June 1- 2, 2001

The Long, Cold, Painful, Scary and Stinky Ride Home

After we finished up at the Grand Canyon we went back to the hotel to sleep, get our stuff, and make the final leg home.  By this time, we were completely out of clean clothes (though we had dropped our stuff off in Vegas a few days earlier, all we had left that was clean were socks and underwear).  We had been getting up in the morning before the sun would rise and riding all day long - this gave us maximum daylight riding and let us roll into our stopover town just as the sun was setting.  One of the problems we had, though, was that we were NOT equipped for the changes in temperature.  June in Central Texas is HOT, or at least warm.  Flagstaff is COLD in June, not a little mind you, but in the 40's.  Worse still, we had a couple of solid hours of riding in the cold ahead of us. 

We got up, hit a Denny's for breakfast and headed out on the road.  About an hour into it, freezing from the cold, exhausted, and on a full belly - we had to stop.  We found a rest stop with a bathroom and some little nooks and crannies outside to sleep in.  Garrett crashed out in one spot, and I picked another.  We were exhausted, on the edge, and already smelled like roadkill.  I am not sure how it works, but being cold and then being hot in the same clothes REALLY works up a stink.  At this point we were beyond caring.  This, right here, right now, is why I ride.  We were on the edge of nirvana - nothing mattered any more - nothing but the road.  We had to sleep so we could ride and we had to ride so we could get out of the cold.  The ride was hard, the cold bit like nails - it made your speech slow and your body ache.  You took deep breaths and held them so you could get a little warm air - I was in heaven.  Here is a shot of Garrett - past the point of caring and pushed beyond his limits.  I took this shot, got my gear off my bike, and took a nap on a big rock in the middle of a field with the sun directly on me and my head covered with a dirty shirt.  When I woke up, I wanted to get on my bike just to get some distance from my own stink.

I really, really misjudged the amount of time it took to get from Flagstaff to the Texas Border, and even then misjudged the amount of time it would take us to Amarillo and subsequently to Austin.  I had pegged it at a 15 hour ride - and I was WAY off. 

I am not sure how many hours we rode, stopping for gas, living on beef jerky and water (our staple foods on the Arizona / New Mexico portion of the trip) but by the time we got to the Texas border the temperature was already dropping again.  We had gone from cold in the morning in Flagstaff to hot during the day to cold as the sun set again.  Garrett and I both were past the point of words - we were at that point where we both pretty much knew what the other was thinking.  These are the last shots we took, it was the last time either of us wanted to pull over for any reason other than to sleep in our own beds.  We were toast - I don't think we even said much when we took these pictures, we just stopped - out of habit now mostly, set up the camera - took the shots, and kept rolling.  

It was only a few more hours to Amarillo - which is where we stopped for a meal and a shower.  The ride though was ugly.  There was road construction, biting cold, bugs the size of my head and very, very rude drivers.  This was when I began to realize I was ready to leave Texas.  I had been contemplating it before, but having seen Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico made the psycho-rudeness combined with the snotty arrogance that Texans take for granted a bit too much for me to handle.  I think we each had one clean shirt left, or at least one "less disgusting" shirt.  We stopped at a Travel America.  Truckers, unlike most people, understand 18 hours on the road and they will give you the space and respect needed without making obvious judgement of your character.  If being a trucker paid more than being an IBM geek I would change jobs - or at least consider it.  The idea was to shower, eat, rest for a few minutes and then drive on into the night.  After the shower, we sat down for a meal, and whatever remaining energy we had was gone.  It was after midnight - and a broken hotel sign was blinking "$29.99 rooms" across the street.  We agreed that for our safety we should stop for a few hours and sleep. 

$29.99 will get you a room full of dead bugs, with the sound of 18 wheelers idling outside (a sound I can sleep to almost anytime / anywhere now) as well as the sight of a drunk man pissing while he walks across the parking lot.  It would do.  Garrett and I had both showered at the Truckstop, which was good because I wouldn't take a crap in the bathroom in our hotel room - it was that nasty.  We both slept with our clothes on, our knives out, and one eye open.  "When you wake me" Garrett said "you'd better not shake me," I couldn't have agreed more.

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