Just Let Your Whores Get Cold

I made it to the Grand Canyon last night. 278 miles. I had an overwhelming urge to get out of Las Vegas, even if it meant breaking down somewhere else. That tells you how I felt about it after last night. I should really go back there with Jenny some day. We’d probably have a lot more fun. I was really worried about the bike when I left this morning. I wasn’t sure if the bike would even start or not. It started right up. I’m not saying I didn’t have problem yesterday, but I think I can sum them all up for you: I do not know what I’m doing.

Here is the breakdown:

1) Bike feeling mushy: As it turns out, the freeways in Vegas are all grooved. This causes the bike to drift from left to right. It’s disconcerting, but harmless. Last night, the combination of exhaustion, traffic, nighttime riding conditions and moronship all conspired to make me feel like the bike was handling poorly.

2) Stuck Throttle: It was fine in the morning. I recalled Dirk telling me, as I drove off, that my bike was new and new bikes have little problems. I guess this was one of them.

3) Excessive Heat: Yes, the bike was hot. But I had just driven over four-hundred miles through the desert. This, apparently, makes the bike hot.

4) Bike Smoking: See above comment regarding heat.

I’d already called Dirk and told him I was having problems and asked him to HELP me. I left a message because he wasn’t working on Mothers Day. Now I have to call back and tell him the problem I’m having is a lethal combination of lack of skill and knowledge.

Today, I just went easy on the bike. When she got hot, we just pulled over and had a smoke. Both of us. I had a lot of slow moving traffic, to bake my left leg in, on the way out of Nevada. There is a big dam between Nevada and Arizona and you have to cross it to get into or out of the state. There was a long line of people trying to get out today. I had to pull over three times in the two hours I spent crawling along towards the dam. I would just wait for the engine to stop sounding like popping corn and then I knew it was cooled off enough to go a little further.

Anyway, I had bigger things to worry about. It was really windy today. I didn’t’ mention it before, but the trip from Reno to Vegas consisted of a lot of wind. I was being blown around but I managed to deal with it. I have a special relationship with the wind. I understand wind. I understand the power of wind and the impact of wind on a moving object. I understand concepts such as ‘crosswind’ and ‘apparent wind’ like they where my best friends. After all, I’m a sailor and pilot. Wind is the thing that gives us the gift of ‘lift’ and a crosswind is the force that causes us to learn how to quickly calculate the difference between our magnetic compass heading and the magnetic heading of the apparent wind as we are flying one-hundred miles per hour about 10 feet of the ground. Wind: bring it on.

But today, I got my ass handed to me. It was windy and it was really gusty. I had a hard time controlling the bike. There where moments today when I thought about turning back. The unfortunate thing about turning back is that you would be turning back right into the thing that is causing you to want to turn back. I had a hard time keeping the bike in my lane. I was blown off the road and on to the shoulder. I had to lean the bike so far over to counter balance it against the wind that I felt like I was auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. On turns, the bike was being back-winded so badly that I was being blown back up-right and could not hold the radius of the turn. I learned a lot about riding bikes today. When I started out today, I had like four or five weeks of experience riding. Now it feels like I have a month.

After driving across the Hoover Dam, I crossed from Nevada to Arizona. I was done with Nevada so this suited me. A few days ago, when I crossed from California to Nevada, I noticed that to get into to California, you had to go through and inspection station. To get into the Nevada you just had to drive past the “Welcome to Nevada” sign. This made me a little embarrassed of California as if we where saying to Nevada that we where better than it. Having traveled through Nevada, I see why we have the checkpoint. If I where Nevada, I’d let anybody in. I’d let all the illegal aliens in that wanted to come. After all, we aren’t using it. When I passed from Nevada into to Arizona today, the tables where turned. It was the Arizonians that had to pass a checkpoint. I was feeling pretty low about this. What could be so bad that Nevada would want to keep it out?

Once in Arizona, I started riding past more openclosed signs, more caved in roofs and more dilapidated townettes. I was really bummed about it.

Everything turned out fine! Arizona is a nice place. I think, like a bad pair of Depends, there must have just been some seepage at the borders. Arizona’s solution to having so many tore up little towns by the side of the road was to just not have any towns. If you see a gas station in Arizona you need to take the opportunity to fill’er up.

For the first part of my trip, I didn’t stop much, other than the smoking breaks, because there was nothing to see. I did have to hit the breaks once and come back to get a closer look at this. I marked this as a way point on my GPS. I mean to ask Jenny if she’ll let me bring her daughter here so I can explain to her the realities of life. I’ve asked before but Jenny is really against me doing this. For me, Halie represents the only opportunity in my life to tell a child that there is no Santa. In Arizona, there where lots more big lots of sand for sale. There where so many too choose from! I’m not sure what the attraction would be. Maybe if I was a polygamist or possibly a dinosaur I’d see the charm.

For a while, I was driving on or near the ‘Historic Route 66”. The people around here are pretty proud of this road. At one point, I stopped to take a break and found myself in one of these Route 66 historic districts. There where a busload of tourists taking pictures of everything. I think they where Germans. The where walking around, even walking onto the highway, taking pictures of everything they perceived to be Route 66 related. I looked over and one of them was taking a picture of my bike as if it was a part of the giant town sized display. I tried to put my camera into action and take a picture of her taking a picture of my bike. Not fast enough. So I asked her if she would do it again. She didn’t speak English and did not understand. I tried to explain what I wanted but the closest I got was this picture of her posing with my bike. She then handed me her camera and wanted me to take a picture of her with my bike. One of the other tourist saw this and from that point, it was game on. More of them kept coming, handing me their camera, and posing with my bike. My bike is a modern Harley-Davidson and did not really go with the 50’s styling associated with Route 66. Didn’t matter. After the fifth person handed me a camera and then motioned as if to ask if they could climb on the bike, I was done. I put on my helmet and started pulling on the gloves. This caused a stir in the crowd. I was surrounded by tourists that where getting hungry for ‘the starting’. I didn’t want to disappoint to I made sure to add a few gratuitous twists of the throttle. I also took off a little fast and carved the bike on a deep turn to join the road. I thought about how I would ruin everyone’s good time if I crashed while showing off. All this Route 66 excitement got me to thinking about trying to find an atom box in one of these kitschy stores. With a little luck I was able to purchase two candidates.


This box is made out of a rock. It’s been put on some sort of lathe and carved from a single piece. I was attracted to this because I told Harriett I was making a rock box to bout Leigh’s atoms in. Maybe I could pass this off for something I made.

I also found this frog carrying a ladybug. I called Leigh “Ladybug” so this made me think of her. And I’m the frog carrying her on my back across the pond so she doesn’t get wet.



I mentioned that I like Arizona. After an hour or so of riding through the desert, I started to climb to higher ground. I got up into the pine trees and green grass meadows. This is my kind of place.

For me, two of the more thrilling living creatures in this world are the Bristlecone Pine Tree and the majestic Elk. Seeing either of these will surely make my week and maybe my year. Nevada has a few Bristlecone but I didn’t see any riding through. The Bristlecone is the oldest living thing on earth. Some of them are over 4,000 years old. That makes them older than the earth according to some bible scholars and the oldest known specimen still alive today was 2,600 years old at the time of Jesus’ birth. Looking at one of these trees is a transcendental experience. But, like I said, I didn’t see any on my trip. Probably because those reprobate Nevadans chopped them all up for firewood to keep their whores warm. But Arizona was promising Elk. In fact, they where out and out threatening me with them. I passed sign after sign warning me that Arizona had elk and I better keep vigilant. An Elk sighting would complete me.