Ghosts!

Aguila was a collection of run down, boarded up homes and business' with signs advertising property FOR SALE in every direction.  Faded paint, tumbleweeds blowing about, a feeling of despair in the air.

Even though the town sits on a fairly major crossroads only a mere 90 minutes from Phoenix, it reminded me of one of those towns Charles Bronson would have passed through.  You know the type, bored blonde waitress slightly past her prime, bleached hair tied back in a pony tail, leaning on one elbow, chewing gum, chatting you up... pouring day old coffee from a glass decanter... itching to hitch a ride with the handsome stranger to... well, anywhere.

I only stopped to shed a piece of clothing, the temperature was rising. I left route 60 after only 1 mile east of town, heading across country to my next destination.  Passing under hiway 93, my odometer was rolling over onto 5000 miles, remember this is the good ole US of A.  The XT was still young.

Congress was just a few klicks, umm... miles ahead.  Once I was there it reminded me of what the real Congress of these here United States may be like.  Pretending to be important, signs advertising this and that, and puffing it's little chest out, but in reality just as insignificant as those fools in Washington.

I had scoped out the town via Google last night, apparently there was an Old Ghost town in these here parts.  In fact, as I rode thru from west to east, I came upon a sign that stated "Old Ghost Town Road"

I took it.

Passing by a new subdivision, followed by old acreages perhaps from the sixties, I was never able to find the Old Ghost Town, I'm sure it's back there somewhere.  Signs proclaiming Posted, Private Property and knowing the proliferation of shot guns, rifles and handguns about, I thought better than to just ride onto someones pride and joy.

What I did find was the Old Congress Pioneer cemetery!  The gate was open and I wandered around in the mid 70 degree warmth for half an hour reading those gravestones that were still intact.  Many sites were simply covered with a ring of stones gathered from the surrounding area.  Lots of tiny graves and children of very young ages.

MY mind shot back to 1887, what this place must have been like.  No electricity, no pumps to bring lifegiving water, no farms, no medical attention.  Imagine this, barely a century ago, the South west deserts yielded an unforgiving and harsh beyond belief environment.  To survive here took one hearty bunch of souls, and even then... many simply vanished from the face of the earth.

EVEN today, this was a stark reminder of what it was like outside the urban centers.  Sure you could drive your Toy-hauler back there with your diesel Ram truck, but outside that comfort box, it was still the same old desert.  Fools out here are not suffered gladly.

Without water or food or shelter,you could not long survive the bone chilling nights and the egg frying on hood heat of the day... that is if you could find an egg!



These people came here in wagons, horse or oxen dying along the way, taking months to cover ground my XT and I could do in a single day on good paved or gravel roads.  No cell phones.  No internet to search Google for the safest route across the Donner Pass, No campgrounds with clean restrooms and convenience stores where you could pick up a quart of milk or a candy bar.  Nothing. 

TO survive in those days took skill, luck, determination beyond imagination, and maybe plenty of prayer.  If you didn't succumb to the Apache, a rattlesnake, hunger or thirst... maybe you could eke out a meager living for a year or two.

I wandered and sat in silence for a spell, finding some shade from a gnarly Yucca, drinking ice cold water from my canteen, and eating a ham sandwich I'd prepared that morning.

I left the old Congress Pioneer cemetary behind, bouncing along a rough dirt path down across a washed out gulley and back onto pavement, catching up with US 89 taking me to hiway 93 and back towards Wickenburg.  The XT skimmed along at 55 mph, faster and farther than any horse ever to trod the deserts.

The Greecey road!

IT wasn't long before my itchy throttle hand once again made itself felt. I first noticed it as I was attempting to eat a bowl of corn flakes.  Just a wee little  twitch at first, nothing to be alarmed about.

A few days later, I nearly cut myself shaving with my Swiss army knife.  Then drinking my afternoon cafe, I actually spilt some onto my lap, involuntarily twisting my wrist.

THAT'S when I began to wonder.  A slight mishap or maybe even a couple were perfectly normal, when it was one or two a day, I seriously considered a trip to the local Doctor in Jaszkiser.

What could it be?

I was eating normally, my bowel movements were regular, the color of my eyes had not changed...

IT was a puzzling situation.

Sitting around one morning up in Jaszbereny while sipping an espresso, it finally dawned on me.  Not one of those brick on head  AHA moments, but certainly I had felt as if the puzzle was solved.

Since my long overnight that turned into a couple of weeks, I had done a fair amount of motorcycling with Little Red around Hungary.

I'd seen much of the country via Divvie, even entertaining Barb for a short visit that took us thru the Czech republic back to Auschwitz again, on to Slovakia and yet somehow it was not enough.

Once realizing what the nature of my problem was, it wasn't long before the bags were packed and I had the maps laid out on the table.

There were still several weeks remaining before my departure date and I was ready to ride.

Erzsi came home one afternoon only to hear I was heading south... to Greece.

Yes, I knew it was getting late in the season, yes I knew I was looking at a ride that would certainly be several thousand kilometers and yes I had mentioned that the condition of my tires was not the greatest.

Maybe the ghost of Alexander (the Great) who by the way was Macedonian... was calling me, urging me to conquer the concerns and twist the throttle.

OF course it was raining.  What could I expect at the end of October.  Boy, were those roads leading me from Hungary into Croatia, slick on those worn tires.

Soon enough I was passing from one lengthy tunnel to the next, glad to be out of the cool, damp weather if only for a few minutes at a time.

AFTER a particularly long underground transit, we emerged from 7-8C temps and cloudy skies, to a glorious blue Adriatic Sea!  Sure the sky was still mostly gray but...

A rest stop showed the air temperature at a balmy 16C, and it reflected in my mood, which had greatly improved since leaving HU behind.  In fact one could say that I was somewhat ecstatic.

Even the twitching had ceased!

FOR those of you that have never seen the Croatian coast, picture this.  A tiny sliver of fine pavement sandwiched between mountains that rocket towards the distant sky like a Saturn V, and a sea the color of aquamarine more clear and clean and beautiful than anything you've seen on a Hawaiian brochure!

Gorgeous is the word to describe what was passing by.

SWITCHBACKS brought us down to sea level and carried us high overlooking the waves.  Italy was somewhere to my west and behind the mountains was the history (sometimes violent) of the Balkans.

Greece was a long ways off and I had several contingency plans if the weather or tires were un co-operative, but I was quite determined to have a go as the Brits say...

AFTER all unless your name is Bond, James Bond... you only live once.

The weather although never hot or sunny for long was certainly acceptable as long as the rains held off.

It's very hard to ride at a fast pace on these mountain roads and to be perfectly honest, I had no desire too.

THERE were plenty of photo ops, and not only did I want to commit the sights to 'film' but I enjoyed the brief periods of warmer feelings wearing a black jacket and soaking in the heat.

By the end of a long day that had begun under rainy skies and sub 10 degree temperature, I had pulled off at the very picturesque community of Gradac.  Aided by a young English speaking beauty named Isabella, I secured a room on the top floor of a small home pension, with a wonderful view of the town and sea and distant islands to my west...

and a towering mountain to the east.

HERE I would spend the next two nights, wandering, shopping and cooking a delicious steak, potatoes and veggy meal for myself, while catching up on my reading.

Maybe I'll just forget Greece altogether and enjoy a couple of weeks here in this little paradise, Croatia.

Aguila!

Riding, like life, has twists, turns, forks in the road, ups and downs and sometimes just straight and narrow for as far as the eye can see.

You just never quite know what's coming at you next do ya :)

Take last fall's ride on the venerable Apache Trail.

Just a pleasure cruise in the back country of the Superstitions, that does not go as planned.

I'd arrived in mid March to a Phoenix of warm weather, only to be faced with a major drop in temperatures soon after turning the key in the lock, coupled with rain, hail and in the higher elevations over 4 feet of snow!

You read that right, in a desert, not far from the Grandest of Canyons, there was 53 inches of snowfall literally overnight and one day.

Good thing I wasn't headed there I thought to myself.  To be perfectly honest, I don't much relish the following items in no particular order.





Having my nipples freeze.
Scraping frost from my visor.
Mud.
Running out of gas.
Flat tires.
Being lost and never finding my way home again.
 Having to push the bike.
 Falling onto cactus.


I decided as I often do, with a toss of the dice.  In my case, checking out the map and Google Earth and looking for someplace I have A)  Never been before B)  Has at least 40% gravel and C)  Cool names like Aguila or Vulture Mine road or Dead Horse wash!

 So... like millions afore me... I headed west. 

Somehow I wound my way out of the city, along familiar Bell Rd to the Sun Valley Freeway... and with no GPS to guide me, found myself on the Tonopah-Salome highway, which at this point was 99% sand!   To get here from there, involved good pavement, several Google roads which unfortunately had wire strung across them or were simply non-existent, and a flirt with a well planned brand new neighborhood (Buckeye) on the other side of the White Mountain regional Park.



Once across I-10 for a fill up and directions to Aquila, the helpful staff of one guy with a Blackberry and two women, sent me off to Vulture Mine rd.  It's simply amazing what the WWW has done for  accessing information isn't it.  After all, with a "phone" in hand now, you can get the latest weather report up to the minute in Beijing China, the results of the Toronto SX, or directions to some obscure dead town in the middle of a desert!  The ever helpful staff warned me that my planned route was extremely rough road and I would be better running down the Interstate then north via Eagle Eye road on pavement!

Rough road?  Me??  What are the chances eh???

Smiling briefly at the Los Angeles turn-off and remembering another XT trip of long gone days, I glimpsed the Papago Freeway (I-10) as I headed back several miles to 355 Avenue north.

The pavement was about as perfect as pavement gets, the corners were smooth and wide, the stripes stood out like candy canes on a Christmas tree.

Little traffic on this gentle back road, the occasional Harley or similar passed by the opposite direction.  It still surprises me to see grown men, riding their bikes, with little more than a bald scalp or red/white/blue bandanna above their eyebrows.

Not sure how they do it, I feel positively naked without a lid on.

I had quite the trip in mind, kinda multi purpose really.  I wanted to check out the back road into Aguila, then go cross country to a place named Congress, which like the Washington version, seemed devoid of humanity and life in general.  There was a Ghost town up there I wanted to scope out.

From Congress I was going to swing by Wickedburg for a bite to eat, and if there was time in the day remaining, take the back way into Peoria via the Castle Hot Springs rd... but here I am giving away my story.  Getting ahead of myself to to speak...

Although I didn't see any Jackrabbits at Jack Rabbit wash, I did see one at Dead Horse! 

As often happens when I'm tooling around in these out of the way places, I came upon a fork in the road which of course, was not signed.  I even wandered around looking for a post on the ground but nada.  'Cept for the quality of the road surface, this could have been Baja California.

I had an apple as I pondered which way to turn, either would have been fine I'm sure, but I choose the right fork.

Arrow straight for miles, we soldiered along at 55 mph, skimming the washboard ripples, enjoying the warmth and feeling the freedom that only riding gives you...

THE Carnival is in town...

and by that I don't mean me !

It was 84 degrees F the day after I hit town.  Just across Olive Ave, I saw the annual mini-carnival set up on the Glendale Community College grounds.

What better way to spend a Saturday if you're a kid than hang out at the fun fair. 

Unfortunately by Sunday morning, the temperatures had dropped almost 30 degrees and rain had moved in.

A major winter storm arrived just in time for spring and my own arrival in Glendale.  The TV weather gal was warning of huge snowfalls north of town and plenty of rain in the valley.  The definition of a desert is sparse annual rainfall and typically that's the case to be sure.

 However, that isn't always so...

Every station had ominous radar maps of an imposing cold front moving in from the Pacific.  Obviously Mother Nature does not pay attention to calendar dates.

An inch of rain for a place that sees less than 12 a year, all at once is mighty significant.

Up around Flagstaff, it was going to be worse, much worse.  Some locales were expecting as much as 18" of snow.

As it turned out, the "experts" were wrong again.

By Monday morning the daily high in Phx was in the low 50's and I 40 and 17 around Flagstaff were shut down in all directions.  The eye on the spot reporters from each station were showing massive truck and carnage on the highways!

Semi's jack-knifed, passenger cars squished and kids having fun doing something they rarely get to do... slide down hills on pieces of plastic, trash can lids and sleds!  There was even a family interviewed that had driven from Tuscon several hundred miles to relish the snowfall.

As for the predicted 18"... Snowbowl (appropriately named) had received 53" in the first thirty six hours!

On my patio was small hail and lots of rain...

The TIMES... they are a changin'

It's been a heck of a long time ago since I first drove I 15 to Phoenix Arizona.  January 18th 1998 in fact.  That drive was made in a propane powered Dodge Ram van with the seats and bed taken out, and two blue XT 600's in their place.  I clearly remember the Monida pass in southern Montana/Idaho as being snow covered and white knuckle treacherous.

It was the beginning of a 6000 plus kilometer back country adventure of Baja, California with bits of the real CA thrown in for good measure.  I liked it well enough and the impressions I gathered, have lasted a long time.  I've made the same hike with minor variations many times in the succeeding years.  This one, that began last Wednesday, may be my last drive from my home in Calgary.

I've gotten older (haven't we all) hopefully a lot wiser and with a few thousand more miles under my belt/butt.  Since that very first 6 week trip I've had a lot of experiences both on the ground and in the air.  By my estimate and recollections I have traveled to over 30 countries and countless air/sea and land miles.

Some of the highlights over those years:

Lemme see... crossing the Mexican border for the very first time.  We rode over an invisible line, no fanfare, no stopping, just dropped back 50 years in time.  Old cars, hand painted signage, holy streets.  Cheap motels, cheap food, cheap gas.

Riding with Lantie and Holly.  Karen showing up at my palapa as I just finished my shower and draped only in a towel singing a very poor rendition of Besseme Mucho at the top of my lungs.  Buying gas from a 5 gallon pail supplied thru a garden hose.  Cracking my ankle on a back country ride and still building a 20 foot heart from rocks gathered on the hillside for Barb the day after.  A boat ride with Cap'n Ron and first mate Marilyn, being asked by US border services if I was hiding any illegal aliens (not so laughable 'cept I was riding an XT 600 at the time!) watching the dolphins surface all around me while in my 10' kayak paddling across the Bay.  After a dozen years,  prices have risen to record levels everywhere, but Mexico is still the same.  Cheap food, cheap motels and still cheap gas.

On this last trip, as I am approaching L.V. I'm overflown by not one, not two but four A 10 Warthogs, coming in for a landing at Nellis airbase.  The scourge of Iraqi ground armor in both desert wars, a flying tank-buster of a plane, distinct and unique. 

I wonder what my last drive home will be like...

It's been a great pleasure for me to live in the western half of the continent.  The scenery, the mountains, beautiful lakes, dry desert rivers, tremendous pine forests... as I write this, two youngsters on motorized scooters are going by my window here at the condo.  Two stroke engines crackling in my ear.  It's not even 8 am on a sunny Saturday morning.  Yet another new experience to bank...

OLD is good. Specially when it comes to friends!

WHAT in the Hell is wrong with our society anyway?!@!?





Why do we think that something/one old is not worthwhile?

How easily we discard something that was once valuable to us, but now seemingly is worthless? 

It's true that technology moves forward, I wouldn't be writing this to you in the same manner, or maybe not at all, if it weren't for technology.  My first VCR cost me a whopping $750 when a car could be bought for 5 grand.  My first computer was nearly 5 large during the early eighties.  The laptop I am working on, I bought last year for 500 bucks.  It's quite a contrast to the Mac's sitting downstairs on the shelf.

I have a bunch of old motorcycles, no Z rated tires to be seen, no chip controlled fuel delivery, not a mag wheel or streamlined fairing among the lot.  Some of them even have points and condensers!

There's a cherished blue MGB under it's cover in my garage.  It has a single Stromberg CV carburetor under it's hood and a pushrod engine.  No EFI Double Overhead Cam 4 valve, flat/inline/V something or other to brag about to those that feel it's important to have such things.  Even the rag top  is operated not by the push of a button, but a confusing set of instructions to lift or store the thing.  Don't get me wrong... it's

 

Not that I despise Porches, or Beemers or Ferrari's... not at all, but if I had one of those, it would likely qualify for vintage insurance like the B out back.



I had a call today (by phone!) from John Metcalfe (not his real name... Okay, it's his real name but I'm intentionally mispronouncing it to mislead you and protect his identity.) 

John is one of my dearest and oldest friends.*  I first met him in 1977 while working in Fort Mac.  You see, John and some family members, did what I had wanted to do up there, open a Yamaha dealership. 

At first Four Season's RV was a pretty modest business, small confined space, selling snowmobiles (not ski-doos) and a line of campers and trailers, hence the RV in the title.  I was a machinist at the Oil sands and a motorcycle rider and racer.  When I was kick-starting a Canada Safety Council motorcycle program (that's a whole 'nother story)  I approached them to loan some bikes, which they gladly did.



Prior to my leaving for the East coast, I offered my services to John as a sales/parts/gopher/advertising guy.  He told me I 'd make a lousy salesman, and he was probably right.  If I had to make a living selling carpets and trinkets to tourists on a Baghdad street corner, I'd likely starve.  What I did have was passion, drive, enthusiasm (Dr. N. get it ) and a desire to learn the biz.  Being in a highly paid trade in those days, earning on average a couple grand a month (the equivalent today to 4-5 times that) I made John an offer he couldn't refuse, I'd work for $500 a month, the amount needed to cover my mortgage.

To my surprise and his credit, he agreed... but threw in some bonus money based on whatever machines, parts or accessories I sold.  Needless to say, my paycheck was substantially higher at year end to everyone's surprise.  I worked there for 3 years before heading east to start Freedom Cycle.

I may not be a salesman, but I know my stuff and what questions to ask...

 

Back to the phone call... we could easily have talked for several hours, laughing and reminiscing about what were truly, the "Good old days"  Unlike most, these really were.  Before hanging up the receiver or in my case the headset, we agreed that before I departed once again for parts east, I would make a trip to his Devon home, to where he has retired since selling the biz.

 

John is a man that has lived thru some tough times, economically, mentally and physically.  By his own account he's had 467 heart attacks and beaten the big "C" to boot.  Today he seems pretty content on the little acreage to putter about on the John Deere and chop wood.

His call certainly made my day, which began rather roughly.

You see, even though we haven't seen each other or talked much lately as is the case with many of my friends... the bond is still solid and evident.  So what if we're getting old?  Who gives a hoot, we're aging gracefully and no matter how much time passes, or distance between myself and my good friends,* they will always remain so. 

People in business often forget this Golden rule.  It's people that make the difference, not things.  We cherish things and technology, when a new Porsche can never be a best friend.  Only best friends can...

Dr. N.

* A short version of a long list:

Frenda, Rob, Rusty, Diane, Mike, Mike, and Mike, Barb, Karen, Bel, Donnie and Nora, Hance, Judy, Karen, Carole, Dianne, Tom, Deryl, Judy, Dennet, Mike, Ron and Ron, Lisa, John, Marylin, Connie and dozens more...