There's Always Hope...

[DDT (12)]

                                         There’s Always Hope…
 
We pulled out of Seward and headed north again... now with a stuffed absolutely full tummy... towards Anchorage... Man, I just didn't want to ride through there that day... any day, for that matter... We found our way back past the 'split' and headed on... Shortly another sign appeared... Hope! I surely needed some of that, too…
 
We made another turn off the main route and rode over towards Hope, AK. I hadn’t had any idea what to expect… Arden had mentioned it, but only in passing however, as a possible day ride destination, so… it couldn’t be bad, right? Actually, I found no place at all anywhere up there that would even remotely resemble ‘bad’… yeah, even Anchorage wouldn't trip the 'bad' alarm...
 
Along that lovely, lonely, uninhabited but quite scenic stretch of road, I became aware of an impending need to stop… but nothing was available… Hmmm, this could get interesting! I finally found a suitable bush off the road, and I did receive partial relief. A reprieve but not a remedy! I wondered how much time I might have…
 
Fortunately, more or less, Hope is a tiny place consisting of a smattering of houses, a park, some cabins and a lodge, and one rather interesting looking restaurant and lounge… but not a place, I didn’t think, that would accommodate, or at least appreciate, my stopping by…

A quick U-turn and ride out was all it took to scope the entire place out, then we rode back towards the main road… with my fingers crossed! The clock was ticking louder with each passing mile...
 
Back to AK HWY 1 and another turn towards Anchorage… I thought I’d keep an eye out for a motel this side of that city, and maybe delay my ride through there a bit longer…

My elevated pooperosity level was not easing up at all… in fact, quite the contrary! Yep, that had been a hefty serving of some bodacious Q I’d had for brunch, and now the rest of the tab was coming due… And y’all think I lead a stress-free life!!!
 
More miles of nothing… well, there were the occasional suitable bushes and trees, but I’d earnestly hoped that would not become necessary… I gritted my teeth and cranked the throttle a bit harder… ALI never complained!
 
In time, just as I was beginning to think those bushes might not be so bad after all, a service station appeared just as we were coming to the extreme end of Turn Again Arm… WOW! Providence sure had looked out for me again!!!

Ahhhhh, that was really nice… and I didn’t even have to wait! We topped off while there, took a break, then resumed the trek… the hard-work phase of this leg of our journey lay just up ahead… But first…
 
I did see a motel that would probably have been OK… and that would have enabled us to postpone driving through traffic one more day… "Why would you do something like that?", my dad would ask me when I was a kid putting something inevitable off... "You know you have to do it anyway sooner or later... Why not just get it over with?"

My dad was an ardent subscriber to the 'Spare the rod, spoil the child' school of child rearing, so I learned early on it was best to hold my tongue if possible... Had I tried to explain, however, I'd have probably said something like... Being a Christian, I've been taught that Judgement Day can come at any time... so, the effort to do something unpleasant may be totally wasted precious time that could have been put to better use... Funny, the seeds of procrastination may actually have been sown in Sunday School, huh...?

Didn’t work out with the motel, though. I’d arrived there around 3pm, and a sign in the window said they wouldn’t be available until sometime after 4pm… Shucks…  I wasn't going to wait around just to see if they had any vacancies, so... Might as well bite the bullet, I resigned myself, let’s go get this over with… we'll just take our lumps if Judgement Day does come...
 
Dang! Isn’t it amazing how we can build stuff up in our minds and fill ourselves with so much dread and worry… only to have nothing of the sort actually happen to us? Traffic was quite bearable, and we even made most of the traffic lights on that section through downtown between the freeway portions of that otherwise nice highway.
 
I was a mighty happy camper as Anchorage retreated further from view in ALI’s mirrors… That was behind us now, my pooperosity meter was reading ‘zero’, we had plenty of range left in the gas tank, and… life was really, really good! Cloudy, of course, but no precip since arriving back in Seward… Simply WOW!
 
We finally stopped for the night just up the road in Eagle River, AK… A somewhat long day in the saddle, but one that was most rewarding… And, we’d managed to avoid a serious laundry problem… or worse, a necessary trip to Walmart to purchase a replacement pair of britches… Yep, I’d definitely rather be lucky than good!
 
DDT

[The emperor has no clothes]

  Thanks for the story. I sure needed it. 

[John Schmidt]

Well, your impending disaster and the presence of bushes brings back some painful memories following my decision to make use of Bambi's facilities. As a 17 yr. old with all the answers, which....a that age you don't even know what the questions are yet, I headed off for a long weekend alone. Was to be the last ride before early football practice started. I finally had to make a stop adjacent to a pull off picnic area with no facilities but plenty of bushes and tall vegetation around. There also was a nearby stream, something I came to be thankful for shortly. It was on that stop I learned how to identify nettles, and that it's possible to sit in an ice cold stream of water for 30-40 minutes at a time(you want to be facing downstream in case something comes floating by that might make things more uncomfy). I returned home early, much to my dad's amusement....especially after I showed him the results still present on my keester. He christened me with the nickname of "Rosebud" for the next few weeks and delighted in telling the source of the name to any date I happened to bring by the house. 

[RDAbull]

Another interesting story of the ..............just a minute:

10 minutes later:  Ya, I know what you mean.

[The emperor has no clothes]

Well, your impending disaster and the presence of bushes brings back some painful memories following my decision to make use of Bambi's facilities. As a 17 yr. old with all the answers, which....a that age you don't even know what the questions are yet, I headed off for a long weekend alone. Was to be the last ride before early football practice started. I finally had to make a stop adjacent to a pull off picnic area with no facilities but plenty of bushes and tall vegetation around. There also was a nearby stream, something I came to be thankful for shortly. It was on that stop I learned how to identify nettles, and that it's possible to sit in an ice cold stream of water for 30-40 minutes at a time(you want to be facing downstream in case something comes floating by that might make things more uncomfy). I returned home early, much to my dad's amusement....especially after I showed him the results still present on my keester. He christened me with the nickname of "Rosebud" for the next few weeks and delighted in telling the source of the name to any date I happened to bring by the house. 

John, it's going to be hard not to refer to you as Rosebud now. 

[Jess from VA]

Regularity.

A TV commercial word.  But such an important word.

Advancing age (poor diet, yada) brings irregularity, a bad word.

Sometimes you got to go right now.  Then you can't go for days.  What the hell?

Which reminds me of my mom's comments after she and dad got into the full time (9-10 months per year) RV lifestyle.   Lot's of fellow RVers are retirees, like us.  And the RV parks always have a lot of communal things going on, so you get to meet poeple.  Mostly very nice people, many with very interesting backgrounds and life histories.  But one thing puts me off.... so many older people think the most important piece of conversation is thier regularity.  Well, I know it's important to everyone..... I just don't think it's the nicest subject of polite conversation.

I fell off my chair with that one.  

[John Schmidt]

Well, your impending disaster and the presence of bushes brings back some painful memories following my decision to make use of Bambi's facilities. As a 17 yr. old with all the answers, which....a that age you don't even know what the questions are yet, I headed off for a long weekend alone. Was to be the last ride before early football practice started. I finally had to make a stop adjacent to a pull off picnic area with no facilities but plenty of bushes and tall vegetation around. There also was a nearby stream, something I came to be thankful for shortly. It was on that stop I learned how to identify nettles, and that it's possible to sit in an ice cold stream of water for 30-40 minutes at a time(you want to be facing downstream in case something comes floating by that might make things more uncomfy). I returned home early, much to my dad's amusement....especially after I showed him the results still present on my keester. He christened me with the nickname of "Rosebud" for the next few weeks and delighted in telling the source of the name to any date I happened to bring by the house. 

John, it's going to be hard not to refer to you as Rosebud now. 

By this time in history I can disprove that moniker....but "show and tell" just ain't my style. 

[The emperor has no clothes]

                                        There’s Always Hope…
 
We pulled out of Seward and headed north again... now with a stuffed absolutely full tummy... towards Anchorage... Man, I just didn't want to ride through there that day... any day, for that matter... We found our way back past the 'split' and headed on... Shortly another sign appeared... Hope! I surely needed some of that, too…
 
We made another turn off the main route and rode over towards Hope, AK. I hadn’t had any idea what to expect… Arden had mentioned it, but only in passing however, as a possible day ride destination, so… it couldn’t be bad, right? Actually, I found no place at all anywhere up there that would even remotely resemble ‘bad’… yeah, even Anchorage wouldn't trip the 'bad' alarm...
 
Along that lovely, lonely, uninhabited but quite scenic stretch of road, I became aware of an impending need to stop… but nothing was available… Hmmm, this could get interesting! I finally found a suitable bush off the road, and I did receive partial relief. A reprieve but not a remedy! I wondered how much time I might have…
 
Fortunately, more or less, Hope is a tiny place consisting of a smattering of houses, a park, some cabins and a lodge, and one rather interesting looking restaurant and lounge… but not a place, I didn’t think, that would accommodate, or at least appreciate, my stopping by…

A quick U-turn and ride out was all it took to scope the entire place out, then we rode back towards the main road… with my fingers crossed! The clock was ticking louder with each passing mile...
 
Back to AK HWY 1 and another turn towards Anchorage… I thought I’d keep an eye out for a motel this side of that city, and maybe delay my ride through there a bit longer…

My elevated pooperosity level was not easing up at all… in fact, quite the contrary! Yep, that had been a hefty serving of some bodacious Q I’d had for brunch, and now the rest of the tab was coming due… And y’all think I lead a stress-free life!!!
 
More miles of nothing… well, there were the occasional suitable bushes and trees, but I’d earnestly hoped that would not become necessary… I gritted my teeth and cranked the throttle a bit harder… ALI never complained!
 
In time, just as I was beginning to think those bushes might not be so bad after all, a service station appeared just as we were coming to the extreme end of Turn Again Arm… WOW! Providence sure had looked out for me again!!!

Ahhhhh, that was really nice… and I didn’t even have to wait! We topped off while there, took a break, then resumed the trek… the hard-work phase of this leg of our journey lay just up ahead… But first…
 
I did see a motel that would probably have been OK… and that would have enabled us to postpone driving through traffic one more day… "Why would you do something like that?", my dad would ask me when I was a kid putting something inevitable off... "You know you have to do it anyway sooner or later... Why not just get it over with?"

My dad was an ardent subscriber to the 'Spare the rod, spoil the child' school of child rearing, so I learned early on it was best to hold my tongue if possible... Had I tried to explain, however, I'd have probably said something like... Being a Christian, I've been taught that Judgement Day can come at any time... so, the effort to do something unpleasant may be totally wasted precious time that could have been put to better use... Funny, the seeds of procrastination may actually have been sown in Sunday School, huh...?

Didn’t work out with the motel, though. I’d arrived there around 3pm, and a sign in the window said they wouldn’t be available until sometime after 4pm… Shucks…  I wasn't going to wait around just to see if they had any vacancies, so... Might as well bite the bullet, I resigned myself, let’s go get this over with… we'll just take our lumps if Judgement Day does come...
 
Dang! Isn’t it amazing how we can build stuff up in our minds and fill ourselves with so much dread and worry… only to have nothing of the sort actually happen to us? Traffic was quite bearable, and we even made most of the traffic lights on that section through downtown between the freeway portions of that otherwise nice highway.
 
I was a mighty happy camper as Anchorage retreated further from view in ALI’s mirrors… That was behind us now, my pooperosity meter was reading ‘zero’, we had plenty of range left in the gas tank, and… life was really, really good! Cloudy, of course, but no precip since arriving back in Seward… Simply WOW!
 
We finally stopped for the night just up the road in Eagle River, AK… A somewhat long day in the saddle, but one that was most rewarding… And, we’d managed to avoid a serious laundry problem… or worse, a necessary trip to Walmart to purchase a replacement pair of britches… Yep, I’d definitely rather be lucky than good!
 
DDT

Back on track to the story. Did we have the same Dad ?  Mine was pretty strict all the way thru my formative years. He raised me and my 2 younger brothers as if we were in perpetual Boot Camp. He gave us buzz hair cuts, regardless of the fashion of the times. He loved waking us up at 6am on the weekends by banging a big spoon on a aluminum pan. And most of all he thoroughly made it clear that he brought us into this world and he could take us out. But I never had any doubt he loved us as much as any person could love another. He was raised dirt poor by an alcoholic father, and did his best to make us in to men.
 I wish I had have thought about your trip thru Anchorage. I could have diverted you on some back roads around most of the worst of the city. Sometimes the simple, obvious things elude me.   
Continued safe travels my friend. And thanks again for a great story today. It reminded me what's important in life. 

[Ice]

Bruce, as always, love your ride reports. And your problem with bushes is why I always carry a roll of TP with me on every trip. Petra found out the hard way why I do such, as an emergency has happened and one does not want to be grabbing/sitting in Nettles as John (or should I say Rosebud?)  found out to wipe with.....
Thanks for sharing, keep on riding my friend, we are looking forward to the next installment of the Bruce Chronicles..... 

[Hooter]

Anyone that says they haven't been in that predicament are goofy.    If I eat a full meal I will hang there just for that reason. Having to go like that kinda takes the fun out of a ride. Corn fields can be your best friend!   

[MarkT]

I recall in the movie "Little Big Man", Dustin Hoffman as an old Indian said "At my age, there's nothing quite so nice as a good fire."  I've always thought the censors changed it from "a good dump".

Reminds me of the time the High Country Cruisers were enjoying a guided float down the river at Yellowstone.  We were on 2 boats, must have been 20 of us.  "Butcher" had a gastric attack that wouldn't wait.  We had to stop both boats while he scrambled to take care of business in the weeds.  Wasn't much cover.  He had to use his socks to clean up.  Felt really bad for him I've had such emergencies but not in front of 20 friends.

Then there was the time on the "By Lao" (go fast) bus from Bangkok to Utapao, the Feen-a-mints I had taken kicked in.  While I was with my pregnant wife (we had gone to pre-natal care at the 5th Field Hospital in Bangkok), and with 20 bags of groceries in the aisle of the bus, we had picked up at the BX and were returning to our bungalow near Sattahip.  3 hour ride, no jon onboard.  I figured I could hold on to Pattaya Beach where they always stop for a potty break.  As we approached the driver announced "no stop as we are running late".  ARGHH! I had to transfer the groceries to a taxi at the U-Tapao gate while severely cramping.  Never again!

This summer we were hiking on Rock Island, off of Washington Island, Door County WI, when we came across the northwoods damp moss.  Told the wife, I always thought about marketing that stuff as TP after having used it decades ago while on a hunt in the Nicolet Forest.  Man is that nice, makes you clean as a whistle and feel fresh as a daisy!

[DDT (12)]

I agree with Jess' mom, that a 'poop' isn't a proper subject for open discussion... However, it can be a natural and major part of trekking, and as I and others on here continue to age, the reality of that becomes even more real! Please forgive me if I've... oh, you know what I mean... It was funny to me, though, and since it all did work out, I thought I'd be remiss in not sharing it, as it did come to dominate part of that day's ride... Plus, I just love a happy ending, ya know!!!

Again, thank you all for the kind comments and useful feedback. I do enjoy this forum and having an opportunity to 'let it all out' about my experiences... My journey has been the highlight of my life, and telling about it has been the icing on the cake... Thanks!

DDT