Is it Airconditioned?

When your tired bones are accustomed to ninety degree heat, two hundred forty miles of gusty, rainy fifty degree air feels like a long, long ride.

I had planned to ride US97 north then beautiful WA20 from Winthrop across the Cascades to Sedro-Wooley. From there WA9 wanders up to the border, a perfect finish to a great ride. But it was forty degrees and raining with criminal intent on Washington Pass. No thanks.

So I took I90 from Ellensburg, struggling to stay out of the way of legions of semis and distracted Seattleites heading home from the long weekend, everyone weather-grumpy and jonesing for a cup of Starbucks adjectives.

Grace and I were a rolling speed bump again, even through the rough, rutted road construction just below Snoqualmie Pass, where the game seemed to be "let's tailgate the pilot car, maybe he'll go faster."

The Marysville McDonald's was a chance to warm up with a coffee but their airconditioning was malfunctioning so I drank my cup standing outside under the dripping eave, where it was warmer.

The northbound border lineup was over an hour and I had to cut across two lanes of traffic to park at US Customs to export the bike. One driver gave me the finger as I crept past his front bumper. Welcome home. The Export Office closes at 3:30. I got there at 3:20.

With Grace's title stamped, I edged my way to the front of the hour-long lineup. I tried puppy eyes on the closest driver but he was unmoved, probably a cat person. Two damp customs officers were directing traffic and the closest one stopped traffic and waved me right up to an open booth. As I passed him he called out "Nice bike!" Clearly, a rider.

I stood at the counter shivering and rubbing my cold, aching hands together (I'm spoiled by heated grips!) as the young CBSA officer processed my inbound paperwork. He looked irritated by the little puddle of runoff that had dripped onto the counter from my jacket.

He was young and muscly, with some dark, menacing tattoos running down his forearms, very, very serious. And he was serious when he asked me "Is it airconditioned?".

Right there in mid-shiver, mid-drip, I did the one thing you should never do when an armed customs officer asks you a question - I burst out laughing.

The essence of humor is surprise, the unexpected. He didn't expect me to laugh, he was definitely surprised but what ensued was a very un-funny, strained second or two with both of us just looking at each other. Awkward. Very awkward.

Before he had a chance to press the hidden button under the counter I got appropriately serious and explained "It's a motorcycle," adding "and today, it's very airconditioned." He laughed a relieved laugh, stamped the yellow import form and I was officially home.


It has taken me six days covering 2235 miles to wander half way across the country on a motorcycle older than most of the people I met along the way. It's been a wonderful journey, a mile a minute wander on narrow roads across a broad land and back through time. Thanks for keeping me company!

Don't be fooled by the "chilled road kill" look - it was an amazing odyssey!

Special thanks to: Christiana Czarnowski at Courage Center in Minneapolis (http://couragecenter.org/) for letting her husband Aric know about this bike, and to Aric for telling the rest of us. Thanks also to all the members of the Airhead Beemers Club and mailing list members who offered their expertise, time, tools, garages and couches along the road. To Oak, thanks for generously sharing your encyclopedic knowledge of /5 drivelines - without your help, I'd still be in a hot motel parking lot beating Grace with a fence post.

And my most heartfelt thanks to Tom Dickinson for taking such good care of Grace for the last thirty seven years. Tom, I promise I'll take good care of your "baby"!

A Mile a Minute

 I have a clear memory, from when I was about five, of driving with my Dad in our '49 Ford pickup. We turned off the gravel road onto the paved highway, probably headed into town from his old home place, and he gently let that old truck have some rein. The windows were down and the truck smelled like a sunny warm mixture of grain and grease and oil and tobacco and horsehair upholstery.

After a couple of minutes he pointed to the ivory face of the speedometer and said, almost reverently, "We're going 60 miles an hour. That's a mile a minute." I don't know why that moment has stayed with me so clearly. For him, there was something special about going that fast - a mile a minute - and so it became magic to me.

Years later when I flew for a living, a mile a minute became three, then four, then five miles a minute as I worked my way up the line into bigger, faster airplanes. But these were just variations on a theme I learned in that '49 Ford.

And so it's been again on this ride. A mile a minute is the perfect pace for my new friend "Grace". That's the name she's chosen for herself. A mile a minute: a smooth, easy, ticket-proof pace, just right for being awed by the scenery, just right for riding all those 40 mph curves with no need to brake or downshift or do anything to kill the mood.

A perfect match, too, for my love of old two-lane backroads. We did try (or rather, were forced to try because of geography) some time on I90. It was awful. Grace and I were a rolling speed bump as Montana ranchers blew past us in their 400 hp diesel pickups pulling four-horse slant trailers, adding a solid 15 mph to the posted 75 limit. Deer Lodge to Missoula was our limit and we turned south to Lolo to pick up the Lolo Highway, the original US 12 west to Lewiston, ID. 

Such a hardship.

US 12 runs about 300 curving, wildly scenic miles from Lolo, MT to Walla Walla, WA. The pavement is rough in places, bearing the scars of hard winters and rough maintenance but the road is well engineered. At a mile a minute, there's no need to slow for any but a handful of corners and all the time in the world to be awed by the Clearwater River as it carves its way to Lewiston and its confluence with the Snake River.

On the Washington side of the Snake River west of Lewiston ID / Clarkston WA the road wanders through the valleys of the Blue Mountain region of southeastern Washington. The hills flanking the road are soft, gentle, almost sensous in the warm twilight. Farmland has never looked so fine.

At a mile a minute, I had five hours to enjoy this organic old road as it wandered through an under-appreciated corner of the northwest. I savored every minute of it.

Our mile a minute pace took Grace and I from Deer Lodge, MT to Ellensburg, WA today, a bit shy of 600 miles. I have no idea where those miles went, or where they came from. But we did it, somehow, our shadow chasing us for hours, right up to the motel door, drawn first by the setting sun and then the rising near-full moon.

Home is a day away now, two hundred forty miles, two hundred forty minutes at a mile a minute.

Happy Canada Day!

Today is the day we Canadians celebrate our nation and reflect on what it means to be a Canuck. 

We're a different bunch, apologetically polite, fairly neat, conservative and quiet. We make good houseguests and great neighbors (you're welcome, USA!). 

I don't have a flag to wave today as I ride west from Deer Lodge but I'll sing a round  or two of Oh Canada (the original version) at the top of my lungs as I roll down I90. 

And I'm going to ask for Canadian bacon with my breakfast.