Travles with Harley

Well friends, here is my tale of my travels with Harley.

A few years ago I was scheduled to start a new job and I had two weeks to kill. What shall I do? I know! How about riding my new Harley Davidson motorcycle to California and back in the middle of winter! Yeah, that's the ticket!

So, off I go with my wife's blessing and admonition "don't bend the new Harley". More on (moron?) that later.

For those of you with busy schedules, and since this is one of my long-winded stories, here is the executive summary of the trip:

- Tornados in Atlanta

- Lost my wallet in El Paso

- Wonderful visit with Jim and his family

- Blizzard in New Mexico

- Corralled in Gallup

- Armed robbery in Gallup (not me)

- Wrecked my bike in Amarillo

- Duct tape, bungee cord and four miles of frozen hell

- The last dash home, 19 hours, 1,000 miles, 21 degrees

- What a GREAT trip!

Here is the long version:

Harley and I departed Virginia on Thursday, January 18th. Since there was snow west of us, I decided to take I95 to south of Richmond, then head southwest via I85 to Louisiana. From there we would catch I10 west, circumventing all the foul weather.

Not.

It seems that there were severe thunderstorms and tornados hitting the Atlanta area on Friday, January 19th. Not craving that much of an adventure, I elected to hole up in a motel room in North Carolina for an extra day. The storms passed and on Saturday Harley and I continued our trip (south) west. There were a few snowflakes in Atlanta as we passed through, but none sticking to the road. The good news is that native Atlantans(?) view the invasion of snow to be just as unsettling as Sherman's visit a few years back. Thus, traffic was light and we made good time. Now a day behind my self-imposed schedule, we pushed on through to Lafayette, Louisiana, bedding down for the night.

You know how when you enter a state there will be a highway sign telling you the miles to the next few cities? And how sometimes the highway sign will tell you the miles to a town on the far border, giving you and indication of how far you have to travel if you are just passing through? Well, upon entering Texas I knew I was looking at a long day in the saddle when the sign said "El Paso ... 875 miles". 875 MILES!!!! No wonder Texas used to be its own country.

Anyhow, Harley and I made it all the way to El Paso that day, where I managed to lose my wallet.

What happened is this: Since Harley's odometer was showing 8,400 miles, I figured it was about time for his 7,500 mile check up. El Paso has a pretty decent Harley Davidson dealer, so I located myself at the service department door by 7:30 the next morning. When they opened the doors I immediately tracked down the service manager by the name of Mike and whined and sniveled about how I was on the road and just passing through and was hoping to get the quick and easy 7,500 mile check up and how soon could he take me in and how quickly could they do the job because I needed to get back on the road because I was heading out the California and still had many miles to go and ... and ... and ... Finally, Mike interrupts me and says that they always give travelers preferential treatment and he would take my bike right away. I suspect he meant whiny travelers but whatever. He told me to get lost and go someplace for breakfast and my bike would be done by the time I got back. Cool.

Off I go, walking about ½ mile to the local Denny's. I was traveling all dressed up in my powder blue snowmobile suit, which, by the way, was doing nothing for the bad biker image I was trying to project. Anyhow, I have learned to take the suit off in the lobby of restaurants to reduce the stare factor as I walk to my table. I unzipped the snowmobile suit in the lobby of Denny's, took it off, folded it up and walked to my table. I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, reading the paper, sipping countless cups of coffee and generally pissing off the waitress because I'm taking so long. I decide it is finally time for me to leave and I reach for my wallet. Hmmm, now where is it? I generally keep it in the upper left breast pocket of the snowmobile suit so I can gain access to it when buying gas. However, my wallet is not there. That's funny, it was there at the Harley dealer. Hmmm, must have moved it to another pocket. I start calmly searching ALL my pockets, but with no luck, no wallet. Now I start to get worried. I stand up, somewhat calmly, and start searching all my pockets again. And again. NO WALLET!!!! Uh oh. I look under table thinking maybe it was on the floor. Nope. UH OH!! Now, I know I can wash dishes at Denny's to pay for breakfast, but how do I get Harley out of hock?!?!? I, less calmly, walk to the lobby and look around the floor. Nope. I then look under the bench seat in the lobby, and there sat my wallet. It must have fallen out of the snowmobile pocket when I took it off, and I then must have unknowingly kicked the wallet under the bench. I checked the wallet and all my money and credits cards where there. Whew! I pay for breakfast and walk back to get my buddy Harley. Sure enough, Mike lived up to his word and Harley was ready to go. (Mike to mechanic: "Do this job now, and do it fast. I don't want this guy hanging around the dealership whining to everyone who makes eye contact with him".). Kudos to Barnett's Harley Davidson in El Paso.

Harley and I continued our travels west and two days later met up with my son Jim at a gas station near Edwards Air Force Base, where he and his family live. Jim was on his bike so we teamed up and rode to the base, where along the way we raced a train to the next crossing, but I'm not allowed to talk about that. (We won).

Sue flew out to meet me at Jim's and we had a most wonderful visit with Jim, his wife Lorie and their daughter Jordan. What an incredible family! We got to see Jordan and her basketball team battle it out with an opposing school. One of Jordan's teammates made the winning shot as the buzzer was sounding. How exciting!

Excellent visit with a most excellent family.

As I was packing to leave California there was a storm hitting the west coast and it was raining at Edwards AFB. That's the base in the middle of the Mojave Desert. You know, desert as in dry and parched. That figures. Jim and I worked it out that if Harley and I left right away and rode hard we could stay ahead of the storm as it moved east. I head out on Friday, January 26th and end up having dinner in Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff radio is telling us to expect a foot of snow that night. I talked this over with Harley and we decide to move on, finally stopping for the night in Gallup, New Mexico. My plan was to get up early the next morning and head out before the storm hit.

My plan almost worked.

I was up and dressed at 4:00 a.m. When I walked outside to wake up Harley I found the parking lot to be slick with a light covering of snow. Rats. I know that if I head out now the highway should be okay and not covered with snow. However, I just don't like riding in the dark in the wintertime as you cannot see ice on the highway. I make the wise and mature decision to hang there an extra day to let the highway dry up.

Big mistake, this wise and mature decision thing.

As it turns out, this was the worse snowstorm in something like ten years. New Mexico shut down I40 throughout the whole state! There were hundreds of semi trucks parked all up and down the road by the hotel, stranded there for a day and a half.

I ended up stranded in Gallup for two and a half days.

Well I woke up Sunday mornin' with no way to hold my head, didn't hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

From "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" Performed by Kris Kristofferson

Okay, okay. It was only three Bud Lights during the Super Bowl, but you catch my drift.

The only entertainment the hotel offered was when the poor guy above me was robbed at gunpoint during the storm. It seems that he was followed into his room by a bad guy with a gun who proceeded to tie the hotel guest up with shoelaces, covered him with blankets and took his cash. Ouch.

Harley and I finally left Gallup on Monday, January 29th, headed towards trouble. It was my plan to ride to Amarillo, Texas and stay there for the night. The highway was clear and dry, and I did not leave Gallup until noon, allowing the sun to warm the highway.

Yet another wise and mature decision, and you know how THOSE work out.

Because Harley and I left Gallup so late, we were still 21 miles from Amarillo when the sun set. No problem. The highway had been in excellent shape all day, so we pressed on towards our destination. We came upon a highway construction site where the right lane was blocked. Just as we entered the construction site I felt Harley drop a couple of inches and the light colored concrete roadway disappeared. Apparently the open left lane had some unfinished work and the snowplows were not able to clear it. The road suddenly turned to a dark sheet of rutted ice. Harley immediately started to swerve left and right following the icy ruts. I decelerated Harley without applying brakes while attempting to maintain directional and vertical stability until we found clean pavement. Such was not to be. Harley and I had a Jersey wall to our right and a snow bank about 18 inches high to the left. I don't know about you, but I've never been particularly fond of Jersey. Harley started to go down to the left towards the snow bank. We were going 50 mph when we came upon the ice, and I would guess that we were still going about 25 mph when we crashed into the snow bank. Harley hit the snow bank on his left side and flipped sideways 180 degrees, ejecting me into the median strip.

You know .... I had some interesting thoughts as I was flying through the air with the greatest of unease. What I was thinking, and to quote one of the most brilliant and gifted writers of our time, "I am not making this up":

- "Oh no, I'm going to wreck my beautiful new Harley motorcycle."

- "I bet this is going to hurt."

- "OOOF!!!!"

The last one was more of a comment than a thought, as it was at this precise moment I started to make a 25 mph snow angel through the median strip.

I was not injured and stood up, running over to my friend Harley. Harley was on his right side, against the snow bank, facing the wrong way. A big truck was coming up on us and I tried to flag it down but he couldn't stop, so I walked back into the median strip, away from my friend, knowing he was going to get run over by the truck. The truck driver squeezed between Harley and the Jersey wall, missing him by about an inch. Good driver. As I found out later, the word went out over the CB radio that a biker (powder blue?) was down. A westbound 18-wheeled Good Samaritan stopped his rig and ran back about 1/8 of a mile to give me a hand. He waded through the median strip (ruining my snow angel) and helped me pick up Harley. Harley fired right up. Since we were still at risk in the icy construction zone, I figured that any of Harley's pieces that broke off would just have to be picked up by highway workers in the spring. I was not going to take the time to look. As an eastbound truck blocked traffic for us, the Good Samaritan and I got Harley pointed in the right direction, I shook the Good Samaritan's hand and was off.

I got off at the next exit and pulled into one of those old Route 66 type motels to stay the night, lick my wounds and bandage Harley.

The battle damage is:

Bent front fender

Broken windshield (I suspect I did that on my way off)

Broken upper fairing

Bent engine guard

Bent rear fender

Scraped saddlebag

Scraped touring trunk with latch torn off

Various leather components scraped and cut

Pride

In actuality, it seems that the damage is slight. The engine seems to be okay and I am hoping that the frame is not bent. I'll know more once Harley visits the dealer. The hard part was calling Sue and asking her to clarify what she meant by "don't bend the Harley".

The next morning the motel owner was kind enough to give me a roll of silver duct tape. Between the tape and bungee cords I was able to put Harley back together again. Bike by Harley: Graphics by Don

As it turned out, this day would be worse than the previous one.

I don't know what it is about the Texas plow truck drivers. They did an exceptional job plowing I40. However, and I'm just speculating here, it seems that once the highway was cleared they took a passive swipe at exit ramps, on ramps and access roads. I guess they then go off together to rope a cow or something.

While looking at the access road in front of the motel it was most evident that the road was literally a sheet of ice. Looking east as far as I could, it was all a sheet of ice. However, there was an intersection about ½ mile down the road and I figured there would be an on ramp there. I just had to make it the ½ mile. As I checked out of the motel I asked the owner about getting back onto I40 east bound. He said that yes, there was indeed an on ramp at the intersection but it was closed due to construction. There's that dirty word again..."construction". Well, I ask, how far down is the next on ramp. He says, four miles.

FOUR MILES!!!

So I say to him "FOUR MILES?!?!?"

And he says yes, four miles.

Then he gets this look on his face like "I'll be renting you another room in about a half hour, won't I, Powder Blue Biker Boy".

Good grief.

Well, if I use my legs and feet as outriggers Harley and I should do just fine. This was not a wise and mature decision, but it worked. Sort of. And off we go for four miles of frozen hell. The road showed some patches of pavement every 50 to 100 yards, each patch about 3 by 6 feet in size. All we had to do was slowly, and I'm talking walking speed here, make our way from patch to patch.

As you no doubt expect, reality now clashed with theory.

We really were doing pretty well until we came to a curve in the road. The highway engineers, doing their job, graded the road at a slant at the curve. Even with outriggers Harley was not designed to stay up right on an icy graded curve and so he suddenly decided to take a break. Harley going down this time reminded me of that guy on his tricycle on the TV program "Laugh-In", only slower. So now I have an 800+ pound bike lying on his side on an icy road and not one big strong Texan in sight. However(!), I had learned something from one of my trips to Bike Week. Actually, I have learned a lot from my trips to Bike Week, but most of it was anatomical in nature and not very useful on an icy road in Texas. At a demonstration in the Honda tent in Daytona a Honda rep showed us how to pick up a fully loaded Gold Wing that had fallen over. So I tried what he had shown us. Position the handle bar here, hold it there, place your left hand here, bend at the knees and lift with your legs. Ignoring the creaking, popping arthritic knees it worked like a champ! Yes! Powder Blue Bikers rule!!! Fortunately Harley had fallen over so that the tires were over one of those rare patches of pavement and he didn't slide as I picked him up. Otherwise I would still be scootching Harley on his side across some farmer's frozen field on my way to Dallas.

I don't even want to talk about the icy hill we had to traverse.

Harley and I finally made it to the on ramp and rejoined eastbound civilization. The trip went well through Amarillo, but then turned sour once again. The left lane became ice and slush, there was ice in the right lane as you passed under an overpass (shielding the road from the sun) and there was a strong wind coming from my left, gusting from 20 to 30 mph. Plus, I was moving at a moderate pace and when the trucks passed me they threw up ice and slush onto Harley's windshield and my helmet, blinding me. This was usually followed by an enthusiastic gust of wind. After a few miles of this I knew that I was being unfair to the truckers, making them pass me in an unsafe lane, and I knew that I was just going to get Harley and myself into serious trouble. Really serious trouble. Suddenly a beautiful sight appeared. Another one of those old Route 66 motels with a welcome sign "Check out our winter hourly rates" or something like that. Anyhow, beggars can't be choosers and after only an hour on the road I stopped to let yet another day pass, allowing the snow plow drivers and the sun to continue working on the highway.

During that day I would periodically walk out to the highway and watch the traffic flying by, whine a little bit and go back to my motel room. The snow plows and the sun worked hard that day and all the next morning. So, at noon that next day we hit the road.

It was wonderful.

The road was clear and the wind gusts were mild. Harley and I just kept putting the miles behind us. We made it all the way to just west of Little Rock that day. The only downside was that the wreck had bent the engine guard upon which I had bolted highway pegs, which allowed me to stretch out my legs. I thought that cramped knees were bad until I discovered that one of the wires running to the speakers in my helmet had broken in the wreck and I couldn't listen to the radio.

1,600 miles to go and NO RADIO!!!

Oh, the humanity!!!

On Thursday morning, February 1st Harley and I left Little Rock at 8:00 a.m. (Eastern time) and didn't look back. We traveled over 1,000 miles that day, arriving home at 3:00 a.m. the next morning. The temperature the last five hours was just over 20 degrees through the Appalachian Mountains, but Harley and I were headed back to the barn and we weren't about to stop.

All in all it was an incredible trip lasting 5,810 miles, most of it right side up. We live in a most beautiful country and I feel fortunate to have seen some of its beauty.

What's next, you ask? Well, the first thing is to get Harley fixed up. Then, my son Ross tells me that he plans on racing his motorcycle at Daytona this year during Bike Week. The next trip with Harley will be to watch Ross race.

I look forward to enjoying the warm Florida climate as I continue my travels with Harley.

Ftt.

Don