To Ride, or To Trailer... that is the question

Well, funny you should mention that, but it does bring on a story, so I’m glad you did.

It was back in ’03, it was, and a group of us were on the road headed for Milwaukee.  The Harley Davidson Motor Company had somehow stayed in business for a hundred years, and they were promising a big ol’ party for anyone who showed up.  Now this is a company whose customers have a tendency to get the corporate logo tattooed on various parts of their bodies, so that gives you a hint at the depth of their affection for the brand, and at the wildness of the parties that develop when enough of them get together in one place.

I was riding with Rachel and her gang.  She was the escort rider on her cop bike, which gained us some respect from the locals, when she didn’t run off and leave us, which she occasionally did.

I had looked at the map and realized that good old Highway 2 ran right across the top of five states between Seattle and Green Bay, which was just a hop and a skip north of Milwaukee, so that was our route, over the mountains and across the rivers and the wide open spaces with the great big skies.  I wouldn’t recommend that route today, the parts through North Dakota are pretty fracked up. We traveled light, and stayed on the cheap, mostly at KOAs or one of the many little clapped-out resorts that grew up along the highway in the ‘50s that would put up a biker for $10 a night, but the communal shower had floors that sagged under my weight.  It was at one of those where we saw the essence of the old biker question:  “Should I ride, or should I trailer?”

This little resort in upstate Minnesota had been carved out of an old quarry on the riverbank, so you drove down a steep entry to get to the campsites, one of which was enough to fit 4 motorcycles and their tents.  Up top, by the highway, was a strip mall that contained the restaurant and the gas station that completed the roadside oasis.

So we’re down at our site, sitting around the table, when we witness the arrival of a motorhome the size of a Greyhound Bus, which pulled into one of the full-service sites towing the largest Wells Cargo enclosed trailer you can buy.  Two guys get out, wearing biker leather vests and bandannas on their heads.  They’re, ahem, experienced, been around, shall we say, not young bucks anymore, but who among us is, either?  They fold down the ramp that closes off the back of the trailer and proceed to back out two brand new looking Harley Baggers, one a Softail Heritage and the other an Ultra Classic, which they fired up and rode on up the hill to the restaurant for dinner, just like we did.  After dinner, they rode back down to camp and went in the motor home to watch tv or something, while we sat outside and watched the stars come out.

Next morning, while we were packing to leave, they climbed back on their bikes and rode back up to the restaurant for breakfast, just like we did, too.  As we gassed up and hit the road East, they went back to tie their bikes up in the dark inside that trailer before they followed us out of the quarry.  I later saw that same motorhome and trailer parked on a back road outside the Milwaukee Town Center.  There were so many of them there it looked like a convention of Good Sams had hit town with all the bikers.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if you ride or drive, as long as you get there in one piece and have a good time.  And it’s perfectly understandable that everyone gets to a point where the pleasure of the long ride is not enough to make up for not being able to do it with the same attitude you used to have, the knowledge that your skills were at their peak, and you were prepared and ready to handle anything the road put in front of you.  And, of course, if time is a factor it’s better to dash in, drink deep, and dash out again than to have stayed home.

But the ones who drove deserve a certain amount of pity from the ones who rode, and they know it.  Here’s a little experiment you can do on your way back from Sturgis this year that illustrates my point:  As you ride by a pickup with one or two perfectly capable motorcycles tied up in the back, glance over at the driver and give him a nod.  Nine times out of ten, I have observed, he will not meet your glance, but will look away.  He knows he’s depriving himself of the authentic experience of being on the road on a motorcycle by being belted into that cage, for whatever reason, time, health, whatever.  He knows that when you’re out there leaning into that nasty side wind outside of Caspar, Wyoming, or powering into a set of dark clouds forming outside of Bozeman, that’s when you’re fully alive.  Just you and your bike taking on Mother Nature, and winning.  It’s something not everyone can do, and it’s what sets us apart from them.  Ride on.      :-{)}

The Campground in the Little Belt Mountains

There’s a magical feeling I recall when I think back on that trip, the one I got when we were gathered around our campfire in the early evening as a light summer rain fell through the dying embers of the day’s sunshine on our camp in the Little Belt Mountains of Montana on our way to Sturgis in 1995.  We were listening to Craig Chaquico’s “Sacred Ground” from the Harley Davidson Road Songs cd on L.C.’s stereo as the rain fell and dissipated the heat of the day around us.  Something about the light and the music combined to form something special.  Then reality set in.

Our day had begun in the KOA campground in Glacier, Montana.  The five of us had decided to vary the routine that year by taking Highway 2 out of Washington State through Glacier Park, then cruising the back roads of Montana down to rejoin I-90 and the parade of bikers headed for Sturgis by the direct route.  It was our third day out.  It began when my bike wouldn’t start when we were packed and headed to breakfast.  I sent them on ahead while I fiddled with the starter relay and caught up shortly when that worked.  The old girl gave me a scare that day, but never let me down when it counted, then or later.

Breakfast was in a bar, of course.  Everything in Montana happens in a bar, (except for the Tastee-Freeze in Laurel, which serves the best biscuits and gravy in the whole state, but that’s another story), in a bar, or on the road.  After breakfast we saddled up and headed out into the morning, always the best part of a day on the road.  First thing we did was head up the Going-To-The-Sun Road, and we caught perfect weather.  If you’ve ridden that section in bad weather, as I have, it can be nasty, but in the warm sunshine it is impressive.  You can see the handiwork of thousands of farm boys from across the Midwest who the government put to work doing something useful, with lasting results.  Their work is evident in the scattered National Park Lodges, great timbered structures that drop your jaw every time you walk in the door, and hidden in the roads that lead to Sturgis and Mount Rushmore.

  On the way out of the park, we bore right at Browning and took Highway 89 south and east to Livingston.  This is a classic forested beautiful two-lane highway with few people living along it, the type for which Montana is famous.  No speed limits, no traffic, no cops – a biker’s paradise, and, at the end, a good lunch at a nice little bar in downtown Great Falls.  That’s where we made our critical mistake.

Leaving Great Falls on 89 you literally ride off the end of the earth.  There’s a valley that starts outside of town where the cliff wall drops a few miles abruptly, and, as you approach the cliff at 60 miles an hour and wonder where the road is, the downhill right that starts the switchbacks gets close enough to make you hold your breath and cover your brake until you see it.

We rode across that valley until early evening, then pulled into the first roadside campground we found as we left the grasslands and headed into the Little Belts.  Our mistake was, when we left Great Falls we were full of food and beer and just assumed there would be a place to stop for dinner, not a good assumption in the back hills of Montana.  When we arrived at what proved to be our campsite, it was early evening and a squall was forming over the mountains that promised to drive us into our tents for the night.  We held a quick conference by the fire.  Everyone was tired, we were miles from anywhere, and we had no food, and a little water.  I volunteered to run down the road a few miles and look for a truck stop.

As I pulled out of the campsite I remembered to look back and form a mental picture of what the driveway looks like coming back.  Hate to miss it at night in the rain.  Then I booked on down the highway.  That’s a moment when you really get to know your bike.  It’s just the two of you powering into the gloom on a hope and a maybe.  This was before the cell phone era, and if a guy disappeared out here on a blind curve they might never find him.  It’s a time when you feel fully at attention and alive.

About 14 miles down I spotted our salvation:  An obvious roadside store with an old gas pump under the canopy and a general store in one end of a long structure with outbuildings.  There were lots of cars and trucks in the lot. I parked and walked in the door.

I offered the two old ladies behind the counter a heartfelt, “Boy, I sure am glad to find you here, still open!”  They gave me funny looks, and said nothing.  Then I glanced to the side, and realized the long low structure to one side of the store was one big room, connected inside the building.  There were rows of picnic tables arranged inside, and at those picnic tables sat what appeared to be every man, woman and child who lived in them there hills, and they all sat quietly staring at me, not saying a word.  There had to be 50 of them.  They were all white folks, dressed plainly, and it seemed on that quick glance that all the women wore full length skirts.   I had barged in on a town meeting, or a revival, or a church service or something, and it was quickly evident that they did not want me in their midst at all, no how, no way, and I should leave at once.

I turned to the old ladies and said, “We’re camped up the road and we need food.  Is there anything you can sell me?”  “Sorry”, she replied, “we got nothing for you.”  I looked wildly around the room.  There on the bar was a display case with candy bars and potato chips, about 5 of each.  I pointed.  “I’ll take them”.  She rang them up, I said thanks, and out the door I went.

We had M&Ms, both plain and peanut, for dinner that night, along with Doritos for dessert and bottled water to wash it down.  It was a splendid repast.  The next morning we rode by that place on the way out of there, but not a creature was stirring.  We found a little town, White Sulphur Springs, about 18 miles down on the other side of the state forest, and stopped there for breakfast.  It was a lesson learned:  never leave lunch in Montana without knowing where your dinner is going to be, or take it with you.

The rest of that trip was a typical Sturgis experience, noise, heat, smoke, sweat, lines for everything and all prices doubled.  That’s why it took me 5 years to go back, the memories have to fade some.  But that picture, those 50 people sitting in silence staring at me, that is a picture I will always keep in my brain.  What were they doing?  What was their story?  Some things you just never will know.  :-{)}

Retirement

I used to go to Sturgis every 5 years. That’s how long it takes for the memories of the heat, the stink, the noise, the crowds and the high prices to fade enough for the idea to become attractive again.
As I’m sure it still is, there was a regular circuit followed by the Sturgis crowd who wanted to get there quickly in a straight shot. For many in Washington it starts with the Sun & Surf Run at Ocean Shores in late July. Monday morning you get up, break camp, find breakfast, and then head East. 
I-90 is the artery if Sturgis is the heart of things, and at every intersection with another major highway more riders feed into the stream, down from Canada, up from Oregon via 84, 15, 25, 80; all roads lead to Sturgis in August. For us coming from the West Coast with our tents and gear strapped on our bikes, the target each day was the KOA at the end of the road.
The first night out was in Missoula, a butt-burning 550 miles if you’re not used to it on a regular basis. Everybody seems to get off at the big fuel stop just over the Idaho line, long enough to pull off their helmets. I got wise after the first couple of trips, when I noticed that my face and lips were burnt to a crisp and weather blasted by the time we hit Rapid City and bothered me for weeks after the trip, but if I kept my full face helmet on I was more comfortable on the road and arrived fresh and unburnt to the party. There are lots of other reasons to stop along the way, most related to Casinos and alcohol, not to mention the whorehouses in Wallace, Idaho, but you have to keep pushing along to get to the Missoula KOA and get a spot for the night.
This is one of the older KOAs, well established and organized, down on Tina street, which is off Peggy Lane, off West Broadway. They have lots of open grassy trailer sites planted with trees and gravel pathways. They keep building little cabins, but for a motorcycle to camp for the night was only $7 if anyone in your group is a member, so that was the ticket for us. Normally it would be one vehicle per site, but on these weekends before and after Sturgis Bike Week we would pack ourselves in any way that fit. By the mid ‘90s the KOAs got smart with their marketing and had full service food available right there in camp, and a store that sold beer, so the party started the first night, and got wilder as you approached the Black Hills.
Montana is a big state, so you have to get up early and hit the road from Missoula if you want to be at the KOA in Billings before dark. We would head out through Bonner and up into the mountains, veer south past Deer Lodge through Butte and Belgrade to Bozeman, where we stopped for lunch once and found the Museum of The Rockies on a back street. From there we would pick up the Yellowstone River at Livingston and follow it all the way through Laurel (home of the best biscuits and gravy in the known world, at the Tastee-Freeze, but that’s another story) and on into Billings, where the KOA promotes itself as the very first one, set along a lagoon on the back streets of town where all the mosquitos in Montana live. That was where we met Roxie one year, on her solo way from Springfield, Oregon to meet up with some Aussies at Buffalo Chip, and Stuart and Livvie, two Canadians from a remote sawmill town on a fiord in upper British Columbia on their annual month long road trip. From there is where you jump off I-90 at Crow Agency and Little Big Horn, where Custer died for his own sins, and the blast across Wyoming and South Dakota on Highway 212 through Alzada and Belle Fourche, coming down into Sturgis from the north. If you don’t waste too much time at the former cowboy bar turned biker ripoff joint in Alzada you can make it by early evening in time to line up for a campsite, along with everyone else.
But the point of this story is that KOA in Billings, and a different time on one of my solo journeys, this one homeward bound through Wyoming on my way back from Milwaukee in 2003. I had left Papa and the group in Wisconsin and dropped by my sister’s place in South Bend, Indiana for a visit before heading home through Iowa and Nebraska and wound up at the Billings KOA after a long day bucking the infamous Wyoming crosswinds. After setting up my tent and eating their food, I sat around the picnic table and struck up a conversation with a couple fellow travelers, each on solo runs from different directions. Bikers on the road are a shared community, and everyone you meet at a campsite is a neighbor. One of them, Jim, offered an observation that has stuck with me ever since. We were yakking about this and that, about two beers into a fine conversation, when it came up that he was retired, and had been so for the last couple of years. He was about my age, so I was surprised he was already retired, and I asked him, “So tell me, what is it like being retired?” He smiled and said, “Every morning, I wake up and grin!”
That was about 4 years before my first retirement (I’m on my fourth right now), and the idea stuck in the back of my head. Every morning, wake up and grin. Yeah! That’s why I say to myself, and all of you: When you get a chance to retire, which means you finally get to do what you want rather than what you have to do, on your own schedule rather than anybody else’s, reach out and grab on to it with both hands, and don’t let go! Every morning, you can wake up and grin! :-{)}