Rocky Mountain High......,

    And so after levying the appropriate curses upon my unruly camping-compatriots (see earlier blog) I set forth on the bike which-- as a means of foreshadowing let me note--- was running well at the time,  and proceeded into Rocky Mountain National Park.  Looking at a map of the place I figured I had covered most of the roadways on previous trips, since the weather was permitting why not take trail ridge and not have to hurry to get to Steamboat?  It was Thursday morning, I was not-so-far-away from where my gig was tonight-- but this is the Rockies, things can change, shit can happen, don’t assume you have all the time in the world to get anywhere.

      So I rode.  Maybe I’d stop and walk or hike, maybe I wouldn’t.  I didn’t feel comfortable being this far away from a paying gig and fiddle –farting around.  In my life I’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things and sometimes I regret not putting it all down in a journal and that’s not because I care one iota about sharing it, with you the world, it’s that I forget where I’ve been and what I’ve done:  I toured Romania and I can’t remember the name of one city there other than Bucharest. I’ve been to Italy and loved the food, but I can’t tell you what I ate, I know I’ve been to Rocky Mountain National park at least three times (maybe five?)  I know I’ve been to Glacier Valley twice, that I’ve hiked the same trail along the same river who’s name I can’t remember twice, that I’ve seen elk, maybe bison, never any bears, and that I don’t think I’ve taken trail ridge highway before.  None of the scenery is looking all that familiar if only for the reason that I’ve never been here when there was so little snow and I know for sure I’ve been here in June and (I think) in August and there was always some ice-pack left, but right now the mountain-tops are bare.  Regardless, I’m realizing as I approach the highest point on the highway that it is indeed very cold---I’m wearing five layers under my leather---probably cold enough to snow, and I’m positive as I come around the back of the mountain that there was indeed deep snow here when I drove through in June years ago.

     As irritated as I was with my rude camp-mates the night previous, I’m thinking to myself I should thank them for waking me up so early.  Looking at my phone I realize it’s not 10am yet, and that I have less than 150 miles to go to get to work tonight.   So I stop near the top of the mountain and take a walk up the path that everyone else is walking on.  I think they refer to the micro-climate as Moraine….I’m above the trees and there are marmots about---I can’t see them but I recognize their bark—and it’s mossy and windy and pretty damn cold.   There are a few interesting out-croppings of rock at the top and if you’ve ever been to Ireland, you might look at what I’m looking at and think you were seeing cairns on the Burren (and I’ve been there and don’t remember if there are any). 

  Despite tourists and cars driving below its gets very, very quiet once you’ve hiked a quarter mile up the path and I’m thinking “wow, when is the last time I’ve been somewhere I couldn’t hear anything?’

      I can’t remember.

      I might have spent an hour drinking in the scenery at the summit (probably more like twenty minutes) before heading down the other side. There is a written “rule” that you are not to stop your vehicles on the road in the park.  There is another unwritten rule that if you come up behind someone who has stopped their vehicle that there is wildlife to be seen.  I’m trying to pay attention to the road while riding, while at the same time enjoying the view, while at the same time picturing in my head the time I watched another motorcyclist ride right off the road in front of me for looking at the scenery.  That is NOT going to happen with me, I resolve.  And so pulling up behind a stopped car on the highway at over 12,000 feet I take just a quick glance to my right and make a quick count of what were at least three bull elk and a couple sows--.I’m not sure-- but I thought I saw some velvet on their antlers still and I thought their racks looked pretty big and I really thought I should keep my eyes on the twisty’s lest I want to go a looooong way down.  

      And so I made it back down the mountain safely, and I looked again at my phone and realized I still had a lot of hours in the day before I needed to report to anybody, so I parked the bike at the Green Mountain Trailhead (wow, I remembered the name of someplace??) and I peeled of my leathers once again and made a quick lunch on my camp stove and realized how warm it was at this altitude and peeled off more layers until I was in shorts and a t-shirt.  Trying to pack all this stuff back on the bike was a little tricky.  I travel with just enough room in my bags to necessitate always having some of the bulk on my person.  And I got geared (or shall I say “ungeared”) and started up the mountain holding my phone and my wallet when I decided that carrying either was a bad idea…so I walked back down to the Harley and considered where I might hide my valuable’s.  I thought about putting them under a rock, and then I considered that it might rain (despite clear skies….this is the Rockies, after all) and what I did was pull off the side cover to the bike and stow them there. 

      As another bit of foreshadowing I would later think that was perhaps a bad idea.

      I hiked up the (somewhat busy) trail—I did take my phone, to use a s a camera/watch, holding it in my hand the whole time---and the views were pretty enough for not getting back above the tree line and I gave myself an hour up to make it another hour down and I took some pictures

 and enjoyed the quiet and came back to the bike around the middle of the afternoon.    I got my leathers back on, I got my GPS set, I got everything re-secured to the bike and fired her up.

      Cough, cough, cough, rumble…

      My bike has never done that. I’m thinking maybe it’s an altitude thing.

      Get back on the highway, go fifty yards, bike dies.

      I hit the starter, bike fires.  I ride to Kremmling with no probs, thinking that B.S. I’ve heard about needing to “re-jet your injectors” or whatever it is they say you’re supposed to do to a Harley at altitude might just be true.

      I stop in Kremmling to top-off on fuel.  I’m only 50-odd miles from Steamboat, but this is the west and topping off whenever you can is always a good idea.  I go to start the bike.

      Cough, cough, cough, rumble….

      Again, I’m thinking this is an altitude issue…don’t stress

      And as way of foreshadowing, it’s funny how some things just occur coincidentally……

Curses and Bad-Campers

      So after a night of not-much sleep (if a pack of coyotes outside your tent won’t keep you awake a train whistle every 30 minutes will)  I got back on the bike and—after a brief visit to a hardware store to find something to secure a loose saddle bag---was headed west.    Regretfully I passed right through Omaha, without a stop at Cabelas, through Lincoln without a stop at Osso Burrito, through Nebraska as whole only stopping for gas.   Somewhere west of North Platte the interstate splits and and I’m forced to decide whether to go through Wyoming and try and make Steamboat by the evening or to head south on the 76 and camp.  It’s a beautiful day, I have the gear, I choose to motor towards Estes Park and pitch a tent.  I don’t know what kind of blinders I have been wearing the last few times out this way but, is it me or have the Rockies become the Smokies?  I mean, I guess the town of Estes park has been a lot like Pigeon Forge for a long time, but somehow this is the first I’ve noticed just how ridiculously crowded it has gotten around town.   I mean, I’ve got no problem with the concept of private property but what ain’t condo’s is campgrounds is McMansions….if you’re thinking about coming to the Rockies in the summer to “get away from it all,” think again…so has everybody else.   I’d love to know between the RV’s and the tenters what the “temporary” population is here.    I wouldn’t know where to venture a guess, all I can say is it’s crowded.

     So crowded that--so far as tent sites in Rocky National Park--there are none available.  So crowded that, at Estes Park Campgrounds there is ONE tent site left…it’s a Wednesday.  It’s now late in the day.  The one spot left is on an incline, next to the outhouse. I take it.  It costs $27 to pitch my tent, but there is a shower in the bathhouse and they do have firewood and there is a convenience store just down the road.  I quickly set up camp before dark and run down the road to grab some hot dogs and a six-pack of IPA, call my girlfriend to let her know I’m safe while I have signal (Sprint SUCKS) and motor back on the bike.  As I mentioned, there’s a lot of people here.  Not that my Harley's pipes are that loud (when not revving) but I apologize to the family camping next to me for any noise, not that it’s even late yet.  Most campers are cooking and you can hear laughter and the sounds of beer bottles being pulled out of Coleman coolers from every corner of the campground.  It’s a pleasant sound, the sound of summer, the sound of happy times you’ll vaguely remember, it’s a sound I love, and mostly it’s a sound that should CEASE at 11pm.

   
    It does not.

   
      The old cliché about bad-apples rings so true in a confined camping space.  For, while my immediate neighbors have all packed it in for the night, while I should be drifting-off to the sound of crickets my sleep is interrupted every five minutes or so it seems by the “woo-woo-ing of a pack of twenty-something’s down the hill from me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about partying around the campfire.  But when you have little kids around you watch your language and when you have old people trying to sleep you watch your noise level.  These little shits are doing neither.   I want to say that at some point I was jolted awake for the thirtieth time, looked at my phone and saw that it was 3am.  At some point I seriously considered some sort of revenge or at least something I could say to shut these inconsiderates up.  I was too tired and my faith in humanity insisted that eventually they’d behave….

      So at 6am I woke up.  The sun had already burned of the mountain haze and I thought maybe the whole rest of the campground would actually appreciate it if I rolled up to where these kids are sleeping and let them know what a V-Twin with Kerker pipes sounds like when you open her up a little.

    Sonofabitch, they’re already UP.

    FUCK.

    The dudes are already screaming and yelling  again and the girls are woo-wooing and now that it’s light I can see there’s maybe a dozen kids in three SUV’s.  The girls are walking around wrapped in blankets and the guys are in and out of the bathhouse.  They don’t have tents, they don’t have gear, nobody is dressed to camp; the guys are in skinny jeans, wearing trucker hats sideways.   The girls look like they came here directly from a beach bar.  They'd kept everyone up last night and now they’re waking everyone this morning.  I want to say something, but I don’t know what.  Not to be that narc-y old guy but I’d go complain to the camp-hosts if it didn’t look like they were leaving.  If I had avoided confrontation last night for being outnumbered, I’m sizing up these dudes, thinking what a bunch of pussy-ass panty wastes.  Thinking I’m gonna walk over there and give these fuck-sticks a piece of my mind…thinking Chill first, Sean.

      So I grab a quick shower, break camp, roll up my gear and pack it on the bike.  The annoying twenty-somethings are still there.   Hooting and hollering.  I look at my phone again.  It’s not even 7am.  The family guy camping next to me comes over making small talk.   We’re whispering about where we’re from and where we’re going while the kids down the hill are loudly throwing coolers in their SUV’s.  Gravel flies as they start leaving.  The camping loop is small, unpaved, narrow and rutted.  Two of the vehicles are at the entrance to the grounds while one of the kids decides to take a lap around the grounds and spew some dust at anyone he hasn’t pissed off yet.  As the Escalade comes flying around the thicket where I’m camped the driver notices my bike and hits the breaks.  Passing between myself and my fellow camper I say to the pimply-faced driver:

“Hey, you with the group down there?”

“Huh?  Um? Yeah…”

“Hey man, I just wanted to say, I can appreciate that, at your age you don’t need much sleep.  And I hope that at my age you can appreciate that I DO…”

Kid looks at me dumbounded—or just dumb.

“Yeah man, and to thank you for keeping me up most of the night I just wanna say that I hope none of you got laid last night, and if you did,  I hope you got yerself a really nasty STD, I’m talking like a case of herpes that haunts you for the rest of your life okay?  Great man, fuck ya very much, have a GREAT day!”

I said this all sincerely.  With a smile on my face.

I bet the kid’s still coinfused.

Howling in the woods

From Crown Pointe IN I headed west on the I-80 in mostly-pleasant weather and really, what is there to report about “slabbing it” (biker-speak for “taking the interstate”) across the great plains on a sunny day? Most interstates are boring. I can almost recite the order of towns across central Ohio along the I-71, across TN on the I-40, from WV through IN on the I-70. If I had all the time in the world I’d probably never ride them (with the possible exception on the I-95 in NH) but I don’t have all the time in the world and if divided super-highways typically go through flat, featureless terrain they at the same time afford you (typically) with road conditions that allow for faster speeds and safer conditions. So let’s just say I’m not sure how many miles I covered on day-two heading towards Steamboat Springs but I’m pretty sure I made 500 easily, crossing the Nebraska State line as the sun was getting low enough on the horizon to have me thinking of where I’d spend the night. I’m pretty familiar with Lincoln, my band having played there quite a bit in years past and I’ve been to Omaha a couple times and I like both city’s enough to maybe want to get a hotel room and a nice meal. At the same time, I’m geared to camp and If I’m ostensibly on my way to CO to make money then maybe I should try and save it where ever I can.

     So I consult the map outside of Omaha and find a state park not 15 miles off the interstate and decide to camp for the night. I get to St Louis State Park a little before dark and find the camp office still open.

 “Can I pick my own spot?” I say to the ranger
“Sure, what kind of spot do you want?”
 “A tent spot. Not to sound like creepy-camps-by-himself guy, but away from the crowd if ya can….no Sweet Home Alabama, no Kumbaya…”
“No prob. That’ll be $12”
“Do you have firewood?”
“Sorry, camp store just closed, but the convenience store should have some”

 So I go pick out a secluded spot by the river, and it seems quiet enough and I get the tent pitched before it gets dark and get my gear all laid out where I can find it and I light my lantern and take a ride over to the convenience store outside the park. I’d get bug repellant, but they’re charging $9 for a can of OFF, I’d get beer if I hadn’t already grabbed a tall-boy near the interstate and I’d get firewood, but they don’t HAVE any.

 SHIT.

 If “camping without beer” is just” sleepin’ outside,” then “camping without a campfire” just…um, SUCKS 

But it’s a nice enough evening. There’s a slight breeze, I’m warm, I’m dry, I’m not complaining. The camp grounds seem quiet enough. You can just barely hear the river above the crickets and the katydids, I don’t have a campfire but I do have my phone and I do have an android notepad and both devices have kindle apps installed and loaded with lots of reading material---or so I think. I decide to put my phone on the charger on the bike and read whatever I have loaded in the notepad---which I find after starting has crashed--- which leaves me with whatever comes loaded with it and nothing else and what comes loaded with it is Jack London’s “White Fang.” I should probably get motivated enough to go fire up the pad right now and transcribe the first paragraph of “White Fang.” But I’m not….let’s just say it kind of blew me away.
Oh hell. Now I HAVE to re-read it…the best parts go like this:

 “The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement. So lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but a laughter more terrible than any sadness---a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter as cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility, I was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life….”

 WOW.

 So, seduced as I was by that first paragraph I read on about the travails of two men alone in the arctic, attempting to stave off the inevitable as a pack of wolves surrounds them, killing their dogs, eventually claiming one of the men when his bullets run out, surrounding the other man who staves them off by surrounding himself with fire .

 Fire

 Which I do not have, alone out here in the campgrounds of the state park. Out here in the woods along the river where I’m reading this in a tent in the dark all by myself…. And at the very moment in the story where the last man is about to succumb to the pack of wolves, outside my tent---for real—there erupts a loud

HOOOOOOWL!!

A pack of coyotes has just killed something.

For real.

I can’t make this shit up

Indiana and St Anthony

I’ve joked about arranging my touring schedule around surfing, fly-fishing, skiing…it’s partly true. With gas costing what it does and plane ticket what they do. I will ride my motorcycle to any gig I can ride it to. This one was in Colorado. I left Fredonia, NY two weeks ago on a Monday morning after having packed, un-packed and re-packed at least two times. I don’t mind taking a lot of gear with me in a car or in the trailer, but if I’m on the bike I prefer to carry less and travel simply. So after the third re-pack I had to look at what I had on the bike and ask myself “do you really need ALL those flies? Isn’t ONE box enough? Swim trunks AND running shorts? Waders? I lightened my load by one whole-back-pack and was on the highway by noon that day (after having gotten up at 6am to start loading up the bike. I ride a Harley Road King. It’s not the biggest touring bike Harley manufactures, but it is indeed a touring bike when you want it to look like one and the temptation to pack my saddle bags beyond capacity never leaves me alone. After three hours of prioritizing what absolutely HAD to make the trip I ended up carrying: -1 9'x8' backpacking tent -1 Italian army issue mummy-style sleeping back -1 foam bed-roll -1 back-packing size single burner propane fueled lantern -1 back-pack size single burner camp stove -what I thought were enough tools to remedy and small bike-issues -1 five piece Cabela’s stow-away fly rod -ONE box of (mostly) dry-flies -line and tippet material for fly-fishing -NO waders for fly fishing -NO wading boots for fly-fishing -two small LED flashlights -1 Leatherman Multi-tool And the following articles of clothing -1 leather motorcycle jacket -1 pair of leather chaps -leather gloves -light cloth gloves -1 set of heavy-duty fluorescent rain gear -rain gloves -rain mask, for riding in hard rain -motorcycle boots -running shoes -running shorts/shirt -2 pairs of jeans -2 t-shirts -4 pairs socks -4 pairs underwear -I set long under wear -one long sleeved t-shirt -camp towel -1 collared dress shirt, just in case….. And I left my hometown headed for Steamboat Springs without much of a plan other than knowing it was Monday and that I needed to be in Colorado by Thursday night for my first engagement. The weather when I left was pleasant: 75 degrees. Partly sunny skies. Slight wind out of the west. But of course, on the bike the weather may stay nice but you—the rider will have to endlessly adjust to stay comfortable. What feels warm weather-wise when you’re not moving can get chilly after a half-an-hour at speed. Typically the clothes you’re wearing at the break of dawn will be mostly shed by high noon (in the summer) and put on again by dusk. And if your luck is anything like mine, you will almost always ride dodging rain, meaning if you want to stay dry you will spend an annoying amount of time putting on and taking off rain gear. Once in-awhile if you’re like me you may just say to yourself “screw it, I’m not stopping, I’ll just get wet…” which is fine on short trips but almost always a bad decision on long ones, after the temperature has dropped and you are soaked with another two-hundred miles to ride to get to that hotel you booked. Having learned that lesson a time or two-- I’ve gotten in the habit of donning the rain gear at the first sight of a dark cloud. I’ve not regretted it yet. So the rain gear came on about the time I got to the PA line (not far at all---say 35 miles) and pretty much stayed on for the next 500 miles; Coming off briefly in Ohio, hurriedly back on in Indiana, staying on after that even when it was hot and uncomfortable to wear. Hot-sweaty-and-uncomfortable is preferable to cold-clammy-and-uncomfortable ANY day. Rain not-with-standing, the journey west began without drama. I hate drama. However, without drama I have no story, so I’ll insert some here. About the time I got to Sandusky OH, I realized I could get all the way to where my friend John Hall lives in Indiana. So at a rest stop I texted him to see if he was in town and was there any vacancy at “Hotel Hall” and John responded immediately that yes, there was and I was welcome to stay and according to the google maps app on my phone John’s hometown--Crown Pointe IN-- was only 4 hours away, so yeah John, I’ll see you around 8pm?....and sure enough the weather goes to hell and the rain gear I had just taken off comes back on and I even spend some time under an overpass waiting out some really heavy rain and the odd chance that things might get Tornadic. http://youtu.be/h4xWUyAFh-o But that’s not the drama I’m talking about. After dealing with some truly shitty weather I get to Crown Pointe a little after 10pm. Tired, Wired, and very hungry. There’s an awesome bar/restaurant on the square in Crown Pointe (I’d been there before) that serves up a great Mexican buffet and I told John I’d just meet him there rather than try to find my way to his house. So I get off the I-80 and find my way to town and to the restaurant and John is there in two-minutes and I’ve just pulled off all my hot-uncomfortable- but-keeping- me-DRY rain gear and dug out my phone from my saddle bags and John is like “the bar is closed, why don’t you follow me to the house, park your bike and we’ll come back and grab a beer somewhere else” Sounds good. I don’t like to make people wait. My gear is in a state of serious disarray on top of the bike so I just start stuffing leathers and rain gear and phone back into whatever pocket is closest and I guess I shoved my phone into the tool back mounted on my windshield and forgot to latch the bag SHUT…. It was dark. It was late. I was tired. Following John back to his house (three blocks away) I’m turning the corner onto his (side) street. And I feel something hit me in the shin…. FUCK. I knew right away it was my phone. I pulled over, turned off the bike, grabbed a flash light and started praying to St Anthony. Out onto the street steps one of the neighbors: “You lose something?” “My phone.” “Oh, that sucks,” he says, pulling out a flashlight. “Where you coming from?” “Upstate NY.” “Long way from home.”: “Without a phone.” And I’m on the verge of freak-out doing my best to maintain and keep the faith. St Anthony has NEVER failed me and if you want stories, I got ‘em but still. I AM a long way from home and last time I made the trip west I lost this very same phone for a day and it was more than a minor inconvenience. I use the thing as a GPS, I do business on it, I let my loved ones know I’m alive with it…. John Hall comes circling back in his car. I give him the 411. He starts calling my phone. Another neighbor, also with a flashlight, asks what we’re looking for and can he help? And so in the dark there’s me and these two other dudes scanning the street for my phone and within five minutes the first neighbor to help me comes running over from around the corner: “I’ve got it!!” I wanna hug the guy. “Thank you SO much. What’s yer name? “Brian.” “Brian, thank you for restoring my faith in people…” Brian explains that some other guy, driving around the corner, stopped when he saw my phone lighting up in the grass (as John was calling me) and saw the flashlights and stopped and grabbed it out of the ditch asking ”You guys lose something?” Yeah, for about a minute. Thanks John, for the place to crash, for the Pizza, for the bacon and eggs. Thanks Brian. And thanks again, St Anthony.