Oregon or Bust!

There’s nothing like experiencing an exciting road for the first time. Crossing the state of Oregon on the way to the 2010 BMW Motorcycle Owners of America (BMWMOA) rally at Redmond, Oregon, there are two possible routes, one short and one long. Naturally the longer route is the more exhilarating ride.

You know you’re in Oregon because the Tourist Information Kiosks are replicas of the venerated Conestoga Wagon.

Highway US26 out of Ontario runs flat and straight for many miles through farm and ranchland. The wait is worth it. First through hilly scrub brush and then through alpine forests, the road is a ribbon of twists and turns. Most of the curves are easy to track and suggested at 30-45 mph, so there’s no grabbing for handfuls of brake in an unexpectedly tight curve.

Once you pass through the town of John Day, you will begin to see that name a lot. Seems everything is named for this fellow, starting with the river that runs through this whole area of

eastern Oregon. There’s even a National Park named John Day that’s all about fossil beds andpaleontology. So who is this John Day guy?

Idyllic campsite at the BMW rally site – first come first served must mean these folks arrived very early.

Well, it seems that John Day was an early settler who got robbed one day in 1810 at a well-known river crossing. From that day forward everyone called the river John Day, and the rest is history. Nice to be famous for something.

The curvy road is a delight, as is the BMWMOA rally site, the Dechutes Fairgrounds. Lots of grassy campsites, a very pretty central water feature that flows like a babbling brook, and plenty of air-conditioned display halls and event centers.

The Beer Ladies having more fun serving brewskies than drinking them!

Like any big motor bike rally, there’s food, a beer tent, music, every sort of motor bike gadget and farkle for sale, and plenty of seminars on everything from avoiding dehydration to picking the right kind of tires. And of course there are thousands and thousands of BMW and associated brand bikes to look at and their owners nearby ready and willing to gab at length about their bikes.

New roads, new bikes, new people to meet, there’s nothing like it.

Western Colorado’s Wonders

All due respect to Ike, our 34^th president and Head Coach for the last big world war, but the Intersate sucks. Okay, for truckers and for everyone else trying to get everywhere else as fast as they can, the U.S. Interstate Highway System is a wonder. But for the love of Mike, if you’re not in a rush, use the exit and take the back road once in a while, you will not regret it.

The blogger aboard a 2009 R1200GSA headed north from Santa Fe to attend the 2010 BMWMOANational Rally in Redmond, Oregon.

The story goes that Eisenhower, after the war, was so impressed by the beloved German Autobahn that he set about trying to duplicate it in the U.S. The guy responsible for the autobahn idea has a “good idea” “bad idea” ratio that’s so heavily weighted on the bad side that it’s really, REALLY hard to give him credit for what a good idea the autobahn is.

The autobahn, technically called the Bundesautobahn, which roughly means “divided carriageway,” is a meticulously maintained, gently curving scenic highway system in Germany mostly famous because most of it has no speed limit, it has lots of other rules, though, like very strict lane discipline and a hard-nosed no insults rule. It's amazing what you can learn from the Discovery Channel.

Any one who has driven any part of the U.S. Interstate system knows that it is not, in any way, meticulously maintained. If you’ve driven the Interstate in any of the western or Midwestern states, you know how mind-numbingly flat and straight it can be – sleep inducing in its arrow-like trajectory.

So here are three roads that will not put you to sleep even though they do have speed limits – which you might want to think of as guidelines, rather than strict mandates.

For a head-spinning drive, go straight north out of Durango, Colorado on US550 and into some of the most beautiful mountainous terrain in the world. From Durango to Silverton and up into Ouray, experience all the beauty of the Western slope of the Rocky Mountains, and all the curvy roadway delights on a stretch of asphalt some call the “Million Dollar Highway.” This road is almost impossible to describe. If a piece of asphalt could be made to fold over on itself like a ribbon of taffy in multiple figure eights, this would be the $1,000,000 road.

Twisties and mountains and twisties, US550, oh my.

The story varies on how this road got its name, some say it’s because of all the

riches taken from these mountains during the 19^th century, others claim its because of the cost of building the road – given its engineering complexity, an easy argument to believe. But who cares? The road is a bargain at any price.

There’s another surprisingly fun road that marches straight up the Roan Plateu from Loma, Colorado, a small farming community just west of Grand Junction, to Rangely, Colorad0.

CO190 winds its way through the Salt Creek Canyon

This road, Colorado State Road 139, is a blast. Prepare for bunches of 20 mph hairpins that are long, sweeping and heart pounding when taken at significantly higher velocities – again 20 mph is a suggested speed, right? There are also lots of nicely spaced passing lanes (thank you Colorado Department of Transportation) and multiple s- and double-s twisties that climb high into the aspen trees over two mountain passes, Baxter and Douglas, and then pitch downward with the same zeal at an 8% to 10% grade. Ride it at your ultimate pleasure. Oh, yeah, and the road is just about deserted, so enjoy your solitude, too.

Once you get over into the North East corner of Utah, there’s yet another “don’t miss it road" that runs north out of Vernal, Utah, US191, toward the Flaming Canyon National Recreational Area.

The Flaming Canyon National Recreational Area

More curves, more scenery, an unreal azure lake that emerges from the canyon, and a drive that you will always remember with a smile. Honestly, when was the last time you could say that about the Interstate?

Custer’s (and very nearly my) last stand

A Motorbiking saga in two parts

Part Two – Cascading Mistakes Prompt Early Exit

The “Big Summer Tour 2009” route plan included one funky collection of roads in Montana that would lead from the Little Big Horn battlefield to Red Lodge, a welcome night in the KOA campground and a next day ride across the Bear Tooth Highway and into Yellowstone National Park. But that was not to be.

Readers of this blog have realized by now that I don’t typically write in first person, but this one time (I hope) I’m going to break with tradition, because there really is no other way to tell this particular part of the story.

So, I rode all the way from Thermopolis, Wyoming, to the Little Big Horn fueled only by the wonderfully greasy and delicious breakfast I had in Greybull. I assumed there would be some kind of food (and air conditioning) at the national monument. There was neither. Mistake number one.

Because it was ungodly hot, I rushed through my tour of the monument and forgot to take a break – you know, sit in the shade, drink some water, take it easy. Mistake number two.

The little mini-mart at the Little Big Horn looked pretty unappetizing, so I assumed there would be someplace to eat in the next town, Crow Agency. Mistake number three.

I had chosen a route from Crow Agency to Red Lodge that was pretty obscure and most likely would include some unimproved roads. The names of the roads should have been a clue. I took the Crow St. X cutoff to State Road 313 to the Prior St. Xavier Highway, where, as predicted, it turned into Prior Road – a pea-sized gravel ranch road. Mistake number five.

So, now I’m really tired, really hungry and really thirsty. Add on top of that the fact that I got hit right in the breastbone by a honeybee at 80 m.p.h near the little burg of St. Xavier. The little buzzer amazingly survived the impact and crawled around in my jacket stinging me at least once in the middle of the chest. It was several minutes before I figured out what the heck was happening, get to a stop and do the wacky “I got a bee in my jacket” dance. Should’ve taken a break right then, but didn’t. Mistake number four.

As I rode Edgar Road all was going well, the gravel was loose and dusty but in pretty good shape and in my addled mind I could see a glistening Tasty Freeze in the little town of Edgar just a few miles ahead – mmmmm ice cream treats. Daydreaming; mistake number six.

As I approached Edgar I came down a hill, going 35-40 mph, standing up on the pegs. At the bottom of the hill I hit a patch of deep gravel and the rear tire on my 2006 R1200GS washed out right. I counter-steered, but not enough and the tire washed out left, just a little bigger. Mistake number seven.

Instead of giving it a bit of gas, I rolled off the power just a bit, and it made my loss-of-traction issue even more serious. Mistake number eight.

The rear tire oscillated back to the right, at a much higher wavelength this time. I tried to get my weight back and up on top of that rear tire, but it was too little too late. Mistake number nine.

The tire whipped back left and the bike went down hard on its right side as I did my best to do a standard “dirt bike get off” but I slammed into the road on my right side, skidding head first as my helmet filled with light brown dust and gravel. I don’t know if I lost consciousness or not, at the time I didn’t think so, but it was such a remote landing site that there were no other vehicles or witnesses, so I really have no way of knowing. To me it seemed that I instantly got up and began to assess the damages to both myself and the motorbike, but I could have been out for some time.

Happily, my Aerostich combat-lite riding boots and Roadcrafter jacket performed as advertised. My Nolan helmet was essentially totaled, but my face was untouched. Later I’d discover quite a nice “hangman’s” bruise on my neck from the chinstrap, and I’d develop a black right eye, but other than that the helmet performed very well. No cuts, no blood, no broken bones. No mistakes made here. I was going to be sore, though, and black and blue all over.

So, I figured I’d grunt the motorbike up on its wheels and be on my way. Unfortunately, my beloved GS was down for the count. Headlight and instrument cluster totaled. The front fork and the handlebar were decidedly out of alignment; seriously bent. The right side cylinder head was cracked and leaking oil – its protective crash bar bent all the way back and broken at the welds. No point in even trying to start it.

Even though I was about six miles from Edgar, there was good cell phone coverage. After dialing 911 I had about a ten-minute wait for the arrival of a Montana State Trooper. The motorbike was eventually hauled to a U-Haul rental place where it could be loaded for the long ride home inside the truck’s box.

These are the moments when you find out who your friends really are. One of mine dropped everything and flew from Santa Fe to Billings the next day to help me drive the bent and broken BMW back to its final resting place. That same friend would come to the aid of my frightened wife when I developed a fairly common concussion-related syndrome one week later that would land me in the hospital for four days.

My medical malady turned out to be something called “syndrome of inappropriate anti-diuretic hormone secretion” or SIADH, and I’d advise anyone who has experienced even a minor concussion or blow to the head to be on the lookout for this particular reaction, also known as “hponatremia,” because it’s pretty freaky and, in my experience, hard to diagnose.

Happy Ending

Exactly one month after the Montana crash I took possession of a new 2009 R1200GS Adventure. My State Farm Insurance agent (also an avid rider) did an amazing job guiding me through the claims process for my totaled ’06, paving the way for the purchase of the GSA. Now all I have to do is remain patient through the long, long, snowy winter until the 2010 riding season starts – so I can go on the next tour, and finish one this time.

Custer’s (and very nearly my) last stand

A Motorbiking saga in two parts

Part One – The Little Big Horn

Because of classic shows like “Bonanza,” Gunsmoke,” “The Lone Ranger,” and “The Rifleman,” the lore of the old west is engrained in anyone who watched TV in the 1960s.

The ultimate old west tale – one taken from real life – is the story of Custer’s Last Stand, the battle of the Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876. Adding to the fascination is the more modern difficulty that Americans have with how this country’s indigenous people were treated by those American through immigration.

It’s for these reasons, and others, that the site of the battle in southern Montana is a fairly major attraction that would be a really major attraction if it weren’t located in the middle of nowhere. But for the motorbiker, the middle of nowhere is sometimes the ideal, especially when it’s combined with the boyhood fantasy of joining the Calvary, strapping on a six-shooter, holstering a Remington, and doing some old fashioned Indian fighting.

Luckily we grow out of most of our boyhood fantasies – hopefully all of the politically incorrect ones, anyway.

One fantasy remains, though, to stand where Custer and hismen once stood, where they drew their last breaths, to look out over the landscape that they saw for the last time. To try to understand better why it happened the way it did.

Getting to the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument is a hike. Steadfastly avoiding the highway makes getting there even more of a hike, but a hike well worth the effort.

One route begins in Thermopolis, Wyoming, and winds its way north on U.S. 20 through rich farmland to Greybull. At Greybull you head east on U.S. 14 and the ride gets really interesting. Winding your way through the Bighorn National Forest is a real blast because of both the exhilarating road and gorgeous scenery. After you crest the mountaintop and pass Burgess Junction the road gets even more interesting. Ride this one right away because they’re building a new road even as we speak that takes out about 90 percent of the coolest curves you’ll ever ride.

At Dayton you can take State Road 343 to U.S. 87 north to Lodge Grass, or stay on U.S. 14 and take Interstate 90 all the way to the National Monument.

The Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument has a small museum that does a good job of giving nearly equal time to both sides of the story, native and military. Several of the park service personnel are Native Americans and they add credibility to the interpretive explanation of the times and motivations. The walk up to “Last Stand Hill” is a somber one, given that the whole place is basically a big graveyard.

Standing at the monument to the fallen U.S. soldiers you’re struck by the smallness of the battlefield and reminded that fighting a war from horseback is a decidedly smaller scale experience than the more contemporary, 20th century battles.

In summertime, bring water and food if you can. It’s blast-furnace hot and there is precious little infrastructure near the site other than a gas station with a mini-mart.

The distances between stops in this part of the country are immense. Infrastructure is sparse – so the old rule of “eat, sleep and poop when you can” really applies because you can’t be sure there’s an Applebee’s in the next town over – meaning you can inadvertently find yourself overly hungry, tired, and distracted at the end of a long journey. In fact you could easily find yourself at journey’s end.

Oxygen is Overrated

One of the things you have to both love and hate about places like Estes Park, Colorado, is how kitchy-touristy it all is. Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, and at 7,800 ft. the one true tourist items seemingly everywhere is a t-shirt emblazoned with what must be the town motto, “oxygen is overrated.”

All roads westward from Estes Park lead to the mountains. And for a $10 motorbike entrance fee you can experience a glorious road called the “Trail Ridge Road,” that fully lives up to its name. The road climbs and climbs and climbs, you almost hear a voice in your head say, “the Captain has turned off the seatbelt sign, so you’re free to move about the cabin.” And the road offers up more twisties than you can almost imagine.

This is not a road build for speed, however. The scenery is so spectacular that motorbikers and motorists alike will be craning their necks to take in the vistas, watching the road is a definite afterthought – so speed is not recommended. Even in July, the weather at the top of the world is decidedly windy and a cold 50 degrees. The ridge road tops out at about 12,200 ft., well above the tree-line. There are parts of the road that really feel tilty, like you’re about to tip over and go a-tumblin’ down. And, boy is the air thin. Thankfully, the R1200GS, like all newer oil-head beemers, is equipped with computer-controlled fuel injection, so the bike automatically adjusts for the lack of Oh-Two in the atmosphere, and so the bike never falters.

The rider, on the other hand, should be reminded to breathe in-and-out, try not to death-grip the handlebar, and pay no attention to that pounding pulse you feel in your temples – it’ll pass when you get back down below 10,000 ft. The GS dualsport proves its worth once again as the road from Timber Creek to Grand Lake is under construction and reduced to loose gravel, torn up asphalt and base-course. The street-knobby Metzeler Tourance tires bite right in and never miss a beat. Grand Lake really is grand – even zooming by at 55 mph.

Other nearby roads to recommend: Colorado 125 that connects Granby – on the western side of RM National Park – with Walden. It travels through the Arapaho National Forest and is just a blast. Another is Wyoming 789/US20 north out of Riverton. This road leads into Thermopolis, Wyoming, dropping into the Big Horn River Canyon – a surprise bit of beautiful, majestic topography in an otherwise flat, unadorned landscape. Not to be missed.

So, take a deep breath. Then another. Air Traffic control has given you go-ahead to throttle-up your motorbike and climb to flight-level One-Two Thousand at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Sometimes You Forget

Sometimes you forget how truly beautiful America is, particularly the Rocky Mountain southwest.  Sometimes you forget how much fun it is to be out on the motorbike, especially when it’s been a year or longer since the last big tour.  Sometimes you forget that there’s an America away from the Interstate.  Sometimes you forget that the people of that America are, well, nice.

Take Fairplay, Colorado for example.  Just a tad more than 300 miles straight north of home-base, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Fairplay is located on US285 – which also happens to run right through the City Different.  It’s a hardscrabble 

little town nestled in a wide, expansive valley, surrounded by peaks still dusted with snow in July and bereft of vegetation – as they all tower more than 11,000 ft. – the arborist’s dreaded tree-line.

Seeking a place to rest for the night you may want to try the tiny local U.S. Forest Service office, located right at the town’s main crossroads.  First thing you’ll notice is the welcomi

ng “I really want to help you” smile fromthe young woman behind the counter.  This is not a forced “corporate performance measure” smile – sometimes you forget that there’s a difference between a smile that’s part of an employee’s job and a smile that’s genuine.

The Forest Service maintains two idyllic (except for the mosquitoes) campgrounds near Fairplay, Horseshoe and Four Mile.  The Ranger is

actually camped out at the entrance to Horseshoe and also smiles a genuine smile, and is dedicated to finding campers a place to set up for the night.  When the campgrounds fill up, people are not turned away – instead the Ranger creates a makeshift little village of tents in a nearby grassy field usually used to park vehicles during firewood collection season.

The campsites are well groomed and the Forest Service restroom is typically as clean as a whistle.  The whole camping experience is very nearly perfect, but the ultra-aggressive, dive-bombing, Colorado Attack Skeeter very nearly ruins the experience.  Bring DEET.

Sometimes you forget how much fun it is to steadfastly avoid Fast Food America and resolve to seek out, whenever possible, those little mom-and-pop eating establishments. (Full disclosure, this blog was written in a Barnes & Noble Starbucks Café. Hey! Nobody’s perfect).  In Fairplay, it’s the Brown Burro restaurant, espresso bar and ice cream parlor.

The Brown Burro serves all meals, including a delicious breakfast.  If you are one of those who believe that hot food should be hot, then sit at the little four-place counter in front, and more than likely the owner, George Davis, will personally hand you your plate right out of the kitchen window.  As you gather up your helmet and motorbike jacket, don’t be surprised if each and every employee – including George – says something like, “have a great ride today,” and “please be careful and ride safely,” and, you know, they really mean it. 

Fairplay is steeped in the Old West.  The town itself looks like most of it was built around the

turn of the last century.  If you like your Old West towns to look a set from an old John Ford movie, then a visit to the 1880s restored mining town and museum, South Park City, is a must.  It’s located right in Fairplay – and though it might be a little rough around the edges and a bit cliché, a couple from Iowa with three very active youngsters said the kids loved it.

So here’s to remembering – Colorado is gorgeous, the people – in Fairplay at least – are warm and welcoming.  And the motorbike is just a fabulous way to take it all in.

An Italian voice for the quiet German

BMW motorcycles are not noisy. They do not roar. There’s no ear-splitting blap-blap-blap or potato-potato-potato rumble at stoplights or through the first gears. BMW riders have no reason to rev the engine while idling like so many other bikers who seem to need to say “I Am Here” with a loud blast of engine noise while waiting for a green light.

BMW motorbike engineers clearly seek to delight many senses, but the ear is not one of them.

There are times when a BMW motorbike needs to be loud. When the inattentive or distracted driver begins to lane-drift, power-brake, or red-light-run, a good loud motorbike horn can snap them back to reality, and just maybe, keep them from squishing you.

BMWs of the past came stock with a really loud, deep-throated horn. The 1984 R100RS that was once the “dream bike” had a Fiamm horn that really got the job done.

Today’s BMWs, sadly, are delivered new with a tinny, weak squeaking high-pitched horn made in Spain by Bosch. It’s a horn that works, and given the reputation of BMW designers, was certainly tested and proven to be just loud enough to get attention without startling, and tuned to an optimized pitch that properly informs an offending roadway inhabitant without overtly insulting them.

Right. When a driver more focused on a cell-phone than a rear-view-mirror begins to seriously invade your lanespace you want to startle and insult with quick short-long-short blasts of sound that unmistakably say, “Hello! There’s a motorbike over here! Hello!”

One of the great things about the Aerostich catalog, besides being an excellent addition to the porcelain library because of its hilarious product descriptions, is its utility at traditional times of gift giving. Little blue “post its” easily inform caring family members of ideal motorbike necessities suitable for birthdays, father’s day, and the granddaddy of gifting, Santa's Winter Holiday.

Aerostich offers a couple of aftermarket horns. But the obvious choice is called the “Ear Cannon,” described by the Aerostich writers as “The loudest motorcycle horn available. If Ethel Merman, Sam Kinison and John Philip Sousa ever had a band, and played through a wall-of-sound amp rack, it would sound like this.” Getting an Ear Cannon in a brightly wrapped box under a decorated pine tree while the world is a snow-covered, motorbike-unfriendly place is truly a message of hope and springtime.

The “Ear Cannon” is actually a dual tone air horn made in Italy by Stebel. It’s sold by a wide variety of retailers and even comes in a chrome model for those who want a little bling. The horn comes with a relay, but is not supplied with adequate instructions for either wiring or mounting. And by comparison to the stock horn it’s big – so it’s not clear where the thing can be mounted on a modern, compactly designed BMW.

So a mounting kit is essential. Turns out, one of the best kits is made by a small company called Excel Cycle. The kit comes with everything you need to both mount and wire up the Stebel horn, including instructions. A superbly machined spacer is mounted on the same bolt as the stock horn. Then an angled steel bracket easily attaches to the spacer, providing a perfect place to mount the horn and bolt it in tight right between the front forks without interfering with them.

The kit comes with everything you need to wire into the original horn’s power source and hook it up to the relay, fuse, and battery. Both the relay and fuse holder tuck away nicely behind the t-bracket used to hold the owner’s manual.

The Stebel horn is very loud. Is it Ethel Merman, wall-of-sound loud? Well, no, even though the Aerostich description is entertaining, like most of advertising, it’s only accurate enough to make a sale.

The real proof is the startle effect, but how to achieve an accurate test result? Let's face it, you can’t just pull up beside an unsuspecting morning commuter and blast your horn just to see if the poor soul will jump out of their skin. It’s also no fun to wait for an actual road emergency to conduct the test. Luckily, one recent morning an opportunity presented itself.

As an unsuspecting co-worker sedately motored his way to work, a newly Stebel accessorized R1200GS pulled alongside, and as a way to just say “hi” gave the driver two short samples of the Stebel’s Vocce Italiano. With a sincere apology, let’s just say that the “startle effect” was profound. Honestly, the motorbike is usually very quiet.

Daddy of ‘em all

No doubt about it, Wyoming is an iconic place. There’s the profile of a proud buffalo on the state flag. There are the geologic icons of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park and Devil’s Tower of Close Encounters movie fame. And of course the Bucking Bronc, that silhouette on Wyoming license plates and symbol of the University of Wyoming cowboys.

That Bucking Bronc is also the primary icon of Cheyenne’s yearly blowout event, Frontier Days. Begun in 1897 – when it was just a one-day event to race ranch horses – it now runs the last full 10 days of every July, and is billed as the largest outdoor rodeo in North America, a claim also made by the Calgary Stampede in Canada.

Of course the rodeo is the main event, but Frontier Days is so much more, like a state fair on steroids. For the people of Cheyenne, who refer to this time of year as “CFD,” it's all about parking cars in your yard, hosting out-of-town visitors, or volunteering to help with the show.

CFD actually employs only 13 paid staff. The events at Frontier Park every July are managed by a small army of volunteer workers, some 2,500 of them, organized into committees who handle tickets, rodeo competitors, and Public Relations, to name a few.

Like the other two big-name rodeos – that one in Canada and the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas – CFD has PR problems. Seems that animal rights activists swarm all over these events with cameras and note pads just waiting for an animal to be injured or otherwise harmed so that more evidence for the elimination of all rodeos can be gathered.

So the folks at CFD really stress animal safety. During a “behind the chutes” tour, visitors get to see how the animals are gathered, kept, fed, and handled during the rodeo. No one promises that animals won’t be injured, but they do promise that it will not be on purpose. Oddly enough, they don’t talk much about cowboy safety, except to point out the large memorial to those who have “fallen” at the rodeo.

When asked about how the bulls are made to buck, the tour guide explains that a leather strap is tied around the bull’s – uh, hmm, private parts – but that this is not harmful, more like squeezing into a “too tight pair of underpants," oh daddy!

Speakin' of which, they call CFD the “Daddy of ‘em all” because all modern rodeo is, more or less, patterned after CFD. The Cheyenne Chute, another icon of the west, that big ol’ swinging gate that almost instantly opens wide to free the bucking bronc or brahma bull, is an invention of CFD.

For CFD’s estimated 500,000 attendees, there’s the rodeo, nightly music concerts that feature big-name acts, and a huge carnival midway filled with the screams of thrill-riding teens and the ubiquitous odors of cotton candy and caramel corn. Frontier Park also features old west demonstrations like the Chuckwagon Cookoff and the Indian Village that includes living quarters for the Native Americans who operate the village in authentic Tee Pees.

For the last 52 years another tradition of CFD has been the Old Fashioned Melodrama. This is a frontier style show that pits good vs. evil in the simplest terms – the audience “boos” the villain, “cheers” the hero, and “ahhhs” the damsel in distress. The play’s acts are punctuated by interludes of old-timey singing and can-can dancing.

The 2008 version of the melodrama is held in the historic Atlas Theater in downtown Cheyenne. The theater dates to 1908, making this its 100th year. The melodrama, like much of CFD is all-volunteer. The show, titled, “The Rhyming Rapscallion” stars Tallen Handsome as the hero and Dirk Degenerate as the villain, and features a literary twist where Tallen’s young, effeminate, poetry-loving son, Hardly, is tempted by evil and nearly joins the dark side before coming to his senses and conquering the villain through prose. The play is very funny and cleverly written, blasting away at stereotypes with gender-bending characters and a hero in pink coveralls.

If you like rodeo, big-time country music, ferris wheels and roller coasters, old west nostalgia, BBQ, and beer, CFD is a once-in-a-lifetime definite. You may have such a good time that you’ll want to become a regular.

The Devil and Deadwood

Gillette, Wyoming -- They call Wyoming, “Wonderful Wyoming” but they miss an adjective in this description. It should be “Wonderful, Windy Wyoming” because around here high atmospheric pressure seems to be always trying to push low pressure out of the way, at high velocity.

This makes motorbiking more like sailing than motorbiking. There’s nothing like leaning a bike into a curve when there is no curve, just the pressure from a 60 mile-an-hour gale. But, heck, that just makes the trip more interesting, yes?

And the trip is interesting. There are two spots nearby Gillette that are worth the journey. The first is Devil’s Tower, the iconic, volcanic, geologic feature that was burned forever into the American consciousness when Richard Dryfuss made a model of the mountain out of mashed potatoes at the beginning of “Close Encounters of the First Kind’’ and then spent the rest of the movie with half a sunburned face inexplicably moved to visit the place – only to then take a trip on a UFO to who knows where.

All of that wacky stuff is fiction, of course, but the tower is very real. You get the first glimpse of it from about 16 miles away, but the full flower of the tower is held in secret until you are up upon it. And it is big. Almost 1,300 feet tall it looms above another icon of America, the trading post.

That’s right, the Devil’s Tower trading post dominates the scenery up close. Inside, not surprisingly, they sell every kind of DT kitsch that you would expect, but not a lot of stuff in the extra-terrestrial motif, which can only mean that the Spielberg movie is now very old.

Why is it called the Devil’s Tower? Well back in 1875 when the United States was trying to figure out a way out of the Treaty of Laramie – a treaty that basically gave the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Sioux even though it was really theirs already – Col. Richard Irving Dodge met with the Sioux who tried to explain the importance of the geologic feature, but Col. Dodge’s translator goofed, so the Native American’s description “Bear’s Lodge” was thought to mean “Bad God’s Tower” and the name has stuck.

A bit further down the road is the old west town of Deadwood, just across the border in South Dakota. This place, too, has connections to that Laramie Treaty the U.S. was trying to break, and why? Well, gold, of course.

Deadwood is also a place with a Mass Media connection. There’s an HBO series running with the same name as the town that’s been something of a controversy mainly because the show’s characters use the F-Word so much. Again with the fiction.

Deadwood is also a real place, though, and also dates to 1875 and the Black Hills gold rush. Today’s Deadwood is a Disneyfied Las Vegas in the mountains. The town motto should be “A slot machine for every tourist and a tourise for every slot machine.”

The ambiance is old west, but seems forced, which is too bad. The place has real history that includes famous westward expansionists like George Custer, Phillip Sheridan, and even more famous names like Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane.

The ride from Gillette to Devil’s Tower and beyond to Deadwood is about 230 miles, round trip, and well worth it, even though a major portion of the journey is spend at 80 miles per hour on Interstate 90, tilted into 60 mile per hour headwinds. Ah, Wonderful.

Cowboy up in Gillette

Ride your motorbike to the middle of nowhere, then go 110 miles north and you’ll find the coal and oil town of Gillette, Wyoming. For three and an half days in July 2008 you’ll also find more BMW motorbikes and their riders in one place than anywhere else.

Gillette is host to the 2008 BMW Motorcycle Owners of America international rally. This year’s event, the 36th annual, is being held at Gillette’s Cam-Plex, a kind of multi-use special events, rodeo, state fair grounds and convention center.

Nearly 6,000 riders – some with bikes and some without – are in attendance. There are a multitude of events, seminars, and entertainment along with vendors offering food, drink, and an assortment of motorbike gizmos so extensive it boggles the mind.

Included in the indoor vendor area is a display of vintage BMWs with a collection of very early bikes in like-new condition. The owner of the bikes boasts that they all still operate perfectly, including a 1924 model.

The vast majority of rally-riders are also campers. The grounds surrounding the Cam-Plex have blossomed like a giant multi-colored, garden of tents, tarps, and trailers in every shape and size. Parked next to nearly every campsite is an equally diverse variety of motorbikes.

It seems that every bikes has customized his or her bike just enough to make it unique. There’s an R1200GS with its side panels painted with a Great White Shark motif. There’s a 1977 R100RT pained like a yellow cab. Every bike is just different enough to make wandering the grounds ogling bikes seem like a new experience every time.

There are but a few food vendors, and the selection is decidedly institutional. The only fresh offerings come from a couple of trailer-sized smokers churning out $9 and $12 plates of BBQ pork, beef brisket, and beef ribs. A Pizza Hut in an RV is making a killing cranking out $5 slices of pizza at an amazing pace.

A staple of any motorbike rally is of course the Beer Garden. This one’s inside a giant rodeo barn and is serving horse-troughs full of thin American Beers and pouring four microbrews on tap. There is literally a tractor-trailer full of beer kegs parked out back – hidden from the prying eyes of fun-quashing abolitionists, no doubt.

And there’s entertainment. Unfortunately the first band to take the stage only got one tune out before rally organizers announced an ominous and looming “severe thunderstorm” due to arrive in minutes. This prompted nearly the whole audience to leap to their feet and scurry to their tents to secure tent pegs and batten down hatches.

The T-Storm proved less devastating than advertised, luckily, and the show continued after about an hour. But a four-hour overnight rainstorm left the whole rally waterlogged the next morning

Asking a rally official for the reasons behind a rally in the middle of the middle of nowhere the reply was unpredictably reasoned. It seems the middle of nowhere is actually quite centrally located for people who are traveling from the four corners of the U.S. and Canada.

The location also comes with a nice variety of day rides in the area, including Devil’s Tower, the icon of Steven Spielburg’s classic film “Close Encounters,” and the old west settlement of Deadwood, in nearby South Dakota, also made famous through the current HBO series named for the town. So, maybe it’s not the middle of nowhere afterall.

Welcome to Skeeterville

If you’re looking for a very quiet, simple and sparsely populated camping area near a large body of water in a Western state, Wyoming's Glendo State Park, about 90 miles north of Cheyenne on Interstate 25, might be for you.

However, if you have a low tolerance for mosquitoes, Glendo could be a challenge. Then again, if you just can’t stand those teensy, whiney, blood-sucking bugs dive-bombing your soft tissues, camping near any body of water in Wyoming in July is probably a bad idea.

But Glendo is quiet. And sparsely used. The folks who visit this State Park are generally Coloradoans seeking a boating or watersports experience without the maddening crowds typical of Colorado’s lakes. And at Glendo they get it.

Glendo is a reservoir, so its water level is managed by the state. This July the water is reportedly 85% of normal, and it’s clear from the shore that recent levels were considerably higher than now.

At $12 per night it may very well be one of the least expensive camping areas in the Rockies.

The little nearby town of Glendo is hardly a town at all — and quite probably would be a ghost town if not for the reservoir. Bring everything you need with you, there are no amenities at Glendo State Park.

If you’re just looking for a nice, quiet overnight campsite on your way from here to there, this is a pretty good option. But for goodness sake, don't forget the bug spray.

Coffee and Dirt

Sedalia, Colorado -- What do we search for? Well, many things; people who really, truly love us, a perfectly executed béarnaise sauce, a great cup of camp coffee. What did you say?

There is this one particular coffee-snob, who shall remain nameless, who requires a piping-hot, 1 ¾ cup, cup of coffee each day before anything else. But, not just a regular cup of coffee. This extra-sized, extraordinary beverage must be a mix of dark-roasted, fine-grind Sumatran beans and Café DuMonde brand Chicory, ground medium. This elixer must be sweetened with the best Tupelo honey that ever came out of Florida, and it must be lightened with real ½ and ½.

And it must be reproduced both at home and on the road.

Okay, the constituent parts are easy, as long as you have the luggage space and a willingness to carry a great many thimble-sized cups of UHT-grade half and half that Land-O-Lakes appropriately calls “Mini-Moo’s.”

The hard part, until recently, is how to get the coffee infused into the hot water so that little chunks or the sandy, muddy grit of coffee grounds don’t get included in the final product.

Forget all those fancy gizmos and convenient coffee presses. What works best is a basic pour-through filter cone. The water from the Jet Boil is plenty, plenty hot, and the coffee tastes just like home – that is unless you burn your tongue on the fist sip.

With the required caffeine dose coursing through the bloodstream it’s off to find an alternative to that horrific stretch of I-25 between Colorado Springs and Denver. For Motorbikers who prefer taking the time for a bunch of curves and a bit of dirt, there is an option, State Road 67, north out of Woodland Park.

This road is a joy. The paved part is narrow and twisty and roams through thick forest and an area recently devastated by fire. At a place called Deckers it gets really fun. The road more-or-less mirrors the Platt River, so there is almost no straightaway, just a bunch of curves that zig-zag both wide and tight like long a downhill ski course. At places the road is almost level with the raging waterway, making one wonder what happens to the road when the water rises. At another place called Oxyoke — not a going concern so much as a collection of seemingly ramshackle cabins — the road to Sedalia, Colorado turns to dirt and delivers buckets of fun.
Just a fraction of SR 67 is the loose stuff, a mixture of sand, gravel, and a beautiful red clay, but well worth the detour. There are big wide curves that turn to sand on the low side, and teeny hairpins that really get the heart pumping. For the real dirt bike set there are a number of side roads that look like logging roads, at best. Not for the heavily loaded dual-sport big-bike with street knobbies, but for the brave on a 500cc dirt bike — oh baby!

State Road 67 in Colorado is one of those roads that make owning a GS bike worthwhile.

One bit of warning though, the fine grit from a long ride on dirt really gets into everything. The MacBook used to post this article was safely sealed, supposedly, inside a padded aluminum briefcase, and held inside a sealed, supposedly, Touratech pannier. But at day’s end the laptop was dusted with a very fine coat of the most beautifully red clay. Now where did that come from?