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Ride It Like You Mean It |
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June 2001 Volume 2, Number 2 ============= Member of
Women in the Wind
New and Used Cycles, news, reviews & info:
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Miles To Go Before She Sleeps by Lauranne Bailey Sometimes in Wisconsin it feels like we go from winter directly to summer. The last few days have been in the sweltering 80’s. Hard to imagine those air currents carry the moisture 1200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Mother’s Day weekend was no exception as I was in the yard, tilling, planting, mulching, preparing my flowers and herbs so I can spend the majority of my summer weekends on the bike. And of course, I hear the Kawasaki’s, the Harley’s, the Norton’s, the Yamaha’s rev by my house while Penelope quietly rests in my garage. But she knows we’re riding five hours north on Memorial Day weekend, so her patience will pay off, and we’ve started our Wednesday night dinner rides with Women in the Wind. A little fluid in her battery--my poor dehydrated girl--a slight charge, and one would never know she endured one of our longest, coldest winters on record. Thanks to all who have followed my travels to Canada and here is the fifth and final installment of yet another adventurous road trip. Day 9 Wednesday, August 2 Big Timber MT to Sturgis SD 425 miles Big Timber falls behind us by 6:30 a.m. We head to Sturgis, or at least Cindy and I, and Mariann plans to get a room east of Rapid City. I want to spend some time with my friend Carole at her horse farm, just outside of Sturgis on Pleasant Valley Road.
The day's ride passes quickly through the eastern flats of Montana, sloping toward the Mississippi, and we reach the South Dakota border just after noon. The skies in the east are darkening, and folks at our last gas stop tell stories of straight line winds that hit the Belle Fourche area the night before. I pull the group over to put on our rain gear, hoping the storms will move on before we reach Sturgis. So it is, as Cindy and I pull off for gas in Sturgis, Mariann waves and continues eastward, and we watch with timid terror as three streaks of lightening flash across the sky, above her head, only miles away. Cindy and I fill up our tanks and decide it would be best to rest our gear at Carole's house before returning to Sturgis. Her farm is east of this sleepy-eleven-months-of-the-year town. The problem is, we're headed into a wall of blackness. I think to myself, we'll make her exit and leave this stuff behind, but a mile before, the rain rushes out of the sky and we are blinded while riding 60 miles an hour. Prayers breathe across my lips, steaming my helmet shield. I put on the bike flashers and am thankful for the Conspicuity hot pink and blue reflective vest I am wearing. The winds are blowing me from the right side of my lane to the left, and I am terrified. I am hydrowindplaning and the only thing I can do is slow down. We are then pummeled with hail and I am thankful for my full-face helmet (and lamenting that Cindy only has a half helmet with no shield). As my bike slows, I feel comfort letting the bike connect with rumble strips on the shoulder. At least I know I am making some traction. I plan to ride out the storm under the bridge, but a 40' whale of an RV steals protection from the storm under the bridge. So I take the exit ramp, run the bike over to the left gravel shoulder, keeping my back to the wind. I park it, and yell, "Abandon ship!" as I'm running for protection under the bridge. I learn later the reason Cindy stays with the bikes is she is concerned for her money (later I'm thinking who will actually get out of their car to steal money in this weather?) and the well-being of the bike. I guess after my former near-brushes with death, my bike's safety is truly the least of my concerns. Cindy is bone-soaked. The rain runs down her helmet and behind her hood, and she has a rip in her pants that lets gallons more in to soak her clothes. We need to get her dry quickly. Well, we still have the 4-1/2 miles to ride down freshly-laid gravel, and soaked, wet, muddy gravel at that. And of course, we find ourselves riding back through the storm. Somehow we miss the second coming of hail until the bikes are under cover and safe in Carole's garage, but it is still a slow, grueling ride, those 4-1/2 miles. Cindy disrobes immediately and puts on dry clothes. It would be hours before she feels warm again. We wash another load of laundry while napping in Carole's living room. She and her daughter, Janna are off to a kid's rodeo in Belle Fourche. A couple of times I try to start my bike and she refuses. Too much water. I am beginning to wonder if we will be able to ride into Sturgis later that evening, or if Penelope will start at all without a mechanic's assistance. The rain continues until about 6 p.m., and by 7:30, Cindy meets Jeff, Carole’s husband, for the first time. We chat a bit about how the locals dislike Sturgis and then Cindy and I are off to buy her new rain pants at Pamida. A young man and his partner walk up to me to talk Triumphs for awhile. We ride around Sturgis a bit and then park our bikes just off Main Street. The vendors are nearly ready for the crowds in two days for the
official start, but some open their doors to us where I pick up a Sturgis
Rally patch and Cindy purchases a few shirts. We then stop by at the Road
Kill Café for a steak dinner (or so we are led to believe). The rain
settles into a spitting match, which is enough to get back on the bikes
and travel to to Carole's, still ever-cautious on the gravel road, around
11 p.m. We talk with Jeff more, and then with Carole and Janna to hear
about their exciting rodeo adventures. Oh yes, and we had planned to camp
there, but since the ground was saturated and spotted with little lakes,
Carole let us sleep in her son, Logan's room, as he was off visiting
Grandma and Grandpa down in Nebraska. In a town, it is, I learn later,
which is from where much of Peggy Zeeb's family resides. Day
10 Thursday, August 3, Sturgis SD to Worthington MN 427 miles After Carole makes us a hearty breakfast (much to the shock of her family who says she rarely cooks), we once again pack the bikes, feeling the edge of the trip wind down, and are thankful it is to be yet another sunny, albeit forecasted hot day. This is the flat lands of South Dakota on this tour, where most every Midwesterner has visited the sites here along Interstate 90. Mount Rushmore, Wall Drug, the Badlands, and some even score off the beaten path to wend through the pigail roads in the Black Hills, or the Corn Palace in Mitchell or the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. But for us, it's straight east into the rising sun, with glimpses at the layered stone of the Badlands, capped with hairy fields of blowing grasses. The day rolls along quickly, my mind relives many of the previous days' adventures. I feel a surge of energy, anxious to see Merle again, yet cautious as to not let my cycling guard falter. It feels different to be riding, just Cindy and I, without Mariann, without Peggy. The four of us have been through so much together, and I wonder where they are out on the road, and pray for their safety. We reach Worthington in the early evening to pitch our tents for the first time this trip. Seems we have to do so at least one night since we packed them across the border and back for ten days. It is a local county park, nestled on a peaceful lake outside of town, and minimal campers dot the area. We register and set up our individual tents. I look forward to having this one night of alone time in my tent. It's early enough where we can shower, read, write, and relax. After chatting with the elderly campground hosts that thought Cindy and I were brave souls to be out riding on our bikes without men, we luxuriate in the hot camp showers. Afterwards we turn to separate tents, twilight teasing the horizon. It's fun to write by flashlight--a reminder of sneaking a good childhood book after being put to bed by my parents. And as the sun sets, I say to Cindy, "Why is it so much brighter around here than it was in the daylight. I feel like my tent is enveloped in the land of the midnight sun?" Cindy grumbles, "Look out your door, it's one of those mercury vapor lights." I wriggle out of my cocoon sleeping bag and pop my head out of my tent and see that there is no site on this campground that could escape the intrusive light prowler. The mercury lamps are strategically placed to let no signs of darkness filter into this temporary community. I am crushed. I love darkness for sleeping. As I finish journal writing and some reading, I wrap the mummy bag over my head, and cover my eyes, glad for the cool Minnesota night air. FINAL
day 11 Friday, August 4, Worthington, MN to Mauston, WI 303 miles Today is our last, and we're anxious to return to Wisconsin. As much as I love traveling, there is some peacefulness, some comfort in returning to the state in which I live. Cindy and I joke about camping only one day out of the entire trip, but I must say after all the miles we've put on, it is good to kick back in a motel room most nights with our own shower and not have to worry about weather conditions. We throw out a hand-raised cheer as we cross the Minnesota border into Wisconsin--nearly home. Well, Cindy will return home today. I'm stopping 75 miles north of Madison to camp the weekend with friends. We stop at the Amoco in Mauston for gas, I wave good-bye to Cindy as I head off to Castle Rock County Park, and she free flows south on Interstate 90/94. Epilogue The trip with the three other women ends, but never a dull moment in my travels. For the third time in two weeks, I find myself taking the wrong turn. I'm road weary after 11 days. More than I know. I pull up near the campsite and realize I can't get there without riding through other sites. I think okay, take the dirt road. I do, and then right in front of my friend Rose's camper, I drop the bike in six inches of dry, loose sand. How could I run Penelope nearly 4,000 miles across the continent and I drop her in the sand? She falls on my knee and while nothing breaks, the knee swells to the size of a cantaloupe. Amidst my swearing and five men rushing to my aid, I get up, and resign the rest of my weekend to a chair, while once again, my husband gets to wait on me hand and foot. And in the laughing and retelling of the story, my friends and I decide the curse of the motorcycle mishaps is over, if it happens in threes…all happening during the month of August. The first was in '95 going down highway 13. The second happened in ‘99 on Friday the 13th. And this final (and least damaging) drop was heading to campsite #13. I ride the bike home on Sunday, with a very, very stiff knee, a bit of a bruised ego, and elated to have had the grand opportunity to capture open air in my lungs, consume vast sceneries and live to tell of my adventure. |
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