Sand Is Trying To Kill Me: Part 2

Honey Badger (my Yamaha) and I were out on a trail ride. I got lost, took a few weird turns and the staid trail I’d been on turned into something um… interesting. It wasn’t “expert level” but it was definitely more than mellow.

Soon I recognized it as the trail where my antique-ish ATV and I had been stopped by fallen trees last fall. I’m still new at off road motorcycles and I’m no spring chicken, so I wisely turned around and…

Ha ha ha… bullshit!

I goosed it and practically flew up the ridge. Honey Badger didn’t so much as blink. I held on and made Dukes of Hazzard sounds.

Sweet! I rolled right past the trees that had blocked my path last year. They’d been cut and moved aside. I inspected the vicinity on the other side of the blockage. Last year I’d tried to ride around the obstacle in the late afternoon waning sun. With the benefit of better views, I can safely say there was no way in hell I’d have made it even if I’d brought a dozer. The blowdown was impenetrable.

I wanted to stop to rest but the ticks were horrible. I rolled on looking for a nice picnic spot. The trail wasn’t hard for an experienced rider but I’m not experienced. I handled it. There was less cheering and whooping, more teeth gritting and whining.

After a few miles I was just dying to take a break. Then I hit a nice flat area but instead of easy riding it was worse. Now I was in the sands of the fucking Sahara. What would be unremarkable on an ATV was absolute chaos on my bike. (Honey Badger don’t like sand!)

Finally, after the fifth near miss I stopped right in the middle of the trail; ticks and mosquitoes swarming… and just stood beside my bike. This is work!

I’m a rookie on a dirtbike but not in the forest. The ticks and mosquitoes cried out for blood. Even before I had my helmet off, I was reaching for repellent. I sprayed my boots and you could almost hear the disappointment of ticks crawling toward my pantleg in hopes of biting my junk. Then I ditched my jacket and put on a “bug shirt”. I have a peremethrin impregnated shirt and it saved my ass. If you don’t have one… buy one.

I’d have liked to sit down but in that creepy crawly zoo I just stood. Finally, after a bottle of water and some cookies I rolled out. Soon I was on a Forest Service system road. Still dirt, but compared to where I was previously, it’s practically a highway. Whew.

[Note: The following was written when the nation was still in the waning but desperately preserved hysteria over COVID (which had the seed of real risk but went too far) and hadn’t yet stampeded into synchronized anarchical riots (which perhaps have the seed of real concerns but are also going too far). As always, people who panic baffle me.]

I rolled past a closed campground. At that time (I’ve no idea what’s happening now) a lot of campsites were closed. COVID madness and all.

That bothers me; not that the campsite was closed but that it was managed under risk scenarios that made sense in March and don’t now. We are smart monkeys. We should be able to adapt to new information.

Overreaction this spring was understandable, a dangerous contagion arises and nobody knows what it’ll do. Under those conditions, big reactions make sense. I took big actions myself. Not because I was ordered to, but because it seemed prudent. I voluntarily reacted to a threat of unknown dimensions. No regrets. That’s what adults do. You place your bets and you take your chances.

Now, months later, we can see some of the dimensions of the threat. Certainly, many people have died, but it’s nowhere near the darkest projections of the winter. It’s a nothing burger in places I frequent and “much worse than bad flu but not Black Death” in others. In America it hit a few big cities and missed most of the continent. Bullet dodged. I’m very happy about that. It seems that nobody else accepts or enjoys good news.

Nor is the forest a vector of spread. The contagion appears to have spread in subways and mass transit; so much for those glorious Utopian joys. Maybe shutting down… everything… helped. Maybe it didn’t. But people with degrees and models were about as wrong as Paul Krugman’s economic predictions.

I was wrong too. I expected it to nuke left coast, warm climate, cities based on homeless people. It spared them (mostly) even though it appeared fast in Seattle. Instead it headed for old people in NYC, Chicago, and Detroit. I expected it to hit the homeless but it ran amok in nursing homes. These are things to learn. Being smart monkeys, we should use our knowledge.

It seems clear now that COVID isn’t going to kill you for fishing in the hinterlands and indeed UV light and fresh air is probably beneficial. So, I’ve been playing in the forest. Alas, the campsites were closed; folks in a sparse rural world got boxed in with regulations that might suit a dense urban one. Equating outdoorsmen sitting by a campfire and nursing homes a thousand miles away seems weird… I suspect homo sapiens can’t really understand “risk”. Yes, we know what a virus exists but do we act like sickness is caused by a virus? We wear cotton bandannas as if nanometer sized particles will notice. I think the masks serve a purpose like amulets or talismans. They signal your position on the spectrum of belief and compliance. (Ask a Prius owner about signaling.)

Pondering life from the seat of a motorcycle, masks seem not unlike painting hexes on a hat. Then again, there are people who’ll freak out and shriek “I’m triggered by hate” over political slogans on hats. Who knows? They need the symbol of the mask and fear the words on a hat… is it a magic spell to them?

I’m glad I live far from it. But I was sad that people weren’t camping. What’s this? People actually were camping all about. I found them on the Forest Service road!

The main road was easily traveled. It was a place easily reached in an SUV or base level truck.

Dotted here and there, spread wide across the land, was a small contingent of “dispersed campers”. (According to Forest Service lingo “dispersed camping” is when you camp somewhere that’s not a designated campsite. Or as I call it… camping.)

At intervals I’d smell smoke. I’d see a smattering of a tent or two. Not far off the road there would be a car or two. Adults kicked back by little campfires; feet up on coolers and chatting while kids chased around in the grass (no doubt, to the delight of the ticks).

God damn that was good to see! While CNN breathlessly told everyone to sit home and mope while their betters would arrange an impossible risk-free world, here were people enjoying the shade of pines and glorious nature. There’s hope for us yet!

Despite the road being fine for a basic SUV it was still treacherous to me. Sand is my nemesis! I barely managed 30MPH on a road so flat I’d be doing 45 MPH in my Dodge. I decided I’d had enough fun and took the first paved crossroad. There’s something magic about rolling a dual sport bike onto pavement and instantly converting from “trail rider” to “road rider”. It’s pretty slick. (One caveat, Honey Badger ‘aint fast. I keep her around 55MPH or less. I can mod it to run faster on the road but seeing as how it’s mostly for trails, I don’t want to push it.)

I was a little sad that it’s still COVID madness. Most of the bars were closed and none were selling hamburgers. I love a “post adventure burger”. It’s apparently a bigger deal to me than I thought. I really missed it.

When I got home, I started a fire in my backyard, and roasted a few brats. No, I didn’t check with my HOA about the fire… because I still live in a free world. There is no HOA. Nor did I check for WHO/CDC opinions on roasted brats with a cold beer. Fuck them.

The next day I ordered a new front tire for Honey Badger. A new tire is cheaper than a visit to the ER.