The long awaited day arrived. We had all maintained our bikes as
best we could, lots of fresh rubber and checked fluids and brakes.
Seventeen days on the road and around 5,000 miles, me and Ross
headed out to Athens Alabama to meet up with Smokin' Joe and
Punisher... Wayne was sitting with them at the motel when we
got there.
As I noodled us through the backroads and swamps of north Mississippi,
avoiding towns and smooth roads, Allan wondered why he wasn't
doing 800 miles a day on I40...
Day three and we meandered across Arkansas on some good roads. One
turned out to be The Pig Trail. We got to Muskogee, and Mitch met up
with us there. The next morning most of the state was covered in heavy
rain. Ross's alternator stopped working. Mitch had one in his saddlebags...
We had a good breakfast and headed out into the rain and made it way
off to the end of Oklahoma's panhandle that evening. Wayne left
Alabama that morning and met us that night at the motel in
Boise City Oklahoma!
The next day we crossed southern Colorado. We intended to go over
Beartooth Pass, but there was a giant storm up there with sheets
of rain across the huge sky. We took a southern route to Pagosa
Springs to get away from the storm - 17, I guess. The storm got close
enough to us that lighting struck dramatically several times into the
giant landscape in front of us. All the way to Pagosa Springs it was
black in our rear view mirrors, but blue sky ahead. 17(?) was a good
road... the best. Over the mountains, by the river, all curves and
wide open space. Allan and Joe were leading and it was as if we were
going 85 and passing everyone but I guess that's just my imagination.
Anywho... we stayed dry.
We stayed in Cortez Colorado that night and made a short day of it
the next day, only riding up to Delta Colorado. We went through some
cool places on the way...
Here's the whole motley crew:
Staying at Delta set us up to ride over Grand Mesa the next day, what
a good road. That's the only place I remember seeing snow...
By the end of the day we were getting close to Wyoming. Five
days on the road and I hadn't yet led us way off into the
wilderness far from gas stations on a road that turned
dirt. Everyone gets all nervous and starts beeping away
on the GPSes. No cell service kind of hosed some of that.
Mitch rolled off down the dirt road.
There's two versions of what happened next.
My version: Joe and Punisher were having some kind of pow wow,
maybe making some kind of plan to smother me with
a pillow later that night. I rolled on by them down
the dirt road to catch up with Mitch. When I caught
up with him he said he'd told Joe: "I'm going for it!",
so off we went.
Joe's version: I'm stuck there on the side of this &!!@* &%#$@@!!
gravel road, my *%&^#'s broke down with steam
and fluid spewing out and here comes Hubcap
flying by shooting me a bird and disappearing
down the dirt road never to be seen again.
After twenty or so miles we crossed into Wyoming and the
road became paved. We got to the motel half and hour or
forty five minutes before the others, they found some other
route. Joe put some fluid in his radiator at the motel.
When Mitch and I crossed into Wyoming I realized I'd never
loaded the Wyoming street data. Usually the BFGPS is like
a paper map with a line drawn down the chosen street.
Now it was like a line on a blank sheet of paper. We
got to Rock Springs and I could see the line curve off to
a red X - the motel. We tried to ride towards the red X
for a while, but kept on ending up at dead ends or
cul-de-sacs and then a giant rail yard. We finally crossed
a bridge over the rail yard and got to the motel.
The next day we went through Thermopolis and The Wind River Canyon.
On towards InZane Ground Zero. The desolation we passed
through combined with being on the edge of the storm that
trashed Yellowstone was kind of creepy. There were places where
it was like you could hit your head on the sky, you had to duck
under the clouds, you could see miles over there where they
were just lying on the ground... rivers were all the way up
to the bottoms of the bridges we went over.
We rolled into Ground Zero tired but safe. The staff made us
hamburgers for supper. They worked hard and made everything
go great for the whole week.
There was an incident on pie auction day. I was walking to to
room where we were to do the auction and was greeted by
Elna: "Great! You're on our team!"... Further down was Mac
who shook my hand "Alright we'll get that pecan pie tonight!".
I looked into the room and there comes Randy from a table at the
front with all the people I usually sit with on pie night.
I changed over to Randy's table. Mac came over and told me there
were no hard feelings, even if Robert E. Lee never would have
been a deserter. Translation: Mac was going to max out his credit
card if that was what it took to get the pecan pie. I don't know
how many years he will be in debt, but he said the pie was real good.
It is on for next year.
The storms that closed Yellowstone also closed down some roads
down there that we would have normally ridden from Billings. Less
riding was done (by me anyhow) at InZane than normal. There
was a rainy day and a couple of really windy days. Thursday
was terrific.
On Tuesday I got a new rear tire, I wasn't sure that my tire
with 4,000 miles on it had another 2,000+ miles to give.
Me and Ross rode over to Pompeys Pillar, a giant promentory with
graffiti from through the ages carved on it, including some by William
Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
There's a giant walkway up the side of the Pillar that brings
you to the historic graffiti. The Yellowstone river runs by there.
The river was WAY up, they had sandbags around the visitor's center.
The place was closed the next day.
A bunch of us also rode over to another place where Indians had
written stuff on the walls of some cave-like places...
Me and Ross and Mitch left the caves and headed over to Chief
Plenty Coup's house...
From there Mitch picked out a return road that I guessed wasn't
paved. Ross went back to the motel the way we came in, and Mitch
and I went to check for pavement... there was none.
Also no cell service, which didn't help Mitch navigate. We
came through to the right place anyhow...
Ross and I left on Friday and headed to Deadwood via the Devil's Tower.
The weather way over on one side of the sky looked threatening
when we were at the Tower.
Off to the motel in Deadwood and it was sprinkling, with the
sun out. Check out the sun on this hill, and look for the rainbow
above the flag.
We hit the Needles Highway through Custer the next day. Near the end,
right after my camera battery pooped out, we rode through a
large herd of buffalo :-( ...
After we left Needles and Custer and headed east the
party was over. Endless miles of desolation, high
wind and 100+ degrees through southern South Dakota
and to some extent through Nebraska and Kansas.
By the time we were going through Missouri and
through to Illinois it was pretty nice, trees and green.
Still hot.
Another great InZane!
-Mike
