What are you doing Dave?
I got up from the Hotel in Susanville Ca, thinking about the lost GoPro. I decided to forget it, buy another one tomorrow, and move on. I was about a mile or two out of town and went to call my brother from the helmet phone.
“Mobile 1 can not be found” said the familiar voice of Siri into my precision labs molded ear phones in perfect fidelity. Siri’s never mad, can have a hint of glad. but no real feeling of understanding.
She sounded cold this cold as ice this morning.
I pulled over. The phone was not in any of the bags, so back to the Hotel. Searched the room, and …it was nowhere.
“Find my iPhone” yeah of course my iPad could find it. The app error out! Dug out the laptop and it said it was right there! Joy! There’s a button I noticed that said “Make a sound on the phone” and I did and went back to the room.
It was under the pillow bleeping away and flashing..of course! I was listening to an audio book in the middle of the night to drop back off to sleep!
I need a “find my….” for everything on the bike and me. I’ve lost three things since 2006 ..a cell phone charger, my GoPro (damn, I wasn’t supposed to think of the anymore!) and now this iPhone. Before 2006, I was a total loser. A complete idiot, I almost lost everything.
I was headed to Salt Lake City and passed a sign for Reno. Beth Housen lives in Reno. She was an old friend from my childhood neighborhood. I called her and apologized for dropping in but assured her I’d drop right on out to. She was working at a fair near the Golden Nugget.
I was there in 20 minutes. Great thing about a bike you can drive around in places cars can’t. The guards let me roll around looking for her as I spoke to her on the phone trying to find common signs. Finally I just blew my air horn (glad that was fixed) and said
“Can you hear that?”
She was right across the way from me.
I’ll have to straighten that photo later.
Trust me she looks great vertical. I gave her a bad girl sticker, as Lisa, Beth’s best friend, and another girl from the old gang wanted one, as did Dee Dee, who actually looks like the sticker, so I’d brought them along.
We talked for a short bit and i was off to Salt Lake to see Lisa. I had to make dinner. I had 5 hours and 500 miles to do it in. Time to ride.
Vanishing Point
The Salt flats, rte 80 Straight as an arrow and flat as a lake. Let’s see what this thing can do.
The math was simple, stop for gas, roll, 500 miles, 5 hrs. Everyone goes 90, Semi’s go 85. Speed limit is 80. I needed to go faster. I texted my mechanic Johnny Rocket for consult.
“That bike was built to sustain speeds of 120 mph plus for exceptionally long distances exceeding the test distance of 500 miles. Watch your gas milage, want to see how she does ”
The bike sucked down a tank every hour at average speed of 110mph.
I sucked down two of these for medicinal purposes.
I summoned the spirit of Burt Monroe as imagined by picturing our friend Anthony Hopkins
and his excellent portrayal of Burt in the movie the World’s Fastest Indian. Story of an old New Zealander that beat all odds and the world speed record on a motorcycle under 1,000 cc’s back in the 60’s. I thought of him the whole way.
GREAT MOVIE
Like Burt I got some speed wobbles and had to compensate.
At 110 mph passing the big riggs, the Harley first hits their wake, initiating some speed wobble, not bad, manageable, but then you get sucked in towards those Mad Max leg shredding spikes that protrude from their tires…
Only to be blown out as you pass the cab.
The wobble is gone if your put your feet up on the highway pegs!
It was the greatest ride of my life. I’ll will never forget that day out there on the 80 between Reno and Salt lake.
Crazy dangerous? A little, but in reality I was only going a little faster than the crowd and at no time did anyone, including myself feel to me to be in danger. Of course that’s a giant rationalization to some, but life to me.
Adrenaline Junky? Actually no, the cliche is a misconception. Adrenaline is what you feel when you’re stuck in traffic on the 101, it’s 110 degrees, your AC is broken. Your wife just called to tell you she’s leaving you after finding the phone number some waitress stashed in your shirt. The payments on the mortgage, the kids braces, and the very car your riding in are all late. You’re late for work, and you phone is dead….that’s adrenaline, that’s a panic attack.
I’m not addicted to that.
I have a deep love of flying and the resulting endorphin that comes from that is what life is all about, it is what we are all really seeking. It is not a death wish, it’s a life wish.
The cliff dives (lost count), the bungie jumps (57), the hang-gliding (yrs), the riding, the blading, the deep open water dives into the Blue Hole, riding my Harley Road King at 110 mph on the salt flats, all of it, …and not one broken bone….but in the end I hope to go out doing one of these types of things without hurting anyone else…….that, over a slow lingering death attached to tubes and morphine.
That’s just me. Many are different. I respect everyone.
This was just another one of the greatest days of my life.
Needless to say I made dinner and met Lisa’s Husband, and got to see one of the greatest Broads to come out of Broad Acres where we all grew up.
Lisa Anderson, the legend, still got it.
Here she is back in the day
I know you’re worried about the bike with all that speed and stress on the engine. Well, looks like a screw came loose.
The one humorous regret I have from that day is that Lisa and Daryl offered me to stay at there home. I wanted to keep riding!! Into the night. Test out the new Daymaker Headlights.
I made it to a one horse town called Evanston Wyoming.
There I found the new winner for the worst hotel room I’d ever stayed in. It was late my, I was beyond tired, and some kind of geostorm had my Navigation sending me in circles.
Rod was back
I’d entered the Twilight Zone.
Back behind the truck stopes and near the Truck Wash was the most desolate Hotel 6 on earth. The red “6” had faded to white. The clerk had no teeth.
It was $49 with tax.
They did not have a room where I could see the bike so I asked if I could park it in front of the lobby. She grinned a toothless grin and said sure. She proudly pointed to the state of the art security camera system, a fuzz ball screen with what looked like the latest in VHS technology.
I secured the bike, got my bags and headed up.
I had to penetrate a makeshift barbecue beer party on my landing.
“Excuse me guys”
“We got peach cobbler in 5 bud”
“Ah no thanks, had a very long day need to crash”
“Sure bud, common out if ya git a hankerin for some cobbler or a beer”
“sure thing, thanks guys”
Nice hospitality though, nice guys. I was just afraid deep down that someone might say I had “a purdy mouth”, I could even hear a banjo dueling in the distance……but that’s just my own superstition and paranoia and exhaustion a talkin.
Here’s the room
Good night.