Small Town Traveler

Tonka Trucks Discover the Spirit in North Dakota

Posted on August 15, 2013 by smspangler

DEVILS LAKE, NORTH DAKOTA—North Dakota’s license plate is a colorful image of the plains, and in the sky it says “Discover the Spirit.” In the lower left corner stands a bison on two stems of wheat, opposite of the ready-to-harvest grain. Below this, it says “Peace Garden State.” It should read “Where boys go realize their wildest Tonka truck dreams.”

A half century ago I put my Tonka trucks to work in the backyard, digging holes and paving roads. That’s what’s going on today through almost all parts of the state I traveled through today. Oh, and it seems that all the bugs from surrounding states have moved to North Dakota as well, if my helmet face shield is any indication. It was bug free from Miles City, Montana, to the state line, and then they lined up to carry out their suicide pacts.

Road construction started with the two-lane country roads I followed to US 2 in Williston, the epicenter of the Tonka truck rodeo. Some were hauling dirt and other materials to make the roads wider and straighter. Flagmen looked like epileptic landing signals officers, and they looked harried as they tried to keep the construction and through traffic separate. I did appreciate the frequent butt breaks, until Blue’s oil temp started to climb.

Trucks comprised the majority of the through traffic. Big trucks, heavy haulers with 26 wheels. Many of them were tankers hauling unknown fluids to the drilling sites that were fracking the stone deep below. Their weight compacted the asphalt to a motion sickness series of whoop-do-doos. White pickup trucks were the ubiquitous mode of transport for supervisors. There were hundreds of them of all brands, but Ford seemed to predominate. On their door was usually a discrete decal bearing the name of some unheard of company.

Riding into and out of Williston the roads were lined with man camps, chain link enclosed seas of mobile homes or temporary buildings. They looked like modern day concentration camps, each with its own satellite dish. New dorms and apartment buildings were going up everywhere, and a new motel advertised on its lighted signs, rooms with kitchens for the bargain price of $700 a week.

Tank farms seemed to be replacing grain silos. Trains, with consists of new, graffiti-free tank cars waited their turn to suck up their share of North Dakota’s petroleum gold rush. Everyone, it seemed, was in a hurry. Refueling west of Williston, the pumps were monopolized by white pickups and haggard looking men, and a few women, of all ages hurried in empty handed and scurried back to their trucks bearing soda, sandwiches, and big bags of either chips or ice.

Construction on US 2 ended just a bit short of Rugby, and rarely did a few miles go by without seeing the monotonous bobbing of an oil pump or gas flare by the side of the road. For all this prosperity, no one seemed really happy, just grimly employed. During my fuel stop, a grimy man at the next urinal, seeing my jacket, asked what I was riding. He mentioned the construction, warned me to be careful, and added that he’d come all the way from Oklahoma to lay pavement. He didn’t seem happy about it.

The traffic—and the trucks—thinned out by Rugby, the geographical center of North America. I celebrated with the selfie above and was on my way. The only other attraction was a prairie museum that didn’t look that interesting, especially for the $7 admission fee. An hour later I checked in the Devils Lake Super 8 and set out for dinner at Mr. & Mrs. J’s Family Restaurant. The Chef Salad was okay, but the servers struck me as younger versions of the self-absorbed millennials at the Trail Shop east of Yellowstone.

Convenience stores in North Dakota do not sell beer. One must find a county bottle shop, like Wally’s, which was a mile past Mr. & Mrs. Js. The traffic on US 2 was thick, but I survived. But the day ended on a good note. With Fosters and Rocky I strolled to the shady end of the Super 8 and there, like someone knew I was coming, was a lone plastic chair. Ahhh.

Posted in Food, Lodging, Motorcycle, Museum, Service, Travel | Tagged Man Camps, Montana, Motorcycle, North Dakota, Oil Boom, Road Construction | Leave a comment

Alone on the Range Under a Big Cloudy Sky

Posted on August 14, 2013 by smspangler

MILES CITY, MONTANA—Alone on the range, where the buffalo no longer roam, deer were no where to be seen, and a lone antelope glumly stared at me from behind a barbwire fence. After turning right at Harlem, Montana, where I topped of Blue’s tank, for most of the 200-mile ride south to Billings through the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation on MT 66, US 191, MT 19, and US 87, was a lone blue speck on the two-lane asphalt cutting through fields of greenish brown short grass toward the Little Rocky Mountains.

The traffic consisted of 11 RVs, five cars, two pickups, and one motorcycle. All of them boing the other way. The landscape is, for the most part, without tall features, except for the odd lone tree, a hardy outlier that’s made its way away from the streams and creeks where its kind congregate in these parts. Every 5 or 10 miles I passed what I assumed was a ranch. The only hint was the mail box on post next to a gravel road that disappeared over a hill to the east or west. I saw no people, other than those in the 11 RVs, five cars, two pickups, and one motorcycle (I counted) going in the other direction.

Flying low over the undulating terrain, I was struck with an aviation malady, automatic rough, where odd sounds and vibrations metaphysically amplify and become dire problems that will leave the hapless pilot stranded in the middle of nowhere, days from any help or rescue. Whether in an airplane or on a motorcycle, it’s your subconscious reminder to pay attention. Or to focus the mind elsewhere, once assured all is will mechanically.

Humming along at the 70 mph limit, the road was mine, and I wondered at what speed the first inhabitants of this lands traveled. Surely a horse cannot sustain an all-day gallop like Blue. Then again, horses can live off the land, and Blue needs dead dinosaurs from time to time. Although he was still three-quarters full I topped him off at the general store in Grass Valley, about a hundred miles south, there 91 octane was only $4.09.

Completing my business at the Billings airport, one of the guys was talking to showed me a two-lane out of town that took me by Pompey’s Pillar. The road took me by the National Monument that bears the only surviving physical evidence or Lewis & Clark’s passing. On July 25, 1806, William Clark scribed his name into the soft sandstone. There’s an interpretive center, but I know the story, saw Ken Burn’s documentary, and read the books. Instead of paying $7 a vehicle to see one man’s graffiti, I jumped on I-94 and headed toward North Dakota.

Worried that the North Dakota oil boom was still occupying most of the motel rooms at exorbitant rates, I pulled up short at Miles City, a charming little town of 8,400 and the seat of Custer County. Wandering Main Street in search of dinner I ambled into the Montana Bar & Steakhouse. Having had enough alone time this day, I sat booth in the bar rather than in the vacant dining room. At 1630, people were more interested in drinking than eating.

It was an opulent cowboy bar, complete with horns and stuffed critters staring down at you from their mounts just below the pressed tin ceiling. But there were so many things wrong with this picture. Rock & Roll was filling the room with sound, competing with the beer amplified laughter of boisterous boys. For awhile, ball caps outnumbered cowboy hats two to one, but parity reigned halfway through my half-pound Montana Burger, with cheese, bacon, and a hard fried egg on it, and a cup of delicious wild rice and mushrooms.

All the servers and bartenders were female, and they all displayed ink. One TV was tuned to the Weather Channel and the other to ESPN. No one seemed to be watching either of them. Most of the men wore jeans. Those with boots were generally older and wrapped their torsos in western-style shirts under the Stetson. The younger ones went to sneakers and t-shirts. But there were two khaki and polo shirts, one tie, and runner guy, in a poly-pro shirt, shorts, and those lightweight New Balance “barefoot” shoes. No one paid attention to the stranger stuffing his face, but the bartender wished me a safe trip when I paid my bill before hitting the road for the Super 8 at the edge of town.

Posted in Food, Lodging, Motorcycle, National Parks, Service, Travel | Tagged Food, Miles City, Montana, Motorcycle, Pompey's Pillar, Travel | Leave a comment

Making All the Right Turns, Counter to the Traffic’s Flow

Posted on August 13, 2013 by smspangler

HAVRE, MONTANA—Thunderstorms awakened me in Kalispell around 0245 this morning, and when I reawakened at 0730, I was afraid to look beyond the curtain. Partly cloudy and sunshine. With no free breakfast or coffee at the Blue & White, I was on the road without it by 0800. I was not alone. The heard was grumbling east toward the cloud shrouded mountains and Glacier National Park.

Riding carefully on wet roads, I debated whether to ride through Glacier, returning to US 2 on the loop that included the Going to the Sun road. The foreboding clouds and wet roads were two strikes against it. When all of the traffic before and after me turned left into the park, that was strike three. I had the road to myself. I’ll catch Glacier and the Sun Road later, when the weather is better.

Ready for a butt break, I stopped at Marias Pass. Noted by Meriwether Lewis in 1805 and surveyed by the Great Northern Railroad’s John F. Stevens (in bronze statue form), at 5,216 feet it is the lowest way across the Continental Divide in Montana. The Blackfeet called it the Backbone pass. It was a peaceful visit, except for the land yacht that was running its APU at 100 percent. To mark my visit, I visited the outhouse and wondered which way my effluent would flow, east or west.

As usual, heading east from the Continental Divide, Mother Nature welcomed me with sunnier skies and warming temperatures. With growing hunger, I slowed as I passed the whistle-stop towns about every 10 miles along the Great Northern tracks on which the Empire Builder Runs. I raced the eastbound train out of Shelby, but a grain truck heavy with just harvested wheat let it get away.

No one turned off to the small towns with low three digit populations, not even me…until I saw the sign for Rudyard, “596 Nice People—1 Old Sore Head!” It also had a depot museum. Rolling into town, past the grain elevator and across the train tracks, I saw the Dancing Beagle Café & Bakery. Even at 1300, it was busy with a lunch crowd where everyone clearly knew each other. A farmer walked in and one eating lunch asked if he was done harvesting. “Don’t know,” said the newcomer, explaining that he hadn’t been able to inspect his fields after the early morning hail storm because they were still too wet.

Munching on a delicious and healthy veggie wrap, a trim, fit, dark haired bundle of energy with in a magenta scoop-neck top and jeans, with a pronounced North Carolina accent pin-balled from table to kitchen to counter to the front sidewalk, where she took delivery of her new commercial toaster. Two farmers stopped eating and went outside to help unload and a young boy pulled the four-wheel hand truck inside. “No more waiting for toast!” cried Lynaille.

Indeed a North Carolina native, she surrendered a corporate job and moved to Montana with her husband, a Rudyard native, about decade ago. Her in-laws used to run the café, but it had been shut for awhile, she said, and they had been after her to reopen it. After years she relented and the Dancing Beagle opened last week. “I like to cook, and I like to talk,” she explained, so why not?

Seeing me eyeing the display of saucer-sized cookies, which she makes daily, Lynaille said, “You ate a healthy lunch, so you deserve a cookie!” I had a peanut butter chocolate chip, with chunks of Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups standing in as the chips. A waitress said that day’s cinnamon rolls were gone in less than a half hour. In the window was a sign for a Harvest Sack, which turned out to be a hearty lunch, including one of the big cookies. “Call in your order and I’ll have it ready in the morning!”

Unaccustomed to strangers, the locals started making me a friend with questions. With my helmet on the table, they started with a simple question: “East or west?” One gentleman, seeing Blue waiting outside, came in expressly to talk about BMWs. A toddler came over to say hi! In less than 15 minutes, I felt a home and part of the community. And the food, oh, the food, and the cookie! If you’re within 200 miles, make a visit. You won’t regret it.

Unable to imagine how the day could get any better, I walked down to 4th St and turned left for the Depot Museum, with its dinosaur annex. There I met Willie, which is short for something. “but I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, and it’s fit” said the lively woman with the little dog who proudly said she was 67 years old, had been in the area for 25 years, and that her farm had just celebrated its centennial under the stewardship of her husband’s family.

Noted paleontologist Jack Horner has been working the dig on “Leila’s place not far from here,” said Willie, and he’s involved with the annual youth dig that attracts dinosaur diggers from around the world. One of their finds this summer is on display. Willie went into exquisite detail about the process of digging out the bones with dental tools and how they must be preserved and plaster protected because if they aren’t they soon turn to fragments, and then dust.

My head stuffed with new knowledge and story ideas, Willie gave me a parting pearl, the correct pronunciation for the city in whose Super 8 I am now typing. Being Green Bay Packer trained, I pronounced it Farve with an H…Harve. Nope, said Willie, it’s “Haver.” After learning where I was staying, she said in parting, “If you get there soon enough, there’s the buffalo jump across the street, behind the mall.”

And so it was. But I was too late for the $9 tour. But I wouldn’t have wasted the money, not after the afternoon with Willie, which cost me nothing the the two hours I eagerly invested with her. Oh, and the one sore head, the town, now down to about 250 residents, elects an honorary sorehead whether the person deserves the title or not. The current sorehead is 93, she said, “and he doesn’t get out a lot.”

Posted in Food, Motorcycle, Museum, National Parks, Service, Travel | Tagged Dinosaur Dig, Glacier National Park, Montana, Motorcycle, Rudyard Depot Museum | Leave a comment

Riding Reality Road: Unexpected Surprises Good & Bad

Posted on August 12, 2013 by smspangler

KALISPELL, MONTANA—When I awoke this morning in Spokane Valley, I planned on walking the vital and varied streets of Sandpoint, Idaho, this evening, setting out from my room at the La Quinta to find a good healthy dinner at one the pubs Ed told me about. Instead, I’m happy with a smoking room at the Blue & White Motel in Kalispell; it’s all they had left. The other places I checked on my way into town were full because the state fair is getting underway.

My photo visit in Spokane Valley went well and quickly, just as I’d planned. Things went awry in Sandpoint. Many roads were under construction, and signs denoting the pavement I was traveling were absent. Finding my way to my airport appointment took more time that the photos I captured. I tried to retrace my route, but detours and one-way streets were more than I could handle. Frustrated, I decided to get on US 2 and get out of town. But I couldn’t find the black and white shield I sought.

I turned left on a road that I guessed was US 2, but after traveling about 10 miles in construction and on freshly laid asphalt, and seeing no sigh, I reversed course and found my way back to US 2 south of town heading west. A U-turn got me going in the right direction on the right road. When the landmarks started looking familiar, I realized I’d made the correct turn in the first place and had just made a time consuming 10-mile circle. In no way eager to prolong my painful frustration, I kept going.

I saw my first US 2 East sign just short of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, right before I passed a billboard for the Kootenai Brewing Company, 2.8 miles ahead, turn left just before the river. Established in 2011, it’s right on the river, behind this fascinating metal contraption that was part of the first hydroelectric plant in the area. My server, Sorelle, young, fresh-faced, and truly happy to see me, brought a Grizzly IPA and a chicken Philly sandwich. Both of them were excellent. I had a second Griz to confirm my initial impression of a better than average IPA. Rarely has reality soothed the frustration is has previously lavished upon me.

For dessert, Blue have me an odometer present, and I was paying attention. Never let go of your 13 year-old-boy joy at simple accomplishment. But the sequential joy stopped there. Just past the state line and Libby, Montana, signs warned of construction. The the road turned to gravel and a sign to the right said “Road Closed.” I pressed on—slowly—to see how far I could get. After a long stretch of gravel, with no opposing traffic, I reached a short path of pavement and a flagger (that’s her at the head of this post). First in line at the red light, she said it would be a 15 minute wait, and I could pull forward into the shade. It was a welcome butt break.

Traffic soon collected behind me, and the flagger, a delightful woman who’s held the job for six seasons, not counting the 10 years in commercial instruction, returned to the head of the line. She said they were making US 2 “wider, straighter, flatter, and giving it new bridges.” For a biker, those are unhappy words. Still, I did appreciate the break in the shade. Until the truck with the wide load came down the road. The 18-wheeler behind me tried to pull forward and to the right to make more room, and he hit the sign warning drivers of the flagger. Score another one for reality.

Four doors down from my smoking room at the Blue & White, which doesn’t smell too bad, by the way, was a new BMW R1200RT. A barrel-chested man with a neatly trimmed gray beard and florescent green Columba poly-pro t-shirt was wiping away the bugs. Rob was from Vancouver, BC, and making a big loop through the Northwest. On his left saddle bag was an outline of North America with stickers for provinces and states he’d so far visited. Having put 52,000 km on the bike in the two years he’s owned it, he’s been to all of the provinces and states on both sides of the Canadian-US border.

Still full from dinner, I got an Pyramid Thunderhead IPA from the nearby Smith’s grocery store. It wasn’t as good as the Griz, but it went well with Rocky as I sat in a sunset breeze outside my door. In my pocket was a real, metal room key with sharp teeth. I don’t remember the last time I got one of those. The desk clerk said the Blue & White has Wi-Fi, so let’s see if I connect. I may well be today’s last reality check.

Posted in Craft Beer, Food, Lodging, Motorcycle, Travel | Tagged Idaho, Kalispell, Lodging, Montana, Motor, Sandpoint, Travel | Leave a comment

Interstate Decisions: Which Road to Ride, Where to Stay

Posted on August 11, 2013 by smspangler

SPOKANE VALLEY, WASHINGTON—Return trips are essentially restarts of a trip because you have to make all the same directions, only going in the other direction. With a business call in Spokane Valley, I spend Saturday trying to decide whether to abandon my original plan of US 2 for an expedient run on Interstate 90. Besides, taking that route on Sunday would get me out of Seattle’s Monday morning traffic and Spokane’s afternoon rush hour. When I awoke his morning to sunshine and blue skies, deciding to stick to my original plan took a second, and I’m glad I did.

Ed gave me directions to I405 North, which would lead me to WA 522 and then US 2. At 0900 on Sunday there was little traffic, and I made good time. There was a fair amount of construction on the 405, but with no traffic, it was not an inconvenience. Rolling up to the 522 exit, a flashing sign said was would close on Monday, August 12, and would remain that way until this coming Thursday. Dealing with that on Monday would have been more than an inconvenience.

Had I taken I-90, I would have missed the spectacular ride through Stevens Pass on US 2. On the approach the Cascade Mountains were deep green and wreathed in ephemeral garlands of clouds. It was cool, but not wet, and there was traffic, but most of it was heading west. Blue and I quickly got into the road’s left-right-left rhythm and traffic was moving at a perfect speed for fifth gear, so Blue was neither racing nor lugging along.

At the rest area just after the pass I learned that it is named for John F. Stevens, the Great Northern surveyor who discovered it, and routed track through it. When the track was finished in 1893, the tote road that supported its three-year construction continued to connect that communities that sprang up along it. While I was reading, a member of the Apple Valley Kiwanis of Wenatchee, who were supplying weary travelers with coffee and popcorn, told me about a nature area they had build in partnership with the forest service. It sounded interesting but, unfortunately, I’d already passed it.

Coasting down the east face of the Cascades, the sky turned blue and the ground started to turn brown. Most of the towns I passed through, like Gold Bar and Skykomish, were worn but tidy. Then progressed crawled through Leavenworth. An art show was clogging the streets of the town that had reinvented itself as a Bavarian Village. In walking Blue through town, I did not see a building that didn’t display a Bavarian façade and gothic lettering. Finally picking speed east of town, the line of traffic going in the other direction equaled that behind the Yellowstone bison. It was not a good day to be going west.

Around Wenatchee the foothills leveled out to plains of short sheared and amber waves of grain awaiting harvest. Ruler straight roads ran for nearly 10 miles before they snuck in curve, just to if drivers were paying attention. The towns were roughly 10-mile whistle-stops, and the country roads were exactly a mile apart and named in alphabetical order, T NE, U NE, V NE, and so on. The driveways were named, I’m assuming, for the families that live at the end of them.

In the ocean of grain and seas just harvested or recently plowed, groves of trees were widely dispersed islands. The small green isles were homeplaces, with one situated in a square mile or so. Larger atolls were cities, where grain elevators rose above the trees along the train tracks. Interestingly, only one, Almira, had a water tower. I wonder why?

As the map promised, US 2 runs with I-90 for awhile, and I stuck with it because it offered the best chance of food and lodging and beer close to tomorrow’s appointment. I scored at the Super 8, with a Longhorn Barbecue across the street, the exit two miles short of tomorrow morning’s interview and photography session.

Promising myself to eat healthy, before this adventure started I promised myself only two burgers. I ate both of them on the way west. The Barbecue Rib Tips probably aren’t much better, but they were not a burger, so I’m keeping to my word. Ad I did pick salad and veggies as my side. Now I feel the need to walk some more. Maybe they have a good single bottle of beer at the gas station convenience store across the street to go with my cigar.

Posted in Craft Beer, Food, Lodging, Motorcycle, Travel | Tagged Motorcycle, Travel, US 2, Washington | Leave a comment

Seattle Separation: Getting Ready for the Solo Ride Home

Posted on August 10, 2013 by smspangler

RENTON, WASHINGTON—From my driveway in Omro, Wisconsin, it is 2,883 miles to Ed’s backyard in the Seattle metroplex city of Renton, Washington. We arrived the afternoon of Friday, August 9 at 1541. Reflecting later on our eight day adventure, Ed noted that for “being joined at the hip, we didn’t spend that much time together.”

Giving this a few seconds of thought, Ed was succinctly accurate. In round numbers, we spend a third of the day on the road, with Ed as lead. I was the wingman, usually in Ed’s five o’clock position. If our bikes could fly, we’d be NORDO, for no radio. As necessary, Ed communicated his intentions with turn and hand signals. Otherwise we lived in the scenic solitary confinement of our respective helmets.

Only a wild hair odyssey would have three parts. Ed’s two-thirds, his solo ride east and our ride west, are complete. I’ll begin my second third, also a solo ride east, to complete the adventure in the next day or so. Before we began the middle third in Omro, my unspoken concern was traveling with another rider for several days, and the voices in my head played out all sorts of potential points of friction.

As usual, my mental masturbation was wasted time because we never rode within a hundred miles of the scenarios I worried about. (And I never learn. I wasted time with this self-involved obsession earlier this year when my wife and I made the two-week Great Triangular Train Trip, half which was spent in a sleeping car roomette 6.5-feet long and 3.5 feet wide.)

The pros outweighed the cons by a factor of 10, if not more. The last day’s ride, from Lewiston, Idaho, is filled with a week’s worth of examples. After a long, hot ride we found the Guest House Lewiston. On a walk I scoped out the dinner options. There was an family restaurant next door and a clearly fancier steakhouse down the street, whose façade suggested attire not found in our saddle bags.

Given my performance on solo trips, I would have gone next door where, I’m sure, I would have enjoyed a perfectly fine dinner. Ed, true to his nature, went in to ask the motel clerk for a recommendation. He returned minutes later with two $5 off coupons to Macullen’s Steak, Seafood, and Spirit House, where we savored what was my best meal of the trip.

For lunch on his final day’s ride home, we stopped at Bob’s Burgers & Brews in Yakama, where he’d eaten before. It was somewhat out of the way, and not seeing any signs for it on the way in, I would have never found it. Sticking to our two-lane agreement, he surprised me with the route through Mount Rainier National Park. As planned, we stopped at a turnout that provided a good photo viewpoint. That’s it, above.

Being my inaugural visit to the park, I had no idea where we were relative to the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. Expecting to twist and turn our way through the mountains, about a hundred yards we leaned into a right-hand sweeping turn, and there it was, snowcapped and wearing several small clouds. In a single motion I downshifted and thumbed the right turn signal and coasted into the parking area. (Ed just said this wasn’t planned. “I knew it was coming up,” but not that quickly.)

There no real cons. If I were solo I might, maybe, have stopped for a few more photos. Cruising east on US 12 we crested a hill with a gorgeously lighted panorama of the two-lane bisecting a vast eastern Washington wheat fields and leading into the dark gray could backdrop. For a second I thought about signaling and pulling off for photo, as I’d done a few times before.

But I didn’t stop. We’d just left Clarkston, Idaho, it was my concession to our continued progress. I’m sure Ed wouldn’t have minded, because it would not have been my first photo stop. If Ed sees my headlight flash and signal he’ll pull off with me. If not, when he see’s that I’m not in my usual position he slows down for awhile, and if I don’t reappear, he’ll pull off and wait for a bit, and then turn back is I don’t show in a few minutes.

Reflecting on the middle third of our adventure, the melding of our separate two-wheel travel styles improved each of them separately. When I stopped for photos, he captured his own images, which he included in the Notes from Camp e-mail to his coworker. There are only two east-bound photos on his iPhone.

I got the better end of the deal. Rarely will I return to my usual 600-mile days, which leaves no time for seeing the sights and talking to interesting people. Ed set the example there, too, striking up conversations with bikers in the parking lot, asking servers about their ink, and seeking dining recommendations from motel desk clerks.

Without Ed to set the example on my ride home, my self-imposed mandate is to make these examples part of my own travel habits on my solo trip home. But I’ll miss having dinner with him, where we’d debrief the day’s ride by asking, “Didja see” the cool old cars in the small town front yard waiting for some passerby to buy and restore them, or the two cows duking it out, head to head, in a dusty corral.

This conversation was really the only time we spend together. Yes, we shared a room every night, but we followed our own preferred dismounted routines. And when we weren’t at dinner, he was pounding away at his keyboard, and I was at mine. That will remain the same on the way home.

Posted in Lodging, Motorcycle, National Parks, Travel | Tagged Idaho, Motorcycle, Mount Rainier, National Parks, Washington | 3 Comments

The Four Faces of Yellowstone National Park

Posted on August 7, 2013 by smspangler

HELENA, MONTANA—Today was my first visit to Yellowstone National Park, but it’s not the first time I’ve laid eyes on it. For a half century or more I’ve watched uncountable TV shows and movies about the park and read stories about adventures that take place in it. These influences built expectations that today’s visit never came close to.

The park’s public face, all made up and pretty for its close-up, is my medial driven expectation, what I saw when passing through its eastern portal was a landscape more blighted, burned, and green, with the latter predominate only around the bodies of water we passed.

And then there was the traffic, a thick, endless stream of economic red blood cells crawling along Yellowstone’s asphalt arteries. A mixture of rental RVs (Cruise America seemed the most popular, but Jucy was a close second), minivans, and SUVs, with a handful of bikes, the circulation slowed and clotted at the numerous consumer venues awaiting the sustaining cash the vehicles delivered.

No indicator could measure the frustration that festered in Ed and myself as we rode to Old Faithful in the heart of the park. I expected what I saw on TV and in magazine, the magnificent geyser of steam and hot water boiling into an azure sky. Logically, I expected the acres of parking lot, but not the three or four huge consumer venues that occupy a third of the hemisphere around the geyser. From one angle you get the pristine photo op, if you’re tall enough to shoot over the roughly 3,000 people doing the same thing. But if you’re out of this small segment of the viewing area, you’ll get consumerland in the background.

Unable to get around a Cruise America RV crawling along the road to Old Faithful, we missed the 1054 show. Having come this far, we stuck around for the 1226 “performance.” That’s what the rangers called it, and they predict the next show on the duration of the one that precedes it. If the eruption lasts 2.5 minutes or less, the next show will happen in 62 minutes, give or take 10 minutes, and if the show lasts 3.5 minutes or more, the next performance will bubble forth in 92 minutes, again plus or minus 10.

To pass the time we watched the excellent orientation film on the geyser, had some Moose Tracks in the Ice Cream Café, and tried to catalogue all the different languages we heard in the crowd. Chinese predominated, followed by German, Spanish, and teenager. Apparently there was a high school environmental competition going on, and and there were several hundred kids, all in team t-shirts, scurrying around trying to complete an information scavenger hunt before the performance.

After the show the traffic was worse, and it sapped all of the life and fun out of the twisty tow-lane that cut through mostly green. Easing the frustration a little bit was crossing the Continental Divide twice, or so the signs said. And then there was that bison cow walking down the middle of the road going in the other direction. (I thought about a photo, but didn’t want to get caught with a handful of camera if she decided to turn my way.) The line of traffic following docilely behind her stretched for nearly a mile, and was growing by vans and RVs. Escaping the part we turned on to a nearly traffic free MT 191 and gave the Beemers their heads. Blue hummed in appreciation.

Blue is now resting in the Days Inn parking lot, and I’m doing the same, sitting in a glider rocker in the shade of a tree outside the front door, a bottle of Stone IPA from the grocery store across the street at my side. A gentle breeze carried my cigar smoke to the east and the setting sun played on a dying thunderstorm to the north, an unexpected but greatly appreciated end to the day.

Posted in Lodging, Motorcycle, National Parks, Travel | Tagged Montana, Motorcycle, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park | Leave a comment

Living Large in Wapiti: Breakfast in Bed at the Trail Shop

Posted on August 7, 2013 by smspangler

WAPITI, WYOMING—When we awoke this morning, it was a crisp 46F outside. So said the weather report on Ed’s iPhone, and he suggested that we take out time getting on the road. We’d had enough cold on our way over the Bighorn Mountains that stood between Gillette and Wapiti (waa-petey, an Indian word for elk). The temperature drop with altitude is the lapse rate, and at more than 8,000 feet, Ed figured the temperature, with the BMW-induced wind chill at 36F, using the new wind chill formula. Using the old formula, it was 10 degree colder. And, he said, the F stood not only for degrees Fahrenheit, but for “freaking’ freezing.”

Comfy under the covers, he handed me the complimentary basket from the mini-fridge that contained an orange, chocolate chip crunchy granola bar, apple juice box, Otis Spunkmeyer blueberry muffin, and instant oatmeal. I ate everything but the oatmeal because Ed made coffee, not hot water, and he handed me a cup as I typed away here on the Road Warrior, my diminutive HP laptop that fits in Blue’s saddle bags has a keyboard large enough to accommodate my phalanges. Out the window I can see the sun playing on the mountain, and the power pole and its transformer. Life couldn’t be better.

The historic Trail Shop Inn & Restaurant was originally built in 1922, and subsequent owners have added onto the original log cabin that was a general store. Among the mounted ungulates hung on the dining room walls are black and white history from 1932, when the gravel parking lot was filled with open touring coaches that looked like Model Ts turned into topless stretch limos with bench seats. Circling around the main building are five cabins, each with two rooms served by all the modern conveniences, light, electricity, heat, and a full bath, but no Wi-Fi.

The food was excellent, but the service puzzled us. Searching for words to describe it, but best I can do is polite and courteous disinterest. When we arrived around 1445 there was no one around, so we wandered about until a 20-something blonde with a pony tail, asked if we needed something. When I mentioned our reservation, she said, “You’re early. We don’t open until 4 p.m.” Then she turned to find the owner for instructions. Yes, she could check us in, which she did.

It seemed clear that I had inconvenienced her schedule, but she wasn’t rude or didn’t punctuate our intrusion with an eye-roll, exaggerated or subtle. And when asked if we could but a few beers to rehydrate before the bar opened at 1600, she agreed and led me to the cooler to make my selection. She said a six pack of Sierra Nevada IPA would be cheaper than four, so I traded her $10 for the six bottles she put in a Mike’s Hard Lemonade cardboard carrier. Ed was a little disconcerted when I walked into the room with it, but all was well when the IPAs emerged.

After dinner, sucking on an IPA and a cigar on the porch of what turned out to be the employee bunkhouse, I got some insight to the root of the disinterested service. The cook Jeff, a retired Air Force aircraft fueler, joined me for a smoke break. A Pittsburgh native, this was his third summer cooking at the Trail Shop, a job he found online that supplemented his retirement and got him out of the city for the summer. I thanked him for an excellent dinner. the chicken cranberry salad, and passed along Ed’s good words about his trout. He truly seemed to appreciate the compliments.

In the course of our cigarette-long conversation I learned that the Trail Shop was only open during the summer, although he was urging the owner to stay open a bit past Labor Day. I surmised that like him, the other members of the staff, the pony tail who checked us in and Gabrielle, our server, another college-age blonde, were from someplace else and working here for the summer. That, with their being members of the millennial generation, explained a lot.

Being the father of two millennial boys who have a lot of friends, my experience is that this generation is stereotypically narcissistic because every influencing adult in their lives, parents and teachers, have been overly concerned with their self-esteem. And because their parents both work, they overcompensate for the time they don’t have to spend with their kids by giving them everything they never had. Growing up in a world that’s all about them, being disinterested in others they are being paid to serve makes sense, and doing with politely is their subservience to the summer working world.

The waitresses of similar ages at the small town diners where we’ve had lunch have not displayed this disinterest. Antipodally, they were happy that we stopped in to eat and were genuinely concerned with providing good service and excellent food. The difference is that they were working in their hometowns, and most of their customers were their neighbors and friends. Both groups were, most likely, working because they had to, but the small town servers were dedicated to doing it well because they’d have to live with the reputations they’d earned during the workday.

And I’d have to include Ed in the small town category of excellent service because it’s not every bike ridin’ buddy who’ll serve you breakfast in bed. And the view from the Trail Shop window isn’t bad, even with the power pole and transformer.

Posted in Food, Lodging, Motorcycle, Service, Travel | Tagged Motorcycle, Trail Shop Inn, Wapiti, Wyoming | Leave a comment

Badland Restoration of Proper Perspective

Posted on August 5, 2013 by smspangler

GILLETTE, WYOMING—Plotting our way out of the Sturgis vortex of unmuffled chaos, we decided to give the Badlands one more shot. Our passes were good for a week, and the CD 240 loop through the park was, on the map, an inviting serpentine challenge. The ranger who checked our passes complimented us on our early start. When we asked where all the bikers were, he said the didn’t start showing up in mass until just before noon.

It was just Ed and me and a few four-wheeled tourists in their cars, minivans, and pickup truck towed RVs. So Ed wouldn’t leave me when I stopped for photos, I led, and I kept an eye out for the big horn sheep that the ranger said he’d seen feeding along side the road. They must have been some really fleet sheep because we found them on the other side of the loop, as it was running north to reconnect with I-90. They were just ambling along, nibbling on the grass, unconcerned by the two-wheeled gawkers.

The panorama from the Cliff Shelf was spectacular, even with the overcast. The White River carved the valley before us, and the road descending from the cliff was a twisty challenge, but foot-peg dragging scary. There were a number of turn-offs, and we visited a few of them, but mostly we rode at a speed that let us gawk with swiveling heads without taking off across the bad land that looked, in places, like the Jolly Green Giant filled a field with mud-dripped conical stalagmites.

On a seemingly endless run on I-90, as we approached the Sturgis exit the land bordering both sides of the Interstate were packed with bikes, campers, and temporary sales emporiums. One was built around several semi-trailers, with a sign advertising Harley demo rides. The line of bikes to get in stretched nearly half a mile. Catching a quick glance of Sturgis proper as we moaned by at the 75 mph speed limit, every street I saw was lined with bikes in between clusters of the white-topped sales tents selling t-shirts and turkey lets, I’m sure.

After Sturgis and before Spearfish we turned onto the welcoming two-lane WY 34. There weren’t any small towns per se, but about every 10 miles or so there was a ranch-like party palace saloon. At each of them a clot of riders would either get on or off the road. Ed, I sensed, was getting frustrated with our modulating speed, especially when a pack of a dozen riders roared onto the road ahead of us. To a rider they got off the road at the next saloon. And we increased our cruising speed, until we caught up the next herd of Harleys.

Across the state line the road became WY 24, and cresting a hill the famous geologic prop from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, suddenly appeared. At a safe spot, we stopped for a photo of Devils Tower. Ready for lunch, we didn’t hang around for an encounter of our own. Still in the Sturgis Vortex, we didn’t stop for a turkey leg in Hulett.

Patience paid off in Moorcroft, just west of the intersection of WY24 and US 14. The Sturgiscites? Sturgonians? turned left on US 14 to return to their homeplace, and we turned right, and then right again at Donna’s Diner. It was an iced tea heaven, with lemon! The locals at the next table were talking about riding, horses, not motorcycles. But we were still in the realm of Sturgis. The napkin holder advertised the event and urged people to “Please Drive Safely and watch for motorcycles.”

Avoiding the Interstate, the two-lane WY 51 brought us to Gillette and another America’s Best Value Inn. It’s desk clerk could accurately gauge distance, and the family restaurant she recommended was, in deed, two blocks away. Stopping at a convenience store for some beer for one of the two fridges in our room, the clerk said that we needed to visit on of the three liquor stores that were two blocks away in three different directions. Then a patron, bless his soul, mentioned the new microbrewery.

The Prairie Fire Brewing Company opened last week, said Colie, our effervescent server. So far they’d brewed six different beers. The IPA was excellent, a perfect blend of bitter hops and a fruitiness that was refreshing but not overpowering. I’d rank it in my Top 10. The porter started out okay. It got better as it washed away the IPA, and the last half of the pint was really good.

Filled with two beers each, we stopped at Hardy’s, which was between the brewery and motel. There we noshed on burgers and listened to Scott, a retired California Highway Patrol officer from Lancaster, who was on his way to Sturgis. Ed as done some time in Lancaster, which is near Mojave, home of the National Test Pilot School, where Ed has spent some time during his flying career. Now geographically connected, Scott regaled us with stories for about an hour without taking a breath. He had a nice looking Harley, too.

Over the coming days, as we wend our way west, through Yellowstone, where we’ll wait on Old Faithful, and then into Montana, I’m sure we’ll see more bikers riding off to join their tribe. Me, I’ll keep an eye on the horizon where the sun sets, and will ask people at every night’s stop if they know of any new microbreweries that have opened in town. Such serendipity gives life the proper perspective. And I will never again leave the room without my notebook and camera. Lesson learned.

Posted in Craft Beer, Food, Motorcycle, Travel | Tagged Food, Motorcycle, Prairie Fire Brewing Co., South Dakota, Wyoming | Leave a comment

Sturgis: Coloring Outside the Lines

Posted on August 5, 2013 by smspangler

GILLETTE, WYOMING—Traveling through the hemisphere that surrounds Sturgis on the eve of the 73rd annual Bike Rally was such a disruptive emotional experience that I needed to let it ferment for a day before making sense of it and putting the chaos into perspective. Somewhere past the intersection of WY 24 and US 14 I decided that it was a beneficial stop, an event akin to sticking your finger in an electrical socket. The first time taught you everything you need to know, so there’s no need to do it again.

Before we got on the road today, I was with the Ohio grandfather who shared a breakfast table at the Kadoka motel. He was on a road trip with his son and two grandsons, who were close cropped and in their early teens, wanted to see Mount Rushmore. He didn’t know that the Bike Rally was unofficially underway. “We left the women at home,” he said, and if he’d known that their trip coincided with the Bike Rally, he would have stayed home as well.

Our plan was to ride a roughly 300-mile loop that encompassed the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, and a swing through Sturgis proper. Like me, Ed’s only Bike Rally experience came through TV shows, which focus on the downtown. We thought that the rally was contained to the city limits. Yes, it would be crowded, but “how bad could it be.”

Words can barely describe it. Everywhere we went the roads were filled with packs of bikers accompanied by a visceral unmuffled Harley soundtrack. Add the typical Sunday tourists in their minivans and RVs and towed travel trailers, and any biker used to tracking all the rolling targets that might do him insurance deductible damage has little time to enjoy the sights.

The Badland road was so congested that we dribbled out the south gate, bypassing the loop through the park, and turned toward Mount Rushmore. When the presidents came into view, we pulled off for a photo, joining the several hundred other bikers who’d done the same thing. We moved on before the Park Police worked their way up the line, moving the bikers on their way. The line of bikes, minivans, and RVs waiting to enter the park proper was maybe a mile or more long.

There was no line at the Crazy Horse Memorial, but it had four or five guys trading an entrance ticket for $5. The two level parking lot, which covered at least six acres, was carpeted with bikes, most of them members of the Milwaukee V-twin symphony. We did a quick tour, watched the orientation film, and returned to the road. With all the noise, the traffic, and the anxiety that grew from it. the day was becoming one of traveler interruptus.

We passed through some interesting small towns, Lead and Deadwood, that begged our exploration. But their streets were filled with bikes parked air filter to muffler with barely enough room for a rider’s leg between them. Pavement not filled with bikes were covered with the 10-foot-square sales tents. T-shirts and turkey legs were for sale everywhere. The best commercial offering we saw was the bike wash held by some remarkably trim, fit, and good looking young women in bikinis. One of them held a sign that read: “We like them dirty.”

The nubile lovelies were doing a good business with the gray-haired Harley riders, at least the ones unaccompanied by a human with two X chromosomes and sun-leathered shoulders. At the other end of the spectrum was the 20-to-40-something male wearing a do-rag instead of a helmet. And they were everywhere, and I suddenly realized that during rally, “Sturgis” is uncontainable in the city limits.

During the rally Sturgis extends in all directions for more than 80 miles. On the ride today we passed through the small town of Hulett, Wyoming, population 383. WY 24 made two turns through town, and both sides were lined with parked motorcycles. The clustered sales tents offered t-shirts and turkey legs. We didn’t stop at any of them because the hordes who did get off opened up the road again, and we weren’t going to waste that opportunity.

I’ve never ridden in groups before, and following Ed, who’s GPS equipped and thereby the leader, is the first time I’ve ridden as a flight of two in maybe 40 years. In and around Sturgis, similar small groups merge into packs. On our way back from Crazy Horse we were the Tail-end Charlies in a line of 50. That didn’t last long. When I looked in my rearview soon after that, the line of headlights stretched over the hill behind me, winding up and down with pavement like some glowing deep sea worm.

The Sunday night news put it all in perspective. That day, before the rally officially began, the police tallied 45 DUIs, up from last year’s same-day total of 33. There was one fatality. A 60-year Harley rider drifted off the right side of the road. “He wasn’t wearing a helmet,” the newsreader said. A police officer was in the next segment, preaching safety. Riders, don’t speed and maintain a safe following distance. Drivers. keep an eye out for bikes, and check your blind spots before changing lanes.

One question I could not resolve on today’s ride is why several hundred thousand bikers participate in the rally. Influenced by yesterday’s anxious over stimulation, most of my guesses were rooted in the mentality of a herd trying to compensate for physical and emotional shortcomings. After the calming influence of Jack and Rocky and a good night’s sleep, today I believe their participation is driven my our need to belong to a tribe of individuals that flavors their bland Monday through Friday lives with a healthy dose of two-wheel, unmuffled Tabasco.

Posted in Lodging, Motorcycle, Travel | Tagged Bike Rally, Motorcycle, South Dakota, Sturgis | Leave a comment