Marion, IL to Wall, SD

May 21, 2005

1022 Miles

After being made feel unwelcome by the hotel clerk, and WAY TOO welcome by a couple of the guests, we got some sleep and got up the next morning to ride to Wall, SD.  For whatever reason, we woke up pretty late (like 6am) rode about 10 minutes up the highway and stopped for breakfast.  In hindsight, I don't think either of us realized how far away Wall, South Dakota really was.  We took the next major exit and stopped at the local Denny's for breakfast and a Crystal Meth Bust.  Here's the Denny's

And here is the Crystal Meth Bust.  Toothless dirtbags and cops (and toothless, dirtbag cops) were running amok in the parking lot.  Rights were read, cuffs were put on, cuffs were taken off, forms were signed, cuffs were put back on.  All the while two rookie cops were blowing each other in a nearby cruiser humming "Bad Boys, Bad Boys" through their power trip / fellated bliss.  It must be nice to have a gun and a stack of privacy invading laws giving you the ability to push people around.  I don't do drugs and I don't have friends who do drugs.  At the same time, what you do to yourself can not possibly be considered criminal.  Committing a crime against yourself is the most illogical statement ever and having a policeman put you in jail for what you do TO YOURSELF is just flat insane.  It is a dumb use of our tax dollars, an abuse of our prison system, it gives police WAY too much power and it is one of the bricks in the prison wall that now surrounds America .

Speaking of my favorite people in the world, Garrett got an up close and personal introduction to a Highway Nannie in Kansas City.  Let me be candid, blunt and painfully honest here.  We were hauling ass, big time.  We shot through St. Louis like it was a video game.  I don't know the speed limit downtown, but I can assure you it wasn't the speed  that we went through there at.  If you can drag your knee on a freeway - you're probably going too damn fast.  St. Louis to Kansas City took us under 3 hours (do the math on that . . it is over 250 miles from St. Louis to KC - that's counting the times we stopped for gasoline.)

We came into KC as hot as we came outta St. Louis.  Coming through a left hand sweeper Garrett was about 1/8 of a mile in front of me when he met Roscoe here.  Now, a few facts to keep in mind

Regardless of those facts, this inbred, low wage meter maid with a gun cites Garrett for something like 91 in a 70.  Truth be told, we weren't doing 91 in a 70.  I am not sure what speed we WERE doing, but I can assure you it wasn't 91 in a 70.  To put it another way, I was wishing Garrett would slow down right before we met Mr. Occifer.  Those who know me know what that must mean.

It is extremely unlikely that the officer even tagged Garrett on radar, as Garrett came up behind the officer, slowed down and then the policeman had to pull over to let Garrett pass and then light him up.  This buford, who probably has "we support our troops" stickers all over his dually could just as easily told Garrett to cool it down, take it easy, thanks for your service, don't want to see you get hurt, yada yada yada.  But instead he not only writes him up, he is a complete @sshole in the process.  He even tried to get me to entrap myself.  "Why were YOU speeding" and "why were YOU weaving in and out of traffic."  I just looked at him, thinking "surely he doesn't think I am that dumb, does he  . . . no, I guess he does think I am that dumb" all I said to him was "officer, I have no intention of insulting your intelligence."  I guess I gave his intelligence too much credit .  Keep in mind that the last 6 months while Garrett has been stuck in a prison hospital in Iraq, dealing with riots, dealing with violence and some very scary people, this knob job has been sitting on his hemorrhoid inflamed ass trapping commuters.  People suck and this guy right here is at the top of my list.

The only reason I even pulled  over at all was because Garrett had the freakin' maps and I was at a total loss as to where to go or what the heck to do.  I hadn't considered the possibility of just Garrett being pulled over and I was a little disoriented on what to do next.

After Garrett's ticket the mood was a real downer.  Getting a ticket is not only expensive, it is embarrassing and being embarrassed sucks. Garrett was a grouch for a while so I thought I'd buy him lunch as a way of thanking him for 'taking one for the team.'  The restaurant we ended up at was right across the street from a Harley Davidson dealership.  The dealership had a live band outside covering 'Classic Rock.'  Why, why, WHY Harley dealerships (and Harley buyers) apparently are stuck in 1976 is beyond me.  Watching old, flabby people flail around while the lead singer butchered Led Zeppelin lyrics did not improve Garrett's mood at all.  Somewhere John Bonham is gagging on his vomit all over again having heard this talent less hack screech his way through "We come from the land of the ice and snow, From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow."   That, plus the fact that the "Mexican" food served at the "Mexican" restaurant was only "Mexican" if "Mexican" is a code word for "crap."  Having grown up in Texas I have had good Mexican food - this wasn't it.

From Kansas City we basically started heading straight north to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Once past Omaha, Nebraska it is just a lot of farms and a lot of nothing else.  Garrett was smarting from the ticket and if we had gone a little too fast before, suddenly I found myself doing 69 in a 70 - probably the only time I can honestly say I didn't enjoy doing 69.  Though I can say that I have now done 69 until I almost slipped into a coma.  For the love of all that is sacred we were being passed by minivans!  We gassed up before Sioux Falls and started heading for Wall, South Dakota.

Wall is 293 miles from Sioux Falls.  WOW.  We were already toasty from our ride and didn't realize we were only 2/3 through the riding for the day.  As we headed westward from Sioux Falls we got blasted by some late afternoon or early evening wind gusts and decided to stop off for about an hour to gas up and kind of  relax a little from the ride.  Garret was still grumpy about the ticket (8 hours later) but it was ok.  At least he quit griping at me about it and had started griping about life in general. Hey, life is tough . . you nearly run a State Trooper off the highway and suddenly they think they have the right to pull you over and issue a citation - the bastards.

The ride to Wall was looooooong.  In addition to being a long ride we were riding into the sunset and the sun in our eyes as we headed westward.  I kid you not, the sun does not go down in South Dakota until after 10pm.  The moon was out, the stars were shining and I STILL saw the glow of the setting sun ahead of me (ahead and to my right actually).  In addition to the long, dark ride with the sun in our eyes the bugs came out with a vengeance and I think every one of them found my helmet.  I was coated in bugs,. with bloodshot eyes, about 600 miles worth of road grit ground into my skin . . . ah the joys of motorcycling :-)

Somewhere after the sun went down it started to get legitimately cold.  So, to recap:  Bugs, bloodshot eyes, road grit and now cold.  We stopped and got gas and actually bumped into another sport motorcyclist.  To my surprise, he was really rude.  You'd think that bumping into a fellow motorcyclist at 9 or 10pm in South Dakota, in the cold,  you'd be at least a little friendly.  Not this guy, not at all.  He was riding either to or from New York.  That and the fact that he was the only young African American man in about a 1,000 mile radius was the only information I could gather about him.  He was also obviously freezing, obviously tired and could have used a little help or a hand.  Still, he didn't want to talk, didn't ask for help and short of using mace on me expressed his desire to be left alone to the best of his ability.  Bummer.  Then again, we were two filthy, bug covered, bald guys with big manic grins in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE.  The gas station was playing Hank Williams' "I am so lonely I could Cry" at a slow, mournful, almost keening pace.  Poor guy was probably worried he'd end up tied to a fence and left to die or used in some sort of late night, farmland satanic ritual, so I guess I can't blame him for being tight lipped, terse and a bit hurried to get the hell away.

I on the other hand took a moment and drank a cup of coffee, ate a bag of beef jerky and took two garbage bags and used them for an additional liner in my jacket to keep me warm.  Garbage bags and bungee cords are a big part of what holds civilization together.  Think of how many of life's problems can be solved with a couple of bungee cords and a garbage bag.  Add a knife, some duct tape and the trunk space of a large American sedan and you pretty much have an OJ style family reunion in the works.  Take a garbage bag, cut a hole for your head and one for each arm.  Put it over you, tuck it into your pants and put your jacket back on - you can get a few more degrees of warmth out of that, at least enough for an hour or two of additional riding. 

Meanwhile, Garrett's clutch died.  Garrett's  . . . .clutch . . . died . . . in the middle of nowhere . . . South Dakota . . .in the dark  . . in the cold . . with another 90 miles before our hotel . . the clutch . . it died.  Oh boy, now the trip has officially started. 

The trip doesn't really begin until a) the hotel clerk treats you like a soiled tampon retrieved by a stray dog from the neighbor's trash and left on your front porch for you to trip over on your way to work on a Monday when you are already running late, instigating a series of events involving you to simultaneously leaping back in disgust and spilling some of the jam from your bagel on the bottom of your shirt, causing you to tuck it in just tight enough to make your eyes bug out and furthermore forcing you to invent bizarre and contradictory stories about why you were late for work, and why you had a disgusted look on your bug eyed face (check) AND b) what would in other times be a normal service issue becomes a full on crisis as you are in the middle of absolutely nowhere with no light, no visibility, and no ability to figure out what the problem is, much less how to fix it (and check). 

Garrett had NO functioning clutch.  None.  Not so much as a wiffle of clutch was there.  He literally let the starter lurch the bike to a start and then once moving used clutch less upshifts and downshifts to get to Wall, South Dakota.  It sounded like this "chg chg chg - lurch lurch lurch luurrrrrrrch, CLACK rrrrrmmmmm, CLACK, rmmmmmmmm, clack (disappearing into the distance) . . . "  It sounded exactly the same, except backwards, when he had to stop "mmmmmmrrrrrr, clack, mmmrrrrrrr, CLACK, luuurrrrrrch, lurch, lurch, chg, chg, chg, pah!"  It was kind of like watching Fred Flintstone, if he'd had a motorcycle instead of a sedan.  Frankly, Garrett amazes me and he amazed the living HELL outta me getting that bike moving without a clutch and never (not once) dropping it while he "yabba dabba doo'ed" his way to a start and stop.

We rolled into Wall, SD just before midnight. It felt like we had been on the road since the dawn of time.  I had reached Zen, I was past Zen.  At this point I was Yoda.  "To ride the bike until the force flows through you I have . . "  I could have taught Zen road meditation to spider monkeys hopped up on espresso shots and crack cocaine if I'd had:

We found the hotel in Wall (Best Western Plain - 605-270-2145) around midnight local time.  I was worried that they'd be closed.  They were closed.  I was at the stage where I would have slept in the space between the front door and the second set of doors to the lobby.  I didn't have to though.  The staff at the Best Western had left our key  in an envelope with instructions for the next morning.  God bless them, every one.  This picture didn't come out, but it is the envelope taped to my filthy windscreen.  It says something like "Scott Poole -you're in room xyz, register with us in the morning."

We unloaded our gear and each took a shower and then collapsed into the warm, firm and matching queen beds.  Five hours later I'd be up and ready to rock and roll, while Garrett would be contemplating whether to kill me or put another pillow over his head.

 

Wall SD to Kellogg, ID (sort of)