Solitude and odd publicity. No one to talk to for hours but lots of interaction in the doldrums.
It’s amazing to me that a simple set of tiger ears and tail can have such a huge impact on others. Women and children speak to you spontaneously at fuel and rest stops. Younger guys just walk by trying to suppress their grins. Older guys just start talking. Hundreds of pictures, and I mean that quite literally, were taken of me from cars. Sometimes it got stupid. Those are other stories.
I pulled in for fuel and food in Beaver, CO. Fuel, park, go get some grub. Next thing I knew, the FJR was surrounded by brand new Harleys. Turned out they were a tour group from Germany. They had a minivan following them. The only thing they needed to carry was a fresh do-rag. Interesting concept – Fly from Germany. Load your stuff in our van, then ride around the 100F dessert. Hopefully they got some mountain time too. Beaver, CO isn’t the rider capital of the world. They asked about the ears.
It was in Beaver that I met Ann. She fell for the ears. Ann is in her 70s by my guess. She’s actually a Katrina displacee who’s living with her daughter in Beaver. Ann is one of those pleasant, talkative, intelligent women who believes there’s something good and interesting in everyone. She’s the one who found out the details on the tourists. She advocated helmet use. She bemoaned the recent (helmetless) loss of a relative down in the Carolinas. Ann is nice…. Cool in fact….. I wish her well in her new situation. She seems quite happy.
The last legs of this trip have been visually quite distinct. It’s amazing you can have such altitude without features. I often traveled at over 5000 feet without a reasonable feature on the horizon. Northern CO, southern ID, NE Oregon, southcentral Washington make west Texas seem exciting.
Oh, a little thing about northern Arizona. I got another performance award. The page is numbered above 501 million. Yeah, 501 million in Arizona alone.
How in heck do you make a state highway pass thru miles and miles of miles and miles and set the speed limit at 65 mph? I knew I was pulling up on a squad car from miles away. Yeah, miles. He turned on the lights and I just pulled in front of him. What kind of job is that? How much job satisfaction can you get from sitting in the desert waiting for the next set of numbers to pass by?
Apparently the job is to pull people over, see if they’re Kosher, write a warning citation, and then wait for the next prairie dog to pop his head out the hole. Whack-a-mole. 73 in a 65. The citation shows 65+ in a 65. No fine, no court, no use.
Wanna know how silly it was? Arizona is an “open carry” state. My gun was sitting in full sight in the clear case on top of the tank. He never asked me to separate myself from the weapon or show my face. I never took my helmet off. I never lifted the dark shield above an inch of venting. All he saw was perfect paperwork, a gun, and some tiger ears. There was never a visual ID.
He seemed a nice guy. He spoke in a manner I’d call “police book professional”. His statements were factual. But I genuinely fear for his safety. Really. Do the visual. Someday he’s not gonna be talking to tiger ears. Somebody is gonna knock him down. Somebody is gonna hurt him. It was sad. I thought I was getting a smog inspection or an oil change.
I had lots of interesting experiences on this trip, but this was bizarre.
For the record, I reportedly broke the law in Oregon too. I pumped my own fuel. Believe it or not, this is a major offense. Police supposedly watch gas stations more often than they sit out waiting for prairie dogs. It's freaking stupid and I'm such a hooligan.
Close to the location of my "Arizona offense".
I don't know why the camera didn't pick up any shots of my return into western Washington. It's beautiful green country. The temps were in the 60s and it wasn't raining over Snoqualmie pass. Beauty and pleasantries for the last 90 minutes home. Ultimately the camera failure was my fault. May be I want to remember it as it appeared in my head instead of how it appeared in reality. Who knows.
But I'm home now.
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