Wisconsin to Oaxaca, or Joaquin?

What follows is a report on a little trip Dr. Suzi Blue and I took back in September of this year:

Prologue

With retirement from something like regular employment has come the opportunity to take fairly lengthy motorcycle trips but, also, extremely limited funds to do so.  Still, most everything in life is a lesson in compromise; why should this be different?  And, as my brother Dave reminds me: "I've seen people who spent almost nothing have a lot more fun than people who spent a fortune."  True, I believe, so I travel on the cheap.

I'd been thinking a lot about Mexico for a while, studying a little Spanish on the Duolingo (free) app, poring over maps and photos, dreaming of the Cumbres de Monterrey, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende . . . maybe as far as Oaxaca, but mostly back country, back roads.  Sure like to see it before some ass builds a wall.  Just in case, I had my meagerly-funded debit card cleared for Belize and Guatemala as well. 

More important than destination in my thinking was the riding: again, back country, back roads -- unpaved as much as possible.  I told friends to expect me to be gone somewhere between two days and two months.  Passport in my pocket, if I stopped having fun, I'd turn around at Dubuque. 

The Bike:  2003 model Suzuki DR650 unmodified except for slightly raised bars, dropped pegs, foam saddle, and small luggage rack.  A little oil-damp along the line of the base gasket.  Wind screen made from dish-washing drain-board.  Skid plate made from old shovel.  You get the picture.

The Rider:  1944 model Euro-American unmodified except for ravages of age, vasectomy, false teeth, and a sort of thing intended to support the back but which actually holds my belly in following a kinda herniated old surgery.  Riding since age 19.  You get the picture.

Above, Suzi's odo at the start.

Day 1:  08 Sept 16  Sister Bay to Anamosa

Under a leaden sky and with mixed emotions, I flipped down the chin guard after a good smooch from mi amiga, and loosed the reins on Suzi Blue, who seemed anxious to be off.  I’d planned to leave a day earlier, but put it off due to torrential rains in the direction of my travels.  The time was spent fidgeting and pacing and taking a few futile stabs at tying up loose ends.  Though I had no itinerary whatsoever, still I somehow felt a day behind and elected to zip through northeast Wisconsin, which is very familiar, in favor of taking my time a little farther afield.  Set a course roughly southwest.

Went right through Green Bay rather than take the highways around, and was rewarded by my first glimpse of the sun just as I crossed the historic Fox River, which the good native folk showed the French was the way to get to the Wisconsin and on to the Mississippi.  I suspect they sized up the Europeans and figured, “Let’s just keep ‘em moving!”  I, too, kept moving and the day became gorgeous.

Down around mid-state, taking an unfamiliar road between Montello and Portage, I came upon Ennis Lake in John Muir Park.  The irony of motoring into the place was not lost on me where it is almost impossible not to summon up the spirit of the man, and of Aldo Leopold, from just a healthy stone’s throw away.  These guys worshiped quietude in nature, so I was glad that Suzi had her stock muffler still in place, at least.

A little way south, I found French Creek, which must be beaver-dammed, since it’s the widest thing called a creek that I’ve ever seen.

Rode on through Baraboo, past the home of my step-granddad, master carpenter of homes for the Ringlings, who thought so highly of his work here that they took him along down to Florida, to oversee construction of their famous Sarasota mansion.

 On into North Freedom, where my mother grew up, and now home to the Mid-Continent Railway Museum.  Stopped for just a few minutes, because what boy hasn’t got some kinda love for trains?

Off an edge of the museum parking lot I spied these three British Beauties – recent Thruxton, vintage Trident and Commando.  Way cool.  Never did come across their owners.

Headed south out of N. Freedom on one of the best, winding motorcycle roads in the state (though there’s a lot of competition for that title) and kept moving right on into and through Dubuque, where I’ve spent some very pleasant hours previously.  The town still has a lot of charm, but like some other towns along the Mississippi, has been severely compromised by wedging a major highway right through downtown and neighborhoods that were already shoe-horned between bluff and river and railroad.  I decided to follow that major highway toward the setting sun which, of course, pretty much blinded me by the time I reached Anamosa, where I rolled into Wapsipinicon State Park (really) and pitched my tiny tent.  Went into town for a pretty decent Mexican meal and returned to crawl into the sack serenaded by the almost deafening but still delightful chirping of a billion tree-frogs.

Day 2:  09 Sept 16  Anamosa to Moberly

Arose about 3:oo for my usual nocturnal necessity, and noticed that the billion tree frogs had gone totally silent, revealing the truck noises coming from nearby Hwy. 151.  Ah, well, it’s a great park and camping spot anyway. 

With some effort, I got back into the tiny tent.  The WAY TOO tiny tent., a Eureka! Solo.  A decent option for backpacking or bicycling, maybe, and chosen because it packs down very compactly, it’s ridiculous for an old, stiff man to try to use.  Almost impossible to change clothes in it as you can’t sit up, no room for gear at all, and rather difficult to set up, to boot.  Good price and decently made, but poorly designed, and not near so good an option as the same company’s two-man tent, which I’ve used previously.  The topper came after I’d gotten back to sleep when the folding, flexy tent-pole at the foot end let go with a snap that sounded like a gunshot.  Splinted it together in the foggy morning with Gorilla tape and a pretty tough-looking bit of an ash tree, I believe.  “Pitching” a tent has taken on a new meaning for me, as I seriously considered tossing this one.

As long as I’m grumbling, there’s this, which has to do more with my own idiocy and idiosyncrasies than anything else.  At the end of the day before, I had a REALLY sore backside, and that’s odd because I’ve ridden longer days on this bike and gel saddle with no ill effects.  I was hurting as badly, or worse, in the morning. An ex-bicycle racer, I’ve always liked to wear bike shorts under my riding pants when I think I’ll have a long day on the road, but this time I grabbed a pair with some cool-looking vertical seams that form something like raised ribs on the inside.  That’s no problem on a narrow bicycle seat, but a huge problem where your thigh comes across the shoulder of the wider motorcycle seat.  Ouch.  Double ouch.  Ride on, old fool, but do a little bike maintenance first.  Lube the chain.  Notice that there’s a little more oil around the cylinder base gasket.

Avoiding cities, which is not hard to do in Iowa, I motored southward on a pretty gray, but comfortable day.  The light fog lifted early and I was quite taken with the Grant Wood countryside, but totally forgot to photograph any of it, as I meandered from gravel to blacktop and back, not caring the name or number of the roads, so long as they headed in my general direction.  At night, I’d try to reconstruct my route on a map, only to realize that many of the roads I’d taken didn’t show up there, so I just highlighted a route near where I had actually traveled.

Lots of wonderful small towns as you ramble around Iowa, real Americana stuff, but it’s getting awful hard to find the little cafes that once were here.  Only thing going in a lot of places is Casey’s, which seems to have taken over for all the other gas stations and diners, both.

Got into Moberly, Mo. with a very sore butt in the late afternoon and quite happily took a very reasonably priced and newly revamped motel room.  Coming from prime resort country, as I do, I forget that not everything is priced for folks from the north suburbs of Chicago.  Got an unremarkable meal down the street, caught up on email, and crawled into a real bed.  Sat up straight once or twice, just because I could.

Day 3:  10 Sept 16  Moberly to Mountain Home

Beautiful morning.  Lubed the chain, took note of the Dr’s vital signs (which is to say I peeked into the little oil window and kicked the tires) and headed off toward Higbee, Missouri.  “Higbee?” you say.  Yep.  Not exactly on everybody’s list of must-see communities, perhaps, but it was the boyhood home of my No. 1 father-in-law, and in spite of his telling me there was nothing there to see, I thought I’d have a look.  An ex-coal mining town, he said that its main scenic feature was a mountainous slag heap, but that had been removed.  While he may have been a little too hard on the place, I’ll admit that it has a way to go to get onto the A-list of tourist attractions.

The real reason to go to Higbee, from a rider’s point of view, is the wonderful maze of gravel and dirt roads to its south and west.  I use the word “maze” because it is the correct one.  After an hour or two, I was giving serious thought to getting the old GPS out of my pocket, but took the much more human option of talking to a kindly lady I saw tending her flower garden, who put me on a course for Fayette and Boonville.  Back on pavement, I made this observation:  central Missouri has many wonderful, twisty, narrow, blacktop roads with wonderful, totally hidden just over the hill, really tight turns to either the left or right, you’ll see, with no shoulders to the roadways whatsoever, deep ditches, no place to pass or be passed, and you are almost continually being tailgated by an old woman in a PT Cruiser, cigarette in hand, who’s doing 75.  OK, to be fair, sometimes it’s an old man in a Plymouth minivan.  No dawdling allowed.  Just ride.

In spite of the little rant above, I was having a ball.  Took the relatively large Highway 5 southward (there are only so many places to cross the Missouri River) and that turned into more absolutely wonderful riding, and the class of the tailgaters had moved up;  I was briefly followed by a couple in a Viper coupe, but they had no trouble whatsoever finding a way past.   Stopped at a lunch place at Gravois Mills, attracted by a bunch of bikes in the lot that looked like Suzi Blue could share a few tales of the road with, while I went in and had a good sandwich and talked briefly with a tribe of riders down from Kansas City for a little weekend camping.

Pretty far down in the southern part of the state, possibly on Route 160, I came upon the cool little roadside park shown above.  Strange rock formation there, consisting of a horizontal sort of slot, about 100 yards long, I guess, and maybe 15 feet deep to the back wall of it.  The highway runs along the top of that embankment, and it looks like the lawn-mowing guy has to proceed rather carefully near the bottom.

 Still having a good ride despite the ever-increasing soreness of saddle sores, I just kept motoring too long to find a decent camping spot, and rode into Mountain Home, Arkansas, where I got a fairly cheap motel and perhaps the most mediocre Mexican meal of all time, but was happy, anyway, with the day’s progress and the prospect of the Ozark National Forest tomorrow.

Day 4:  11 Sept 16   Mountain Home to Booneville

The not altogether Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance seems to have more to do each  evening, and at each fuel stop, with wiping away oil pretty clearly coming from the failing cylinder base gasket.  Not unexpected and not threatening to the engine as I can’t detect the level going down at all, but it sure is messy.  Still, it could be coming from somewhere else, so I tighten everything I can find.  To no avail.

Another gorgeous day, if warmish, and I sneak out of Mountain Home relatively early and find my way across the broad and placid White River, which psychologically at least, feels to me like the REAL beginning of the Ozarks.

Westward through places like Big Flat, Harriet, and Lone Pine, I remind myself that it is 9/11 and the crowded parking lots at the little churches every half-mile or so remind me that this is The Bible Belt and it’s Sunday morning.  Not a great man of faith myself, yet I’m glad once again for the quiet of Suzi’s stock muffler.  Making up, perhaps, for racing Wisconsin’s first moto-cross track many years ago, expansion chambers gloriously un-muffled, directly behind somebody’s Sunday service in a quaint country church.  A joyful noise.  Holy scent of Castrol in the air.  The Lord frowning, I believe.

I pulled into Snowball, Arkansas, if one can be said to pull “into” a place that seems to consist of three or four buildings and several pickup trucks.  Something really nice about it in spite of, or maybe because of, its small size and lack of any sort of ongoing business at all.

Got off the bike to stretch my legs and take a few photos and never saw a soul, until a mid-size dog of no discernible lineage came out from somewhere and sauntered up.  We sniffed a bit and finding each other about equally smelly, dusty, and otherwise socially unacceptable, hit it off just fine.

There appeared to be three ways out of Snowball, beside the way from which I’d entered, so of course, I took the least obvious, which headed right up the mountain in pretty short order.  It’s a steep climb, and actually made more difficult by somebody’s good intentioned spreading of a ball-bearing kind of gravel in some areas.  I’d be doing a lot of back-country riding for the next few hours, and my blistered nether regions welcomed the excuse for me to ride standing on the pegs.  If anyone had seen me, they might have mistaken it for good form.

Was half glad and half saddened at the same time, to find this wide river crossing with no water in said river.  Might have been an epic water-crossing.  I’m aware, of course, that I was in the vicinity of the more or less coast-to-coast Trans American Trail (TAT), and would suggest that if this is not on the route, maybe it should be.  It’s good stuff.

Wandering into deeper woods, I saw and spoke to only a couple of people.  One, a codger (meaning a man of almost my age) who seemed Hollywood-cast in his role, performing some mysterious repair, with the supervision of his son-in-law, to the underside of an aging Nissan pickup.  Broad array of tools, including a garage floor-jack, on hand.  Not knowing just where I was headed, but seeing I’d probably be no help, they assured me I was on the right course, anyway.  I took them at their word.  A little farther along, I helloed a young couple and their daughter, stopped in a four-wheeler, who also seemed to think I was going in the correct direction to somewhere.  A couple of miles past that point, I managed to drop the bike, in a very slow-motion, dithering sort of way, at the proverbial fork in the trail.  Wheels high, bike low and heavily loaded, it was gonna be a bear to lift.  I can usually (barely) lift the bike, but here, I’d have to turn it around on the ground first, or else get out the little block and tackle made from light sailboat rigging that I carry for this purpose.  Just as I began sizing this up, there came the sweet sound of the approaching four-wheeled family, who kindly gave me a hand and once again pointed me in sort of a direction.

Well, there are a lot of forks in these trails.  After feeling that I might have gone the wrong way at one back somewhere, I pulled out my GPS, got a few satellites, and a nice little picture of . . . nothing.  Had to zoom out and out before finding some major highway in the next county, but the damned thing didn’t know the National Forest roads exist at all.  My instincts correctly turned me around and I meandered off in the correct, vaguely western direction that I had hoped for.

Did I mention that Arkansas is just a tremendous place to ride motorcycles?  Well it is.  Maybe the best, on road and off.  Seriously.  And the people, when you see any, are exceptionally welcoming.  The downside?  It’s mighty hard to find a beer at the end of the day.  Anyway, I was having a blast, semi-lost much of the time, seeing almost nobody in the woods, but tons of touring and sport bikes on the pavement, which I ducked back off of to make my serpentine way to Oark, the TAT rider’s Mecca.

(can you find the si moto murre sticker?)

Considered camping near Oark, where there were some great-looking spots along the Mulberry River, but it seemed kinda too early and I wanted to get a little further south with the daylight.  Thought maybe I’d stay at Ozark, a town on the Arkansas River, but found the motel situation there pretty dire (even by my standards) so pressed on with my buns protesting loudly, down to Booneville, where I got a room at the Countryside Inn, which I heartily recommend.

Day 5:  12 Sept 16   Booneville to Joaquin

This would be a day of considerable discomfort to be followed by a night of considerable decision making.

 On checking into the motel the previous night, I’d discovered a few interesting things:  Foremost, the saddle sores caused by the stupid bicycle shorts on day one, and which had since developed into full-fledged giant blisters, were now simply raw meat which I dosed with some neosporin I carried.  Took an Aleve or two, but this was getting worse each day.  Second, and also old business, the oil leak from the base gasket kept getting worse, though oil level remained well within safe limits.  Third -- and in the “oh, yuk” category – I went to refill my 2-liter hydration pack, from which I’d been drinking copious amounts, and noticed some black gunk inside the mouthpiece.  Realized I hadn’t actually had the reservoir out of the pack for cleaning in a while, and found the whole thing full of some kind of nasty stuff growing in there now that the weather was becoming hotter each day.    Oddly enough, I was not  sick, except my stomach felt a little queasy just looking at it.  Tried cleaning it, but wound up tossing it and putting a few water bottles in its place.

Onward, Old Fool.

Headed southward along the terrific fun roadways of Arkansas ‘til I arrived at De Queen (after the Hollander, de Geoijen, who was not happy with the bastardization of his family name).  It was getting truly hot out, super humid, and the pain in the ass was getting to be a little much.  No, it was actually getting to be unbearable.  Popped into a WalMart and bought a blue bathroom rug and fashioned a seat cushion, incorporating a dense foam pad from the back of my riding jacket.  Had I started out with this arrangement and never used the dumb shorts on the first day, who knows?

South of De Queen, things start to flatten out and by the time I entered Texas, the road had become really flat, straight, and oh yeah, hot.  This came as no surprise, but feeling it is never quite like just imagining it.  My jacket is very well vented, and I wasn’t overheating on the highway, but every time I’d slow for a town or anything, it was too much for the protective gear which I won’t ride without.  I was becoming irritable in spite of a few really wonderful people who took time to help me with directions (Thank you Diamond Don of Jefferson, thank you unknown young couple in a gas station, NO thanks to whoever turned a roadsign around in the precise middle of Nowhere, Texas, and especially thank you Mr. Truly Nice Guy who said “follow me” to help me out of Marshall, where I arrived after the wrong turn in Nowhere.)  Yes, I know, this is why God created GPS, but then I wouldn’t have met these fine people.

For no known reason, I crossed into Louisiana for a while, grabbed a pretty nice dinner at Big Zach’s in Logansport, and eased across the bridge to Joaquin, Texas, and a room in a very nice but horribly noisy motel, where I would have to really weigh the pluses and minuses of continuing southward, given my not real good attitude at the moment.

Day 6:  13 Sept 16   Joaquin to Hot Springs

The plan, so much as there was one, was to head down eastern Texas and then follow the gulf coast as far as possible, camping on the beach for a night or two before heading west to cross the border at Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras, which looked like a relatively quiet and safe spot, then zip southward looking for increased altitude to beat the heat.

The promise, so much as there was one, was to turn around as soon as I stopped having fun.   With my apologies to the fine people and state of Texas, who have shown me every kindness, here’s an excerpt from an email I sent to a few friends:

“ Lo siento mis amigos.  Not Mexico, not this time.

Got as far as a tiny place called Joaquin, Texas yesterday, stood up on the pegs and peered across Texas and said, and you can quote me on this, I said "Screw it." There were roughly a thousand miles of stuff I didn't really care about still lying between me and the first parts of Mexico I really did care about.  And, of course, another thousand miles on the way back.  And I was having such wonderful on and off road riding in Arkansas and certainly NOT in Texas.  AND, I have had some craters-of-the-moon style saddle sores going since day one.  My gel saddle and my butt, which have served me well on multi-day journeys in the past, (and are, of course, things of beauty) seem not up to the job this time.

Now, what you really want as a seat covering is a big chunk of natural sheepskin, so I went looking, but every time I approached one, the sheep seemed a bit skittish and ran off.  Nothing for it but to buy a blue, rubber backed bathroom rug, fold it double, tear the dense foam back protector out of my jacket and insert into the rug sandwich, zip-tie the whole mess in place, et voila!, lazy boy comfort.  Well, if my ass wasn't already hamburger.”

If this trip was really about the ride, not the destination, I’d head north.  Here are a few photos taken near Mooringsport, along Louisiana route 169,  a pleasant enough little road:

Sometimes in our travels we all get to wondering about signs we see along the road, I suppose.  Coming from the Land of Lutherans as I do, the names of many southern denominations sound strange to my ears, but none quite so much as the name I saw on a church in Oil City – the “Fresh Oil Worship Center”.  Really.  Ahh, now somebody’s finally addressing our real religion.

Rolled into Hope, Arkansas, hungry and more than a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting to Mexico on this trip.  Now if I could find un poco almuerzo at the right little place, I might feel better.  Well, I’m here to tell you that the right little place is Vilma’s.  Best Mexican food I’ve eaten and I was eager to try out some of my hard-earned Espanol on someone, anyway.  Worked well enough that the charming good woman there only laughed a little and squoze a nice, fresh lemonade for me.

Feeling physically and psycologicaly a little beat, I got a motel in Hot Springs, fully realizing I was making up any excuse not to camp out, night after night.  Layed back, rested, re-combobulated.  Tomorrow, I’d ride some restorative Ouachita mountain dirt.

Suzi Blue shyly hiding back of a stair tower, where I could see her from my room, but the pranksters of the night couldn't see her from the street.

Day 7:  14 Sept 16    Hot Springs to Fayetteville

Having picked up a copy of the Arkansas Motorcycling Guide (25 Road Routes, 6 Dual-Sport Routes) in the motel lobby, I decided to try most of their Route 27, Paris to Lake Sylvia (140 miles).  Of course, I’d be doing it backward from the published instructions, from near Lake Sylvia to Paris, but that’s pretty much my way.  Got north of Hot Springs Village and found a forest trail to the left that might have been correct.  Pretty deep into the Ouachita Forest, I knew I wasn’t on course, but came to another trail that led me north to a point where I intersected what turned out to be the guidebook route, which I took to the west.  Why do I feel that it would be cheating to copy tracks onto my GPS?

That’s Dr. Suzi Blue and myself, taking a break and semi-lost after another wrong turn, but feeling relaxed and glad to be back off of the pavement for a while.  I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this state-approved route, but I’ll have to say it was a lot of fun.  Not terribly difficult, but always interesting, and at 72, alone on a sorta big bike in a sorta big woods, I don’t need terribly difficult to feel like this is some little bit of adventure.  Some interesting stuff: there are a lot of box turtles wandering around out there, and at least one pretty big bobcat that I got within 50’ of, and about a million Mourning Cloak butterflies.  We keep hearing that the Monarchs are in trouble, but the Mourning Cloaks look to be doing alright.

On a high ridge in the Ouachitas, looking north toward Mt. Magazine.

And near the top of Mt. Magazine, Arkansas’ high point, looking south, across Blue Mountain Lake and back toward the ridge in the last photo.  Rain coming.  (The mountain gets its name from French explorers who were traveling through the area when a landslide occurred on the mountain. The noise from the landslide was so great that one explorer described it as the sound of an ammunition magazine exploding. The explorers then named the mountain “Magazine.”  - Wikipedia) 

Terrific road riding up and down Mt. Magazine, especially if you can avoid getting behind a lurching Winnebago.  Light rains began, on and off, on my descent, but it was warm enough that I didn’t bother with rain gear.  Finished up the dual-sport route at Paris and continued off toward Highway 23, the renowned “Pig Trail”, reputed to be one of the best bike roads in the country.  I won’t argue that, although I didn’t push very hard, due to having less than perfect confidence in my tires on wet pavement.  Still, what a road!

About 30 miles before Fayetteville, the rain set in in earnest, but I was already too wet to put on rain gear now, and still warm enough.  Rode into town, got a room, did some way over-due laundry, and walked out to a pretty good Thai dinner.

227 miles for the day, enough I guess, since at least 60 or 70 were off-pavement.

Day 8:  15 Sept 16     Fayetteville to Mammoth Springs

A beautiful, sunny morning, much of which I spent leisurely moto-touring around Fayetteville.  A very cool town, and probably more so since it’s obviously benefited from America’s Walmart dollars being funneled in this direction.  Looked around the Razorback campus for a bit, then found some surprisingly cosmopolitan looking areas downtown, and motored to the tip-top of a big hill that has some great views over the whole thing.  And where are the pictures?  I simply forgot to take any and pretty soon I was anxious to get back underway, so I headed east.

The day would be mostly pavement riding, but I did find this dandy dirt and gravel road winding its way east from Osage which was actually a shortcut compared to the highway route.  I’ll take that any time.

Back on the blacktop a bit farther along I noticed a little gap in the trees on my right and found, to my surprise, that I was riding the edge of a high plateau.  Stopped to take a shot of this uncelebrated vista and another surprise; what appeared to be a lenticular cloud overhead.  These just don’t occur in my part of the world, and I’ve only seen one or two (out west) in my life, so this was a treat.

Kept rolling eastward, crossing my outbound track at Mountain Home which I’d had a pretty good look at before, so moved right through and caught a little bit of a meal at a lake-country filling station/lunch counter.  The clouds had gathered up pretty good by the time I got out of there, and the rains began shortly after.  Still good riding all the way to Mammoth Springs, where there are some great camping opportunities,  but I once again wimped out because I’m not much good at setting up in the rain.  Found two motels, one very nice and on the other end of town, one with no saving grace at all except that it cost less than half as much.  And the owner invited me to put my bike under the office roof overhang and out of the rain.

And.  Had I not stayed at the seedy motel, I might never have found Shorty’s Rib Shack, right across the road.  I had the smoked brisket which on a five-star scale I’m giving six stars.  Wow, this place is good.  Had a pleasant chat with Shorty (still short in a ten-gallon hat) in which we both bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t sell me a beer.  What is it with Arkansas?  A sad thing, but the food was SO good that I soon got over it.

Day 9:  16 Sept 16      Mammoth Spring to Hermann

The motel I stayed at didn’t seem to offer breakfast (maybe just as well) so I rolled on down a half-mile to a place I’d seen along Spring Creek, which turned out to be very good.  Three other bikes, two Triumphs and a Honda (?) packed for cross-country travel, were there for Suzi Blue to pass the time with while I met their young riders, two men and a woman, on a nice back deck of the restaurant overlooking the stream.  Turned out they were on an epic journey from Virginia, I believe, and projected to go to San Diego and back.  Something about following the Cannonball Race.  I’ve lost track of their names except for Ryan ( high5moto_ryan on ADVrider ), who may post a ride report, which I look forward to.

Some time after leaving Mammoth Spring, I realized that I had missed a possibly great 113 mile dual-sport route (Pocahontas to Powhatan) which comes right through town.  Drat, I’d have spent another day, but as the weather turned out it may have been a real mess.  Instead, I headed up into Missouri, just a block away, and got a little east before turning north to ride mostly pavement for the day, up through the Mark Twain National Forest.  If I was only marginally awake until now, I got a wide-eyed wake up call when I was rounding a blind bend at pretty decent speed and glanced away for a split second at the scenery, only to find myself and an oncoming Chevy pickup both occupying the centerline.  Obviously, since I’m writing this, we both corrected on time, but it was close.  Really close.  Stomach-churning-for-a-long-while-after kind of close.  That reset my focus pretty well.

Later, as I continued northward, I pulled over for a break at this little riverside spot and was surprised to see four wild, or escaped, horses running away, startled by my arrival.  I was so taken with their beauty and the suddenness of it all that I didn’t get to my camera before they’d disappeared.  They were un-haltered, and their tracks along the river showed they were un-shod, bearing out that they might have been wild, but being an old farm boy, I motored all around the vicinity trying to find someone to tell, just in case they were runaways.  I could find not a soul anywhere around. so went on my way.

Shortly after the beautiful horse incident, the sky went gray, then near-black, and some serious rains began to fall.  Not a problem at all after I was in my dandy, surplus, British Royal Mail jacket, for which I paid $25.  I swear this thing was designed for motorcycling, except that it’s better than most that actually are, at five to ten times the price.  Probably cost the Brit Gov't. a ton.  The rains would continue, heavy, throughout the day and the night to follow.  I got into Hermann, on the Missouri River, a nice little town that somehow never got all screwed up by modernization and so, is now solid full of quaint and pricey B&B’s and other quaint and pricey stuff, much in the manner of Galena, Illinois and quaint and pricey towns everywhere, I suppose.  I circled around in heavy rain and failing daylight and then back-tracked to a not so pricey Mom & Pop motel I’d seen on the edge of town, which proved to be just fine.

Day 10:   17 Sept 16     Hermann to Muscatine

If that last installment sounded a little down on Hermann, MO, please understand that it wasn’t meant to.  Perhaps it’s part of travel by motorcycle that I have a hard time falling in love with a place when I arrive in the middle of a 12-hour downpour that pretty much pins me in a cheap motel room.  Next morning, the deluge over, I gladly moto-toured and walked around this town in the heart of Missouri’s wine country.  (Don’t laugh, German settlers arrived here in 1837 and were cultivating several varieties of wine grapes by 1843.)   I enjoyed an excellent and leisurely breakfast at the Harvest Table restaurant, which I am very happy to recommend. 

 The yellow-painted curb does designate motorcycle parking, doesn’t it?

After crossing the Mighty Missouri River, I got off the big blacktop as soon as possible, then alternated between paved and unpaved roads for the rest of the day.

In northern Missouri and throughout much of Iowa, you can find probably a few thousand miles of this sort of roadway, lying roughly parallel and perpendicular to the major highways and to me, at least, far more interesting to ride.  Suzi Blue and I are quite comfortable at 45 or 50 mph on this kind of thing, and I suppose there is some legal limit, but the gravel appears to be totally unpatrolled, so I think you do as you see fit.

On the hard-surface of County Rd. J, we crossed the top of this dam, which seems to be doing a very good job of holding Mark Twain Lake in place.  We stopped for a little break below it, on the bank of the Salt River.  At an intersection a few miles farther north came one of those stone-sobering moments, whether you’re on two wheels or four or eighteen, I guess: the scene of a three-car collision which had probably happened an hour earlier, the victims removed, but various investigative and clean-up folks still there, the three vehicles so completely mangled and destroyed that I can’t imagine that anyone lived through it.

Drove my Chevy to the levee (well, my Suzuki, but you understand) at Gregory Landing, to idle away some time with Old Man River and to try to shake the haunting feeling left by the accident scene.  The Mississippi is good for that.  It seems a shame that there aren’t little roads like this on the levee tops all up and down the river, but alas, there aren’t.  Followed this one for about a half-mile north, where it abruptly ended and I had to turn back.

Wended my way into Keokuk, which I’m sorry to say has always sounded to me like the punch line to a joke, and was surprised to find a kind of beautiful and pleasant little city.  Met this fellow traveler there; the first mayor of the place, a Captain Clark, if I remember correctly.  He didn’t have much to say.

I continued upriver as far as Muscatine, where I checked into THE worst motel with nicest lobby maybe of all time.  It had the added bonus of having one of the great hell-hole bars that I’ve ever been in (and that’s saying a lot) in its basement.  Loud until 2:00 A.M. with hideous in house disc-jockey selected music and occasional karaoke to match.  Warm orange juice dispensed with stale donuts and cool coffee for breakfast.  O.K.  I swore off any more motels for the remainder of this journey, at least. Though my camping gear was a lot less than ideal, it certainly beat that experience.

When I embarked on this voyage, I had imagined I might encounter such a place somewhere in Mexico, but didn’t expect it in Iowa.  Perhaps the reason for travel is to dispel pre-conceptions and misconceptions.  I apologize to the people of Mexico.  

Day 11:  18 Sept 16       Muscatine to Ontario

Along with the daily maintenance of man and machine comes the daily taking stock of both.  Sparing the reader too much vivid detail, suffice to say that my posterior had not magically healed much at all, but at least was not getting worse since the installation of the custom seat-cushion.  If that were the only consideration, I’d have probably been wise to hole up somewhere around Galveston for a few days of R&R and heavy drinking, after which I might have been able to continue to Mexico, as planned.   But that was not the only consideration.  Although I’d been assured by other owners of vintage DR650’s that the failing cylinder base gasket would not endanger the engine so long as I kept an eye on oil levels, I wasn’t prepared for just what a mess a few spoonfuls of lube could really be.  Not much noticed during the three rain days, it was now obvious that I had not only to wipe down the engine at each stop, but also my right boot had to be wiped before I could go into anyplace at all.  Already perfectly waterproof, my fine Italian boots were becoming even more so, but in a not real attractive way.  I have regrets, obviously, but this seemed to reinforce that turning around was the right call.

I was getting into more familiar territory now, and decided to route through Guttenburg, Iowa, one of my favorite little river towns. 

That’s the towboat Philip M. Pfeffer (no, I didn’t make that up) using just a few of its 6140 horsepower to nudge the first nine of a standard upper-river 15 barge tow into the lock at Guttenburg.  Fifteen barges carrying a payload of 1500 tons each, against the current, in this case.  Tugs and towboats are ostensibly diesel-fueled, but in my experience, they run on coffee and cursing.  I see the river was running very high for this time of year; note the little tree standing in the water in the upper photo.

Suzi Blue and I ran north along the river as much as possible, taking interesting gravel roads where we could find them.  Two days after the most recent rains, there were not a lot of water holes, but a few were a bit deeper than I anticipated, going into them.  No problem, I have oiled boots!

 We got to another favorite spot, Iowa’s Pikes Peak State Park, which offers the best river views that I know of.  Yes, it’s named for the same Zebulon Pike as that other Pikes Peak.  He came through this part of the country on an earlier expedition.

A snappy dresser, ol’ Zebulon.

Here’s a sample view from that park – looking eastward across the Mississippi to the confluence of the Wisconsin.  If your eyes are very good, you’ll see the northbound BNSF freight crossing the railroad bridge over there.

From the park, I ran up along the west side of the river through McGregor and on up to Lansing, Iowa, another place that I like a lot, where I crossed over into Sweet Home Wisconsin.  Lots of terrific road riding down in this southwest corner of the state, much of which I have yet to explore.  Some good gravel, too, though this little lane proved to be just for farm field access and dead ended after about a mile.

I was having an absolute blast on these twisty roads but getting pretty tired by the time I got into the little burg of Ontario and made my way up the hair-pinned pavement of Hwy. 33 to Wildcat Mtn. State Park where, yes, I finally set up Tiny Tent once again.  Thought about running back down to town for a little supper, but the notion of coming back up that hill with my 1.5 candlepower lovely Suzuki headlight amid herds of deer didn’t appeal much, so I just had a nice campfire, ate a few odds and ends that I had aboard.  It was as near a perfect night, and place, for camping as I can imagine.

A view from Wildcat Mountain.

Day 12:  19 Sept 16     Ontario to Kewaskum

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Pried myself out of the Too Tiny Tent, possibly for the last time ever, packed up my gear and though I could have just moved forward, decided to go back down into Ontario to try out a little cafe I’d noticed for some breakfast.  This would give me the opportunity to run down and back up Wildcat Mountain again, which is pure fun for Suzi Blue.  Turned out to be a good call, too, since the cafe was just what I’d hoped – plates full of good old-fashioned farm food, stools and tables full of good old-fashioned farm folks, kidding and ribbing and complaining of the weather and the price of corn and beans.  “Don’t know when I’ll be able to get the combine on that field, or if it’ll be worth anything when I do.”   And always in the eyes a hint of real worry behind the facade of joking.

I might easily have reached home in a five or six hour ride, but decided to spend another day, taking the slow way east to visit my brothers and the farm I grew up on, before turning north tomorrow and winding up this little ol’ bike trip.  Since there was no rush, I set a meandering course past Devil’s Head ski area, where I had pretty successfully raced mountain bikes back when I was only in my 50’s, and then wandered down to take the free ferry across the Wisconsin River at Merrimac.  This seven or eight minute boat ride seems a little out of your way getting from almost anywhere to anywhere else, but, did I mention that it’s free?

There have been ferries operating at this location, seasonally, since 1844.  The current merry ferry, the Colsac III, pulls itself back and forth across the river via submerged cables, and is probably one of only a very few in the U.S. that operates this way, if I’m not mistaken.  Pretty hard to lose your way with this system, ain’t it, Cap’n?

Heading east on Hwy. 60, as I was now, I got on the brakes in Columbus, attracted by a little bank building by the great architect, Louis Sullivan.  I keep stumbling upon examples of this series from about a century ago in small towns like Winona MN, Rhinelander WI, Grinnell IA, Sidney OH, and now Columbus WI.  A teller informed me that this was the last one Sullivan did.  All of them share some easy to spot similarities and variations on a theme of exquisite detailing, but they are by no means the same.  I suppose I could just learn all about them by Google-ing and then going to see them all, but I prefer to be delighted by finding them accidentally.  The building was in deep shade on a very bright day, so please forgive the low quality of these photos.

As mentioned, I wanted to see my brothers and the old home farm near Kewaskum. (And I laugh about the sound of Keokuk?)  Like most everyone around, we had dairy cattle, a woodlot, some rolling pastureland, and raised corn, oats, and alfalfa.  Unlike most of out neighbors, we also raised motorcyclists.  A whole legion of people have learned to ride, and race, on these acres and even now it’s not unusual to find three generations of family and friends out doing a bit of “cultivation” on a weekend afternoon.

That’s a picture of my younger brother, Dave, taken a year or two ago, in the woods of the family farm.  He’s an ace dirt rider and motorcycle club president, but may be better known for being an excellent mechanic and consummate craftsman.  One of those guys who will build the tool, if he doesn’t have the one he needs.  Among his recent projects have been several bikes owned and ridden by his friend Dennis Weinhold, for the Bonneville Salt Flats, where they currently hold four class records.  This shot was not taken on the family farm:

Not surprisingly, when I spend time with my brothers, the talk occasionally turns to motorcycles.

Day 13:  20 Sept 16     Kewaskum to Sister Bay

Though she’d just been sitting overnight, there were already cobwebs forming on Dr. Suzi Blue and she was anxious to get on with the final leg of this journey, so we set off in the company of my older brother, Barry, and his very experienced DR650 which is now sometimes called The Exxon Valdez since the fitting of her outsized gas tank.  Barry would accompany me so far as Two Rivers – not necessarily because he likes hanging out with me, but because he knew I’d be stopping at the M&M Lunch, where we’d have a couple gallons of coffee and eat enough good bacon to carry a platoon of marines through a winter on the Siberian front.  This we did, and told the old stories one more time.  And we marveled at the reliability of modern motorcycles in general, and DR650’s in particular; his never missing a beat going to Alaska and back and mine on this trip, and neither of them being really prepped much beyond an oil change.  When he started riding in the late 50’s and I in the early 60’s, it seemed a pretty rare occurrence to be able to go 40 or 50 miles without some kind of malfunction that would strand us, particularly when we were riding the oh, so cool British bikes with electrical components by Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.

After saying our goodbyes and burping the brotherly bacon burps we parted and headed off to our respective homes, each about 75 miles away in opposite directions.  As it was still early, I was determined to ride every inch of gravel and dirt available on my way, in keeping with the on and off pavement spirit of the voyage.  There are very few of these stretches left in this region, but here’s a short one along Lake Michigan:

And another near Sturgeon Bay:

And so, home.  Still crazy, perhaps, and still standing (and glad not to be sitting!) after all these years.

Here’s Suzi’s odo upon getting back to the shed:

Total mileage for this thirteen day trip = 3194.5, but I’m calling it 3200 because I always like to exaggerate. 

Route Map

Not very technical or any more accurate than my hazy memory, this map should give some visual frame of reference for the trip described, even though the pages are not even all at the same scale.  The green line = outbound track, the orange line = homeward.

Epilogue

Aside from mulling over what I might have done right and what I might do differently next time, if there is a next time, one of the first orders of business after this little excursion was to heal the doctor.  Dr. Suzi Blue had performed flawlessly even with her leaking base gasket, and I owed her a timely repair.  Managed to find a top-end gasket kit in stock in nearby De Pere, and with a Clymer tech manual borrowed from my brother, I set to work just a few days after my return.

Kind of satisfying work, this tearing into bike, tearing into engine, especially on something as basic as the DR650 where the non-electronic function of most everything is pretty easy to comprehend.  Most difficult, frustrating, and time consuming part was the removal of old bits of gasket and residue, since one must proceed very carefully in order not to scratch the mating surfaces of all these lovely bits of aluminum.  Still, I did a valve adjustment while I was in there and had her all back together in a couple of days, and with some apprehension, turned the key and hit the starter.  Joy of  joys, she ran instantly, happily, perfectly.  After a quick inspection, I headed off to the gas station to fill up.

Downer of downers.  Mudville.  I’m about to fill the gas tank and find no oil leak from the base gasket, where I'd been looking, but a serious one from the head gasket!  Take it home.  Mentally go back through everything, especially the meticulous cleaning, the torqueing in correct sequence of every piece, bringing all bolts up just a few ft. lbs. at a time, etc., etc., etc.  Tear it all down again.  Note tremendous amount of oil running from cavities in the head that should have no oil.  Note that the new head gasket (from Moose Racing) appears only to have made contact on a little metal ring surrounding the combustion chamber and way over on the far right side, outboard of the timing chain chase.  Make certain that gasket was installed right side up.  Compare perforations with cylinder, head, and old gasket.  Check.  Check.  Check.   A-ok.  Order new gasket manufactured by Suzuki and not made by god-knows-who and sold by Moose, and vow to never make that mistake again.  Put her all back together exactly as before but this time, all is wonderful.   Another couple days of work and another $50 gasket, but wonderful.

So, did I learn anything?  Obviously, in hindsight, if you own a 2003 or earlier DR650 with a paper base gasket, you should think about replacing it before the Big Trip.  It’s not that hard.  Other than that I think my only real mistake was in wearing some bicycle shorts that were designed to injure, and I wore them on day one.  Dumb to take anything you’re not really sure of, right down to your underwear.  And, oh yeah, the way too tiny tent – I’d slept in it, uncomfortably, a few nights before this trip, but convinced myself that its compactness outweighed its uselessness.  If you’re going to bother carrying camping gear, make sure it’s stuff you really WANT to use.  Also, I carried a nice Canon camera I never used, taking all shots with my iPad Mini from which I could email directly.  I carried a lot of clothes I never needed, but might have if I’d gotten into higher altitudes or on returning north if the trip had lasted longer.  I also carried a lot of tools I never needed, but might have if . . .

And what about the failure to get anywhere near the intended destination?  Yeah, well, that’s just geography.

All in all, my only advice to others (and myself, if I should ever look back at this) is GO RIDE YOUR BIKE!