Dear Ma, I Find Myself Lost Up in These Here Mountains

Brilliant writing. Glad you're back.

Nice pics. An artists eye!

Great writing ( again ) and the pics bring even more life to an already great story! The "accounts" of your first trip always made-my-day and I am definitely along for this ride!

Stay safe and enjoy your adventure!

Dear Ma,

Today was nuttier than squirrel turds. Remember that storm I told you about? Well, that stormy tempest won the gold metal in the storm race. It caught me, soaked me, roosted me and then shared its champagne with me. It was exhilarating! The desert bursts to life when it rains, and there aren't many things I love more than riding in the wet desert.

Peanut spaced in for the whole thing and then later shared this little song to the tune of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In case you don’t recall the melody, here are some versions to choose from, depending on whether you’re in the mood for nostalgia, motor humor, or soothing rock-n-roll.

Movie version:
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Jim Carrey version:
Ace Ventura

Rock guitar version:
Rob Galley


And here is Peanut's version:

“Oh, my…
Dirty dirty dirt bike.
Dirty dirty dirt bike,
I love you.

And, my…
Dirty dirty dirt bike,
Dirty dirty dirt bike,
Loves me, too.

High. Low.
Everywhere we go.
On dirty bike I depend.

Braap. Braap.
Dirty dirty dirt bike,
My fine two-fendered friend.

Braap. Braap.
Dirty dirty dirt bike,
My fine two-fendered friend.

You’re sleek as a thoroughbred.
Your seat’s not a featherbed.
You’ll turn everybody’s head today.

We’ll glide down the singletrack.
We’ll ride here and there and back.
The envy all of who survey.

Dirty dirt bike.
Dirty dirty dirt bike.
Dirty dirt bike.… Yeah!”


Loving life on the road,
Peanut

Yep, when I saw that picture of the giant snake next to Skinny Bean's bike, I feared he might have been swallowed whole!

Just on the first page and look forward to catching up on the rest! Excellent writing and photos @Alexa!

Penelope and Skinny Beans...brilliant.

She wrote an earlier report too.
If you haven’t read it, you “must” find it.

Their webpage isn’t too bad either...

Links are in her signature.

I don't even know where to start now that I've made it through page 2. Simply...damn. Fantastic writing and wit; I have not come across someone who can craft a yarn like this @Alexa - major props.

You two have had quite the ride thus far, sounds like the time in CA hasn't all been daises though. One idea, you guys should look into getting a stand when you're plagued with the occasional flat. The Enduro Star stand has saved my arse on multiple trips (unfortunately - stoopid flats). I can't believe you moved camp twice, especially the 2nd time when a ranger told you to do so. What was the cabinet looking thing at that site - bear locker or something?

Had a seriously hard laugh at the explanation of of taking care of biz in the woods, holy hell that was damn funny.

Yosemite - wow. Great pics and narrative the entire time.

Going to wait to catch up on page 3; and also going to search up the other report @borderlinebob mentioned (thanks man!).

Another great adventure. I'll be following.

Another great story and excellent pictures as well.

Damn, that wet stuff didn’t look fun. Assume that was in NV? Last time I rode in NV and got caught in weather, had to abandon bikes and hike 5 miles in gear. That wasn’t very fun...lol.

Look forward to the next update! I love the desert, there’s nothing like that solitude.

Just fantastic - unreal writing - Stay Safe

Nay I say - but Sinaloa Cartel (or your favorite gang) stealing water for Momma's WEED

Dear Ma,

A motorcycle camping trip is a lot like playing that dangerous birthday party game where you hand a sharp pin to a blindfolded dizzy child and set them loose. You just never can tell where that pin is going to land. Sometimes it’s on the donkey’s hairy hiney. And sometimes that donkey flat kicks you in the tummy and sends you flying ass-over-tea-kettle into the hog’s feeding trough. Well, the other day, after taking stock of our fuel reserves and assessing our spot on the map, Skinny Beans and I felt quite dizzy—most likely on account of sniffing the gasoline fumes. We staggered around like a couple of drunks in the dark, trying to determine which way to head. Well, apparently we jabbed the donkey good with the sharp pin because that silly donkey kicked us so hard, we found ourselves on a new road pointed toward our next adventure, the kind of adventure we were out here looking for, the kind you can’t see until it’s almost over.

I guess I should go back and begin at the beginning. This all began a few days ago, back on the day the rain caught up to us. We had stopped at the gas station store in Mina for some gas, but found the store to be closed and the petrol well dry. Now, I can bet my bottom dollar that every small town has a bar and that the folks in the bar know everything about everything, including where to rustle up some gas. So we headed on over to the bar (the place with the colorful picnic tables outside). Skinny Beans went inside—bars are no place for a Peanut as you know what happens to peanuts in bars—and asked the bartender lady if she knew where he might find some gasoline, which she didn’t, but a man sitting at the bar did, which he said was in a town called Gabbs, so the bartender lady telephoned on over to the bar in Gabbs because that’s how folks are in small towns, and sure enough, Gabbs had gas.

Well, bad luck, Gabbs was quite far away. But good luck, there was an interesting historical site en route that we could stop and see—a real live Ichthyosaurus skeleton. But bad luck, Gabbs was in the opposite direction from where we’d been headed. But good luck, it was in the direction of the new adventure we’d been hoping for and didn’t realize we were already in.

The situation was as such. What once had been dusty had become slippery. Two inches of rain had fallen from the heavens. The desert changed from grey sand to a brown and sticky mud as if some sort of devil goo had floated up through the earth’s crust. The tricky devil slime was as slippery as slug snot, and neither of us could drive a straight line though it. Even on the roads, we lacked much authority over the direction we wished to travel. Skinny Beans looked like a drunk monkey riding a bicycle in the circus. I, myself, swerved all over the road like that time my horse Misty got her head stuck in her feed bucket. Well anyway, we certainly got plenty of practice riding the devil’s mud, and I hope to be able to drive in a straight line soon.

Like a piece of flotsam, when I washed up on the shore of my awareness this morning, I did not know where I was, or how I’d gotten there. I crawled out of the tent and realized we were in Hawaii on account of the lush green volcano steaming above us (I will enclose a photograph of the volcano). Skinny Beans said we were in Berlin. I stared at him unblinking like a fish through a fish tank. Not the grand cosmopolitan Berlin, he then told me as he pointed to the desert behind me, but rather her charming rustic sister city, Berlin, Nevada. For a moment, I felt like that dizzy kid with the sharp pin.

Well, the residents of the Berlin ghost town must have been sheltering inside because the town was as quiet as heaven on a Saturday night. We took some photographs of the Ichthyosaurus dinosaur skeleton on display there. It looked all dry and bony like that music man Keith Richards (he really should hydrate more), and then we continued on our way. Upon leaving the town—this time through the proper main entrance, as opposed to the sticky slippery back door we’d entered through—we noticed the town was actually barricaded closed on account of the road having been removed by the rain. That did explain why we were the only two souls in the Berlin-Ichthyosaur campground last night.

Well, it was two days later by the time we finally made it to the town of Gabbs for that gas we needed. We went to the pumps, which were unmanned, so we went across the street to the bar, which is where helpful folks can be found, and one such man took us down the street to the grocer’s store, where we put in an order for some gas, which we then went and pumped into our bikes, and then we went back to the grocer’s and settled up for the gas we had pumped. It sure felt good to be back in a small town doing things the way they ought to be done… simply.

XOXO,
Peanut

Um...I hate to be critical, but did you read the instructions on that tent? I think I see why you woke disoriented

Dear Ma,

It was a morning not unlike any other morning out here on the long brown path. I lay safe and cozy in my tent cave and pondered curiosities about life lived on the road.

The strangest particular of living on the trail is just that—living on the trail, an activity I choose for entertainment purposes, as opposed to days of yore when such hard living was forced upon folks. I reckon my need to hone my survival skills is what pulls me away from my automatic furnace and raised platform sleeper, for being out here heightens my wits like bear hunting with a buck knife.

The most significant particular of motorcycle camping requires first distilling all survival essentials found back on the farm down to just a few essential essentials. The sum total of these items, I must be able to tether to my person—for out here I am my own mule of sorts—as well as strap to my bike since it too is a mule of sorts. These items are, in order of importance: fresh water, high-octane gasoline and therapeutic papers, followed by food, clothings, tools and such. On various separate occasions, we have nearly run out of water, almost run out of gasoline, been down to our last tater and been fully out of clean under garments. But never in all our days on the trail have we run out of therapeutic papers.

I slithered out of my warm feather cocoon, stuck my feet into my cold boots, rolled onto my tummy and birthed myself rump first out of our nylon cave and into a bent homo-erectus stance that ungraciously expressed my latent Neanderthal genes. Then I poked my head back into the cave and grabbed my knapsack, which contained the white roll of therapeutic papers that constitute a standard part of my morning routine. The roll was, however, shy on papers.

“Skinny, where’s the other roll?” I called on over to Skinny Beans, who was staring blankly at the propane cooker in one hand and an egg in the other.

“Other roll?” he repeated, sounding right Cro-Magnon. “I thought you had it in your knapsack.”

“That’s the old roll,” I replied while dancing the gotta-go jig.

“Old roll?” Skinny repeated.

The long and short of how this morning continued to unfurl was that each of us had exactly one roll of therapeutic papers in our knapsacks. Each cardboard cylinder humbly offered only about ten poo tickets. In other words, between the two of us, we only possessed enough tickets for one of us to go. Following this realization, an earnest, if not heated, discussion commenced on the many feeble alternatives available to us: left sock, piñon bark, smooth rock, smooth stick, left hand or nothing. I wasn’t about to try any of those so-called solutions, but I did have a clever—although risky—idea. I reckoned I might be able to acquire some, if not all, of Skinny Bean’s poo tickets in a game of high-stakes poker. Considering the meager number of papers I possessed, and the advantage that doubling that number could afford me, it was a worthwhile risk.

I lost.

I spent a rather uncomfortable day riding some of the most interesting and scenic desert we’d ever been through. We both wanted to stay in that area exploring the nooks and crannies of the many old mining operations and peculiar rock formations, but our need for the third most important camping essential took us in yet another direction, one I enjoyed very much.

Benton Hot Springs in the town of Benton restored our sense of cleanliness and comfort. Like motorcycle Goldilocks, we soaked in each of the hot pools before this mental hygiene restoration occurred. Do not worry that we soiled the purity of the geothermal waters, for we first showered with your strong lavender-and-lye soap.

Your loving Peanut

It's so pretty out here, I couldn't resist taking more photographs. Please enjoy.




"I am Groot."

A friend's grandfather served in Africa in the French Foreign Legion in WWII. He was telling me that while marching across mile after mile of arid terrain, fistfights would break out over those smooth rocks, when found!