Biscuits and Gravy

When you’re on the road on a motorcycle, there’s something about biscuits and gravy in the morning.  You may not normally spend much time in roadside cafes and restaurants when you’re at home, going about your normal existence, but when you’re on the road, it’s every morning, at a different place.  And while you might not normally order biscuits and gravy at the fern bar where you normally stop for a local breakfast, when you’re on the road on a motorcycle it’s important to eat plenty of carbs to stave off the effects of the wind and supply the increased physical demands of the act of riding.  That’s why biscuits and gravy may become your choice, even if you’re not in a truck.

My preference has always been the local joint, not part of any chain, filled with the local folks, whom it must keep happy to stay in business, and so the food they offer becomes a reflection of what the local folks decide is reasonable and good.  Biscuits and gravy is like a bellwether for small towns.
Somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line you start seeing grits on your plate every time, no matter what you order.  In California it’s an avocado.  Anywhere within 3,000 nautical miles of Boise, Idaho it’s hash browns, lots of ‘em.  But they all have biscuits and gravy on the menu.

So a memorable road trip includes not only the memories of the places you went, the people who rode with you and the ones you saw along the way, and of course the weather, but also the food you ate at the various road side joints along the way.  Not to mention the beer you drank at the end of the day when the riding was over.

And it is natural that in the course of many an idle conversation after a nice dinner and over a beer and a campfire surrounded by tents that the topics would flow to those of most critical importance, such as where to find the best biscuits and gravy in the country.

My riding buddy, Marty, says that the source of the best biscuits and gravy in the country is the Two Mile Café in Albany, Oregon, while I contend that the actual source is none other than the Tastee-Freeze in Laurel, Montana.  Allow me to state my case, if you will.

The best way to sharpen your appetite for breakfast is to roll out of your fart sack as the sun breaks the horizon over the KOA where you slept and spend the next interval breaking down your camp and getting coffeed and cleaned up, then hit the road in the early chill of an August morning in western Montana, or any one of dozens of similar places in any other state.  Ride at least 30 miles or so up the canyon, where the sunny spots almost get you warm enough to be ready for the next shady spot where the temperature drops so fast you start to shake in anticipation.

In our case it was that stretch of I-90 west from Rapid City on the way home from Sturgis on a Sunday morning, and the spot on the map was Wolf Creek, Montana.  But when we pulled off the highway and down the single main street of the town, it quickly became obvious that there was nothing open, no choice but to get back on the road and head West and see what turned up.

By the time we rolled off the freeway in Laurel, the next town down the line, we were hungry enough to look hard at the next sheep that crossed the road in front of us, and the only choice appeared to be the Tastee-Freeze.  I was consoled by the number of rigs with Montana plates on them in the parking lot, which surrounded a building that was longer than it looked from the front, so in we went, five hungry bikers who had been camped in the dirt for the last ten days, and sat down with the town for their after-church Sunday morning breakfast.

I ordered the biscuits and gravy, of course.  Nothing else was going to stand a chance against the hollow ache in my midsection, that and lots of coffee.

As we warmed up over the hot coffee, conversation in the restaurant, which was mostly full, slowly built back up from the shocked hush that had greeted our arrival.  Then the food came, and I ascended into a state of nirvana, or culinary bliss, or some equivalent spasm of delight.  The biscuits were huge, and fresh out of the oven, split and covered with gravy, oh, such gravy!  It was the gravy of kings, the gravy of huntsmen on a cold morning before a fox hunt in Staffordshire, full of big chunks of the local sausage, served at the perfect temperature and accompanied by an impressive wad of hash browns to share in the wealth.  Even the toast was home made.

As I basked in that warm feeling of perfect satiety after a feast, secure in the knowledge that I was set for the day’s hard ride to come, something came over me, and I got up and walked to the front of the restaurant.  I said to the man at the register, perhaps a bit louder than I might have intended, “Let me speak to the chef.”  He hesitated, and I repeated, “I want to talk to the cook.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and a woman came out wiping her hands on her apron and said, “I’m the cook.  Is there anything wrong?”  In the back of my mind, I noticed that the restaurant was dead quiet behind me.  I asked her, “Did you make that biscuits and gravy?”  “Yes, I did,” she said, “Is anything wrong?”  I said, with a smile, “Ma’am, that was the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had in the entire state of Montana, thank you very much!”  Her face lit up and she smiled and thanked me, as the assembled customers all laughed at their tables and my wife made faces at me from our booth.  I went and hid in the bathroom.

Of course, I realize the fatal flaw with the idea that you could decide once and for all just who makes the best biscuits and gravy in the country, which is that you can’t rightly say until you’ve tried them all, right?

So the search will go on, even if the goal remains as elusive as the rewards of the search are rich.  Any tips that could lead to a contender for the crown are welcome.  :-{)}

Montana teaser

There is a road that leads to heaven, and it starts in Salmon, Idaho.  You could argue that it starts well before that, and I would concede at some point, but Salmon is still the jumping off spot, in my mind.  If you come in from the South on State Highway 28 out of Idaho Falls, or up the western valley on US 93 from Butte City, that would be two sides of the same coin.  If you snuck across the National Forest from Sun Valley up through Challis on 75, then the rest of the way on 93, that’s extra points in your cool road file.

But it all starts the next morning as you tank up belly and bike, then head out into the cool morning air northbound on 93 along the Salmon River Canyon.  The road leaves the river at a place called North Fork and winds up a long canyon to the top, where, at a place called Lost Trail Powder Mountain, you are presented two choices: stay north on 93 as it comes down into the valley of the Bitterroot River on the way to Hamilton and Lolo Pass, a worthy destination in itself, or turn right on Highway 43 and drive through heaven on your way to Montana.  I say take that right, every chance you can.  Just past the turn is a parking lot surrounded by trees, among which more than a few people have chosen to have their ashes scattered as their final resting place.

Highway 43 doesn’t roll, it meanders, accompanied on either if not both sides by the classic stream like the ones in “A River Runs Through It”.   The two-lane blacktop was smooth and freshly paved the last time we went this way, and the clean fresh air combines with the wide open sky and the heartbreakingly green fields completely devoid of any signs of civilization beyond the macadam itself to bring on a bad case of traveler’s grin.  Then it gets better.

As the highway exits the hills it sets up an automatic reaction that occurs in most riders at that point.  The trees fall away, and the road cuts straight as a slightly dog-legged arrow across a wide open valley with the small town of Wisdom clearly visible in the far distance.  There is no stock in the fields, no obstructions or traffic on the road, so what else can you do but lay down on the tank and hold the throttle wide open until you see God or attain Wisdom, whichever comes first?    You’ll know you’re there when you see the floozy on the false front above Conover’s Trading Post.

So if you’re thinking about a road trip this summer, there are no bad choices in Montana, beyond Cut Bank and Browning, about which more can be said later.  In the meantime, let’s get out and do some riding!  :-{)}

A Traveler's Tale

I was out on a ride with my buddy Chris and a couple of his fellow travelers the other day when we ran across one of those happenstance encounters that make your head spin when you think about it.

It was the day after the Isle of Vashon TT, a sunny day in late September of 2013, and Jim, who rode Chris’ hooligan bike, a Triumph Speed Triple with a Daytona motor, was due to fly back to Florida the next day.  People are starting to come in from around the country for the TT these days.  The other Al dug out his ’70 Bonneville for the ride, I was on my FXRS, and Chris was on his Vincent Black Shadow.

So we wound up near the top of Chinook Pass, where we took a lunch break near that long parking strip on the left side just before you get to the top.  There is an informal trail through the mountain meadow that leads to a rock formation by a stream that has earned the name Chris’ Rock.  As we unpacked, stripped off riding gear and pulled out our lunches, I saw a rider coming down the hill toward us.  He pulled in and parked.  I wandered over and checked out his bike, a BMW 1150GS P-D model that looked like it had been around the world twice.  “Where you from?”  I asked.  His name turned out to be Mat.  “France”, he said.  I said, “Cool, did you have your bike shipped to New York?”  “Oh, no,” he said.  “I left France three and a half years ago, heading east!  I came into the US from Canada and to Canada by boat from Russia.”  We had stumbled upon a world traveler, and the kid looked to be in his late 20s.  He represented every biker’s vicarious dream standing there in a worn Aerostich.  We invited him to lunch with us.

It turned out he was living on tuna fish and old bread these days, because he was running low on money and his final drive unit was failing, again.  He had been on Highway 97 in Yakima when he realized he had to repair it, and was heading back over the pass to try to make it as far as the Seattle BMW dealer when he made that fated stop in the parking lot.

At that point, this was the situation Mat was in:  He was running out of money, using his GPS to guide him into a strange town he had never visited in hopes of finding the parts to patch his final drive one more time, a place to work on the bike, and somewhere to stay.   He did what bikers always do on the road, see another group and pull in next to them, get off and stretch, say hi, admire all the bikes.

Mat himself is this amazing personality, open and friendly, self-deprecating and charming, even in his broken English.  He came off to this bunch of old-timers as a true saddle tramp, so of course we took him in.

The group escorted him to Chris’ house, which would be the center of operations for the next 5 days.  Chris put him up in the spare room and cleared a bike off the work stand to make room for the BMW.  The next day, Mat and Chris tore the final drive apart, and verified his worst fears about the bearings and u-joints.  They were toast.  I brought over some pulling equipment, and we disassembled everything, then Mat and I jumped in my truck and headed for the BMW dealer on Lake City Way and 15^th NE in Seattle in the middle of rush hour.

I found an ad in Craigslist for some different BMW parts, and called that guy.  He heard the story, and gave me the name of one of the mechanics at that same BMW dealer.  So at the dealer, we talked to that guy, whose name we do not forget.  He showed us what can happen when the biker community pulls together to help one of their own.  He spent the rest of his shift, and much of his evening, helping Mat get the parts he needed, even going so far as to notice that one bearing we picked up was the wrong one, and met us in Renton on his way home to swap the bearings!  Everybody who heard the story, and met Mat, wanted to jump in and help.  From the sounds of it, this had been happening to him everywhere he went.

He got back on the road the following Sunday, heading south.  I have had one email from him so far, indicating he found a refuge in a hippy commune in the backwoods of southern Oregon, but that the wild geese were calling, and Guatemala sounded like a nice place to visit on your way to Terra Del Fuego.  Off he will go, a true wandering blithe spirit, and we wish him all the best.  His full name is Matthieu Hammelburg, he’s on Facebook as Mat Ham, and if he passes your way, tip your helmet to a man who is doing what you read about, thought about, maybe even dreamed about, but never quite actually went out and did.  More power to him.  :-{)}