Frenchy750
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2006
- Messages
- 128
- Reaction score
- 6
A day off. Almost never happens when we ride. I'm not sure why really, guess there's just too much to see, and too little time to see it all. Turns out the decision to stay was a good one.
The morning is soggy, but the winds have blown out, and the rain clouds soon follow. The day improves greatly, and we take in the sights of the town.
Stopped at an overlook, a car pulls up, and a nice, older couple bounds right up to us. "Hi. I see you have a Canon. I do too, but it's not working. Says 'Err 99' every time I try to take a picture. Whaddaya think?"
I don't have to think, I know. Err 99 is the catch-all error code, like a check engine light. I've had a few Err 99's; one was a dead shutter mechanism, another was a lens problem. We try a few roadside repairs, and after some fiddling around, manage to get the camera to take a few pictures.
All the while we're trying to repair the camera, we talk. They're from Canada, driving around and seeing the sights, heading to someplace else from somewhere else; visiting, laughing and having a great time. After our few snapshots, his dreaded Err 99 pops up again. He shrugs and says, "Well, so much for that. Thanks for trying." As they get ready to leave, the lady says, "Oh no. I don't do handshakes, I do hugs." Fiona and I are both enveloped in a hug so strong it feels like a python has wrapped around us.
After they leave Fiona says, "That'll be you and me someday, don't you think?"
"No," I reply. "My camera will work."
Back to town, we've got lots of time to kill, and a storm brewing on the horizon. The rain clouds have followed us once again. We know this drill well, it's just a matter of time. We need someplace, dry and indoors to kill some time. The Queen Mine Tour fills that bill perfectly.
We don helmets, mining lights and for some reason, yellow rain slickers, and board the world's weirdest train to be shuttled deep into the vertical mine shaft.
Our tour guide leads us off the train and into a chamber, where he bombards us with facts we can later use as a natural repellent to bore people away from us.
"Did you know the Queen Mine produced over eight billion pounds of copper in its day?"
Snore...
The tour guide was a master at evading questions. Sometimes he feigned deafness "due to all the dynamite" he used to use, other times he'd repeat what he just said, whether it answered a question or not. One parent finally asked him a question he could answer. "What do you do with a five year old that has to use the bathroom really bad?"
"Sir, this is a mine. Pick a wall. Go anywhere you like!"
Back at the Copper Queen, a guy and his daughter ask us if we're taking the ghost hunting tour. I walk to the front desk, where a woman is unpacking strange looking devices. "EMF detectors, to aid in ghost hunts. No, sorry, the tour is already full," she says without ever looking up. Strange thing is, I didn't even ask.
Oh well, what to do?
Exactly. Best Day Ever? Absolutely!
The night is ghost free, fortunate for us, less so for the EMF detector toting tourists. The morning is rain free, fortunate for us. With two days left to get home, we've got to get moving, but after two days of sitting still, we're ready to go.
As I load Rain Cloud Follows, a guy working on the sewer walks over and starts a conversation. By now in Bisbee, I expect conversation from strangers, and am never disappointed. The usual friendly banter leads to the usual local nuggets of knowledge that no tour book can provide. Back roads, secret routes, great places to eat. But Sewer Man has more.
"The sewer's clogged with grease. Come see!"
"Err... OK, I guess..." Peeking over the rim and into the clogged abyss, I get to see a part of Bisbee that no tour dares show, much more frightening than even the best ghost tour ever could be.
We follow Sewer Man's suggestion, diverting southward toward Nogales before the westward slog commences. On the map I spy the ghost town of Harshaw, and while I know the dashed line means a dirt road, I conveniently leave this fact out when I suggest visiting the ghost town to Sleeping Beauty.
"Ok," she replies, pointing over my shoulder at the map, "but doesn't that dashed line mean dirt?"
"I'm not sure, dear."
Five miles of slippery, silly gravel road later, we find Harshaw, more of a 'ghost house' than a proper ghost town.
Thrilling. At this point I could turn around, but to me, turning around equals defeat. The dashed lines all eventually lead to Nogales, so, I choose the dirt road less traveled. I take our fully overloaded, two-up sport bike deeper into the wilds of no-man's land.
Up gravelly hills, down rocky descents, through five water crossings, the FJR never misses a beat. Sure, steering is sloppy fun, but at a comfortable 18 MPH, I'm happy. Maybe as happy as I've ever been on a ride. This is insane, but for the moment I'm free of crew calls, departure gates, cell phones, with my girl in the bright sunshine and fresh air, and this dirty nonsense is exactly what I need. My involuntary smile pulls so tightly it feels like I've had three facelifts.
With a swat on my leg, Sleeping Beauty shatters my reverie. "This is nuts. You're fucking crazy. You know that, right?"
Right. It's OK, she's smiling too (or is that a grimace? I'm not entirely sure). I reassure her that we're fine and I know what I am doing. She knows better.
At a dirt crossroads we have an official Mexican standoff with an official Mexican on an official donkey.
He concedes the route, his one donkey power vehicle no match for my 141 ponies. Though in this dirt, I think he could outrun me. We round perilous corners, almost always nearly out of control, but not quite. Just as I allow myself to think the worst of it is over, the worst of it hits us like, well, like a ton of sand.
We pass a campsite, and I absorb the wild stares we get from the campers, when suddenly, without warning, things get deadly serious. My handlebars launch into a wild Irish jig. The bars slam lock to lock, side to side, and suddenly we're on a bucking rodeo bronco that wants desperately to lay down. The road, until this point loose gravel and hard packed dirt, has turned into a beach, and my road tires have zero traction in the soft, silty shit beneath them. I'm sure we're going to crash spectacularly, but my butt is clenched so tight I can't even speak.
I picture the headline in tomorrow's El Periódico Nogales: "The Line Between Adventure and Stupidity Is Thin. El Gringo Was Estupido."
Somehow, through more dumb luck than skill, my definitely non-dual-sport bike remains upright, and we ride the case of the head shakes out. Fiona, aware that some scary shit just happened but unaware that it wasn't scary shit of my doing yells at me for shaking the bars and scaring her.
You weren't the only one scared, hon.
A few miles of this sandy stupidity, using my legs as outriggers to keep us upright, and suddenly we're stopped by the Border Patrol. They are more surprised to see us two goofballs than we are to see them. The agents all have a good laugh at us as the sergeant says to me, "You rode all this way here on that? You're crazy, you know that?"
I know.
One more day. One more post, and the Road to Wrestlemania XXVI will be nothing more than a footnote in the annals of ride report history.
The morning is soggy, but the winds have blown out, and the rain clouds soon follow. The day improves greatly, and we take in the sights of the town.
Stopped at an overlook, a car pulls up, and a nice, older couple bounds right up to us. "Hi. I see you have a Canon. I do too, but it's not working. Says 'Err 99' every time I try to take a picture. Whaddaya think?"
I don't have to think, I know. Err 99 is the catch-all error code, like a check engine light. I've had a few Err 99's; one was a dead shutter mechanism, another was a lens problem. We try a few roadside repairs, and after some fiddling around, manage to get the camera to take a few pictures.
All the while we're trying to repair the camera, we talk. They're from Canada, driving around and seeing the sights, heading to someplace else from somewhere else; visiting, laughing and having a great time. After our few snapshots, his dreaded Err 99 pops up again. He shrugs and says, "Well, so much for that. Thanks for trying." As they get ready to leave, the lady says, "Oh no. I don't do handshakes, I do hugs." Fiona and I are both enveloped in a hug so strong it feels like a python has wrapped around us.
After they leave Fiona says, "That'll be you and me someday, don't you think?"
"No," I reply. "My camera will work."
Back to town, we've got lots of time to kill, and a storm brewing on the horizon. The rain clouds have followed us once again. We know this drill well, it's just a matter of time. We need someplace, dry and indoors to kill some time. The Queen Mine Tour fills that bill perfectly.
We don helmets, mining lights and for some reason, yellow rain slickers, and board the world's weirdest train to be shuttled deep into the vertical mine shaft.
Our tour guide leads us off the train and into a chamber, where he bombards us with facts we can later use as a natural repellent to bore people away from us.
"Did you know the Queen Mine produced over eight billion pounds of copper in its day?"
Snore...
The tour guide was a master at evading questions. Sometimes he feigned deafness "due to all the dynamite" he used to use, other times he'd repeat what he just said, whether it answered a question or not. One parent finally asked him a question he could answer. "What do you do with a five year old that has to use the bathroom really bad?"
"Sir, this is a mine. Pick a wall. Go anywhere you like!"
Back at the Copper Queen, a guy and his daughter ask us if we're taking the ghost hunting tour. I walk to the front desk, where a woman is unpacking strange looking devices. "EMF detectors, to aid in ghost hunts. No, sorry, the tour is already full," she says without ever looking up. Strange thing is, I didn't even ask.
Oh well, what to do?
Exactly. Best Day Ever? Absolutely!
The night is ghost free, fortunate for us, less so for the EMF detector toting tourists. The morning is rain free, fortunate for us. With two days left to get home, we've got to get moving, but after two days of sitting still, we're ready to go.
As I load Rain Cloud Follows, a guy working on the sewer walks over and starts a conversation. By now in Bisbee, I expect conversation from strangers, and am never disappointed. The usual friendly banter leads to the usual local nuggets of knowledge that no tour book can provide. Back roads, secret routes, great places to eat. But Sewer Man has more.
"The sewer's clogged with grease. Come see!"
"Err... OK, I guess..." Peeking over the rim and into the clogged abyss, I get to see a part of Bisbee that no tour dares show, much more frightening than even the best ghost tour ever could be.
We follow Sewer Man's suggestion, diverting southward toward Nogales before the westward slog commences. On the map I spy the ghost town of Harshaw, and while I know the dashed line means a dirt road, I conveniently leave this fact out when I suggest visiting the ghost town to Sleeping Beauty.
"Ok," she replies, pointing over my shoulder at the map, "but doesn't that dashed line mean dirt?"
"I'm not sure, dear."
Five miles of slippery, silly gravel road later, we find Harshaw, more of a 'ghost house' than a proper ghost town.
Thrilling. At this point I could turn around, but to me, turning around equals defeat. The dashed lines all eventually lead to Nogales, so, I choose the dirt road less traveled. I take our fully overloaded, two-up sport bike deeper into the wilds of no-man's land.
Up gravelly hills, down rocky descents, through five water crossings, the FJR never misses a beat. Sure, steering is sloppy fun, but at a comfortable 18 MPH, I'm happy. Maybe as happy as I've ever been on a ride. This is insane, but for the moment I'm free of crew calls, departure gates, cell phones, with my girl in the bright sunshine and fresh air, and this dirty nonsense is exactly what I need. My involuntary smile pulls so tightly it feels like I've had three facelifts.
With a swat on my leg, Sleeping Beauty shatters my reverie. "This is nuts. You're fucking crazy. You know that, right?"
Right. It's OK, she's smiling too (or is that a grimace? I'm not entirely sure). I reassure her that we're fine and I know what I am doing. She knows better.
At a dirt crossroads we have an official Mexican standoff with an official Mexican on an official donkey.
He concedes the route, his one donkey power vehicle no match for my 141 ponies. Though in this dirt, I think he could outrun me. We round perilous corners, almost always nearly out of control, but not quite. Just as I allow myself to think the worst of it is over, the worst of it hits us like, well, like a ton of sand.
We pass a campsite, and I absorb the wild stares we get from the campers, when suddenly, without warning, things get deadly serious. My handlebars launch into a wild Irish jig. The bars slam lock to lock, side to side, and suddenly we're on a bucking rodeo bronco that wants desperately to lay down. The road, until this point loose gravel and hard packed dirt, has turned into a beach, and my road tires have zero traction in the soft, silty shit beneath them. I'm sure we're going to crash spectacularly, but my butt is clenched so tight I can't even speak.
I picture the headline in tomorrow's El Periódico Nogales: "The Line Between Adventure and Stupidity Is Thin. El Gringo Was Estupido."
Somehow, through more dumb luck than skill, my definitely non-dual-sport bike remains upright, and we ride the case of the head shakes out. Fiona, aware that some scary shit just happened but unaware that it wasn't scary shit of my doing yells at me for shaking the bars and scaring her.
You weren't the only one scared, hon.
A few miles of this sandy stupidity, using my legs as outriggers to keep us upright, and suddenly we're stopped by the Border Patrol. They are more surprised to see us two goofballs than we are to see them. The agents all have a good laugh at us as the sergeant says to me, "You rode all this way here on that? You're crazy, you know that?"
I know.
One more day. One more post, and the Road to Wrestlemania XXVI will be nothing more than a footnote in the annals of ride report history.
