Okay. Sedentary long enough. Kansas city has been fun. Got lost, ate Oklahoma Joe’s burnt ends, drank waaaay too much. Gotta hit the road so I can turn around in eleven hundred miles.
Edit: speaking of turning around, sue picked up my ATM card thinking it was hers. Eighty miles later I’m still in Kansas city.
So I rolled into kcmo Thursday and I planned on leaving today. But its fucking 106 degrees. Screw that. Probably ride straight through to Maryland tomorrow, depending on mountains. No way I’m riding today. Breakfast beers instead. Yesterday it was beermosa, but some asshole drank all the orange juice (me)
Here’s the line for Oklahoma Joe’s, the best gas station you could hope to eat BBQ at.
Here’s my z man and my Carolina style pulled pork. Yes I ate both. It was transcendent.
And here’s the family getting pizza later. I couldn’t believe I was able to eat.
Jackie, sue, Bönz, naya, Shane, Lyra, and holly.
This shithole is where I spent my formative years. This is not good. Most common past times for teens and young adults here include knocking chicks up, smoking meth, and spreading disease. Try to avoid this festering sore in the landscape.
There are a few diamonds in this rough. Very old friends Roberta and Krass.
this is a church of unresearched denomination that is strikingly and eerily similar (like exactly) to one in a very lovecraftian dream i had a couple months ago. like druids summoning elder gods and other things black metal albums are based on. gave me the willies and so here it is.
my plan about my day 5 post was going to be ‘kansas is flat.’ and leave it at that, but something pretty cool happened. i pulled into a gas station for, oh i dunno, fuel, and found this triumph scrambler sitting there. judging by the gear strapped to it, its person was doing some riding as well. enter chris. chris seemed like a nice dude. here’s his 2006 scrambler, my favorite motorbike named for an egg preparation method. turns out chris is going the same direction, colorado to woodstock, to see his family. so we rode a tank of gas worth together. i think he hit his reserve right after i did, but he left the highway first. i got off at the next exit and hoped to see him again, but didn’t. so chris: had a blast, ride safe, hit me up and let me know you arrived in one piece!
oh, and kansas is shit.
this is in kansas city. the missouri one. here you see two rare specimens, bonzimus drunkticus and estibanicus iron-butticus. bonz here is also named steve. so is his step dad. there were confusing times at his house in high school. you know, i’m blessed enough to be able to call more than a few people my best friends. this one is my best best friend. i think i’ll stay here in kc a couple days. it’s been too long.
heloo. i’m attempting an update. so i uploade this photo (these photos) from my phone and adding text from a coputer. can’t get the cursor in fron of the pic. here goes:
so after doing 1000 miles in 24 hours i found my way to the home of a buddy who offered a couch. the sign on the door read ‘this one steve’ andi kinda wish i’d gotten a pic of that. after 13 or 14 years, to have someone like pat welcome youin such a way,it’s… wellit feels really good. after a shower, load of laundry and a nap, we haddinner with mike and his family and prepared to capitalize on the high altitude buzz, as i’d come to call it the rest of the evening. our first stop was at a bar named something i forget. their logo was a girl(s) with two heads and three legs. i’d been not to drink the ‘go fuck yourself juice,’ the giant steam punk dildo of a dispenser you see above. below, you see the railing of the place, made of axes. axe railings are bitchin’
this computer is wierd. i dunno. beggars can’t be choosers. anyway,after this joint we went to a cigar bar so we could smoke indoors. there we discussed the merits of styx and kansas and argued the illegitemacy of journey. also, pat is on his way to be a coroner, so death was a fascinating subject as well. below, left to right, is pat, mike and our hero.
i’m sorry, but i’m pretty beat and have a significant buzz, so these couple posts will be kinda lame. mike moved to ‘fucking wyoming’ sophmore yearso we’re talking like 15 years since i’ve seen these guys. i’ll tell you a few things, matter of factly, and not all waxing philosophical: it amazes me how after such a long time a few dudes can just pick up like we never even left off. also, denver has like a hundred different smells. oka, gonna go do the actual RIDE part. prepare to be disappointed.
oh yeah. at the silly hipster bar full of dudes my age grasping at the last vestiges of their youth. basically what i’m doing, and do, in a way that makes me feel like i’m not in on the in joke.
knowing i couldn’t have any fun, real or induced, i followed the bartender’s directions to a prak where i planned to attempt to sleep. note that this was prefaced with the disclaimer ‘i suck at giving directions.’
indeed. i found myself riding along I-70 again, and stopped at some national park. sprawled upon my bike, i attempted to sleep. there wsan’t really anywhere you’d want to put a bedroll. i’d nearly succedded to reach this coveted state of slumber when IT happened.
RAIN.
perplexed, donning rain gear (an insisted gift from mike. thanks, mike), i found myself making a rash decision: remain stationary, or get just as wet progressing my adventure? i fumbled for my keys, but something tugged at my paranoia receptors. something that was in the season for migrating.
plugging along at a blistering 50 mph, cold yet reasonably dry, pleading with the mist driven up by far more confident cage drivers roaring past, a poor, yet suspiciously neatly decapitated specimen was beneath my port side peg and gone before my brain could register what it was. i became immediately aware of what bambi could do to my bike and i.
now, this downpour was described by weather.com or some such as ‘a slight chance of sporadic showers.riiiight. i checked the map on my phone. no way it could be more than twelve miles in direction. maybe this was accurate, but i didn’t perceive it that way. and once the rain itself stopped, i’d still have horizontal typhoons spewed at me by old dudes pulling a fifth wheel pulling some old jaguar or morgan or whatever the fuck that was.
luckily (how is there not an emoticon for eye-rolling?), it let up. more like made way for the Rocky Mountains. yeah, it was dark, but i could sense that if i’d misjudged, i’d plummet to a death from which there would be no indication.
all of these things conspired against me last night. much to my surprise and pleasure, around 730am, quite frozen and battered, i rolled into my destination, denver proper, just 20 miles shy of the 1000 required for me to consider myself an Iron Butt. naturally, i spent some time aimlessly ticking the odometer over.
that’s some shit that makes you grateful for what you have. like an old buddy willing to offer a couch, shower, and an appetite for beer. more on that later. i need a fucking nap.
Well, I guess I’ll prologue with Ely having just gotten rained on, so I didn’t catch it.
Utah. Utah… is shit. Well, at first I thought it was kinda neat. Passed a couple on a Harley. Discovered Utah has no helmet law. I kept mine on, but I bet they were stoked. Then I saw this bitchin’ mountain here
Then I ran into the chip sealed roads. I hate that shit. Lots of it too.
At the 50 junction with I-70 I stopped for gas and my ATM card was declined. Using one of those in multiple states gives them the idea that it’s been stolen. Convenient when that’s the case, not so otherwise.
Then dusk. I know I must have missed lots of cool shit, but I kinda got shit to do. The mountains in the middle of the state were pretty hairy, I was so paranoid of deer.
Anyway, I’m in this extremely loud (and not in the way I like) bar in downtown grand junction Colorado. Not sure where I’m gonna take the rolling recliner, but they’re letting me charge my phone.
Oh, the ride. The mountains were chilly. Otherwise not much different. After nearly twice the mileage as the other day, I feel pretty great. The last hundred miles weren’t excruciating like on the way to reno.
On to Denver tomorrow.
I spent a little longer than I intended in Fallon. But I topped off and hit highway 50, the loneliest road in america.
About ten miles out of town I notice these rock based graffiti along the side of the road. Mostly people’s names or professions of two initials 4 ever. I wonder if any of these couples are still together. My favorite read, “LSD IS GOD.” this earned a hearty chuckle.
A few miles later I encountered this gorgeous scene with some dunes co trusted against some mountains. I hope the panoramic pic came out alright.
Here, this contrast generously illustrates my feeling about my trip today versus day one: in the warm sun and cool air, I’m comfortable. This is what I’m doing out here. This is why I’m doing what I’m doing.
After many miles of straight road broken by the occasional hilly pass I encountered the quaint little town of Austin, which looked as if it couldn’t have enough people to support its four churches. Each had a steeple.
Beyond, about 15 miles of 15 mph ride behind a giant truck through some twisty mountain roads. It was probably a third that distance in reality. But that’s what it felt like. More exceeding long road.
I reach eureeka. They claim this is the friendliest town on the loneliest road in america, but judging by the size of the fire department, I have a feeling there’s a significant arsonist population here. I don’t stick around to find out: I’m making good time. Gas and go.
Significantly more winding roads but plenty of straights. I’ve passed so many bikers going the other direction. Today, the biker wave, which usually fwwls tedious, is a welcome bit of human contact.
Oh, the bicyclists: I have seen insanity, and it dresses in spandex. A thousand miles from nowhere on a fucking bicycle? My crazy adventure now seems reasonable.
Ely. It smells like rain. Going to force myself to eat as much as I can. A couple gold wing owners outside lament a seriously messed up tire they must wait a day to replace. No motorcycle shop for 200 miles. Their spirits are only slightly dampened, it seems, as they banter friendly and even offer me to use their towels and cleaners to clean my bike. I’m not going to worry about it, not until I get home. I’m mad max or some shit.
Now a rest with some corned beef hash. Recharge my ass.
Up reasonably early, chugging water like if it were found on another planet, it would practically guarantee life. This is it. After this, there’s really no turning back. The anxiety is elusive, thankfully, but I know it’s there. So highway 50 to interstate 17 to highway 70 is the plan. Unless I’m extremely lucky, I’ll be sleeping under the stars tonight. Stopping in Fallon against my better judgment. I’ll update a little more then.
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