1998 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

I'm back after 13 mileage packed days. Let me say first that we did too much. In our defense we saw so much awe-inspiring landscape that it was nearly justified. I'm dead tired, but that will go away.

The participants were the same as last time's (Laughlin Ride). Arnold, an old school buddy with about a year of riding experience (mostly dirt). Doug's, another school buddy with plenty of riding experience and ability. His only fault is he has a job. That sort of thing can ruin a fellow. Then there is Bud the old man (77, referred to as OMB), He's been riding since he was 15. His first bike was an old Harley twin with the rear cylinder removed as a means of repairing a cooling problem to the rear cyl.)

Temps of 110 in Las Vegas made us decide to leave from my house at midnight in order to beat the desert heat. We were all so excited about leaving that nobody got much rest in preperation for an all night ride.

The good news was that we beat the heat. The bad news was that we made some errors due to fatigue and because we couldn't see well at night. For instance, in Barstow, Ca. I pulled off an off ramp and Arnold and Bud got caught on the outside of a truck and couldn't make the turn, so Arnold tried to do a little off-roading to get across the gore point in the sand to the offramp. When he fell over he couldn't pick the bike up with only Bud's help, so Bud had to go and find Doug and me. We were waiting downtown for them since we didn't know what had happened to them. The whole incident took about 45 minutes. After a bailing wire repare to one of his front directional signals we were back under way.

And about an hour earlier Bud ran out of fuel. We all were in error about how far he could go on a tank of gas. It seems his 500 cc V twin didnt get nearly the gas mileage as it normally would have when staying up with larger bike at a higher than usual cruising speed. All the three other bikes were 1100 cc V4s. Bud's bike would stay right with us at cursing speeds of up to 100 MPH we later found out.

All these various incidents got us into Vegas at about 7 am (about two hrs later than my estimate) with a temp of about 90 degrees. We figured that we had to go another 125 mile to ST George, Utah in order to be at 4000 ft. and maybe a little cooler. After 100 miles of desert we climbed the last 25 miles through the Virgin River Canyon to St. George. That canyon was the first fantastic scenery of the trip, which would just about numb us for beautiful sites.

It was 10 am with a temp approaching 100. (A dry heat that was bearable.) I had discovered a nice park in town from when I had been there the year earlier with that antique car rally, so as tired as we were, a nice nap under the shade of the park trees felt good but it wasn't nearly long enough.

While having lunch (or breakfast) at a local cafe, we asked for some advice about the road to and from Zion Natl. Park and the nearby Bryce Canyon, but the lady that ran the place had never been there. We all found that hard to believe. We had plenty of maps so we pressed on. It was only about 12:30 pm.

One of Bud's sons has a cherry 40 Ford coupe hotrod and tows a 1950s restored teardrop camp trailer. While nearing Zion, there in a yard on the side of the road was an old pickup with some kind of old old teardrop sized camp trailer. When I spied this I turned everyone around and we went back so Bud could get a picture to show his son. Later while rafting on the Colorado River, Bud dropped that camera into the bottom of the raft in about six inches of water. It was a disposable camera but we wanted the pictures. Now we'll never know what that little trailer was.

We made a quick tour of Zion (1.5 hr.). Zion was truly spectacular with all its color and 5000 ft vertical cliffs. We didn't begin to see all that there was to see. Across the river from the visters center there is a straight up rock cliff/wall about a mile high. You wouldn't notice unless someone pointed them out because they were so small, but there were a half dozen rock climbers up on that wall.

Arnold dropped his bike once more while making a U turn after missing a turn. Fatigue was a big part of these mistakes. We found a nice shady area and made some more bailing wire and gray duck tape repairs.

We left Zion going east through the many short tunnels and headed for Bryce Canyon about 100 miles away. The country side was green and rolling about 5000 ft high with some patches of not very tall trees and quite a few animals grazing, all looking well fed...

Fuel was running low, so while gassing the bikes, we enjoyed an Ice cream cone and something to drink with a shot of caffeine in it. We had about 1 Hr left to ride before we turned the task of finding a campsite over to the campmaster, Bud. Twenty miles before Bryce Canyon we turned Bud loose to find a camp, 10 minutes later we were setting up camp. Bud could find us a camp where there was none. The temp was about 70 and there was about 45 minutes of daylight left with no rain in site. It was a lot colder than that by morning though as we were at 6000 ft. It caught us by surprise to wake up with frost all over our sleeping bags.

Our camping gear consists of three two man tents (we hoped not to use), sleeping bags with some type of mat or air mattress. Cooking gear is made up of a I burner propane stove, one cooking pot with lid, a coffeepot (instant coffee), and forks & spoons. We all had a lot of etc... camping gear.

The first nights dinner consisted of a large can of Lasagna some fruit and bread. At home I would turn up my nose at this, but out here it was unanimously approved of.

I also brought a laptop, which plugged into an inverter, which converted my M/C battery to house current. It worked great, but I found that I didn't have the time or the energy or the light to see the keys to do this writing while on a road trip.

One of the others built a campfire. When dinner was over we talked over the day and anticipated tomorrow's ride. Everyone went to sleep early on night #1.

Day 2 ending in Moab, UT

After spending a lot of time on a major highway on the way to Vegas, we decided to ride more scenically designated and secondary roads even if it increased mileage. This turned out to be a rewarding decision.

I have a feather down sleeping bag that's good. If I don't fluff the feathers into the right places before going to bed, that's bad. Because I didn't fluff, it took a few extra moments to get out of the bag that frosty morning, but we all managed to be ready to ride by 8 am, with only coffee for an eye opener. There were some 9000 ft passes to cross this morning so I put all my layers of jackets on. It paid off, but by 10am it was warm enough for just a long sleeve shirt.

With the agenda of actually getting to Sturgis and keeping an appointment with a river raft company in Moab, Utah the following morning we had to skip some of the diversions, like seeing all of Bryce Canyon. The park's visitor center said it would take at least 2 hours if we visited all it's view points, so we saw the first view pt. (awesome as usual) and went on.

This day's ride went through Bryce, over a 9000-ft pass, though a 3000-ft deep red sandstone canyon, over the Capitol Reef, down through canyon country to cross the Colorado River at Hite, Utah, then back up north to Moab. We went 450 miles of which 300 was gorgeous spectacular scenery. One third were luscious piney tree mountains and 2/3 s deep canyons with monstrous shear cliffs. It was very dry, and very beautiful.

Our route took us through Escalante UT where we gased up. After Bud was filled up he notices a very fine spray of fuel was coming out of a pinhole in his gas tank. We put our heads together and decided to buy some 5 minute JB Weld. We mixed up a tiny amount and mixed in a little shreaded napkin to give it some body. Without even stopping the leak we pressed our mixrure over the leak and held it there with a finger for that 5 minutes. Much to our surprise we never heard a peep out of that gas leak again.

A lack of forethought caused Bud to run out of gas after we'd crossed the Colorado river, about 20 miles from the next gas station, but due to Doug carrying a gallon of extra gas it was no real problem. We dumped a little gas in Bud's bike and on we went. It was Doug's turn to buy gas a total of $21.50. He was solidly in the lead since paying the next station was the highest gas stop, yet. My old saying of "You should never pass a gas station while riding M/C's in the West." has turned out to be good advice.

It was dusk when we pulled into Moab. We decided the 'all you can eat' buffet at JB's Diner was a good choice. After dinner the campmaster did a lap around the block in Down town Moab, and came up with an empty lot right behind the rafting company that we had the appointment with for the all-day river trip in the morning. Sleep came immediately. We needed a days raft trip to rest up.

Day 3 Moab River Rafting

The weather had been sunny and hot at low altitudes, a little cooler at higher altitudes. Moab is about 3500 ft and the day was sunny and 90ish (remember dry heat, not too bad). We located our guides easily that morning. There were 3 raft loads of people going with our company and two, two man kayaks. We all got a chance to try the kayaks for an hour or so.

Rafting tourists are about 50 percent foreigners so when I announced loudly "What about those soccer world cup playoffs?", there were some that joked that they were ready to fight if I was. At least I think they were joking. We didn't talk much about soccer after that.

The guide said that the water level was down and the section of river we were running today was a class 1 & 2 in difficulty (on a scale of 6 being the most difficult). An all day raft trip is 1/2 day too long on a 1 to 2 difficult river. The thing that saved the trip (raft) was the spectacular 2000-ft red rock cliffs and the all girl guide group. One of the girls (35 yr old) had done some bird counting research and she pointed out a golden eagle soaring off in the distance (it could have been a crow for all that I could tell).

Rafting was over at about 4 pm, and by the time we got back to our bike there was still time to make a little progress toward our ultimate destination of Sturgis. We made a little more than a 100 miles before the campmaster took over and found us a little campsite a 1/4 mile from the I-70 freeway. Campfire wood was a little hard to find but we managed in about 15 minutes to get enough to have a lively fire later on.

After having invested this time in our campsite our worst fear started to approach in the form of a Blazer making its way toward us (presumably to tell us we couldn't spend the night there). When he finally arrived the first words out of his mouth were "Hey, would you guys like a beer"? With much relief we accepted and got some great advice on roads and sites in Colorado, as we were about 20 mile west of Grand Junction.

Dinner consisted of a large can of Dinty Moore beef stew with a can of pork & beans thrown in to stretch it a bit, a couple slices of bread to soak up the gravy, and cookies for desert. Perfect! At the campfire we all sang "Oh Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Rome", "YEAH, RIGHT." I'm also selling bridges.

Day 4 Rain Forced us Into a Motel

Morning came with a great setback for me, My $2 air mattress expired during the night (groan). It was more than a week before I found another. Hang the cost, I paid $6 that time.

In the morning one hundred fifty miles went under us on I-70 before we could find a secondary road that would take us from Wolcot (not to far from Vail Co.) north to Estes National Park (the highest park in the US). Estes has a pass at 11,700 and a peak of 12,387. We ate breakfast at a place near Wolcot where we met a rafting guide who predicted rain later on at higher elevations if we were headed for Estes.

It was sunny in Wolcot. We mostly assumed he knew nothing, but within a 1/2 hour it was raining lightly. Everyone got out their rain gear for the first time. Most of our gear was procured with the idea that it wasn't going to rain, WRONG.

My gear had a hole in the butt that let water in in the wrong place. Two of the others had a minimal suit that tore and blew apart in the wind. Bud had got some bicycle riding gear at a thrift store for $4. His gear even had little strap on boot covers, neat. The only problem was that the first time he stopped he couldn't get his foot untangled from the foot peg. Just like the old "Laugh In" tricycle rider He fell right over. None of us laughed until it was evident that he wasn't hurt, then we laughed like hell. After all, what are friends for?

On to Estes. The park was beautiful with lots of elk and deer sightings and slow winding roads which gave quite a bit of time to look at all the views. It rained lightly on and off for the rest of the day not causing much of a problem. It was probably 50 degrees at 11,700 ft, but since we were going slowly it didn't bother us.

You see how I'm not talking much about scenery now, well, we have become numb to awesomeness. As we dropped down the last of the Rocky Mountains to the 5000 ft plains at Fort Collins, the scenery converted to monotonous grassland with a lot of thunderstorms on the horizons. The temp. was probable 90 degrees so rain might get you wet but a half-hour of 70 miles per hour wind was all you needed to get you dry again.

When we arrived in Cheyenne around 7 PM, with lots of rain insight, we elected to spend the night in a motel where we could clean up and do laundry. We had to settle for a meal in a restaurant. I told the boys, too bad, there's nothing I can do about it. We enjoy a real meal for a change. The bummer about Moteling is unpacking all the M/Cs and then repacking in the morning. That was tough duty but somebody had to do it.

Day 5 Finally Sturgis

We left the motel in the morning with only 250 miles left to do before Sturgis. I had figured on an easy day's ride until I saw all the Tstorms on the horizon. It wasn't long before rain was blurring our vision. I learned that rain's not bad if the weather is warm, but those few time that hale was mixed in, the hale stung like hell. It rained on us until about noon, then we began to see sunlight.

The rain had all moved east and good time were in the distance. Some of the riders coming from Sturgis had had enough. They told us of campgrounds, so muddy from a solid week of rain, that bikes were getting stuck and others were falling down just trying to get in and out of their camp.

Doug discovered how to meet girls while at a reststop. The info comes too late in life for any of us to benefit from it, but maybe somebody reading this will get some use from it. He started using the girl's bathroom and he found out that sooner or later he met some girls. He's blaming senility, but I think he's dumb like a fox.

Doug had been warning Bud about his garage sale tires looking a little thin on tread. Well, when the rain cleared and we could see again Doug notice a white streak in the middle of Bud tire, while he was following him. Looking closer reveled about 6 inches of cord showing.

Now the middle of Wyoming is not downtown Loa Angeles. As we found out after a few inquiries, there are no M/C tires between Cheyenne and Sturgis. After conferring with each other as to how far could a fellow go on a tire like that, Bud decided he could probably make it to Sturgis, so with a slightly reduced speed we continued on. There was about 150 miles to go. Inside of the next eighty miles the cord showing increased to over half the way around the tire.

Bud finally decided to hang out at a gas stop, about 65 miles short of Sturges, and wait for some kind of empty hauler to bum a ride on. The other three of us went on taking a site seeing tour of the Black Hill on the way to Sturgis. Bud had plenty of money and plastic, and we would meet him at a western bar "the Broken Spoke" at 10AM the next morning. Or the next next morning if necessary, and so on. Turns out some old couple (as old as Bud) with an empty pickup gave him a ride. He unloaded in Sturgis and found a tire guy that could fix him up in the morning, then conned the poor guy into letting him sleep in his shop overnight. It cost us $10 each to camp out in some open field for the night. I guess all's well that end well.

Sturgis is quit an event. The event takes place in a circle with about a 75-mile diameter. There are probable 10 towns the size of Sturgis in that circle. All these towns have many touristy things to see, and their traffic (except for Sturgis) is normally quite busy with automobile tourists. During the annual Rally, motorcycles out number cars in these towns 10 to 1. In Sturgis the M/Cs are 100 to 1. Sturgis is the center of activities, 100s of venders in the vender areas, hill climbs, dirt track races, wet tee shirt contests, and one of the camp grounds actually had a contest to see which girl could fake an orgasm the best. I might note these last two events happened after my bedtime.

Doug, Arnold, and I took a ride one afternoon/night to meet some of his Harley group friends. We road about 50 miles going the long way to avoid traffic in Sturgis, at near the halfway mark we came upon a small town that had a couple of bars. One of these bars saw fit to close off the street, hire a band set up a bandstand, and have an enormous party. The towns were all taking advantage of Sturgis week wherever you went.

A couple days of running around the Black Hills, though beautiful were no match for the mountains and canyons that we had already seen, was all we could stand. After watching some hill climbs, taking a helicopter ride and completing the vender area, we rode out at about 4pm on the 7 th day. We made nearly 200 miles before sending Bud off to find us a campsite. Buffalo, Wyoming was hardly out of site when Bud went into action. We had stopped next to a stream. Ten minutes had gone by and no Bud, so I went to look for the campmaster. Low and behold, there was Bud, he had laid it down in some sand and had to unload the bike in order to pick it up. We settled on Bud's first choice for a site and called it a day with the sound of the stream to sleep by.

Day 9 We Made a New Friend at Camp

A peculiarity of this kind of camping travel is that you don't hear any news. To get news you have to ask gas station clerks, waitresses, and people you meet along the way. That's how we found out that it was universally hot in the west. We had planned to dip south from Buffalo and hit Salt Lake City, but due to the heat we decided on a more northerly route west, and to stay at higher altitudes when ever we could.

The road out of Buffalo, along the Powder River and through Ten Sleeps Canyon is as nice as it gets. There is beautiful scenery with steep canyon walls and a twisty piece of asphalt that will allow a pace of 40mph at the bottom and maybe 80mph at the top end. I get kind of spooked at those higher speeds, but I can't help myself. I'm an admitted adrenaline junkie. I must say that every time I looked back there was 77 year old Bud on that little 500 of his getting his shot of adrenaline too.

This kind of riding is what M/Cs are all about. I love the thrill of coming up on a car, giving the throttle a good twist, hearing and feeling that strong motor, and in a split second you're around the car and are grabbing a lot of brakes in order to dive into the next corner. I think I'd drive a hundred miles just to do that once. This road had plenty of that, but not many cars. We stopped and had breakfast at a lodge on a lake up there somewhere. It was just perfect.

By the way, Ten Sleeps got its name from the Indians because that was how long it took the Indians to get through the canyon even though it was only about 50 miles long.

This was especially nice since we had spent a couple days in the grasslands with gently rolling hills. There was even a Natl. Grassland Park somewhere up there that we went through.

After Ten Sleeps we headed south and took in the giant hot spring at Thermopiles, WY. Quite interesting. WE hopped back on our horses and took off for The Teton Natl. Park. Majestic is the word for the Grand Teton Mt, but we only rode through, as we were trying to put away some mileage before sundown. WE made Jackson then went east on hwy. 22 through a short stretch of Mts then into a farming valley.

It was time for Bud to find us a camp for the night, It didn't look easy. We went down some long dirt roads and found places that would do, but they were clearly somebody property and nobody was there to give us permission. It was time to let Bud go by himself to run down a campsite. He'd never let us down before.

About ten minutes went by and here comes Bud. He found us a gravel quarry just a few feet off the road. We would be totally out of sight from the road so we could have a campfire with the abundant firewood that was there. This site even came with it's own owl, a big fellow about 2ft tall who found us quite curious, but he didn't seem to mind sharing his camp with us.

The camp was perfect, except I hadn't replaced my air mattress yet. That wasn't Bud fault though. While Arnold cooked hamburger with macaroni and cheese, I sneaked into town and bought some beer and also some distilled water for our batteries. Back at camp the food and a couple beers put our lights out very quickly.

Day 10 the Ideal Campsite

During a cup of camp coffee in the morning, we each debated with ourselves (was a battery water check really necessary)? It was a pain in the butt. Every one of us needed battery water badly except Doug, who only had one cell that was below the low mark. I imagine we averted some later grief. At the very least we all felt more assured.

With that done we headed to Victor (a mile back the way we had come) in order for Doug to mail his postcards as he did every day. This was kind of a sore subject with the rest of us, since back at home the wives were comparing notes as to what each had heard about the trip. I was considering breaking an arm as my excuse for not matching Doug's postcard barrage. The others had their own explanation I'm sure. Of course Bud was just as bad. He had gotten his wife flowers just before we left home. Sigh, where have all the real men gone? Do you think John Wayne did any of that stuff?

Bud was paying a little more attention to his tires these days, we all were. My rear tire was getting down there, but Bud's front was the current most suspect tire.

There was about 100 miles of farming land to negotiate before we could enjoy more mountains. We drove those miles hurriedly. Some where in the middle of that 100, there was a little town named Arco. Their claim to fame was a mountain not to far away (maybe a quarter mile) with each high school graduation year painted on many different rock faces starting back in 1922. It had questionable esthetic value. The real reason I mentioned Arco is that it has a Honda outlet, and Bud was able to put on a front tire. Bud kept mumbling about having a half dozen near new tires in his garage going to waste. Doug spent the time finding out that the 16 year old cashier at the mini-mart had never been out of town and that she would graduate in 1999. She also wanted to have six kids and to get started as soon as she could.

The map said that the Sawtooth Mountains were up ahead, and we were ready. Even Doug was tired of the flat land. He was leading and his Sabre's speedo was bouncing around 90mph. I know because my speedo told me so. Arnold and Bud were right there too. Highway 93 met 75 at a gas stop where we met 5 guys on big dual sport dirt bikes. These guys were spending a week on nothing but dirt road and trails and even the old Oregon Trail when they could fine it. I think they gave us an idea for another ride. After all we were young guys.

Back on the road again we eventually were beginning to pick up some mountains and some twisty roads. Just as we spotted a lone sport bike ahead, and found him to be too easy to catch (not that we were trying). I was ready to dust him when I noticed the car he was following had roof lights, whoops. The first nice road in a 100 miles and we have to follow a cop. There's no justice. Or maybe there is, in about five miles he turned around and went the other way. That was the signal for us to go, but when he took off I thought I had hit my brakes by mistake. I was able to keep that sport bike in view for about 5 min. then I never saw him again. He was very late for something. That was just as well as we dropped in o a small stream and the ride was spectacular. There was a lot of white water and I earmarked this river for future Rafting plans. This river and the Bighorn River over near Shoshoni, Wy, were tops for rafting in my book.

Eventually we got to Stanley (the major Sawtooth Natl. Park town), with enough daylight left to gas and get the night's dinner provisions. Tonight I was cooking Spaghetti. We did another 40 miles of mountains before engaging Bud's services. Tonight was Bud's best, stream, firewood, and seclusion with enough daylight to appreciate it.

Arnold was tempted to blow up his air mattress and go for a poor man's kayak ride. We even took baths in the stream. I'd guess the water was about 60 degrees. At that temperature it doesn't take long to bathe. Bud thought he had died and gone to heaven when he was told that there was some beer on ice left over from the night before. The altitude was about 6500ft, so we prepared for brisk and after dinner went to bed. The spaghetti was great, and there wasn't any leftovers.

Day 11 and a Grumpy Rider

A couple a cups of camp coffee, and a last look at the best campsite we would have, got us underway in the morning. We were still in mountain country, so the riding started out with a thrill. It looked like we had 75 miles of mountains ahead of us. That 75 is not just a number. It represents 1.5 to 2 hours of exhilaration riding at a comfortable temperature. It was great, but then our luck ran out. The road dumped us out into farming country at about 3500 feet. That meant 95 degree plus temperatures, straight boring roads, Stop signs, and not much too look forward to for the rest of the day.

Before we had left the mountains at the next gas stop, we learned that all the helicopter activity at a recently passed forest dept, station, produced a successful attempt to get control of a forest fire about 25 miles away. This same country store owner was also proudly showing us her recent remodel job, while telling us about the part of town that was no more due to a mountain slide several years ago. Life in these parts can be both serene and peaceful, and in the next instant very unforgiving. Today it was the former.

Bend, Oregon was our next major destination. There were two ways to get there, either the short way straight through the high desert or the longer way through the little bit higher 4 to 5 thousand foot mountains. This decision to us was a no-brainer. The road (hwy 26) was a good 2 laner that wound it way through the back woods of southern Oregon. There was no traffic and except for a little heat it was a nice ride of about 275 miles.

Now I don't blame this next incident on anybody. It just couldn't be helped. It was somewhere out there in nowheresville, we came up on a pair of noisy glamour bikes that were going home from Sturgis. The lead bike was roaring along near the shoulder and his partner was staggered back a couple lengths near the center line. I think these guy were nearly asleep. They certainly didn't hear any of us coming. Bud was leading us with his 500 cc half-a-bike. Bud gave this guy enough time to see us and move over to the right, so we could make a shared lane pass. When Bud's patience ran out he hit the throttle and passed the rearward guy on the right, then cut across and passed the other rider near the center of the road on his left. The rest of us nailed it hard and went around in the opposite lane of traffic.

Something about that must have embarrassed them, because they made quite a scene in a gas station later. The biggest redneck of the pair was bent out of shape bad enough to come over and look up the rider that had done that to him. When Bud got his helmet off and the guy could see that Bud was 140 pounds of a near 80 year old fire breathing monster, he didn't know what to do. We could all tell he had some good upbringing though, because he started every one of his bitches with sir. We all got a pretty good chuckle out of that, and it was enough excitement for the day.

We gassed up and bought the evenings groceries at a small country store in an old town named Unity. There was shade in front of an old hardware store across the street, so we parked there. We spent a half an hour looking in the window trying to figure out what the stuff they had in there was for. It was old stuff, and a neat place to to take a break that afternoon.

About 3 that afternoon we were winding our way through a canyon which was following a stream. It was hot, and I had a thought that was brought on by seeing a camper pulled off on a wide spot in the road. Let's stop and go swimming, but we never came to another good place to stop, and then the canyon and the stream were gone. I'm still regretful that we didn't get to have a cool refreshing swim that day.

We made Bend that night and Bud found us a camp as usual. It was about 40 miles south of town and lumber country with no trespassing signs posted so we didn't think it would be wise to have a campfire in spite of Bud's opinion. It's always a little better camp when there's a fire. This camp did have one distinguishing feature. It was the only campsite we had enjoyed with a table. Many years ago, a thoughtful forester had cut down a pine of 30" diameter in order for us to use the stump for a dinning table. Dinner consisted of chili, fruit cocktail, and bread. There was no beer for Bud tonight.

Day 12 Oregon's Crater Lake

Our destination the next day was Reno, but Oregon's Crater Lake was not far ahead, and that was a must see. Crater Lake was the singularly most uniquely beautiful geographical wonder of the whole ride. At only 7200ft, there was still a lot of snow up there.

When we packed for this trip, Doug had bought a case of "Power Bars" for instant pick me up snack food. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we ate so well that he wasn't getting any takers on the bars. Nearing the end of the trip he was getting desperate to rid himself of them.

As chance would have it, up at the lake there was a group of hungry chipmunks freeloaders at a viewpoint, who knew just exactly what to do with those Power Bars. Doug would make them come up on his knee before he would give them a piece. Cipmonks are very cute. As we watched them, we all wondered just who was training who.

We had entered Crater Lake form the north side, and after breakfast at the Visitor Center snack bar, we left the park going south not thinking the best may be yet to come. It was quite a ride going south leaving the lake. There was a tremendous canyon to follow down to about 3000ft. It made me wonder about what I'd been missing in the rest of the world.

We began to think about the Reno's nightlife and a hotel room and bath. These are the same kind of temptations that caused Ulysses to tie himself to the mast. We were now riding with a purpose, but still there was no need to get to Reno in the middle of the afternoon.

Once we were on the main road south out of Oregon, we passed Klamath and a couple of small towns. Doug hit the brakes hard made a U-turn to look at a partially finished hotrod for sale in some ones front yard. Thank God Bud was there to tell us what it was. He grew up with all that stuff. It turned out to be a 34 Chevy coupe about 75% completed. It had already had all its wooden body parts replaced. Nobody was home to talk to, so we took down his phone number, filled up our water bottles with his hose, and continued on toward Reno, dreaming about cruising town in our hotrod.

Incidentally Doug did call the guy and found out that he was a dragster huilder who chased his dream too far, and needed to sell this toy. He said he would like to get 20,000 dollars out of it.

Checking our clocks told us we would get to Reno too early, so we had time to take the long way up through some mountains at the next major intersection about 70 miles away. Nobody was watching the map but me, and I made a hasty estimate of how far we could go before needing gas. I also noticed there weren't a lot of towns on the map, and when I saw that sign that said 40 more miles before next gas, I was heginning to wonder just how smart I had been with that hasty estimate.

First Doug was looking at me kind of hard when he went on reserve tank, then I went on reserve, and about 5 minutes later Arnold hit reserve. We finally got to that gas station, whew. Doug had a little over a quart of gas left and Arnold and I had just a little more than that. Those last 10 or 15 miles went terribly slow with that last bar on the gas guage blinking urgently at us. But with gas in sight I guess I was a genius after all.

That gas stop was in Canby, Ca. We turned on hwy 299, and headed west for about 50 miles. In In about 50 miles we would turn south on a little traveled hwy 39 at Adin. I pulled over in some shade to consult the map. Thank God, I don't have one of those slick tank bags with the clear plastic map reading compartment. If I did I would have known where I was going, and blown right through town. Instead, having stopped Bud noticed the neat old Adin Supply Store we were parked near.

None of us could resist a look inside. While Doug was inside casing the joint. I stayed out front and sat on the old wooden bench with Mr. Dick Campbell. Turns out that He came to Adin long, long ago. He and family had run the store for many years and they were ready to pass the store on to new people. I also learned that the automatic transmission shop across the street had just gotten a trany-rebuilding contract from AAMCO for all the western states.

It was beginning to look pretty sweet Doug could run the general supple store, I could mechanic at the trany place, and Arnold could program the machinery for the AAMCO contract. Life couldn't get any better than that. With that knowledge I decided to go look inside.

Doug was bartering hard with Mr. Campbell's daughter-in-law. Doug had beaten her all the way from 250,000 to 275,000 thousand dollars. Bud took one look at a snapshot on the bulletin board of the place with 6" of snow on the ground, and he quickly counted himself out. I on the other hand had found a treasure, an air mattress, hot damn I was back in business. As it turned out there were only two more days on the road, and both in motels. The air mattress will wait for me.

Arnold eventually jerked everybody back to reality with a "lets get back to riding. Were burning daylight, and we still have a couple hundred miles to go, remember the night life, you know, Reno. If you keep these big bikes running you can easily do 200 miles in 3 hrs, but If you let Bud lead, and promise him a beer when he gets there, 200 miles doesn't even take that long.

There was 80 miles of fast mountainous road, nice riding, before Susanville, as we dropped down into the heat for the rest of the way to Reno. It was about 6:30pm. Bud had gotten a recommendation of a motel out toward Sparks from a girl customer at our last gas stop as we entered Reno.

I don't know if the fact that the Mustang Ranch is in Sparks influenced Bud or not. Never the less we got a room at The Western Village in Spark for the four of us. That was 44 bucks, 11 dollars apiece, kind of high for us. Hang the cost.

We got the bikes unloaded and the gear up to our third floor room. After cleaning up, It was time for a dinner out. Our last one was nearly half a country away in Sturgis. The Western Village had a restaurant and a casino. That was just right. We wouldn't have to do any more riding for dinner.

When we sat down in the restaurant I noticed how good a nice plush booth felt. While waiting for our food a couple nice looking girls came in and sat in a booth a couple tables away. Then the manager came over and talked to them and then they got up and left. I guess they think working girls don't get hungry.

We ate dinner when it was served, and then we all looked at each other to see who would wuss out first and suggest just going back to the room, and doing our night life sometime tomorrow. So much for what happens in Reno at night.

Day 13 Could Have Been Much Worse

Waking in Reno meant there was some business to take care of today. The bikes had been nearly 4000 miles and needed oil changes, I needed a rear tire, and Bud needed another rear tire. Arnold's bike had developed a slight water leak at a metal water routing tube where it entered one of the heads. We had saved all these service problem for Reno, because of it's size.

Looking up the Honda dealer in the phone book early that morning, allowed us to be on their doorstep at opening time. The service manager said that he had appointment ahead of us, but he could no doubt get us fixed up today. We thought that we ought to be able to do better than that, so we went for breakfast to kill a little time and inquire of another bike shop.

At our breakfast stop, a fellow came over to talk motorcycles. He told us of a bike shop not far away, Reno Motor Sports, where he had been treated well on a tire purchase. That was what we wanted.

It was Tuesday. The shop hadn't been open long when we entered the service bay. You could tell the owner wasn't used to servicing a group of road bikes, but he put his mechanic on it right away and called another in to help get us on the road as fast as possible. The oil changes and tires took no longer than an hour and a half.

We spent the time talking bike stuff to the owner and mechanics. They couldn't get over Bud driving his Volvo powered dune buggy in the inaugural "Baja 1000 Mile" race in 1967. Or that he rode his old single cylinder Harley off road in Los Angeles back in 1940. Or that he put himself through college building rear suspension kits for motorcycles before any factory had developed swingarm rear suspensions (in his garage with 4" of travel, wow). 4 inches is a lot when you're used to none. They were also impressed to find out that I had actually won the Baja 1000 in a Toyota Land cruiser in '73. When they finished the work, and we all finish bragging (a malady most of us bikers are afflicted with), we thanked them and departed to continue with our adventure.

Our intention was to go about 50 miles south of Reno and take the Sonora Pass across the Sierras and camp somewhere on the west side. I was in the lead on the way out of town on hwy 395 freeway. I was thinking about something else as the freeway was making a surprise ending, and when I got my train of thought back enough to make a decision to quick take the off ramp to get us to old hwy 395, it didn't leave enough time for the riders behind me.

I didn't see it happen, but Arnold got on some sand as he was turning sharply to make the off ramp. He went down (by his estimate) at about 25 mph. The rear slid out from under him, and he slid to a stop. He had a couple abrasions, a large bump, think grapefruit, on his hip, and a fairly hard thump on his helmet. He could have been hurt a lot worse.

The bike had a couple new scratches and the other front directional signal broke off. Once we got the bike up and assessed the damage we set about with more bailing wire and gray duck tape to keep the bike together for just another couple days. We added nylon zip ties to the repair materials this time.

While we wired and taped the repair, Arnold was getting himself back together and assessing his own road worthiness. One thing about Arnold is that he is no complainer, so the rest of us didn't have any gauge as to how bad he was feeling. He needed a little time to see if or how much things were going to stiffen up. The bang on his hip grew and grew.

Once the parts were glued back on, all systems were go, so south we continued once again. There was still an hour or so before the Sonora Pass turn off. We were having a late lunch when Arnold decided to skip the rest of the camping trip and head straight for home. Doug decided to stay with Arnold. Bud said that if we had been together that long we should stay together. I agreed.

There was a hostel in Johannesburg that we had stay at many times, with a wonderfully accommodating owner, Lady Michelle, who would put us up if we could get there. Arnold was beginning to dream of a hot bath to soak some new aches and pains away. If we had thought about this destination much we would have realized it was to far to make that night, but off we went anyway.

The weather had been hot around Reno, but once we got up in the mountains it was perfect. There were a lot of thunderstorms in the air as we traveled south. We found many section of wet road, but we always seemed to change direction in time to run around or between any rain squalls. When we dropped down into the high desert, the temperature soared to at least 100 degrees. At that temperature, we were hoping to run into one of those Tstorms, and what we could see ahead of us looked like we wouldn't be disappointed.

There were lots of dark skies and lightning, but there was only wind, no rain. Daylight vanished with us still 75 miles from the hostel. Doug suggested that, if we wanted to get there fast we should tape a beer on the end of a stick, then wire it to Buds bike dangling it out front of him, then just draft along behind him to Johannesburg. We finally arrived at about 9:30 PM. Lady Michelle let us in and gave us a good scolding for not being careful. We had had some kind of lesson that day. I'm sure we all went to sleep thinking of how to avoid this kind of day in the future.

Day 14 The Conclusion

It was an easy last 300 mile ride home the next day with no more surprises. Our 15 year old Hondas had risen to the occasion and delivered an EPIC adventure to us all.