Chasing After The Wind 3:5

                                               5

When we got down to the bikes the following morning the old timer was back sitting on the bench out front. As we packed the motorcycles down I looked over to the greying gear-head who had leaned forward in his seat and rested his chin upon his hands that were folded over the handle of his cain.

“Sturgis, you boys say, eh?” He said to us.

“Come hell or high-water.” I said back to him. Johnny continued to pay him little mind and was rather going about the business of making sure everything was strapped down properly onto his motorcycle. It was only his third morning doing so so he was still understandably getting the process dialed in.

“Well, you boys find yourself at Glencoe, ask for Sadie. Fine woman. Tell her Boston Bill says hello for me. Tell her….hmmm,.. well yeah just tell her I said hello.” He said in his gruff voice. And I looked sideways at him from across my own pack for a second while I fastened the last hook of the bungee net onto the exposed part of a lug nut that held the hard saddle bags to the frame. ‘Boston?’ I was thinking to myself as I did so, ‘How in the hell did a man by the name of Boston Bill find himself stranded in Santa Fe, New Mexico?… And for how long had he been here, too?’ I wondered further considering his voice didn’t show any signs of having a kitschy “Bahston” accent in the slightest. I was intrigued and wanted to know more but as I looked over to Johnny to see if he’d heard what the old man said Johnny simply rolled his eyes yet again, so I let it go while assuring the man I would.

“She could hear the thunder, too.” Boston Bill said having seemingly become lost in his mind yet again. I looked at him sideways one last time; but sensing Johnny was itching to roll I didn’t say anything in response. I just gave him a nod as Johnny and I tossed our legs over the saddles before wiggling our way comfortable. Then we hit the ignitions, kicked the bikes into gear, and throttled off.

I was thinking about Boston Bill all the way up along highway 84 to where we turned off just south of Espanola and rode northeast on the New Mexico 503 which is part of the “High Road to Taos”. It was a slow ambling incline to begin with until we reached the backside of Cundiyo where the road cut right against the adobe styled shanties and from there we began to weave our way up off the desert floor on a fairly desolate stretch of road. Johnny road up along side of me and was hooting and hollering from behind his helmet. This was the first real stretch of a good mountain ascent that he’d been on and I swear he tried his damndest to ride it Baja style just like my pal Lucky had done up in Washington. Difference being our road bikes weren’t designed for it so every few seconds as he’d try standing upright on the foot boards I’d see his handlebars begin to wobble out a bit and he’d plop down into his seat while pumping his fists into the air. I was picking up on his energy though and together we navigated the steeper incline like we were determined to press the limits of our riding abilities into and out of each sharp curve as we navigated highway 76 through Truchas. On the top side of the first pass we turned off onto highway 75 and wiggled our way into a couple villages that made me once again feel like I was in old Mexico the way the road banked hard in along fence lines made of chopped timber still with its bark on the wooden posts, like an old fort, and then against a small trailer or shanty with rusted out cars sitting in the dusty yards before the road veered at an ascending 90degree angle into another incline just to seemingly do the same into a descent on the back side as we wiggled through the bleak and impoverished towns. It was mad motorcycling and we both were loving every foot of pavement as we negotiated the play between clutch and throttle. The villages had names like, Penasco and Vadito, and we didn’t see a single other car on the road, nor a person to be seen as we rode through. Picuris Peak rose from up above the pines and the dusty low laying shrubbery. It was truly a magnificent road and on the far side of the second village we turned north again onto state highway 518 and zigzagged our way along the eastern slope of the same mountain where Johnny romped ahead of me and led us to the curbside along the railing near McGaffey Ridge. There we each hopped off the bikes for a breather, and tried to balance upon the metallic railing alongside the road as we gazed out over the vast panoramic expanse in wild wonder. The sky was as big as it gets. Blue pastel and cloud splashed. Distant ranges rose against it in rust and yellow-brown magnificence. A short ride later just south of Taos we pulled over to have an early lunch at an authentic Mexican joint called the Guadelejara Grille, and inside we ordered from the counter two good plates to fill our bellies and a couple orange soda pops to wash it all down.

“That road, man!” Johnny said almost like he was still howling out over the wind.

“They come unexpectedly, right?”

“Bro, I could literally have touched the fences and the overhanging trees. It was like being in another time.”

“Yeah, I gotta be honest. I don’t know if I’ve ridden through a town or village that was so closely situated to the road like that before.”

“I know right? Fuck man if the rest of the roads are anything like that one I don’t ever want to go home. Just keep on riding.”

“Sidewalks!” I remarked as I was replaying the road winding through the villages as it had. “There were no sidewalks. Just spotty roads and fence lines.”

“That’s it… exactly. I hadn’t even realized it.”

“I couldn’t figure it out either so I was playing it back.”

A young man brought us our food on plastic red trays with paper plates and seeing the grub both our eyes got big and we dug right in and slurped the orange drinks in between bites.

“Jarritos!” Johnny said musing at the bottle after a big gulp. “This is so much better than the Orange Crush we grew up on.”

“Not arguing that.”

“This plate is legit good. Not nearly as spicy as yesterday mornings inferno.” He said as he laughed.

“Dude, I knew you were fucked when the waitress brought the dishes over and said you were “loco” for getting the hot salsa.” I said as I joined him laughing.

“What? She said that?”

“Yeah, man…you were outside talking with Eagle Riders.”

“Why didn’t you warn me when I came back in?”

“Wasn’t time too, you had shoveled a fork full into your mouth before you even sat down.” I explained as we chuckled.

We sat there as the earliest road crews and construction workers shuffled in every couple minutes to take their lunches. It was a cafeteria style setting and Johnny and I were observing the scene and just sort of smiling at one another like Kerouacs dingledodies. Aside from the two of us the place was packed with a mostly Spanish speaking New Mexican clientele and staff; and the strangely comforting feeling that a traveler gets when finding themselves immersed in a different scene entirely than ones they are accustomed to swept over me as I listened to the voices speaking in native tongue while watching everyone carrying on with their days toil.

“What are you so amused by, Henry?” Johnny asked me as we were winding up our meals.

“Just that feeling of comforting dislocation.” I replied. “It’s not only the pavement after all, know what I mean?”

“What’s not just the pavement?”

“The Road, man. It’s that… and all of this too. I know I’d said dotted whites rather than late nights but let’s just go with it, pal” I answered him further hoping to adequately elucidate the point. But I’d already sensed he was beginning to get it in the way I did, or thought I did. He’d taken off the shoulder pads and had begun to settle in, man. I’d seen it that morning as we rode back up into the mountains.

“ Where to from here?”

“We gotta ride the loop here, see,” I began to answer him as I pulled out the map on my phone to show him what I was talking about, “and then north into Colorado. See how far we can get before sundown.”

And Johnny.. looking at the jagged lines of the roads I mentioned got all amped up with that beginners mind thirst and I looked at him excitedly also like I knew already what awe lay ahead even though I’d never ridden the roads either. It’s just a knowing you get after you’ve logged enough miles on roads like that elsewhere. And I understood even that knowing would get wiped clear once back on the road and my own beginners mind settled in too.

We filled up our tanks on the north side of Taos at a gas station next to the intersection with US Highway 64 that we were taking to the east into the deeply forested range of mountains that rose over the eastern horizon. A couple cold brewed coffees for an energy boost and the wiping clean of our visors later we were back into it. The road rose once more into another level of elevation and the air felt cool for the first time in better than a week of riding for me. Johnny felt the cooler breezes for the first time and I could tell it livened him in the saddle even more as he took the lead into the mountain pass. On either side of the road was a densely lined forest of pine and other evergreen trees. Johnny was feeling extra bold as he leaned into the turns far enough that sparks rose off his footboards and he began to put a distance between us as I less aggressively managed the roads curves while we ascended the ridge line with Capulin Peak to the north and Sierra De Don Fernando to the south. The road nestled against the Rio Fernando de Taos and followed the rivers winding path into a coiled descent on the backside of the ridge as the road became extreme and the two of us romped into the straightaways before breaking hard into a hairpin turn and letting the bikes roll down into the steeper gradient as we descended into Angel Fire, New Mexico. From there we followed the highway north in along Eagle Nest Lake where I followed Johnny onto a gravel lane that took us out to the banks of the reservoir. In the glacial valley we were surrounded by the magnificent rise of the peaks that formed the barriers in every direction except for a narrow divide to the north. Johnny hopped off his bike in the cool mountain air and went rushing for the pebbled shoreline. Touch-Me-Not Mountain rose in view on the far side of the lake and there was a fellow traveler pulling his kayak from the water who happily took a picture of the two of us posed in front of the water with the mountain range behind us.

“I love this air!” Johnny exclaimed.

“It definitely feels good to be back in the mountains.” I agreed.

“This is heaven to me, Henry. I love it up here.” He responded and for a brief second I honestly wondered if he might not just cut the ride short and mosey into town and find a place right then and there and start anew. He had that look in his eyes. I watched him for a good 15 minutes as he searched the horizon tracing the distances off from the surface of the lakebed that was glistening in the early afternoon sunlight. I walked over to grab my coat from my saddlebags so as not to catch a chill. The temperatures had gone from damn near 120 degrees down to the upper 60’s in the span of two days ride. It was a welcome change to have to adjust to. Finally after the while I hollered over to him from where I sat leaning against the bike.

“Staying or going, Johnny?!?!” I shouted into the brisk wind. It looked as though I’d interrupted his contemplation as he shook his head before turning back towards me and pointing in the direction that he seemingly assumed the road carried on… out of the valley. I saw him take a deep breath before he strolled back up to the gravel lot where the bikes leaned.

“Where is this?” He asked.

“Eagle Nest, New Mexico.” I answered him and he repeated it beneath his breath as if committing it to a memorized list he was beginning to form in his mind about places he could live. I recognized what he was doing because I had been doing the same thing since I’d left Iowa also. Only my list was becoming so long that I was now editing it while I rode.

On the north side of Eagle Nest we veered onto Highway 38 and that wound us to the north and west on the backside of the Taos Ski mountains. As we rode out of town we began another ascent and I was glad to have zipped my coat on as we eclipsed 8000 feet in elevation riding back towards the west passing through Red River, where Johnny pulled over to snatch his own coat from his pack, before carrying on in between Sawmill Mountain and Black Mountain heading towards the intersection in Questa where New Mexico’s 522 was to lead us headlong to the north for the Colorado border over the ambling terrain of the high desert once more. The land was impoverished though beautiful with the colors of the American Southwest, and as we rode across it there was that sense of entanglement with its mystique reverberating in my mind. Another hour along we came upon the Colorado state line and Johnny pulled us over to snap the obligatory photo posing in front of the “Welcome to Wonderful Colorado” sign where I tagged a wolf sticker onto the wooden post before burning on again. We rode hard for the next hour along highway 159 continuing to the north. I sensed both of us were feeling the roads energy rising to meet our own. Johnny was riding a motorcycle for the first time in the Colorado that he loved and I could tell he was feeling it too by the ease that seemed to permeate his riding stature now as we ever so surely left the high desert in the rear views for a time.  I was riding more relaxed also but for more ignoble reasons knowing that I didn’t have to be concerned anymore about a backpack filled with cannabis as I was while in New Mexico where it was still illegal to do so at the time. We cut east briefly on highway 160 to connect again with Interstate 25 which we rode for another half hour before veering off in Colorado City onto state highway 165 which took us back to the northwest on another jagged stretch of road as we inclined into a lower range of the Colorado Rockies. Johnny road in along side me as we pressed it a bit into and out of the turns while making the ascent into the forested mountain slope. By then we had begun to form our own sign language that was a continued work in progress for the duration of the ride. To that point it had been limited to the more or less rudimentary attempts he and I made to draw one another’s attention towards something we saw along the roadside or off into the distance. With the basic gist as we had yet worked it out requiring either one of us using our index and middle fingers that once pointed inward towards our visors would make it clear it was something we wanted the other to look at before we then directed the same two fingers in the gesture of the peace sign towards whatever it was that we were supposed to take notice of as we ripped passed. But before long what we intended as a sporadic gesture ended up in the outstretched fingers of both Johnny and myself pointing to just about everything on the periphery for the other to see. Then once the sweep of the two fingers were completed and confirmation questioned the other would nod that they were 100% sure they had noticed exactly what the other hoped we would see whether we had or not. The amusement was not so much in seeing one another riding basically one handed while in a constant state of directing each other to nearly each and every tree, rock, source of water, or wild animal that we passed by so that it looked like we were in a constant state of offering peace to Mother Nature, herself. Which of course we were, but not so overtly as it would have otherwise appeared to an innocent onlooker as we flitted by. No, the true amusement would come once we’d stopped for whatever reason and would ask one another,

“Dude, did you see that stream I was pointing to a while back?”

“Stream? Oh I thought you were pointing to that rock formation. But yeah I saw that stream too.”

And then the other returning the inquiry,

“But what about that tree I pointed to, had to be 200ft, did you see that?”

“Tree? Oh fuck man I thought you meant that buck that was off to the side of the road bouldered up on its haunches! But yeah of course I saw that tree too.”

And so on. But eventually we were able to create hand symbols for gas stops, bathroom breaks, hunger, thirst, oncoming storms, heat exhaustion, cold, a great song playing on our playlists, our backs hurting,  whether to speed up or to slow down,  a pretty girl standing by the side of the road,… that one time… thirty years ago…,   cloud formations, a rainbow, a thunderclapper, the suns setting,  the comedy in our heads, or the tears in our hearts. And in that way he and I could run out great distances without needing to stop to assure one another that we were keyed in to each others stream of consciousness. Because really the road was unfolding just as it did; and with the beginners mind of bodhi sainthood opening up unto it… the joy wasn’t interdependent on making sure one another was having the same experience, but rather in the collaborative interdependence that one another was having the very experience that we each needed and chose to have, more or less, with the simple and noblest of intentions to be focused on the moment as the dotted white and yellow lines guided us onward towards the next booming revelation within and beyond.

It was in that manner as we rode that I remembered that I had been on that very two-laner some years earlier and recalled there being the strangest of surprises ahead in the form of a welded cast iron and stone castle constructed by a man named Bishop who had decided to build it right there on the forested hillside near St. Charles Peak. As we rode in near I throttled ahead by a few bikes lengths and gave Johnny the sign to slow down and then with my peace sign pointed to the left side of the road which I then ran up and down like I was doing a tomahawk chop almost as if directing an airplane to its gate so as to, obviously, inform him that some thing was coming somewhere on the left for him to see at some point. And sure enough a few miles farther along cut into the overhang of the forests canopy was Bishop Castle rising up mysteriously. Johnny and I pulled over to get a better look at it and he sat there hunched over his handle bars shaking his head as he ran its height.

“Want to climb it?” I hollered over to him as I killed the ignition on my bike.

“We’re here!” He said shrugging his shoulders as he killed his bikes ignition also. And the two of us made our way up the rocky embankment to where one of the welded iron stairwells rose from the ground in spiraling fashion up to a beautiful wooden cathedral encased in stone and on a walkway built also of iron that encircled the cathedral on the front side we stood and looked down the hundred feet back to the road that slithered up to and away from the oddly impressive visionary creation before it disappeared around the bend

“Who built this?” Johnny asked me

“The sign said a fella named Jim Bishop.”

“Had to be for a girl, don’t ya think?”

“Isn’t it usually?”

“Don’t you and I know it!”

“I think he takes up some issue with the government also, though.” I said to him recalling I had seen a sign to that effect on the previous pass by.

“So he’s a patriot too, ya think?” Johnny asked me.

“If I recall correctly yes,…I think he is or was, I’m not sure if he’s alive or not anymore.”

“This place is absurd.” Johnny said matter of factly.

“Certainly is.” I said back to him as we began our descent down an another spiraling iron stairwell inside a column of stone.

Once back down at ground level Johnny looked up again and then looked at me with childhood sandbox enthusiasm as he remarked while peace signing his eyes, out of a forming habit, and pointing to a sculpture welded into the side of the castle,

“It’s a fucking dragon!” He yelped over to me as a woman with her two children were walking by and looked at him insinuating her offense to his unintended curse word in the vicinity of the kids ears. And I laughed as I nodded my head while Johnny tried to offer his apology to the woman as she walked hurriedly away. And I held him by the shoulder so he didn’t go on walking after her trying to keep forming that apology and make the whole thing awkward for everyone. Because I understood Johnny always meant well enough but very much like his old man, who I loved like an uncle,  he too would sometimes say something accidentally inappropriate out of sheer aloofness to the situation all the while meaning no offense in the slightest. He’d come by it honestly enough I mean to say and this was just another one of those unintended incidents. Gaining his attention I nodded my head towards the bikes and he nodded back and let it go and we walked the rest of the way on down the hillside. And right there in front of our parked motorcycles was the sign I had remembered being there in the past.

“                                                               Are You Aware?     (It began….)
The American Citizen has always had the unalienable “Right to Travel”. You have been brainwashed into believing that driving is a privilege granted by the State. You, CITIZEN, don’t need a drivers license…..” And on it read. And I tapped Johnny on the shoulder and pointed over to it as we pulled our helmets back on.

“Hmm whattya know, Henry. That’s news to me.”

“Probably not worth finding out about if we don’t have to eh?” I asked him rhetorically as we both laughed a bit while standing the motorcycles upright in the gravel before then gently throttling away.

We met up with Highway 96 for a short ride to the east leaving the castle in the rears before turning back to the northwest again onto state highway 67 once we had cleared the forested range and were again in a lower lying meadow as we cruised into Cañon City where we filled up and had an afternoon coffee next to our bikes on the fuel island while watching the passersby. We’d been riding for 8 hours on the day to that point and so I asked Johnny as we were finishing up our bottles how much farther he wanted to push it for the day. Feeling that we still had a couple hours of daylight remaining he looked at the map and seeing Breckenridge was within a mad dash distance by motorcycle from Cañon City he suggested we push on. I was fine with the decision also now that I was feeling the caffeine jolt run through me. So after we finished our coffee and did a little roadside stretching we hopped back onto the motorcycles and rode west out of town alongside the Arkansas River before the road veered to the north again on the outskirts of town and we ran through the gears as twilight began to creep over the vast expanse that we rode beneath. A few miles out of town the road bent to the west as we throttled by a string of large roadside tourist attractions, with one large roadhouse that had a parking lot full of vehicles and ATV’s and Johnny pointed over to it and then opened his palm to the sky(which was our hand sign for ‘what do you think?’) and I gave him the thumbs down so we rolled passed. Coming to the turnoff for highway 9 a couple miles later however as we turned to the north for the long final stretch it was apparent that a storm was brewing ahead of us. Once we’d made the turn onto highway 9 we pulled over to the gravel along side the intersection and Johnny hollered over to me,

“Whattya think? Looks bad!”
“Yeah dude I don’t feel like running through another storm if we can help it.”
“How about we head back to that roadhouse and take a look at the weather map,…and see what was going on there?”

I agreed with his idea despite being suspicious of his motive but we turned the bikes around, none the less, and rode back to the Whitewater Bar and Grill where upon pulling in and finding a space to park the bikes underneath a roofed canopy next to some shanty type bathroom and showering facilities and a few large inflated heavy duty rafts that looked like couches as they lay bent on their sides on the wooden ground level porch beneath the overhang. A sign out front read “Thank You Firemen and EMS!”,  and so walking in to grab a beer and check the weather maps we strolled into a packed house benefit for those very men and women for their dedication and service to fighting the forest fires which had ravaged the land nearby. There was a band out back on a large patio and a grill serving burgers next to a bar selling keg beer of which the proceeds were to benefit the aforementioned departments. I ordered the burgers while Johnny paid the beers and sitting down and opening up his weather map Johnny’s face became grim as he turned the phone so I could see the line of red encircled by yellow indicating a pretty gnarly storm in the direction we’d hoped to ride.

“Guess Cañon City it is!” I said over the music.
“Looks that way.” He agreed.

So I opened up my travelers app and tried to book a room only there wasn’t a single room available in the entire town with it being peak tourist season and with the hundreds of people packed in at the Whitewater for the benefit taking up beds too I presumed. Johnny stood there scarfing down his burger and bopping his head to the music as he scanned the scene pointing out the pretty girls.

“Good crowd!” He hollered over to me.
“Yeah well we’re fucked!” I hollered back and he immediately leaned in all serious like,
“Whattya mean, ‘we’re fucked’?”
“No rooms at the inn!”
“Well try another one!” He yelled back and I shook my head.
“It’s a saying, Johnny! I meant there are no rooms anywhere in town.”
“Fuck, man, Now what?”
“Guess we hang here and let the storm pass by to the north and ride out afterwards.”
“It’s gonna be dark!”
“What choice do we have?”
“None I guess. It looked like it was moving pretty fast on the map so maybe we’ll get lucky yet.” Johnny said as he again began to scan the crowd. Only we didn’t get lucky at all. Because it wasn’t another fifteen minutes that the band interrupted their set by saying, ‘hey all, we got ourselves a fast moving storm about to hit us so we’ve been asked to tell everyone to head inside and let it pass.’ And Johnny and I looked at one another and polished off the last of our beers and rather beelined for the door instead and then ran across the lot to our bikes just about the time the first sound of thunder boomed over head. Within another minute it was pouring. And I mean monsoon mother-fuck pouring too. Once again we were stuck, dumb luck anyways. And Johnny stood there looking out to the west and pointing his two fingers at the horizon south to north as if searching for a break in the storm as the water fell in droves from off of the awning. The sharp lightning in the the near distance caused the ground to rumble when it's thunder percussed. I took a seat in one of the folded rafts and tried to stay warm. The temperatures had dropped another 10 degrees as the storm moved in.

“Look, Henry, right there!” Johnny said as he pointed to a small opening in the cloud cover and I laughed as I was reminded by my own similar doing as we rode towards Albuquerque the two days prior. I barely even craned my neck to look. The rain felt like it would be there for awhile. In the meantime I was doing a hotel search for 50 miles in every direction now, but the towns were either all booked up, too little to have a hotel, or they simply remained out of range. We weren’t in the middle of nowhere but we were most definitely stranded as we were.
“Well, it’s either Breckenridge or bust, brother.” I said to him once I was sure that was so.
“We can gear up and go slow.” He said back to me forming his agreement.
“It’s that or we sleep right here. Not sure whoever owns this would like that much though.”
“Looks like an outfitters business for the Royal Gorge that’s just over the way.” Johnny answered me as he pointed towards the southwest.
“The Royal Gorge?! We’re near there?” I retorted with surprise.
“Dad Gum, Henry, some navigator you are. Why in the hell else would all these businesses be out here next to nowhere like this? Yeah man we’re basically right next to it as the road goes.”
“Well Fuck me, I honestly had no idea.”
“Might explain the whitewater raft you’re sitting on, dummy, or maybe every other sign along side of the road that read Whitewater this or Royal Gorge that as we rode out of Cañon City.”
“Guess I was just chasing your taillight.”
“Well either way, I say when the rain lets up a bit we head for it.”
“Agreed.” I answered him.

And so the two of us stood there at the ready rather than going back in to get warm.  For the next half hour we traded recollections from the days ride out of Santa Fe. We talked of Rosa and Maria too; and that got Johnny to asking me about Ally a bit, but I didn’t say much in that regard. Though I did tell him about Aiyana up in Montana and meeting Lucky like I did and the ride he and I had, and that got Johnny all worked up as he walked to the end of the boardwalk and peeked around the edge of the wooden shacks to the northwest.

“Think we could make Montana on this ride, Henry?” He hollered back to me as he stood back upright beneath the awning and shook the rain from his head.
“Montana, sure, but all the way up to Glacier again,…we’d need an extra few days at least.”
“I bet we would!” He hollered back again as we both laughed.
“Not like that….well okay like that too, but I really meant just to be able to see it again properly.”
“Next time then. Next time we should ride the coast together and see Montana too. Just like you did.”
“You’d love those roads, Johnny.”
“Feel like I already do just listening to you talking about ‘em. Looks like it’s letting up north of here a bit. Even more so than here. Maybe it’s a lull. Wanna go for it?”
“Might as well. I’m going to bundle up a bit.” I told him as I got back up from the raft and scurried out into the rain to fetch my fleece jacket and the hoodie that I had picked up at Rogue Brewery back in Salem, Oregon. Once I fished them from the saddlebags and layered up back underneath the awning, and Johnny had done the same in grabbing his jacket, Gore-tex boots, and a sweatshirt; we pulled our helmets on and zipped ourselves into our raincoats and stood there anticipating the next reprieve to come.  When it did we dashed out and hopped onto the bikes and pulling them off the stands we began to roll them down the gravel drive as we fired the ignitions and kicked the bikes down into gear as we rode off into the rain. We turned off onto highway 9 a couple miles on just as we’d done before only now it was dusk and our headlights shown into the road ahead nothing but the faint white dotted lines and falling rain. Our visibility was no more than a hundred feet so we rode slowly and in no time I was soaked from the waist down, and the hiking shoes that I was wearing were vented for warmer weather hiking and were not Gore-tex like Johnny’s either so my feet got a chill and when that happens on a bike its only a matter of time before the rest of the body gets a chill also just as mine did. Johnny’s motorcycle had highway bar covers being the Ultra Glide model and so the water being spat up by the rolling front tire hit the cover in his case so he was only getting wet from the knee to the waist. And I just shook my head as I rode wishing I had a pair of Gore-tex boots also. I had planned for the ride thinking summer weather. But had failed in haste to consider mountain elevations and inclement weather combined and I was paying for that oversight as we rode into the pitch darkness now beyond the range of our headlights. Johnnys bike also had the two foglight’s so he took the lead and flipped his brights on which helped to see the road somewhat better, but the rain splattering against the visors on our helmets made visibility even less than it would otherwise have been. I never left third gear while we rode. So I was running along at speeds anywhere from 20 mph in the turns up to 55mph as the road straightened back out. Johnny was running the same speeds and the closer we rode in tandem the more light we could create ahead of us on the pavement. Another thirty minutes of shivering cold I tried to flash my high beams to signal to Johnny I needed to pull over but he was too focused on the road ahead and hadn’t seen me do so. So I pulled to a stop smack dab in the center of my lane. We hadn’t seen another car in either direction since we turned off onto highway 9 and I knew we had just traversed a longer straightaway so I figured if anyone came up behind me I’d have plenty of time to get the bike off to the shoulder. Once stopped I put the kickstand down and hopping off the bike I fished my leather Johnny V styled Chuck Taylors from my saddle bag along with a pair of SmartWool socks I had stashed there also and I began to switch my shoes and socks out right there in the middle of pitch black nowhere on that two lane road. Johnny's taillights had disappeared around a bend farther on up the road. Thankfully the rain had relented to a drizzling but as I huffed into the cooler air I could see my breath so I knew it wasn’t just the fact I was soaking wet that was making me shiver like I was. As I was putting away my wet hiking shoes and getting ready to ride again I saw Johnny’s headlights riding back towards me. While latching the saddlebags closed he rode up along side of me,

“Dad Gum, Henry, I thought the worst when I realized you weren’t in the rearview anymore!”
“…had to switch out my shoes and socks, I’m freezing!” I hollered back to him over the motorcycles lope.
“Cold!? No good! I’m wet but with these guards and my boots I’m managing it.”
“Well hopefully I can figure something out as we ride. Now that it’s letting up a bit.”
“You good to go?”
“Yeah buddy, as good as can be. You keep to the lead. The fog lights definitely helped with visibility.”

Johnny nodded as he swung his bike around the back of mine and sidled up to the other side as he pointed to the road ahead and slowly throttled off. I followed in close behind him and was able to flip my visor up now that the rain seemed to have tapered mostly leaving only the wash coming up off the road to get wet from. Realizing that I maneuvered a foot back at a time and pulling the passenger footpads down with the tips of my shoes was able to rest my feet on them which helped tremendously to keep my feet from becoming soaked again. Added to that I could feel some of the heat coming off the motor hitting the tops of my shoes and sock covered ankles and that provided the extra bit of warmth needed to endure the rest of the ride. We passed through Fairplay just after 10 pm and less than a half hour later we rode up alongside a motel just south of Alma and Johnny pulled over and stopping under the canopy he hopped off to run in quick to see if they had a room; but they were all booked up due to a fishing tournament or something of the like though he waived me in regardless and the front dest clerk brewed us a pot of coffee that we warmed up with while Johnny called on ahead to Breckenridge to make sure we had a room waiting for us when we arrived. Once that was taken care of  we both took turns in the restroom trying to heat dry our jackets and gloves underneath the hand dryer and another half hour later having thanked the gentleman for his hospitality we walked back out to continue our ride. The temperature on the motels reader board said 48 degrees and seeing that we both shook our heads as we hung them a bit while we rode beneath the sign and back onto the desolate highway.

On the far side of Alma we began another ascent as the road wove up into the valley between ridge lines of Mt. Silverheels and Mt. Lincoln before settling along the eastern slope it seemed due to the ravine to the western side of the road on our left that lead down to a water source below. Though in the void of night I couldn’t see anything except the road ahead; and it was frigid now too, and we both were shimmy shaking in our seats trying to facilitate blood flow hoping to keep our bodies circulating to help warm us. It was a losing battle but the act of trying at least distracted us, or me at the very least, from becoming discouraged. In the pitch black darkness with the forested overhang of gangling tree limbs dripping rainwater onto the road in front of us we traversed the 45 to 90degree turns through the treacherous mountain pass as the midnight hour approached. Johnnys headlight flitted past a road sign as he passed it by and as I approached it also I squinted my eyes to see it more clearly and it read, Hoosier Pass: Elevation 11,539 feet Continental Divide; and my eyes got real big as I realized I was back riding across the top of the American landmass on the Atlantic side of the Ridge and on the far side of the deep seemingly endless abyss of the ravine rose the Pacific Continental shelf. We were unknowingly balanced teetering upon the precipice where all the waters running to the sea divided to the eastern Atlantic Ocean or the western Pacific Ocean and I howled so loud into the night that Johnny heard me do it and slapped his brakes to look back to see me rolling out my fist at the elbow as we rode. And Johnny got all worked up too, though not fully knowing why, and he howled loudly enough so that I could hear it too and we rode on as the dividing line straightened out a bit when we began to descend out of the Hoosier Pass into an easy ride.  Before long the soft yellow lights of Breckenridge appeared in the valley ahead.

The town was quiet by the time we arrived so late at night. It was out of ski season anyways but even so there was not a soul in sight. We checked in to the room with Johnny still hooting and hollering and taking pictures of our road wearied selves. A 14 hour day at the handlebars will get to you all by itself. A 14 hour day through desert heat, mountain cool, a drenching rain, and a bone chill at nearly 12,000 feet will all but do you in. And if so we were done in with laughter. Asking the front desk gal if there was anything still open she directed Johnny to their convenience stand where he bought a few items, and tossed me a granola bar also which I gobbled down on the walk to the room. Inside the room was a loft with a king sized bed and a pullout couch on the lower level in front of the fire place. I was happy when he chose the bed upstairs in the loft.

“Wanna have a smoke with me!?” I yelled up to him after we’d both taken hot showers to warm up.
“Man,… after that ride, I’ll risk it. That was nuts!” He yelled down from the loft as I heard him come rumbling down the stairs. “Damn, you got a fireplace?” He said seeing that I had lit the gas powered flame.
“Yeah and a pullout couch! You decide.” I said to him knowing he would choose the better bed on account of his back issues. But he still huffed his breath as he pretended to ponder it a bit.
“Guess I’ll stick with the bed upstairs…….ya know, with my back and all.” He said and I just grinned. It worked out as we’d both have preferred I believed so I was feeling content none the less as we slid the glass door open and walked out to sit on the small patio to have a smoke before turning in.

“Did you see that sign as we passed by that I was howling about?” I asked him.
“No, which one? I wondered what in the hell you were doing.”
“The one that said ‘Hoosier Pass’ on it. It said we were almost 12,000 feet up as we were riding.”
“Jesus, man. I’ve flown planes at lower altitudes.”
“it’s crazy when you think about it like that.” I responded as I lit the joint and took a good pull to make sure it was rolling before handing it over to Johnny. And Johnny lifted it to his lips but before inhaling he did this odd motion that looked like he was almost tossing the joint out away from his body, and so much so I began to look at him sideways as I leaned for the patios railing each time he did it trying to figure out what he was doing, but then as quickly as he had straightened his arm out a few times with the joint pinched lightly between his index finger and thumb he drew it back to his lips in a half circular motion, like he was winding up or something, and he finally took a drag also.
“Dude, this is some good weed.” He remarked. And I nodded that I agreed with him. “Not sure how these roads can continue to top themselves, Henry. I can’t believe I’ve just been flying over top of them all my life either. I just don’t get it, man.” He said as he handed the joint back over to me. I took another good pull and watched the smoke plume into the cold air up into the tree line that rose away from the chalet styled hotel.
“Yeah you do, brother. But just wait… they get better…somehow.” And he just shook his head before taking another smaller pull and then getting up from his chair he put his hand on my shoulder and patting it a couple times he said,
“I’m headed off to sleep. I’m wiped. Goodnight, Henry.” And he walked in as I said goodnight back to him and slid the glass door behind him from my seat as I had a couple more drags and unwound.

A couple minutes later I walked inside also, and got under the covers in front of the warm fire. The flickering of the flames lulled me into a peaceful daze as I began to drift off to sleep. But then I heard Johnny upstairs fitfully trying to open up some sort of plastic wrapper and being stoned I started to laugh to myself listening to his fumbling about. Eventually he defeated the plastic seal and all I heard then was the crunching and chewing of some sort of shell. I listened to it laughing louder and louder until finally I hollered up to him,

“What in the hell are you chomping on up there?”
“Pistachios, Bro! Salt and Pepper! they’re the best!” And I burst out laughing as I shook my head and gazed back to the fire. Johnny was still crunching away at those shells when I drifted off. Burn, man, burn…