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The High Ground Tour A BB1500 June 22nd and 23rd, 2002 Wanted: Beautiful girl for wife with land including high ground and high powered rifle. Please send picture of high ground and rifle. Condo’s do not make good compounds. With this joke was born an idea for a ride. That and the fact that I’ve entered my first LD rally, the Thin Air TT (TATT) but have done zero training for it and it takes place in a month. So being that I don’t have a Bun Burner certificate, and Terry Mc continues to live off of his one little SaddleSore that was like 3 years ago, I figured that I would rope Terry into it and we could do a little Bun Burner (BB) (1500 miles in 36 hours). I’ve already done a Bun Burner Gold (BBG) which was ungodly hard, so I had no real desire to crank another one of those out. I wanted to go north to Montana because Montana is beautiful and that’s where you get good land for building compounds. J I planned a run that would be about half 2 lane and half freeway. Enough speed to keep it on time, and enough 2 lane to keep it interesting and challenging. Last fall in returning from Portland the long way, I did 1450 miles in 33 hours, including a 9 hour hotel and dinner stop (although no logs & receipts) that was about three quarter 2 lane so I knew that a BB was pretty doable. I needed to get a training run in for TATT. Although I’ve ridden about 5,000 miles so far this year, they have all been little errands and back and forth to work except 1 day riding around with Ken on the Ducati. This is not good training for a LD rally. I convince (con?) Terry into coming on this. We negotiate a date, which turns out to be this weekend which is just about the longest day of the year, so that’s an extra bonus. This should also be early enough to give me time to recuperate for TATT. Terry, believe it or not, wants to leave at 5. I want to leave at 6. He wins, so let that be notice that Terry wanted to leave on something before me. No, I didn’t think that would ever happen either. I talk with Paul Kiefer (10/49 on a Harley) to be a witness and my usual suspects Hunt and June. (who just LOVE to get up at 5am to sign me in and out J ) I get my bike all ready the weekend before, until I’m coming home from work on Wednesday, and realize that my headlight is out. Oh, no biggie, just a bulb, it’s happened before. I get home, I start tearing things apart. It’s not the bulb, it’s not the fuse (because BMW deigns to have a headlight that is unfused!), I pull off the connector to the bulb and it’s melted. This is bad. To get access to it you have to tear the ENTIRE bike apart. So I do, and it’s toast. I get a connector on the way home from work Thursday and when I get to my house like every single person I talked to about is waiting at my door wanting to see the BMW that tried to melt down. So, since they are here, they get roped into helping. Terry, Jack and Don do a fantastic job helping me put it back together and soon enough we have lights. What a stupid setup from the factory. Next time it gets torn down it’s going to get rewired directly and with a relay and a fuse. It’s now Friday and Terry isn’t close to having his bike ready. So being as I seem to be his personal mechanic, we spend a couple hours doing valves, oil and a synch job on his. I pack up ready to roll. Maybe one change of clothes, etc, maps, witness sheets, so forth and so on. I’m getting pretty good at what I want to bring on an LD ride so this doesn’t take too long. Load up the bike and then try and sleep. I always find it hard to sleep the night before a big ride, and this time is no exception. Soon enough thought the alarm goes off, ti’s still dark out and I’m getting ready to go out the door. At 10 til, the phone rings, it’s Hunt “where are you?” “trying to go out the door and you are delaying me” I hang up on him, load up on the bike and zip on down the road to the gas station. Paul is already though, so is Mr Prepared Terry. “hey,” says Terry, “did you bring the witness sheets?” sure did, all filled out for me, where are yours? well, go get ‘em. We get our signatures and start the clock and we are on our way. The general plan was to try and hold a BBG pace and see if we could pull a BBG. But if we fell off the pace, then we would just punt and do a BB. I really expected this to happen, it was a very challenging route, and riding with two people is slower than by yourself, but I figured we would give it a shot. We putter onto 6th Ave going east towards
I-25. Gee, there is like no traffic
at 5 on a Saturday morning. Who
would have guessed. On I-25 north
about the 76 interchange, this guy in a little Honda prelude blows by us like we
are standing still. Sweet, a
rabbit. We duly follow the rabbit
up through the new 470 interchange where he gets off, and although we are still
going at a nice pace, this guy in a beat up old pickup truck blows by us in the
right lane like we are still standing still.
Double sweet. We follow him
(and work pretty hard at it, the dude is HAMMERING) til the Longmont exit.
We putter along until just north of Ft Collins, there is something in the
road. Oh, aim to miss it, and it
moves. WTF?
It’s still moving (and mind you we are doing 75mpg on the freeway).
I go left, Terry goes right and we just miss a duck and her ducklings
going across the highway. I’m not
so sure that’s a good idea for the longevity of that duck family. We get north of Windsor where I-25 gets really boring and are moving at a decent pace, slowly passing some people, I glance in the rearview mirror and there is some Chrysler Sebring up Terry’s behind. Oh man, we’re busted. Roll over and this lady and her 4 little kids blows by us like we are standing still. We wick it up to stay with our rabbit. Well, at ummm, RT nominal speeds, this lady is still pulling away. I let her go. I know Terry wanted to chase her down, but I thought that was excessive. We roll into Cheyenne for our first corner receipt making some excellent time. Terry gets a bad receipt right off the bat. Not a good start. I go in to use the facilities, I walk out to grab some water, but there are like 15 people in line. Forget it, it’s a nice cool day, I’ll survive, we pack up and leave, heading west on I-80. I had pre-run this stretch the weekend before to make sure there was an easy gas station before I-80. I also found out that to get on I-80 westbound from I-25 northbound you have to go into town, around like 3 lights, over the RR tracks, etc because it’s all under construction. I did however note there might be a shortcut, albeit slightly illegal. We go north on I-25, I see the Yukon in front of me pull what I’m about to pull and double checking traffic, we slow and go left across the one southbound I-25 lane onto the on ramp. Zoom, 5 more minutes saved. We go off to Rawlins. Terry disappears into the distance. Somehow I get stuck behind a Wyoming highway Patrol Durango. I have serious thoughts about watching the Durango roll while trying to catch me (I own a Durango, what a POS), but they vanish. I never did figure out how Terry passed the Durango. Wyoming is windy, imagine that. 2 hours pass, I roll into Rawlins and Terry is already at some Texaco. I roll up, first pump says “doesn’t work”. Roll to next one “credit card unavailable” I roll to third one cussing and ready to leave. It works, (after 2 tries, what a craphole. I hate Texaco’s). I do all the receipts, then go to get some water and pee. Terry walks up and the door is locked. It’s like 8:30am. WTF? Man, I’m irate. Terry heads for the McD’s and before I can catch him I try and tell him I need something to drink. I go up 287 about 2 blocks, and find a local 7-11 thing. I never see Terry pass. Huh? I get all dressed up again and go back by the McD’s and don’t see him. Fine, he’ll figure it out, and I go north up 287. Wyoming, big and windy, add 2 odd hours, get to Thermopolis. Terry is already there (squid. J ) and I grab gas. Another Texaco. I warn him about no more Texaco’s. as I come out from grabbing water, he’s eating a Taco Bell burrito. I can’t imagine anything worse for you on a LD ride than Taco Hell. Anyway, we go off again towards Cody. I get out before him. (see, faster stops means more time riding) and I expect him to catch me quickly. He never does. I never do figure this out. We stop in Cody, Wyoming and I get gas. (we have an agreement, first gas station on the right). I wait, and I wait and I wait. Finally he shows up. Apparently, about 10 miles outside of town, he tried to pull a Ron Ayers and all his paperwork went flying out. He actually managed to find it though, so we are still on. This place doesn’t have pay at the pump, so terry goes inside to get his receipt. And I wait and I wait. Finally, I go inside, look, I’ll meet you in Red Lodge. I guess he had some receipt problems. He just doesn’t have the touch I suppose. J 5 miles short of the border, the road turns to dirt. Yep, me, my bike and Wyoming always result in at least some dirt riding. Not the coolest thing on a R11RT. But get through that, go up and into Red Lodge. First gas station and grab gas again. (see, this is why I knew this route would be impossible for a BBG, too many corners to document). This receipt totally blows. Nothing in the store is printed. I can’t believe it. I get the girl to put the name, location, phone number etc on the receipt. Unbelievable. It should matter much cuz although it’s a corner, it’s about the shortest way too. By Red Lodge it was obvious, our average had dropped too far, a BBG would be almost impossible. We both felt, why push it, let’s get a nice BB and stop for the night in Billings. (approximately the 1000 mile mark) We take highway 78 out of Red Lodge towards I-90 and Columbus. This is a great road. Up down, left right, beautiful country. We continue to point out really nice high grounds to build houses, or where they are already built to each other as we ride along. At one point we get behind the world’s fastest Jeep Cherokee, but terry decides that is not fast enough and passes him. (squid J ). This road only has one problem, it has too many double yellow lines. We finally get to Columbus and Terry totally blows the left turn towards the freeway, and about 10 seconds later while I’m laughing at Terry I almost run into a truck that decided to turn left at the last second. Ok, that’s it, Columbus is removed as possible homes for the compound. We get on I-90 heading west and the clouds look very very ugly. We are going to get wet. It does not look good. Just when we are about to roll into it the highway turns south at Big Timber. Sweett!!!!!!!!!!!1, we luck out. We go to highway 89, turn north and go to Clyde Park. As we are approaching Clyde Park there is the perfect compound house up on the left. Up on the high ridgeline, with towering views of the valley and road. We both point it out and laugh to each other. We stop in Clyde Park and get gas and the clouds look awful ugly up north. Being obstinate bastids, we continue on. We get about 10 miles and it starts to spit. I decide to pull over and put on the rain gloves. I get them on and about 3 miles up the road is terry putting on all his artic gear (but no rain gloves). It’s a good move. As we continue on, it begins to rain. A lot. Nothing like being on a narrow Montana road with no shoulders when it’s pouring rain. We stop in Hot Sulfur Springs to get some food and remap our route. Up north, on the original route looks pitch black. Bleech, that doesn’t look like fun. We have some KILLER burgers at some little restaurant (Happy Jack’s?) and it was even an old drive through so it had an overhang to put our bikes under. We decide to make Hot Sulfur Springs the turn around
point (we are at like 790 miles). We’ll
go back down to Wiltsall and go over to Bozeman and then I-90 to Billings for
the night. This road from Wiltsall
to Bozeman is a freaking awesome road. The
road is great, the scenery is great, etc. Yep,
the compound can be built up here. We
get into Bozeman., grab some gas (Bozeman BTW, is a very cool town, must come
back soon) and know we are on the downhill stretch.
I take off all my rain gear cuz we are just going on I-90, most of which
we were just on which was dry. You can see where this is heading can’t you? Yep, within 10 miles it’s just flat coming down. I took off my sweatshirt, rain gloves, etc, because in Bozeman it was very nice. At one point it’s raining so hard there is a good inch of rain on the road and it’s blowing. This is considered not fun. Cars are pulling over. I consider pulling over, but figure I’ll get wetter on the side than I will moving down the road. After about 40 or 50 miles it stops and the sun comes out again. Gee, I’m so glad I brought my tinted visor, I haven’t gotten a chance to wear it all day. Terry is leading and is going to get us into Billings by 9pm before sunset. We are making good time and we get into Billings about 8:55. We get off at the first major exit (with all the hotels.). I head for the hotels and realize I’ve made a mistake, we should get gas first and clock in, etc. But I’m already in the frontage road lane to turn left. We turn left and I go into the first big Holiday Inn, because of course with all the brilliant urban planners we have I’m sure that the parking lots intersect and we can just cut through and get back to the gas station (that is like one block south). Of course they don’t.
I see what looks like a road, I zip over and it’s just a little wooden
foot bridge about 3 feet wide. I
look at it, think twice and decide not to, I turn around, “hey, where’s
Terry?” Sorry, we’re full. Sorry, We’re full Sorry, we’re full. WTF? So, next time you hear hotels whining about their business being down, realize they are lying SOB’s. $hit. We go to the next exit, get off, first hotel, lot is totally full, we go down a couple lights, no more hotels. We do however see Montana’s Women’s Prison, always a good sign. WE go back and we get back to the on ramp. We are going east, the road goes over the freeway to the southeast, so we are going to head down the on ramp onto the freeway. Side note: Mom, if you are reading this, stop now, and just know we made it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mom Divider ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It’s 9:20pm, dusk. So, it’s rained a little bit, as I lean over for the left turn, it slips out a little bit. Cool, I think, I straighten up. It’s a short straight ramp, probably 400 feet long or so, I begin to accelerate, get out of 2nd from the turn, into 3rd accelerate and all of a sudden my world explodes. HOLY $HIT Something flies by out of the corner of my right eye, I can’t steer, something is very very wrong. Holy shit, I’m holding the bars, and braking with my foot. I can’t figure out what has happened. You know how sometimes you have incidents and everything slows down to a crawl, you can recreate every little detail and sometimes everything just happens all at once and there is way too much information. My first thought it that my brand new tire exploded, I can’t figure out why I can’t steer. I lean hard, and I brake hard, I gotta get it stopped before we get to the freeway. About 50 feet short of the freeway, I get it stopped, it stalls, I get my feet down. HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? I look down, both my mirrors (pop-offs) are hanging by their saver wire. WTF? The bike lights are still on, I turn the key off. At this point, Terry pulls up beside me and yells out “dude, you hit a deer!” What? What deer? WTF is going on? I turn the key off, I put the kickstand down. I begin to take stock. I get off the bike, adrenalin is raging through me. My heart is pounding like a 1000 beats a minute. WTF has just happened here? What deer? We are in the middle of goddamn downtown Billings! (exit 450, 27th street if you want to know), there is an oil refinery on one side and industrial buildings on the other, what deer? Where would it come from? We are on the f(*&king freeway for criss sake! He gets me somewhat calmed down and I turn around. About 300 feet back up the ramp is a big old deer laying on it’s side. Holy $hit, Holy $hit. I’m f(*&ked. I’m 550 miles away from home and my bike is destroyed. $hit $hit $hit. Terry gets my camera and goes up to take a picture of the deer. I start looking at the bike. We aren’t leaking any fluids, the right saddlebag is just
hanging there, a great big hole in it, the right PIAA is destroyed, the fairing
is basically there. I still can’t figure out why I can’t steer.
I finally notice the GPS has come out it’s infallible holder and is
stuck between the gas tank and the bars. I
remove that, it seems to turn now. Some of the following Terry saw, some of this we deduced from the dead deer and the damage pattern on the bike later. As I began to accelerate down the ramp, the deer came up the side of the ramp (very steep hill) and went across right in front of me. It had to have hit it’s head right on the headlight. The headlight cover was destroyed, we only found a small piece, and the actual mounting of it (into the big fairing) was pushed back. The right mirror was had a broken tab, the other one must have just popped off from the force of the impact. The deer then spun around to my right. (the face was what I saw go by my peripheral vision. Every time I close my eyes I see that face go by now). The right PIAA was totally destroyed, the right mount was bent way back into the forks (more of what was keeping it from steering) and up into the right fairing. It impacted my knee. (Terry pointed out all the fur on it) and thank god I have knee pucks on my ‘stick (for protection, I’m not good enough ot get them down), no bruises at all. Then impacted the right bag and tore it off. The weakest point was apparently the bag itself as the mount was still on the bike, but the mounting point on the bag is gone. It then forced the bag back into the taillight section, broke off part of that and also broke the plastic piece underneath. That’s it. I nailed a deer dead on at 45 to 50mph an hour and that’s it. I’m not complaining. Without the PIAA’s, it wouldn’t have even messed up the right fairing. The big front fairing is only toast because the headlight mounting points are now broken. Not too GD bad. Mind
you this is still probably 3k dollars worth of damage, but it could have been
much much worse. Terry's view: "As
we were heading back to the freeway, in the middle
of Billings, we turn on the on ramp, and Boom!
Plastic everywhere! Deer, sliding down the road
towards me. Shit! Brain just centerpunched a deer!
He's upright and slowing down. Get to the bottom of
the ramp, and Brian is OK, but really doesn't know
what happened. It was that fast. I think the only
reason I know is because I saw the deer sliding down
the road" I’m pissed. I’m
beyond pissed, I’m raging. I need
to get some revenge. My bike is
f(*ked up. Anybody remember
Warchild’s post from a year or so ago where he hit a deer which he stayed
upright but he messed up his bike? And
he took the you know what out of the you know where (starts with a G, sounds
like “clock”) and emptied the whole magazine into the dead deer?
Well, I totally felt like that. If
I had had a you know what, I would have gotten it out and done the same thing.
$hit, I’m still pissed and it’s now a good 24 hours later as I write this.
I go up and look at the deer. The
blood trails show it hit and spun down the ramp to end up about 50 feet down
from the original hit. It’s a big
deer. Typical size, maybe 250 to 300lbs? i dunno, I'm
not a hunter, it's got antlers
about 6 inches long. Looks like the
left one is crushed into it’s skull (probably what killed it, maybe it
shouldn’t go around attacking motorcycles. Stupid
animals) We take stock of the bike and bend some things back.
We move everything in the now destroyed and barely hanging on right saddlebag out.
Some we move to the other saddlebag, some to Terry’s bike.
Terry comes up with a bungee net (man, are those things useful or what?)
and we rig the right saddlebag to stay on.
Because with no front clip left it won’t stay on, there is no way to lock it in.
So, we need to get a hotel. A.
we are both tired and mentally we stopped at the last gas stop.
B. this whole hitting the
deer thing is bad. I remember that last year when I was through Billings, you
go up the hill on I-90 after the intersection with I-94 and there is a hotel on the
right at the top of the hill. We
decide to see if the bike is rideable. (otherwise
we are totally hosed and are calling Hunt to drive 550 miles with the trailer)
Terry gets out and blocks traffic and I go out slowly.
It seems stable, continue to increase speed.
Brights on all the f(*&king time now. PIAA (no "s", only one now) too. We
go about 60/65mph and go up the hill, bike seems to be tracking straight, making no
weird noises, steers good, etc. Still,
I’m riding with both hands on the bar and taking no chances. Well, I f(*&ked up bad. There is no hotel at the top
of the hill. In fact, there is
NOTHING at the top of the hill. We continue on to Hardin,
about 40 miles (the next town), and pull into a hotel. Sorry, we’re full No vacancy Sorry, full. Finally we find a Super 8.
Terry asks the guy, what about the next town? The guy says “everything in a 300 mile radius is full” F(*&k It just goes from bad to worse. What the hell could possibly cause all of these rooms to fill
up. If I’m going to Casper for a room, well I’m just going
all the way home. I get out the
map. The next rest area is in
Sheridan. I’ll go to Sheridan and
take a Iron Butt Hotel nap and then go on slowly home.
NO BBG, but I’m not paying for a hotel 200 miles from home.
Screw that. Stupid state, stupid this stupid that. (as you probably gather, I’m tired and not real happy about my
bike being f(*ked up) Terry says that his wife is calling all the hotels in
Sheridan now and to wait. Forget
it, they are all full, I’m pissed, I’m leaving.
I could have told him all these were full too just by looking at the
parking lot. We’ve wasted like 45
minutes of being awake time instead of riding.
I’m leaving, here’s what I’m doing, see ya at home. I leave him to
sit and waste more stay awake time to hear that all rooms are full.
I putter down the freeway, about 70mph.
After a while I wick it up to 75. I
mean how likely is it to hit two deer in one night?
See, just playing the odds. J
I grab gas at my favorite Exxon truck stop in Sheridan and go one more exit to the
rest stop. I roll around, and look
around for someplace good to sleep. The
place is packed, probably because all these people like us are screwed with
there being no rooms. I see a lot
of the weirder cars and trucks we have seen over the last 200 miles and at the
hotels. (including the truck with a
helicopter) I finally decide to lie
in the grass as it should be softer than the cement of the picnic bench area.
I try lying there, but it isn’t working.
I’m facing downhill and it’s cold and I can't sleep. I
need a pillow. I go back to the
bike to get a sweat shirt or something to put my head on.
I’ve been down about 15 minutes, and as I reach the bike I see Terry pull in. He’s irate. He
says many many bad words to me. He says that
Stacy found the last room in Sheridan but he had to turn it down because he
wouldn’t be sure he could find me. Ok,
I can see why he’s pissed, BUT, hey, your buddy said he was leaving, screw
him, he made his choice, now get the room. I
would have. I would have gotten the
room and found Terry on Sunday. Not my fault. He's just bitter cuz he messed up and didn't take
the room. He could have lorded that over me for YEARS, but no, he's made the mistake this time. Terry turns his back on me and lies down on his bike.
I go over to the picnic shelter to lie against the wall.
It’s probably 50 degrees and humid because it's been raining and it’s getting colder (it’s
like midnight). All of a sudden, I wake up with a start.
I’m freezing cold. I
wonder how long I’ve been out? I
go back to the bike to check the clock. Been out an
hour. I’m cold and I think that
I’m awake now after an hour sleep. I
decide that I’m going to ride on, get to Casper see if I can sleep inside a
gas station or something. At the
worst I’ll have my vest plugged in and will be warm. In fact, really the only solution I can
come up with is to get the bike running to plug the vest in. And if the bike is running, well
I'm riding.
I look around for Terry. Can’t find him.
He’s not on the bike, he’s not anywhere in view.
WTF? And I can’t really
figure out what to do if I do find him? Do
I wake him up? I dare not wake him
up, I’d kill someone who woke me up. Maybe
he’s in the bathroom? Nah, I’m
not walking all the way over there. Of
course, he would be in the lobby sleeping where it would be warm.
This does not occur to me at all. Leaving
a note does not occur to me at all (it did about 5am, but too late then).
Can you tell I’m still asleep? I
couldn’t. I never did find where Terry was sleeping.
1:20am, I pull out to go to Casper.
It’s like 80 more miles to Kaycee where the next rest stop is if I
can’t make it all the way to Casper (like 150 miles).
It took me over an hour and a half to get to Kaycee. The first 40 miles went ok, then I started getting
sleepy. I pulled over to put my
head down to sleep. That worked but
not for long, I was too afraid to sit on the side of the road for long and get
run down. My speed continues to
drop and I can’t keep focus. I
pull over again. Same thing, I get about 10 more miles.
I pull into a ranch exit thing to sleep down at the bottom, but there is
no place to put the bike. I see the
truck with the helicopter. He’s
doing the same thing. We pass and
re-pass each other about 4 more times over the next 5 hours.
By the end it was all I could do to get to Kaycee and the rest area.
It took me 3 stops to get the last 10 miles.
Head down, close eyes, do this for about 2 minutes, start bike, ride about 3
miles, pull over. Repeat. I get into the rest area.
I pull right up on the bathroom because I gotta go pee.
I go in and it’s one of those big lobby, welcome to our state see how
we waste your tax money things with bathroom doors at the back. i go pee, and I come out of the bathroom. Hmmm, lobby, warm,
out of wind, warm.
Hmm, sweatshirt equal pillow. Lie
down next to wall. Bam. Next thing I know it’s pretty much light out, the sun
isn’t up but it’s close. I get
up. I was beginning to hear more
footsteps as I came out of the sleep. I
could hear the door open real loudly, then real softly close as they must have
noticed I was there. They had to
figure this power ranger looking guy (still in ‘stich mind you) was the idiot riding the bike parked
right out front. It was a hell of a
good idea. Wish I had throught of it
in Sheridan. I get up, go out to the bike and find out that it’s 4:45, I’ve
been out over 2 hours.
Never has a cement floor been so comfortable. You know you are tired when you can sleep in all your gear
on a cement floor for over two hours and think this is one outstanding sleep
I’m still kinda waking up but all I want to do is go home.
I get back on and it’s still cold.
I fire up the electrics, heated grips, etc and get moving again
. so much easier to stay awake in the light. Go
into Casper and my favorite Exxon (Exxon gives great receipts, what can I say?).
Get a soda, which I can’t really choke down and decide to keep moving. Wyoming passes, all of I-25 is under construction, but
it’s not a big deal at 6 in the morning on a Sunday.
Get to Wheatland (Exxon. J
)get gas, some health food and call Paul and June to tell them I will be there
in about 2.5 to 3 hours and to meet me at the gas station around then. I keep going. At
Cheyenne all of a sudden it gets hot and I have to unclothe all the warm clothes
I have on. I mean like within 20 miles it got 20 degrees hotter. BTW, the bike is running great. Tracking true, at good western velocities and not moving
around or doing anything else weird. It appears that the
damage is only cosmetic. We’ll see what the
insurance people have to say. Got in and clocked out at 10:01am, had to build some
special witness sheets, because my pre-printed ones were in Terry’s bike.
Paul and June signed me out and I went home and napped.
Just over 1600 miles (although I bet officially it’s a little less
because of the roaming for hotels, etc) in just under 29 hours.
And I’m beat. Utterly and totally exhausted. Must find
hotel earlier. Terry got in around noon. Said he woke up and noticed
(after a while) that I was gone. Said he was pissed. I asked him how
pissed he would be if I had woken him up? He said not very.
LIAR!!! Besides, this way I beat his time so I won't have to hear about how he did one faster ha!. Oh, he also said he was sleeping on the grass on the other
side of the wall. Like I'm going to be able to see through a wall. I
do wish I had been awake enough to leave a note. Must not hit deer. Now, my training ride is over and I’m ready to go but I
don’t have anything to ride for TATT. I
have one month to get it fixed. Wish
me luck. I figure that still world's toughest riders. It
wasn't necessarily a hard ride and I was pretty tired, but hitting a deer at the
1000 mile mark and still finishing out the ride has to count for something,
don't ya think? Most if not all of the above is true, and of course the
ride is subject to IBA verification. Thanks for listening. Brian Hopkins |