Wall SD to Deer Lodge MT

May 22, 2005

688 Miles

As mentioned in the previous page - I awoke about 3 hours earlier than Garrett did.  Our bodies' internal clock is probably the #1 cause of conflict between Garrett and I.  I wake up considerably earlier than he does.  When I wake up, I want to get moving and I want to get moving NOW.  My theory on vacation is this:  I have very little vacation, very little daylight hours, very little time in general before I am back getting my soul slowly ground out of me at work. 

Actually "I have very little time" is a big part of my philosophy about life.  Right now, I am dying of old age.  If nothing else kills me, I can rest assured that I will slowly rot to death from the inside out.  I don't have time to waste, every day the person I was the day before dies and an infinitesimally older person wakes up to take his place.  I don't have time to waste on idiots, I don't have time to waste goofing off, I don't have time to waste on anything at all.  Whether I am working or playing, I don't have time to fool around at it.  Every breath I take will be my last, every time I go to sleep I know a little slice of me is gone forever.  Each minute I spend with friends and family must have every drop of goodness squeezed out of it - because I don't know for sure when it will come by again.

Even on vacation, the last thing I want to do is spend any more time asleep than the bare minimum required to be recharged and ready to do it again. Sleep isn't anything more to me than a required reset in between the adventures of my life.  I can't speak for Garrett - but I think this attitude drives him absolutely up the wall.  Sleep is a sport for Garrett, and I think he's going for Olympic Gold the way he practices at it.

While Garrett was sleeping I took to trying to solve the problem of Garrett's dead clutch.  Garrett's bike uses DOT4 brake fluid for clutch and brakes and the most obvious symptom of his clutch failure was that there was NO fluid to actuate the clutch with.  Make a note of this, finding DOT4 brake fluid is a pain in the @ss.  First off, it was a Sunday and we were in Wall, South Dakota.  That means that both of the town's hardware stores were closed.  Furthermore, gas stations don't generally stock DOT4 brake fluid.  They have row after row of DOT3, but no DOT4. 

I did manage to scare the living hell out of the guy who works at the ACE Hardware in Wall, SD though.  I saw him pop in the store from across the street and I followed right over there.  He had the lights off and I think he was doing some accounting in the back, in any event he had no intention of opening for business.  After I explained my dilemma to him he let me in and we looked together for DOT4 brake fluid - to no avail.

By the time I got back Garrett was, well he was still asleep.  I took the initiative and asked him if he wanted to get up and start getting ready for our trip.  He got up (eventually), and we loaded up and got ready for breakfast and the day's ride.

Wall, South Dakota is home to Wall Drug and you can't be in Wall, South Dakota without stopping in for a visit.  We stopped in and checked it out.  It was the coolest tourist trap I have ever been in.  In fact, it isn't really fair to call it a tourist trap - it has LOTS and LOTS of very useful stuff at very reasonable prices.  Camping gear, boots, knives, a complete drug store and lots of nifty, kitschy little places to stop and take a picture - as such

Wall Drug has a pretty decent and pretty cheap (about $7) breakfast buffet.  It seemed to me at the time that people were a little standoffish in the cafe, but I was probably in a rotten mood and growling at everyone around me.  I was in a particularly salty mood, I was worried about the clutch and I knew we had a LONG day of riding ahead of us. 

That, plus it is REALLY hard to reach escape velocity in Wall . . I don't know exactly how they do it, but once you stop in Wall Drug it seems like it takes you HOURS to actually get out of town.  There is always something coming up, something to stop and look at, or something you forgot that has you running back to the restaurant. 

We finally escaped Wall and headed to Rapid City to get Garrett's clutch fixed.  We stopped at a Flying J truckstop - assuming (wrongly) that a truck stop would have DOT 4 Brake Fluid.  NOTE - when you take long motorcycle trips, be sure to bring with you any fluids that aren't normally accessible - we'd have solved this problem HOURS before if I'd known in advance that finding DOT 4 brake fluid is like looking for a 17 year old blonde virgin in LA and done the smart thing and brought my own (brake fluid - I don't have much use for a 17 year old virgin, let that be someone else's headache, come to me AFTER you know what you're doing).

We decided that the best thing to do was for Garrett to set up base camp at the Flying J and for me to head into Rapid City proper and secure some DOT 4 brake fluid. While I was gone, Garrett traced out the lines and found out not only what the problem was, but where it was and how to fix it for the short term.  Prior to joining the Army, Garrett worked on cars and he has a real knack for the mechanical.  Car work sucks though, so Garrett joined the Army and is now a medic - where I guess he is applying his skill for the mechanical on moving / organic parts . .

 There was a full service auto shop at the next exit off the highway.  STILL I had a hard time finding "DOT 4" brake fluid.  What I DID find was DOT3, ABS, DOT4 combined brake fluid.  This immediately made me wonder if I had missed the same stuff the night before - though I doubt it.  I stared at those stupid brake fluid bottles until my eyes crossed, desperately hoping I could make one of them say "DOT 4" if I looked at it long enough. 

Garrett and I drained and refilled the clutch, then pumped all the air out of the line until Garrett was satisfied we had sufficient clutch pressure for him to continue.  All in all we spent about 2 freakin' HOURS from the time we left Wall until we finally pulled out of Rapid City.

It was probably 11am before we left Rapid City, South Dakota and started heading westward.  About 10 minutes out of Rapid City the highway riding started getting really good.  Put it this way, the highways in this part of America are better than most of the backroads in Florida.  There are hills, there are turns, there are turns WITH hills . . .

Riding through Wyoming was the most fun we'd had on this trip.  Even Chattanooga (2 days before) didn't hold a candle to Wyoming.  Big, HUGE sweeping turns and very gentle hills.  We thought they were mountains at the time - heheheheheh - and by comparison to what we'd seen to that point we were right.  Still, Wyoming was kind, welcoming and quite gentle compared to what we'd find as we moved ahead.

Hostile Injuns

We did have a bad experience of sorts when we first crossed into Montana.  I-90 meets with I-25 and just north of Sheridan it crosses into Montana.  What we didn't know at the time was that once into Montana you are immediately in a Crow Indian Reservation.  I am not very knowledgeable of Crow history - but if it is anything like other Native American history it probably doesn't have a lot of positive interaction with the rest of America or Americans in general.  This would certainly explain a) the "Kill all whites" graffiti and the less than hospitable reception we received when we stopped for gas.  Short version - those people were jerks.  I have absolutely no guilt over things that I didn't do.  So far I haven't killed any Indians so I don't see why I should be treated as if I did.  Still, I suppose there's always time to consider killing an Indian.  I also learned that Indians have no sense of humor.  I popped off a quip like "thank god I am bald - nobody around here wants a bald guy's scalp, do they?" at the gas station at on the res.  If they hadn't made their mind up about me before, I am pretty sure they had after that . . . screw it - it isn't like they were GONNA be nice to me before.

Once we were out of Crow country the ride was fine.  Even IN Crow country it was only hostile when you stopped and we only stopped once.  I guess it isn't fair to say the Crow res was hostile based on the experiences I had with every single person I came in contact with during a brief 15 minute or so period - but that is kinda the way life works I guess.

Loose Lizards and Weathering the Weather

As we moved westward Garrett pulled over for what I thought was no apparent reason.  Actually, he had TWO reasons for pulling over.  One was that there was a REALLY nasty storm ahead of us and the other was that he REALLY had to whiz and there was nothing around.  Nothing, not a blade of grass to hide behind - just stand behind your bike and wave to traffic while you let your lizard loose.

Two loose lizards later Garrett pointed to the storm and said "THAT is gonna be bad."  Garrett has picked up some nifty neato skills in the Army and I guess one of them involves knowing when to bolt your ass down and get some cover.  I saw the clouds and didn't give them a second thought - it really didn't look that bad to me.  WOW was I wrong.  This would be the scariest experience I have ever had on a motorcycle and I was about to find out exactly how wide my eyes were capable of opening.  Basically the road ahead of us passed directly through the mountains before coming into Butte Montana. 

The pass itself is congested and needs to be widened - that didn't bother me, there was a lot of traffic, THAT didn't bother me.  It was raining horizontally - that sorta bothered me.  The rain was coming in sheets and it wasn't coming down on us, it was being blown at us at an almost 90 degree angle.  The wind was incredible!  There weren't even clouds over us, the clouds were probably 2 miles to our left!  I was in the far right 1/3rd of the right lane when a gust of wind blew me across the left lane, across the right lane and onto the shoulder.  It didn't steer the bike, it dragged it.  I felt the tires grinding underneath me and did everything I could just to keep it from being knocked out from under me.  Worse still, the traffic was jammed bumper to bumper and I had NO control on my lane change, just hang on, lean as far as you can to the left to keep it upright and wish for the best. 

When I got control of the bike I shouldered it and Garrett pulled over too.  Here is what I remember saying: "OHMYF*CKINGGODCANYOUF*CKINGBELIEVETHISWE'RE GONNAF*CKINGDIEINTHEMIDDLEOFNOWHERE, YOU'REALLOVERTHEROADMOTHERF*CKER ANDIFWEWRECKOUTHEREWE'REF*CKED!!!"

Garrett said "SCOTT!"

Scott said "WHAT??!!"

Garrett said "CALM DOWN"

Scott said "ok . . . "

No bullshirt, I was freaked the ford out . . that was the most scared on a motorcycle I have been to date.  The mental images raging through my mind included having a 600lb motorcycle slide out from under me, breaking a leg, then being run over by the people behind me.  Not pretty to be sure.  I was freaked and STAYED freaked for hours to come. 

We made it through the storm in probably less than 30 minutes.  It all happened that fast, on the other side of the storm I pulled over to hyperventilate and take a few pictures.  Now, keep in mind, we left LATE from Wall, SD and now it was probably 5pm.  We still were scheduled for Kellogg, ID that evening and it was starting to look like it was going to be another LOOOONG night of riding.

As the sun went down, the bad weather continued.  It also started to get seriously cold now.  HERE is where my poor choice in gear started to become very apparent.  The seal around my visor was shot, and water was now coming in from the top of the helmet, dripping down into my face.  My feet were soaked and freezing as were my hands. So, in short, cold, freezing, and blind . . . nice.  Plus which, Garrett and I had miscommunications on who was leading. I couldn't see anything, so I wanted him to lead - at the very least I could limp along behind his tail lights, but we kept getting out of synch with one of us pulling too far ahead, or falling too far behind.  I really screwed up on gear, I had basically NOT prepared for bad weather.  I was prepared for mild weather, warm weather, and even chilly weather, but I had NO preparation for cold and wet and I was very fortunate that it didn't cost me worse than it did.

Garrett, on the other hand, was very well equipped.  He was warm, dry and annoyed that I couldn't keep up.  I was miserable, I had lost feeling in my hands and my feet.  "Screw it" I thought, "I'll just tuck in and ride this out for another few hours."  Thankfully, though irritated, Garrett decided to stop in Deer Lodge so we could warm up and sleep for the night.  We pulled into this little town, found a hotel, unloaded our stuff and crashed out.

Before going nighty night though, Garrett wanted to give me some helpful advice on all the things I had done wrong.  He was absolutely right, on all points.  I had prepared at the last minute in Tampa, I hadn't brought the right gear and now it was costing us.  He did lighten up a little when I told him "I can't see - at ALL."  He also thought it was at least a little odd that I would choose the moment he was griping at me as the last photo op for the day.

I called the hotel in Kellogg and explained that we hit bad weather and were not going to make it, they were very understanding and didn't charge us for the night.  We locked up the bikes and called it a night.

Deer Lodge to Seattle