncing it, hitting pot holes, and generally riding like an idiot to try to get the key to work its way out.  No luck.  While riding around Davis-Monthan I saw their Air Park and stopped to take a few photos.  The best one?  The mighty F-4 Phantom II.  I get emotional when I stand next to my grand old bird.

 

The best of the best...F4-D, Phantom II

the F-105 "Thud"

the F-100 "Hun"

U-2 "Dragon Lady"

 

OV-10 "Bronco"

 

the O-1 "Bird dog"

A-10 "Warthog"

Since I didn’t want to get too far without a spare key I wound my way to the opposite side of town to the BMW dealer to get a new key.  They sold the blanks, but did not cut them.  So $8.50 later I set out to find an ACE hardware store that could cut the key.  I found one a couple of miles down the road and got the key made…so I have a spare again.

This makes me think of things I have lost on this trip.  I lost a pair of sunglasses that I had stowed in the mesh portion of the back bag.  In a high wind it must have vibrated up and been blown away.  Gloves…I have lost 3 gloves.  Since they are all lost at highway speed they were well and truly lost by the time I discovered they had gone missing.  Luckily, I wear cheap Home Depot lightweight multipurpose gloves and they can be easily, and cheaply, replaced.  I have also lost 3 lens caps for my camera.  I carry the camera slung diagonally around my body and I lost two caps before I realized it would be wise to invest in a lens cap retainer strap.  Then one day I took a photo at 70mph while driving into a 20mph headwind.  The force of the wind ripped the retaining strap off the lens and I saw it go.  I swung around to pick it up, but it had broken when it hit the road.

On the plus side, I have found about 19 cents in parking lots (and two Canadian $1 coins) mostly in pennies.

It is hard to get worked up about the countryside while driving on an interstate at breakneck speeds.  I’m sure the planners TRIED to put the interstates in interesting places, but for me…it didn’t really work.  The roads are wide and generally fenced off from the countryside.  Stopping to take a photo puts you at risk from people who are driving FAST and usually talking or texting on their phones.  Parking on the side of the interstate is not fun and I worry that the wind from passing trucks will knock the bike off the kickstand.  So I don’t stop much.  Then there are the rest areas.  Some are nicer than others, and here in the southwest they are mostly the ‘not so nice’ ones.  There is no green grass (I understand why in this environment) and of course there are no trees under which to park.  This means if you spend 15 minutes stretching your legs and taking care of the necessary, by the time you return to the bike you can just about boil water on the gas tank and it takes gloves to grab the black handlebar grips.

All that being said, I do enjoy driving the southwest US.  Like I said in yesterday’s post, I really enjoy the vistas and the grand sweeping history of discovery, expansion, and personal effort to tame a wild land that is often inimical to man and domestic beast.  I just think I’d enjoy it more off the interstate system.

There was a rainstorm that passed through the area in the recent past.  There are still some puddles in the low spots, but the real way to tell is to look at the ocotillo cactus plants.  After a rain they sprout leaves and put out blossoms in a race with the dry weather that will be just around the corner.  The ocotillos were all leafed out, and some sported their beautiful orange blossoms.  Unfortunately at 75mph it’s a bit tough to photograph one.

As I approached Tombstone today I noticed that the vegetation became more lush and there was actually grass in the pastures that would feed livestock.  A few miles out of town to the east and it returned again to the barren and largely featureless landscape that predominates the area.

 

 

I saw a LOT of Border Patrol vehicles today and there are road signs warning of potential delays and ID checks.  The only checkpoint that I had to go through, however, was in New Mexico.  For some reason they didn’t check the bike for illegals and I was waived through without even stopping.

The temperature was more tolerable today.  I don’t think I saw a temperature above 98 or so while I was driving.  There was a high, thin, cloud cover for part of the day.  Off to my north I could see isolated thunderstorms.  I could even see the lightning in a couple of them.  But they all stayed off to the north and they didn’t affect my ride.  But they did offer some pretty dramatic cloud formations and maybe they helped keep the temps down.

 

When I got to El Paso I went immediately to Fort Bliss to get a room for the night.  There was no room in the inn.  This is the first installation from which I’ve been turned away for the night.  Too bad.  So I ended up in what is probably the nicest Motel 6 I’ve stayed at on the trip and for which I paid the least.  I might also note that gasoline is a dollar a gallon cheaper in New Mexico and Texas than it was in California and Arizona.

Tomorrow I have to make a decision on the route I want to take home.  If I head due east I will bisect the road I need to take to Denver and home.  I will have driven a full circle, but I will not have done the southernmost tip of Texas.  If I turn southeast I can parallel the border, see some new territory, and will have actually traveled the perimeter of the US.  Going the long way will add nearly a week to my trip and the scenery will be much the same for about 850 miles.  I hate the idea of not going the long way, but at the same time I’m watching the calendar and my budget and it may make more sense to cut a few days out of the loop.  I’ll sleep on it and see if I come to any conclusions in my dreams

Day 37..."it's a dry heat"

Day 37...16 July 2014 Wednesday (day 2 of week 6)

Today was a day on the interstate system since there aren't really any good west to east highways that run along the southern border of the US.  And hot.  Really hot.  Like OMG! it's hot!  I love the southwest though... heat and all.  It's full of the kind of history I like.  So to commemorate being in Arizona, today let's listen to Johnny Cash.  Yuma!

Since leaving home over 6 weeks ago I've had he great good fortune to drive through some of the greenest places in the US.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the green grass, crops, towers, and trees.  Finally, though, today I left all that behind me and entered the Great American Desert.  In my life I've lived in Southern California, Arizona, and West Texas.  I have come to love the dry heat, the creosote bushes, sage, and the views unobscured by trees.  It's cowboy country.  Zane Gray, Louis L'Amour, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and The 3:10 to Yuma.  One of the three best smells in the world is the high desert after a rain shower (FYI, the other two smells at the top of the chart  are the aroma of a once fired paper shotgun shell and puppy breath).

From Camp Pendleton I jogged south to San Diego so I could say that I started from the southwest corner.  Then I turned the corner, twisted the throttle and headed east.  As I rode I began to notice the changes in vegetation.  At first the vegetation was every bit as thick as the temperate rain forest... just shorter and much more "stickerier" by nature.

But if you find a flat spot, plow it, throw down some seeds, and then pour water on it, this can be some of the most productive crop land to be found anywhere.  Today I saw lots and lots of hay fields growing, being cut, and being baled.

There is more than one kind of field.   A field of dreams comes to mind.  But there are also fields of rocks, stones, and boulders.  The harsh climate breeds a harsh terrain of rugged boulders, plants with thorns, and who knows how many lizards and snakes.

Eventually you come to the part of the desert so dry it won't even grow rocks.  The vegetation gets thinner and thinner and the sand gets dryer and finer.  In this section of the ride if you look left you see Arizona... if you look right you see Mexico.  The 'fence' along our border is in clear sight and there is a definite presence of Border Patrol along the highway.

less shrubbery, more sand and rock

even less vegetation (and you can see the border fence in the background)

at its driest it can look remarkably like areas of the middle east

 



 

Heat.  The heat is a physical presence that you can't ignore.  My thermos on the handle bar was so hot I couldn't pick it up with my bare hands.  The handgrips on the bike were so hot that I could feel the heat coming up through my leather palmed gloves.  At a gas station along the interstate I bought a scarf to tie around my face to keep the blast furnace-like wind from baking my exposed face.  By wetting the scarf and my gloves I actually got about 15 minutes of 'air conditioning' before the water all evaporated.  But just wearing the scarf made a big difference.  When I paused at a roadside rest area I noticed that the birds in the trees were panting.  THAT is hot.

 

460+ miles after I started I decided to pull into yet another military installation for the evening.  Today I stopped at Davis-Monthan AFB, home of the A-10 Warthog airplane and the USAF boneyard.  Visiting bases could become a hobby I really enjoy.