My First Motorcycle trip
story -
The story of my early days when I was 15-16 years old and my memories of that time.
In 2006 I
finally fulfilled a dream I had for the past four years and that was to get my
motorcycle out of my storage trailer and haul it back to Superior
(90 miles
round trip) so I can have it available when I need a ride to clear my mind. Those motorcycle
rides are what sustained me when I was
recuperating from my
cancer treatments... later on in the process of healing however, since I wouldn't
have had the strength to even keep the cycle
upright!
Cycles
and me go way back....since I was 15 years old I've had one and drove solo on
many trips across the U.S. and enjoyed the trips very much.
I remember one trip
when I drove from Minneapolis, Minn to Oregon for two weeks starting with only
$200 in my pocket. I returned home and still
had $100 left even including buying
a new tire for the back of the cycle along the way home, fuel and food also. I
can live VERY cheap if I have to!
I camped the first night in North Dakota in a
city park right next to the Red River. It rained that night and the river
flooded its banks up and into my
tent. I could have floated away! The earth
there is this yucky gray clay mud that dries to the consistency of concrete!
Well, it was so muddy that I
couldn't drive out of there since I was in ruts
the whole way. I had to run along side the bike with it running to help push it
through the mud. When I
finally got out on the road it was like driving on
square wheels until most of the clay got thrown off. The next place I camped
was in Montana along
the Yellowstone River. I spied this old logging road off
the freeway that led toward the river and drove down the washed out road on the
only wheel
rut left, pretty secure that no one else would be able to bother me
down there. When I reached the river, I set up camp under the shade of a large
tree
and then went off in search of the "washroom". I discovered a
fantastic waterfall that worked very nicely as a shower and the waiting time
for the
shower was nil. After I got dressed and started heading back to my tent
for the night, I heard a rumbling noise coming down the one-lane washed out
drive and then soon saw a pair of headlights leading the four-wheel drive RV
that was coming towards me. So much for privacy!
When the RV got to me, it stopped, doors
flew open and out stepped an elderly couple. They greeted me and said they saw
my cycle parked down
here and wanted to know if they could camp by me for
safety. "Sure”, I said.....trying to act the part of a tough motorcycle
guy...I'm such a REALLY
tough guy down deep, you know.... That was actually
very funny!
Well, they camped by me, but I didn't
tell them where the showers were.....I can only share so much.....
The next time I stopped for the night
was in Idaho somewhere, by a river of course...I love camping by the sound of
running water. It's so soothing to
sleep by and take a bath in! As I looked for
my next bathing place, I found a nice big pool down the river a ways and do you
know what was in the
pool? Yes, of course......water! But do you know what was
in the water? It was literally filled with.....huge rainbow trout! I wondered
why they were
still in school at this time of the evening, so I thought I'd do
them a favor and as I jumped in the pool. I shouted, "class
dismissed!" and then laughed
to myself after I screamed when I realized
how cold the water was. It was very refreshing, though! You know that the only
reason fish get caught is
because they were playing "hookie" from
school?! Hey, you know what nationality fish are? Guess!
>>>>>>Finn-ish! I bet you heard that LINE
before, huh? Well,
they fall for that line quite a bit too, so don't be too hard on yourself!
You are probably asking why I stopped so
often to camp? Well, one, I like to camp, two, I only wanted to drive during
day light and had to stop by
about 4 PM to insure I found a free camp spot, and
3, I didn't want to drive right through all of the scenery and miss enjoying it
along the way, so I'd
stop more often.
The next day was very fun driving
through the mountains in Idaho. I loved the many turns and twists and up and
down hills...that's what cycling is all
about...turns and twists, leaning into
turns just nearly to the point of scraping the mufflers on the road...seeing
every crack and defect in the road.....so
much different than touring by car!
You see so much more! This was at the time, mind you, that gas was still in the
20-cent range per gallon! Imagine
that? I'd usually eat my breakfast at a
restaurant and then have a light supper made from things I discovered from the
woods around my camp spot.
Sometimes I'd find blueberries, raspberries, or
thimbleberries and make muffins or pancakes. Then I'd sit back and write a few
letters to friends and
mail them in the next town I passed through. Many of
those little towns high up in the mountains were filled with very inquisitive
people who came out
(seemed to flood out of) of the countryside when I pulled
up to a post office to mail my letters. Then of course, they had to ask,
"Hey, you're from
Minnesota....do you know such and such......a person?
Sure, I know everybody in the state! What a ridiculous question…...................
The worst part of the trip was when I
had to drive for 100+ miles along the Columbia river as I was heading to the
state of Washington, which had a
headwind of about 60 MPH all through the year
except for October, when the wind direction changes. I was passing Volkswagens
who could only get
about 30 MPH against the wind. I was able to get a top speed
of 45 sometimes, as long as a semi-truck wasn't driving along side me and
creating a
vacuum, which puts the brakes on whoever they are next to. Then they
would pass you and their tail wind would push your speed up to about 65 MPH
and
then after they passed way ahead, you would have the strong wind put the brakes
back on. I had to stop for gas about three times on that route
since I had to
keep the throttle wide open to achieve my 45 MPH. The gas stations of course
took advantage of everyone and charged nearly twice the
prevailing rate for the
gas of other stations not along the Columbia River.
Once I got to Portland, I looked up my
dad's brother, my uncle of course.....it's still all very relative......and
they were pleased to see me and invited me
to campout in their basement. NO
campfires though.....
I think the fire department would have
felt very PUT OUT if I had started my usual cooking fire.....
Well, they gave me a tour of the ocean
the next day, which I enjoyed very much. It was interesting to see the changes
to the vegetation as we descended
the road to the ocean. It was like changing
from mountain terrain to tropical. It was very neat! I got to spend a few weeks
at the ocean in later years
while I was working in my field engineer job as I
fulfilled my duties in Longview, Wash. (That was the year that Mount Saint
Helens blew her top!) I got
to sneak a few peaks at the damage the volcano
eruption did. It was like some one dumped pick-up sticks all over the
mountainsides and into the rivers,
plugging them up with sticks and mud to
overflowing. Then I took a trip up to see Mt. Rainier (sp) and really enjoyed
the view of the snow-covered
tops and the long hikes up and down the trails.
Then I had to divert for a few days to head up to do some work on a conveyor
weighing scale on a ship
yard in British Columbia on Queen Victoria Island. The
flower gardens there are fantastic! I got to eat on a restaurant in a huge ship
from a seafood
buffet and enjoyed the variety of seafood available. Boy...did I
go off on a bunny trail......! Darn those rabbits!
Back to my cycle trip...or did you like
my tour I was giving of British Columbia and Washington better?
Anyway......After about three days of imposing
on my relatives, I decided to head back toward home. I hit rain in Montana and
had to drive the whole
way back in the pouring rain! Because of the weather and
the fact that everything I had was now soaked, I decided to drive straight
through from there.
For the next eight hours, I had my boots filled with water
that ran down my rain suit legs and the grease on my drive chain (This bike
wasn't a shaft
drive bike, but chain driven sprockets) was continually washing
off and rusting the chain links so badly as I was driving that the chain began
to fall
apart even with constant re-oiling it. I limped home finally by late
dusk and then inspected my chain. It was missing nearly a third of the rollers
on the
links! It was a miracle that the chain hadn't self-destructed well
before I got home!
Well, that's one of my exciting solo
cycle trips!