Published: June 28, 2007 10:46 pm      

Blazing Saddlebags

Sand in the spokes - the long ride home

Massive amounts of saltwater and miles of desert marked the final stages of my cross-country motorcycle trip before I made it back into God’s country — our very own Texas.

Crossing out of Montana, through the panhandle of Idaho (real puny panhandle compared to ours), and into Washington was an adventure in and of itself — especially through Idaho. The mountains there had Interstate 90 winding and twisting, even complete with 50 mph and 40 mph curves and steep grades.

But it was the off-road riding, after getting on and off of Interstate 5 in Washington, that was the best part of the trip as I made my way to the Pacific Ocean, my final destination/goal for the trip.

Taking State Highway 6 off I-5 at Chehalis, Washington, I wound my way through the timber industry area of the state. Spattering rain, very intermittent, dotted my trip but wasn’t bad enough to don my rain gear.

I made it to South Bend (not where Notre Dame is, LOL) and pulled up to a questionable motel. The sign told me to go to the restaurant next door for a room. The motel owner took one look at my bike and my tattoos and announced he didn’t have a vacancy, even though there were only a few cars parked at his motel.

Don’t think he was telling the truth, but it turned into a really nice gift.

Just down the road, and about a block off the highway right in the middle of the town, was the SeaQuest Inn. During my one day stay there, I met the owner and his wife after a really nice lady at the front counter told me about the couple’s efforts in renovating the inn.

The SeaQuest has been a place of lodging for 116 years, located just about a half-mile from the Pacific. It doesn’t have much in the way of access to the water. In fact, I don’t think the whole town did, but the establishment is wonderful and inexpensive.

My room was set up like an efficiency apartment. Opening the door revealed a living room/kitchen setup. Two recliners with a table in-between them, a full stove and refrigerator with sink and — I was so happy — a full, 12-cup coffee pot (the only one I saw on my trip) just started the setup. A microwave was present, as well as a couple of settings of dishes, silverware, water glasses, drink glasses, wine glasses and other such amenities.

The bedroom was separate. The bed had a regular, old-fashioned bed spread and the walls were lightly decorated with pictures. It had a small dresser and a regular closet. And the bathroom was located off the bedroom with a regular cabinet sink with medicine cabinet hanging over it. No tub, but a single stall shower had great water pressure.

It was only $79 for the night and it beat the heck out of an upscale motel I had stayed in the night before in Idaho’s panhandle where I had paid $163 just because I was so beat I didn’t want to go check out any other nearby hotel.

Leaving South Bend, I continued down Highway 6 until it turned into U.S. Highway 101. It was a fun ride, but I had forgotten one thing.

Filling my motorcycle with gasoline.

I was lucky, though, driving about 35 miles with the gas tank indicator flashing at me and finally pulling into the town of Sea Breeze, Washington on the Long Beach Penisula. Filling up, and taking on four gallons into my 4.5 gallon tank, I figure I had made it with about 15 to 20 miles of travel to spare.

But I saw no access to the ocean. I went to the next town on the penisula — Long Beach itself, about a half-mile down Highway 103 — and just happened to glance at one of those small, square, brown road signs (like we have here in some places) hanging on a signal light pole.

“Beach,” it said, with an arrow pointing to the west.

I had already gotten too far into the intersection to make the turn, so I went to the next western turn and made the block around to catch that road.

I drove west on the now-correct roadway ... and saw a gap dead ahead.

And white foam.

The closer I got down the nine or 10 blocks, the louder the sound became.

Surf hitting the beach.

And the salt-smell got stronger.

Then I ran out of road ... I mean, there was no more. I had driven from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and finally had nowhere else to go.

I hit hard-packed sand, then parked. I couldn’t go out on the beach because of a metal barrier with a stop sign mounted on the middle of its span.

I shut off the engine.

And the sound of waves and wind sprinkled with a strange silence cascaded into my ears and over my entire body.

I turned and fumbled in my motorcycle bag strapped to the bike and pulled out my small, point-and-shoot camera, then carefully put one Tony Llama boot down after the other on the steadily softening sand and walked toward the ocean.

Strangely, I had some light tears in my eyes.

Many of you who follow obituaries here in the newspaper know that I lost my wife Joanne to a heart attack in January last year. She was 47.

The ocean will bring home the concept of “forever” real quick. It hits like a hammer. But that’s a good thing ... a thing I think I needed.

You folks can see the beauty of the ocean from the pictures that the paper will run along with this article. It was wonderful.

But most of what I did on that beach, that day, will forever be mine and Joanne’s. It’s very private. And it helped me let go forever without making me forget her and what she meant to me and still means to me.

You’re gone forever, forever like the forever that the ocean represents. But I will love you always and forever as well Joanne.

Utah Desert

Leaving Washington, I crossed over the Columbia River (fed by the ocean) into Oregon. The crossing was interesting because of the bridge.

It’s four miles long ... and the last mile, mile and a half, feels like it goes straight up as it reaches the road level on the Oregon side of the river. At one point, I estimated it must have been a couple of hundred feet above the river’s surface.

Wow!

Oregon’s State Highway 30 wound along the Columbia for a bunch of miles before gradually slanting away toward Portland, where I grabbed Interstate 84 East and rolled into Utah.

Then I took I-15 South ... and met the cross winds and blowing sand and dirt. It wasn’t that much fun. But I was no longer on a trip, really. I was on a roll toward home ... a run I was really ready to make.

After about four weeks of easing across this great nation, taking my time and enjoying the sights and people along the way, I was really, really, realllllly ready to get home.

Much of the rest of the trip would be uneventful to you folks.

But the desert area of southeastern Utah is really beautiful. Complete with massive mesas, prehistoric rock formations and the feeling that there should be hostile Indians posted on every rocky outcropping, it was a genuinely enjoyable run.

I crossed just the smallest portion of southwestern Colorado and then into northwestern New Mexico — all in one day, on a motorcycle, one built for only short cruises and not for long touring.

I was sore that night.

Making my way to Albuquerque, I got on I-40 East, an interstate I’m very familiar with, having ridden it in July last year on the way back from a trip through the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

It made me feel great, knowing I was so close to home.

Even though I knew I couldn’t make it all the way back home that night, I vowed to make it to Amarillo, which I did. Then I vowed to make it just past Amarillo and to U.S. Highway 287, which we all know.

I made it, but found no motel at 287’s junction with I-40. I ended up having to ride another 50 miles to make it to a decent place ... this one in Clarendon.

So, on the 32nd day of my long journey, I rolled down 287 from the Texas Panhandle into Ennis to hit my now favorite interstate of them all — I-45.

Of course, I stopped at the newspaper first ... just to wander in and lean against the wall until someone saw me.

“Hi guys!”

Road Notes

Note No. 1 — Up front, traffic through Seattle and Salt Lake City has to be the worst in the country.

In Seattle, there are too many cars and they’ve kind of run out of room to expand the freeways. You have to merge from one interstate, like I-90, onto another interstate, I-5, while doing stop-and-go movement ... all during the off-peak hours of the day. I can’t imagine what it’s like during rush hour.

In Salt Lake City, I think that all the drivers have different emotional makeups. While the speed limit might be, say 60 mph, there will be a group going 70, a group doing the 60 mph limit, and yet another, mixed group that will be doing five to 10 mph less than the speed limit. This really jams up the freeway, but at the same time will create massive gaps in between the masses of moving vehicles.

Note No. 2 — Some of my most pleasant riding experiences of the trip came on the off-the-beaten path (kudos to the downtown business that uses that as its name) roll toward the southern Washington state Pacific Ocean beach that I went to.

Yes, it was sometimes nerve-wracking because of all the logging trucks roaring through the area carrying freshly-cut down trees secured only by straps and the metal U-frame on their flatbed trailers. But the sloping, small mountains/big hills that lined the road, the amount of trees grown up along the road and sometimes forming a canopy across the roadway, and the fresh air augmented by the salt-laden breezes from the Pacific as I neared it ... it all made for a spirit-lifting rush through the wind.

Note No. 3 — And my final road note of these articles about my crazy trip?

E-mail and instant messaging chat.

A lot of you folks were nice enough to take advantage of my e-mail listing at the end of each article and dropped me a line. Others found me on a couple of the instant messaging chat programs that I use. All the contact sure helped out during the long trip I took ... all by myself.

On the e-mail, apparently my internet provider changed some kind of setting for the outgoing message server and I couldn’t reply (sorry Dr. Gober). I could receive messages but couldn’t send any. By the time I realized that during the first week of the trip, and starting using my luckyone6000@yahoo.com e-mail account to send messages, I was using a lot of time just sending in photos and the article for the paper. Added to the constant traveling, I was less than considerate in trying to reply to people and for that I apologize.

And for those folks that talked to me on instant messaging, that was really nice. It was like having a face-to-face conversation with people back home ... almost every night. For that, I thank you all.

I really enjoyed this trip. I believe it did a lot to help me get on with my life.

I’ll remember this trip for the rest of my life.

—————

Loyd Cook is a former assistant editor of the Daily Sun. He may be reached via e-mail at luckyone6000@earthlink.net while on the road.