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"Road Trips" by The Old Squid
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the
Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be
swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins
Bonneville, Part 2
The Capitol of Nothing
posted 10/13/2007
I grew up in Oregon so there are very few nooks and crannies in the
state that I haven’t explored but today finds me on one. After a three-day
layover in Bend I finally get together with my friends who had left the
island earlier in the week. We meet at a truck stop in La Pine Oregon,
coming in from different directions, tied with the cell phone threads
that bind so well in the modern world.
After breakfast, we start by
heading down highway 31 towards Lakeview Oregon. I’ve been on this road
in a couple of previous trips but it’s worth doing again. This is one
of the nicer back roads in a state filled with nice secondary roads and
this one seems to be built with summer motorcycle rides in mind: just
enough curves, just enough straight road, just enough scenery, just
enough variety. Goldilocks would think that this is the perfect road,
just right in all respects.
We travel through Paisley Oregon, home of
the world famous mosquito festival! I think they do this just for their
own sense of whimsy because I don’t think that this is a big tourist
draw. Nice to see a town that isn’t obsessed with its image and the all
mighty dollar though. Paisley is in the middle of nowhere but it’s a
pretty middle of nowhere and the residents are quite happy with it
thank you.
Just above Lakeview we turn off onto hwy 140 and here is my new road.
This will lead us to Nevada and points east. This is still Oregon and
the scenery is still green. Even here in this high desert it’s been a
damp year so the sage and scrub still has a green color on this late
August day. The road winds and twists but it’s been a couple of years
since I’ve been on the XX so at first I’m stiff and hesitant about the
corners.
I follow a friend on a more touring oriented bike figuring
that if his bike can take the corner then certainly mine can handle it.
This is true but it takes awhile to loosen up and enjoy it. Ray moved
to La Pine last year and he’s been riding a lot and it shows as he
carves through the corners as smooth as butter.
That’s the town of Denino 15 miles away.
The road rises, falls, and finally rises some more until we reach the
Nevada state line. As we go farther into Nevada the road straightens
and the corners ease and the scenery gets brown! As I approach the town
of Denio on the Oregon border the road passes through a valley with
scrub marsh on both sides. There is no wildlife in sight except the
ubiquitous turkey vultures. There is no traffic in sight. There is no
law enforcement in sight...hmm. Since I want to see how fast the bike
will go, I should "blow the carbon out" as my mother, my lead-footed
mother used to say.
See, this speed thing really is genetic. During WW
II, Mom was in the Coast Guard Spars. She drove trucks on the east
coast and of all the trucks in the motor pool, hers was the only one
fitted with a governor!
Soon I’m cruising down the road at 145 while
the mud flats zip by. It would be fun to do a real top speed run here
but there is a good side wind so I drop out of warp and motor down the
road at 105. I can see miles ahead and the brush hides no animal bigger
than a mouse so I keep this up for 60 miles.
Distance melts at these
autobahn speeds and so does fuel. The next tank of gas has my mileage
falling to 25 mpg with only part of the distance at the triple digit
boogey! Yikes! I need to watch fuel consumption here because along with
wide-open spaces comes a lack of services.
And there are wide-open spaces. Actually, that sounds far too scenic.
Let’s just say that Nevada is full of Nothing. In fact, there may be
more of Nothing in Nevada than any other state in the union! Nevada is
the mother lode of Nothing.
After a night in Winnemucca, we jump on to
US 80 and really start the Tour D' Nothing. There are towns marked on
the map that are nothing but a single gas station, no houses. And of
course, every gas station is a "casino" because there is at least one
slot in every inhabited building in this state. I think that it must be
in the building code because never were we far from the chance to drain
money from our pocket before it went bad.
After a few days being
bombarded by the relentless flashing lights and invitations to pay the
stupid tax. I mean gamble! I started to applaud the decision to test
nuclear weapons in this state. Well over a hundred were exploded here
but Nothing was really harmed. Just millions of taxpayers getting even
for all of the money lost. There is a long rant that I could do about
the 'gaming industry' but it's already been done and Americans have
proven resistant to cautions about gambling addiction so I'll let it
pass.
Brightly colored fishing lures for human suckers!
On I drove, a short ridge followed by an endless valley. This is the
classic Basin and Range country and it shows all of the hallmarks of
that western landscape here. The ranges are a parallel series of
vertical faults that stand tall and the basins are the area between
that sometimes is relatively lower and sometimes truly lower.
Death
Valley has fallen below sea level. The salt flats stand tall in actual
altitude (4500’) but they are still below the surrounding mountains.
All of the water drains into the basins but from there, there is no
exit. Given enough rain, the basins become inland seas like Great Salt
Lake. Others dry up like the Flats and others are dry deserts. This is
inhospitable terrain and life clings, burrows, and hides here. All
except for humans.
At a rest area I read a historical marker about the ill fated Donner
party passing to the south on their way over the pass in the Shastas
that eventually was named for them. Life was tough before the internal
combustion engine!
Now we whiz along the four-lane freeway well above the
marked 80 mph speed limit. Law enforcement isn't lax but it's very
selective. Go fast in thick traffic and you're busted. Go fast on a
lonely open road and you're ignored or given a token ticket of 5 mph
over the posted limit.
Earlier in the summer an internet acquaintance
set a seven-day record for the most distance traveled on a motorcycle. He
had a Honda Blackbird like mine and he fitted it with extra fuel cells.
He then plotted a course around the state of Nevada and in seven days he
traveled over 10,700 miles! He got two tickets.
One was when he was pulled
over for doing 122 in a 65. The ticket was written up for 70 in a 65.
The second ticket was a similar speed and it was also written for 5
over the limit.
I droned along the freeway headed for the Utah line at 90. Faster and
the wind was too tiring. Cars AND TRUCKS doing 100+ passed me
constantly.
The destination in the distance.
One last pass lay before me: Silver Pass at 5940 feet elevation. Before
I topped it there was a glimmer of white off to my left. Salt flats!
The road veered right though but I knew that I was close. Finally, as I
crested the pass, the real Salt flats spread out before me.
Fading into
the distance, I was stunned at how broad they were. Even from this high
elevation the far side was lost over the curve of the earth. I dropped
down into West Wendover and checked in at the "world famous Nugget
casino" I quickly unpacked and headed out to the Speedway to get the
lay of the land.
To be continued...
- The Old Squid
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