| Maynard Hershon December '09 |
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Boise, Part Two As Part One began, I thought I’d made a deal to trade my ‘08 KLR650 for an ‘04 Moto Guzzi 750 Breva - in Boise, Idaho, hundreds of miles west and north of my home in Denver. It was late September, ordinarily a time of relative warmth and good motorcycle traveling. Not this year. I rode I-25 north to Cheyenne, then west in the wind and cold on I-80 across Wyoming emptiness and a bit of scenic Utah to Logan. As Part One ended, my new friend from Eugene, Oregon, and I sat miserably on a bench outside the men’s room of an interstate highway rest area in south central Idaho. Stuck there in the windstorm, we trembled from the cold, hunger and fear of the fierce, gusting wind. The friend, on his way home to wife and infant child after a three-week on- and off-road journey on a KLR like mine, had only an hour earlier been blown off the interstate and crashed in the gully. A motorist and a highway patrolman helped him right his bike and get it back on the road so he could backtrack to the rest stop. He was banged-up but unbowed, if a bit detuned. I hadn’t crashed but I was just as detuned. I remember staring at the overpass a mile up the highway and thinking that it might as well be a light-year away. I didn’t have the nerve to get back on my bike to ride that mile. If I could make myself do it I could surely reach Burley, Idaho - and warmth, food and shelter from the damn wind. As the afternoon passed, I imagined spending the night in that rest area, without heat, food or a place to sleep. That prospect sounded worse and worse. I decided to set off for the overpass, for a chance at reaching civilization. A guy in an old Nissan pickup with a camper on it was stuck there too - when the little truck changed lanes unbidden his wife had grown frightened and asked him to stop. I went to the driver’s window and told him I was going to try to ride to the overpass and across it. I said I was sure that waiting was going to be cold, hungry and unproductive. His wife offered me a hot dog. No kidding. I said, no thanks, but keep an eye on me as long as you can. If something happens, please call 911. I got on my bike. The wind wanted to knock us down. I started the thing, having to use the choke after so many hours in the cold. When I could shut off the choke I rolled out of the rest area and rode the edge of the slow lane toward the exit and overpass. At one point the wind hit me so hard the front end tried to tuck and highside me. At maybe 35mph, I reached the exit and rode up the ramp to the overpass, exposed high above the interstate. I got the bike turned onto the bridge and wobbled across to the two-lane road to Burley. I rode 40 and 45 on the 65mph road for 20 miles. In Burley the wind seemed more subdued. I found a motel and a sheltered parking spot for the bike. I was cold, shaky and oh-so relieved to be there. In the morning at about 30 degrees, as I walked back from breakfast I looked down the row of motel rooms and saw a KLR - my friend from the rest stop’s bike. His room door was ajar. I knocked and walked in, glad we’d both made it to town. Maynard’s my name, I said. Wendell’s mine, he replied. We rode to Boise together in the cold. I left the interstate there and waved goodbye. At Happy Trails, a storefront and Internet source of adventure bike gear, I met the staff and took a look at the Guzzi. The owner had installed a low seat. When I sat on the bike, my legs were folded double. And unlike my KLR, there were no hand guards. I couldn’t imagine riding the Guzzi back to Denver with bent-back legs and exposed hands. Even if it had been an even swap, I don’t think I’d have traded. Maybe if I’d looked at it in June.... Tim, the owner of Happy Trails, gave me the quick tour of the facility. We went to lunch and had a fun hour or so being old motorcycle riders together. I found my way back to the interstate in the afternoon and rode back to Burley to the same motel. I had to choose at that point between two routes, a longer one through Pocatello that might be just as cold and windy, and the same one I’d used getting there just a day earlier. I left the motel at about 25 degrees and rode back down I-84 past the rest area and over Sweetzer Summit in calm air. North of Salt Lake City, I found the exit for Logan and rode though the town, then east through lovely Logan Canyon and past gorgeous Bear Lake before connecting with I-80 at a famous truckstop/hotel complex called Little America. I had a few hundred miles of cold, boring I-80 to ride to Laramie and another motel - only 140 miles from Denver. I was home and in the shower before noon the next day. Why would I spend two columns on a trip like this one? Had I been able to maintain a calm frame of mind in that rest stop, that trip would have been just as cold but perhaps not so emotionally chilling. As it was, I was filled with dread for several hours, not a familiar state for me and probably not for you. We all feel momentary fear, right? But unless we’re in dangerous professions or we’re soldiers in harm’s way, we aren’t afraid hour after hour. I probably took that luxury for granted. Until last week. |