DRIGGS, IDAHO

The moon was coming up full and rich to my left over the immense Yellowstone valleys and crags. I’d left Old Faithful just before dusk, thinking that it shouldn’t be too a long ride out of the Park down into Jackson Hole.


I was wrong.
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I woke up sharply in the Billings Montana Motel 6. Something was wrong… I was panting deeply.
What the…. Then I remembered that I was no longer on the flat plains and I was hungry for oxygen at 5000 feet.

I ate a crappy breakfast at some horrible chain joint called Cracker Barrel, more corporate sleaze, having a fetid room up front selling all manner of Pot-Pour-ee, nauseating candles and tourist gimcracks. Paid up fast and got out...Out onto the highway, Rte 90 again, and what a difference from the brutal heat of the day before. It was about 60 degrees and windy. Clear bright day;an far-open horizon and flat-bottomed, snow-white Western clouds. I stopped quickly and pulled out some warmer gear.  I pointed it down Route 212 towards Yellowstone. The wind was gusting fiercely and I had to ride close to the shoulder so that I wasn’t blown suddenly into the oncoming lane of traffic.

It was a long ride over to the park… maybe two hours at 70mph. The distances can be vast out here…and those little paper lines on a map don’t always give much idea of scale.

It was getting colder. I ran through tiny mountain towns and got a hot lunch in some wooden café in Red Lodge. Smoked brisket sandwich, baked beans, hot coffee. Not cuisine but warming. Before I pulled out I saw a custom motorcycle shop just across the street and long-sleeve white t-shirts hanging in the window..something I’ve wanted, to protect me from the sun on the hotter rides. I ended up buying that shirt and a pair oif deerskin gloves, (cheap at $20), and the chick behind the counter was helpful.
“You’d better be careful up there,” she warned about Yellowstone. “The weather changes fast and furiously, and buffalo look at small black vehicles and think they’re competition for the females.”
Great.
Who thought about Yellowstone Park as being “up there”?

..but, Up we Go.
It took almost another hour before I finally reached a Lincoln-log blockhouse where some Smokey-the-Bear ranger dude demanded $20 entrance fee from me. He wasn’t very friendly…don’t know why.

Up and Up… the roads were beautiful for a bike, swooping back and forth. Traffic was light and it wasn’t a problem getting past. There aren’t many police out West, compared to the East Coast, so you can usually do what you will.

The scenery, of course, was getting grander by the minute. Huge, craggy mountains looming ahead. The road became increasingly twisty, real hairpins now, and the elevation became extreme…I crested the pass at 10,000 feet. It was cold…maybe upper 30’s, and what a difference from a day before when I almost baked under that relentless 110-degree furnace in eastern Dakota.

Then it started to snow.
Not heavily, thankfully, but it certainly was snow falling around me, little swirling white flakey things, and you’re waaay away from civilization Up There. I stopped a few times to take photos or change gear and just getting off the bike and back was a major chore… huffing and puffing heavily from a pure lack of O2. The scale of the vistas was huge and incredible above the treeline.

Eventually I crested the passes and started winding down the other side. Fantastically swoopy roads, crisp and twisty and freshly paved… the reason why I chose a sport bike to do this trip on to begin with, (other than it's the only bike I've got). The ride reminded me a lot of the Alps... going through various mountain scenes and vast river valleys… too much to list here (once again I need to flee this Motel before the maid knocks). I’ll have to send some photos another time.. I have plenty. But like all scenery photos, you have to understand that they can’t possibly do justice to such wide-angled vistas.

Herds of buffalo lounging by the roadside... brown eagles over the sharp-cliffed mountains, soaring straight upwards for thousands of feet. Lodge-pole and Ponderosa pines like toothpicks on the immense cliff edges, contrasting against the brilliant, dark-blue sky.

[No time here for this jabber, the maid is next door]
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[now re-continued in the PM. This gets difficult.. I’m lagging on this blog ... not much time]
Ah, Yeah… so the whole Yellowstone thing is grand… a lot like the Adirondack park…but three of four times larger, in size, height, and scale. Incredible expanses of natural beauty. I got off to walk across a short meadow towards a photogenic cliff and I found myself sinking dangerously into bubbling sulfur marsh…it could have easily been Quick-mud... and I was far enough away from the road that no one would haveevery found me or heard my yelling if I became stuck. The meadow looked so solid and innocent... Could have been a bad move. I sank in quickly.
 Now I doubt that I’ll ever get all the sulfur out of those boots.

So.
I wander around the park in an S-pattern, hoping to get out and south before it gets too late. I kept stopping at the many "paint-pots" and geyser viewpoints...bubbling sulfuric mud and boiling cobalt water.

Unfortunately, the SCALE of the place is so big that I got lost in Time & Space, and eventually, at Old Faithful, I started to heading towards the South Entrance. The geyser was scheduled to go off in another 20 minutes…but the sun was setting quickly, HIGH in the mountains at 9000 feet; and I figured I can always see it later on Youtube,

This is when it got really cold. A brilliant, full moon rose over the valleys to my left, and it was mind-bendingly beautiful. Really, really full and rich…

….but also really really dangerous, as you had these tiny roads to run down, forrest to either side, and all sorts of Fauna like THIS crazy thing wandering around near the road..

Colder… and colder. I wasn’t ready for this level of temperature drop. Twenty-four hours before I had been in such a hot place that I really became worried about heat stroke issues; now I was into a full-tilt hypothermia situation.

After the sun was essentially down, I finally reached just thed edge of the park. A wooden sign pointed south and said, “Jackson Hole- 77 miles”.
Seventy-seven MILES???
That’s three-quarters of the way to Albany from where I live… and this was to be on highly twisting and treacherous one-lane forest roads, night-time black, with Wildlife abundantly carousing. The two things I had in my favor were the Love of Jesus and a perfectly full moon. Oh, and heated handgrips, that I’d just installed before this trip… but they didn’t do much.
This was one scary ride. I headed onward and onward, slowly leaving huge Yellowstone, working my shivering way down through the passes into the next formidable obstacle: Grand Tetons National Park. By then it was well after nine o’clock, and there's no one on the road; just some demented New York motorcyclist peering vainly into the freezing mists for any threatening sign of Animal Movement that could spell instant tragedy at 75 mph. Meanwhile, that fat marshmallow moon shone fiercely against the craggy faces of the Tetons, just across the river. It was picture-postcard beautiful, except for the potentially deadly conditions.

I’ve been frightened before on long motorcycle trips. There was the freaky rainstorm west of Kansas City in 1998 where I prayed for my life as fat lightning bolts crashed onto the flat desert around me. Or the time I got lost in downtoen Oklahoma City, and the Brothers there were in no way shy to express an interest in my motorcycle. But this was a new chapter; after two solid hours of riding in blowing 38-degree weather, with no signs of Human Settlement for 77 miles, I was getting scared. There was nothing left to do but forge on. I was concerned about the level of shivering wracking my body, and the effects that shivering might have on my arrythmic heart-beat condition. Ga-BLURP. It was truly bad out there; three, 75 mph, ice-cubed hours through some tiny forest lane that I’ll never forget.
Finally… finally I saw the lights of Jackson approaching in the long distance ahead. I was shivering badly as I pulled shakily into a Shell station, where I stumbled over to the coffee machine. The pretty blonde Russian girl behind the counter took pity on me and gave me the coffee for free. Her boyfriend/whatever came out of the back room and directed me over the mountain into Idaho, where a hotel room waited in Diggs. I’d done the right thing and paid online for this room… I could only imagine what it would have been like if the NO VACANCY signs had gone up outside of Yellowstone, as often happens in the summer. I found a pair of cheap, white, knitted gloves in the store for $1.99 to put inside my gloves; bit of a miracle, and wrapped a bandana across my face bandito-style for the one hour ride over the mountains to Driggs. These two things helped a lot, as did the knowledge that within aan hour I’d be safe and sound in a plastic Super 8 Motel.
Driggs was a tiny cross-roads town, and it had all gone to sleep before I arrived. All except the Lonely Wolf Bar, it seems, which turned out to be just my medicine. The bartender was a cheerful University of Pennsylvania graduate who told me tales of driving the immense journey from PA to ID in a matter of two days of insane torture. The people in the bar where Idaho Hip… the music was cool and I bought shots for the crazy two local chicks who came in to rip the place up. The bartender came outside with me to Imbibe, and he clued me in on the basic happenings of eastern Idaho. A fine evening, and how absolutely bizarre it feels to be locked into a three-hour, potentially deadly situation then suddenly be snug and comfortable in a partying place where people are laughing gaily about mundane issues like their phone bills. In the end I spent $38 for a close interaction with the Idaho Species… then headed back up the road to my motel and crashed-out heavily.

Shit, here's another bloody maid bustling outside my door....

BILLINGS, MONTANA

Whew. .
Long day.
These states just keep on getting bigger...and BIGGER
Started off on Sunday morning into the Black Hills from Rapid City. Hot as hell already as I gassed-up. Had to navigate the back roads of downtown before escaping into the hills out oif town on Rte 45 heading north.

Next stop: Deadwood, some 30 miles north.

Deadwood was cool, figuratively... wandered around the center of town for a while, and went into a local, official museum where they had small but very intersting diusplays relating to Calamnity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. Calamnit Jane was a serious drunk and an active prostitute (whenever she could get the business), who essentially died drunk in a ditch but was given the biggest funeral Deadwood had seen to date.

Bill Hickok's gun, belt, lucky stone and boot-razor were all on display. I took a fast look around and to the clerk-lady's dismay, left within twenty minutes. Who the hell wants to stand around in air-conditioning looking at old dead history rather than jump on a 150 horespower snorter and go out and MAKE some..?

After Deadwood I headed north towards Spearfish and the state line. Sturgis was only a dozen miles to the east, but I had no interest in going there. I'd been there ten years before (co-incidentally the week after the big rally... exactly the same as this trip)..... but I had better buffalo burgers to fry.

Once you leave Interstate 90 things get more rudimentary; I took state Route 212 out northwest towards the corner of Wyoming, into Montana. It was goddamm hot. BAD hot. The fierce wind buffeting you costantly had to have been about 110 degrees coming off the roadway... and it just didn't STOP. I had to pull over at any gas station go water myself as deeply as possible, inside and out.. Still, it was brutal and frightening... distances between towns were now up to 50 miles, and God help you if you were to have a problem in between. YES, there ARE buzzards flating above. PS... I also saw numerous antelope... a first for me.

Eventually I got into Montana ... after an hour through the corner of Wyoming.. and it was massively hot. The pictures can't give yoiu any idea. I stopped at a tiny place called Azuma with a simple store (the gas pumps had GAS and DIESEL options... and of course you paid cash)... and two other bikers came in in serious straits. Dehydration and sugar imbalances are serious matters out here. Could KILL you no shit, and the nearest "hsospital" would be many hours away.

Eventually I made my way into the Indian nations... Cheyenne and Crow. Beautiful, beautiful country, but immense western  clouds threatened. I met a couple of Cheyenne dudes at a general storte on the edge of the reservation and asked if I would get hgit by the rain, heading for Billings.

"Nawww," said the one young dude, in a sort of California/Latino accent. "That storm is heading north.. you will be fine!"

He was very interested in my bike and we chatted for a few about the trip I was on. He was totally imporessed and shook my hand on the way out. I suppose life on the reservation is pretty limited, in terms of meeting unusual people. I worked my way across the nations, taking out my rainsuit and putting it away again repeatedly.

Eventually...(remember that disances are huge out here) I came across the Little Big Horn battlefield, and pulled over as rain clouds were gathering. I'd seen chain-lightning across the sky on the way... the skies are huge and changeable. I pulled in to the national site and as it was after 6PM I got in for free... the site was numbing. I couldn;t get my brain around what had happened on that spot... but the one thing that chilled me was how FAR AWAY from any kind of european settlement those young soldiers had been, surrounded by combat-veteran Cheyenne, Sioux, and others. all armed with rifles. When they began to realize how truly cut-off and doomed they were,... to be scapled or worse.. must have been a real Kodak Moment.

Once again, the photos can;t give you a scope of the vast plainj that surrounds here; visibility for fifty miles... and truly desolate, deep in her heart of the Indian nations.

Made it into Billings in the rain... got an (expensive! $64!!) Motel 6... a few draft beers and a buffalo burger before retiring back here. I'm BUSHED and I hope to Christ some one out there likes reading this becaus its about 1:30 AM and it's a chore..

DAKOTA

Oh, well.. things are moving quickly, so ...wahdevva.

Let's call this one RAPID CITY South Dakota... I wrote a whole screed about this before and seems like I lost it in Transit from last night. I can't always get connection.

Problem for this gets to be that in the morning I'm rushing around, packing everything back in to a small cylindrical duffel-bag... and make damn SURE youy don't leave something important behind. A thoothbrush can be replaced; a debit card or toolkit could be a lot more problematic.

Let's see... thinking backards. Rapid City... right.
UUhhh.. I got up late after having a fine, (short) evening at a Rapid City bar/casino,,, (they have video gambling all across the West), and had to flee due to quickly-approaching (11 O'clock??? Who the fucjk requires anyone out before Christian NOON??). 

Yeah, so had some breakfast (still looking for decent Biscuits & Gravy...may have to wait till the South trip later on). Left there looking for a Suzuki shop to get oil changed over to fresh synthetic.. 15w50 from 10w40 left over from the Rebuild break-in. Found said shop.. asked them to check front brake bleed... as mushiness STILL apparent, two bleeds after brakeline installation in Illinois.
The shop was new qand EMPTY... one of these dream-fancy shops with a Customer Lounge with Donuts and full-blown, #2-friendly restrooms (how often do you get that in an east-coast bike shop,.. unless you got an MV-Agusta...ehh). But obviously this place had little business... despite the throngs of Japanese sportbikes I saw zooming around,.

back onto I-90... heading  now from Sioux Falls towards Rapid City.. a respectable 325 miles to the West. Mostly straight line.... with an occasional elevation change. Hot.

HOT??? Fujcking A HOT. It was like sitting in a chair and have a giant hair-dryer blow 80-mph, 100-degree AIR at you for six hours non-stop. Got it?

It SUCKS... mostly because it's scary. When you're out there trying to balance yourself and a 500-pound hunk of steel and plastic, you WORRY occasionally that somehow this might go wrong somehow....  and stuff like slippery rainstorms, fiery commuter traffic, or WEATHER extremes tend to put you in edge.

So: when you're halfway between dusty Indian crossroads towns 50 miles apart.. and there's NO POSSIBLE SHADE ANYHERE BETWEEN...no dwellings.... no nothing whatsoever. BAKING hot... and you realize what in incredible feat it was for anyone to deal with, wiothout air-conditioning and gas-station general stores. The landscape is wide, endless and unforgiving.

The trip to Rapid City... nothing. Blank. Terrible, unrelenting HEAT and a steadily flattening horizon. Hills become more like flat-topped mesas and you start to see horizontal strata colors in the hillsides. Dry. HOT.

Eventually....eventually..... eventually I reached Rapid City South Dakota around 7PM. I opted to stop. It had been a terrible, difficult day or extreme heat threatening heat stroke, striation , or something including passing-out in the middle of the roadway at 75 mph. In reponse to this challenge I spent great efforts in drinking huge quantities of water, an dousing my upoper body with water whenevr possible. Air-conditioned Dodge 3000 pick-up truck witnesses may have looked at me with disgust and confusion... but at least the first tewn miles would feel safe and comfortable to me. After that it became dicey and tense. Anytime you start feeling dizzy from the heat (I've had it happen twide already on this trip), you have a matter of seconds to get the bike stopped before you might drop. And if that's twenty-six miles from the next sign of Humanity, you may be well fusjked.

Rapid City was bustling. I checked into a budget hotel off the interstate.. and the guy saw me coming and got me for $55. Later I saw numerous cheap-o motels two blocks away. But the place was bustling with open-header pick-up trucks and heavily-dusted camaros. This was now the real... REAL wild wild West... and Rapid City was full of Cowboys and Indians.
I went into the Walmart across from my hotel to look for a long-sleeve white t-shirt to keep the sun off me, as well as a small bottle of laundry detergent so as to wash my shit more properly in the Motel 6's I seem to keep staying in. When you're traveling town-to-town so much and so fast you have a have a hard time maintaing some flow.. and I got caught in Rapid City. The Walmart had tons of Indian people shopping there... I assume members of the local Sioux nation... anyway, some of them kept goiving me a wierd look until I realized I was wearing a motorcycle t-shirt that had INDIAN written in big letters on it. I retired quickly.
Uneventful dinner at an Outback steakhouse. Expensive chicken salad... gotta watch my Coin.

SIOUX FALLS SOUTH DAKOTA

Iowa was long... mostly just cornfields, but rolling and pretty. Got hit with a serious rainstorm going through Des Moines in commuter traffic. Grooves cut in the concrete roadway didn;t help my bike's stability.

Half an hour west of town it cleared up a little and I took a chance and pulled off the raingear. Riding in the rain plain sucks.. but you can make it a heap more tolerable by having a good rainsuit, gloves, and Totes overshoe things. My old Suzuki rainsuit isn;t the best.... I WILL get wet if I'm out there long enough. But it's generally good enough and kept me from being miserable.

Western Iowa got bigger and more scenic. Huge wind farms dotted the horizon, shining white propellers spinning in huge, lazy arcs against the blue sky.

I crossed the Missouri River near Omaha at a town called Blair, (presumably all the local people there wander around talking about the virtues of Martin Scorcese). Nebraska... I took a smaller road that was marked as scenic and rode up through the Indian nations of Omo HO.. (Omaha).. and yes, Winnebago. A nice road on a lovely afternoon... and by then I knew I was in the West.

Pulled through Sioux City around sunset, and after discussing the options with a couple of gas station kids, decided to push forward to Sioux Falls South Dakota, another 80 or 90 miles north. This turned out to be a good move, except for a Perfect Storm of large bugs crashing into me relentlessly, I pulled off an exit into deep cornfields to put on my leather... and was swarmed. Had to walk in circles quickly to keep the bugs behind me while I buttoned up all flaps. The moon was coming up brightly over the immense sea of corn next to me.

I pulled into Sioux Falls around 9:30 and managed to find a Rodeway Inn for $49 bucks... not TOO bad, but if you stay in the smaller burbs out west you can find $39 and sometimes even 29.

Parked my keyster and was suggested by front desk guy to go to the Gateway down the street... turned out to be a great pub with video poker gambling... everyone I met was very nice... and this ISN'T Jersey City. Had a steak dinner for $11.99 (fresh beef out here!), a few beers, and lost ten buck on the stupid poker game. A local guy back at the hotel later told me video poker is a scourge ion the state.

Many sportbikes in Sioux Falls... don;t know why yet... all I've seen since Pennsylvannia have been Harleys on the road. Maybe will find out today as I'm headed to a bike shop to get my oil changed. Bike is running well... slightly rattly, especially when cold, and the chain is going to need replacement at some point as it makes a little vibration.

I'm pounding the keys desperately here at the Rodeway... sorry I can;t be more descriptive on some things... I'm always tired at night or running to get out oif the hotels in the AM.

South Dakota east to west today.... about five hours I'm told. After oild change, heading for Rapid City on the other end the state... maybe go through Sturgis... which had the rally a week ago.. funny because the last time I was out this way on a bike ten years ago I passed through Sturgis... one week after the rally.