Jefe's Next Chapter

I flatter myself to imagine this trip to be some kind of “hero’s journey” from sea to shining sea, and though I understand that heroism does NOT mean being un-afraid, it is more about going forward in the face of fear, I woke this morning having some substantial second thoughts about going forward.

If every day is like yesterday, I’m not sure that I will make it to the Atlantic Ocean, in under 300 miles I encountered fire and dust storms and lightning storms and power outages, I’m wet and I’m itchy from wasp stings 4 days ago.

Now it is lunchtime, on day 2, sitting in a Starbucks because my hotel last night had weak/unreliable internet connections. It is 12:15 in Missoula and I’ve covered about 200 miles so far today, and there is another 100 miles to go before I shoot off of the main highway, I90. I’ve set my iPod with 90 minute sets of music, to remind me to stop for gas, and a stretch every hour and a half, or so.

Monday night after work, a whole bunch of friends gathered to say “farewell”, including people from my work world as well as my more recreational activities. It felt good to have so many people wish me well. My daughter Juliette showed up, by neither of my partners over the past 15 to 20 years chose to join us. I still feel a lot of pain over that, and some betrayal of commitments that I thought we had made, but I am also working on my forgiveness, and I do not hold or carry lots of anger or resentment.

Looking back on the first 500 miles of my trip, I left on a grey and rainy Tuesday morning after a nice breakfast at Senior Moose, in Ballard with Juliette. I had to make a quick trip down to Lawless Harley Davidson, in Renton to pick up my official license plate and remove the temp/dealer plate from when I bought it, 700 miles ago. Wow, so much has happened since then.

I had pre-packed my duffel bag with most of the stuff for the ride, so I stopped at the storage space to pick that up, and strapped it on, without even reviewing what was inside. I grabbed some tools for the road (ranging from kitchen knives to screw-drivers and wrenches), hooked up all of my electronics and hit the road.

Riding in the rain for the first hour or so wasn’t how I wanted to start this trip, but it was appropriately “Seattle”, and considering all of the leather I was wearing, it kept me from being too hot. The road was mostly un-eventful, going over some familiar ground, until I hit “Wild Horses Memorial”, just a short spin before The Gorge, and then I was in mostly unfamiliar territory.

About 60 miles before I reached my destination for the night, Spokane, I started to see these huge walls of brown, off to my right hand side. I didn’t know what I was seeing, but it looked like a cross between those dust storms that I see in photos of Iraq, and something out of Dune. I rode forward for a few miles until I noticed that the color of the billowing wall of dust took an abrupt shift a few hundred yards ahead. I considered stopping to take a photo, but it was clearly dusty in the air, and I was concerned about getting the camera all mucked up with dust. I slowed down as I noticed cars ahead with their lights on, and soon I was seeing both cars and trucks pulled off to the side of the road and realized that I was now inside this cloud of wind and dust. The wind from my right was so strong that I had trouble maintaining my position in my lane, it made me glad to have an 800# motorcycle, rather than a much smaller one, for sure. I did not want to pull over, because I hoped to get through the cloud of muck, but eventually I just couldn’t see far enough ahead, or hold onto my path and I slowed and pulled over behind another car. The wind was so strong that I had to hold onto the bike so it didn’t tip, soon the windscreen was being yanked from its moorings. I grabbed onto it, best I could, and the rain started. At this point, I was starting to think that I’d entered some 100 year event, that was going to be dust, and rain and wind and last for decades, and I’d never get out.

What the hell is a Haboob	Storm creates rare Haboob in Ritzville

Fortunately, the wind slowed enough for me to ride, at about 30 miles an hour, toward the next freeway exit. I pulled off and found a café that looked open, went in and ordered the chili special and talked with the few locals gathered there out of the weather. They told me that the worst was probably behind us, a few minutes before the windows were rocking and bending so deeply in their panes that nobody would stand near them. One of the customers was a small scale (800 acres) onion farmer who told me he was worried about the seeds he had planted a couple weeks before. He doubted that their roots had gotten strong enough to stand the dust and wind, and told me that if he had to re-plant it would cost him $10,000.0 in seed, equipment, fuel and labor to re-do it. When the winds dies down, about 20 minutes later, I got back on the road toward Spokane, only about 50 miles away now.

Shit!

Gas tank is low, low, low, not enough to make it to Spokane. OK, pull off at the next exit, and there is a service station/restaurant. The lights are out, but there are a couple vehicles at the gas pumps. Maybe the restaurant is closed, but the gas station is up? All the lights are off inside, maybe it is only pay at the pump?
Nope, all of their power is out, the pumps won’t work. Power is out for at least 10 miles to the east, I don’t think I can get that far without more gas, and they’re not sure where the next station will be. In addition to the power being out, their sign has been smacked by the wind, and is dangling precariously and scraping the power line. Lightning has already struck the field of dry grain across the road and started a smoldering fire which has jumped from one field to the next.

So, I’m at a gas station, with no way to pump gas, next to a field on fire, without enough fuel in my tank to get to the next available/functional gas station. I’m there with a Canadian fellow in his HUGE pick-up, also wanting some gas, and a few locals discussing how long it could be before power returns, when the sign snaps and drops from the sky.
As it turns out, one of the locals lives a few miles away, has some fuel, and is willing to drive and get a few gallon from his home, and bring it back for me and the Canadian to share. He returned with a 5 gallon can, which we split, close to evenly, and gave him $40.00 for it.

By now the storm was waning, but still real, so I made my way to Spokane, using my phone for the GPS the last few miles. I had about 15% charge left when I exited the freeway, then the 9% warning, then 3%, and looking at the directions, I was 3 minutes away when I lost all phone power. Looking around, I pulled into the nearest hotel and looked around for a place to charge the phone. When they asked “do you have a reservation”, of course my answer was “I’m not sure, I need to look at my phone and see where I’m supposed to be, but my name is….” Sure enough, I was in the right place, and “home” for the night, it was about 7:30, I was cold, wet, and covered with dusty mud, but I didn’t have to ride anymore that day.

I slept well, and awoke slowly, with some reluctance I put all of my gear back on the bike, strapped on my chaps, jacket and backpack, tuned Coltrane’s “Meditations” into the headphones and headed off into the sunrise. So far, it has been a lovely day, and I feel like, today, I could ride forever…