The next morning dawned warm, humid, and overcast. I wanted to sleep late but my tent turned into a sauna. Eventually I had the presence of mind to get up and about but I was pretty groggy. (It was slightly cooler outside.)
Breakfast was bacon and eggs (from my homestead) with a diced tomato from the happy grocery store. Delicious. Plus coffee! Never forget the coffee.
For this trip I’d bought a few little treats for myself; cheap waterproof containers for salt and pepper and a folding spatula. We all need a little present for ourselves once in a while.
I prepped the bike and lubed the living shit out of the chain. I’m always afraid I’ll neglect the chain. I don’t yet have parts and tools prepared in case I kill the chain on the trail! This worries me and it’s on my to-do list. (Every point of failure I haven’t yet addressed is something I hope to eventually mitigate.)
The plan for the day was to have no plan. I accomplished my goals!
I rode here and there. It was delightfully aimless. I met a group (herd?) of four UTVs and one ATV in convoy. I didn’t know at the time but they were the only people I would see the whole trip (aside from my neighbor).
About ten miles out of camp I encountered a tree fallen across the road. I stepped off the bike to assess the situation but the mosquitoes were too persistent. I could have gotten past the tree and I was sort of interested in the challenge but I couldn’t think with all the buzzing! It was a dead end road anyway. I shrugged and turned around. I’ll always wonder what was just past the tree. Probably more of the same but who knows?
A little bit further I saw a black bear cub. It was a healthy looking little critter. Very cute. I shut down the engine and watched. He stared at me. I stared at him. Mosquitoes bit us both.
Mom bear showed up, took one look at me, and noped out of there. You can always tell the difference between bears which have been hunted and “trash can bears”. These bears were as wild as any other animal. Good for them.
I rode on. A patch of the road was flooded. It wasn’t deep, less than a foot. There was a wheel rut on the left and one on the right. Theoretically the water would be shallowest in the middle? I rode through like a boss. This “center-line approach” only works if the road material is amenable. If you’re trying to ride high on a thin muddy ridge it’s easy to slip off. That leads to an uncontrolled moment (for a novice like me) where you wonder if you’re going to still be upright when the tires inevitably slide into the wheel rut. This road was pretty stout so I barely got my feet wet.
Later I bumped into “Mystery Road”. Mystery Road (not it’s true name) speaks to me. There’s a big chunk of nothing. It’s bisected by a road. I want to travel that road!
Satellite imagery shows the road to be large and well maintained. I’d considered running my Dodge up that road. The only reason I hadn’t is that it’s a long road going though the most nothing of nothing… remoteness in that kind of quantity has it’s own special quality. It makes sense to fully investigate before I put a behemoth on that path.
An old wooden sign said “Dogtown” was only 40 miles away. Dogtown is the other side. I’ve been to Dogtown. Perfect! An unexplored 40 miles of easy flat well maintained dirt with a bar and electricity and pavement on the other side! I wasn’t planning an 80 mile round trip but why the heck not? I might even get a cheeseburger in the middle of my trip!
Mystery Road goes through serious nowhere and I wanted to see the nowhere. I roared out with a smile on my face!
A mile later I saw a sign that said “gate closed”. There was a little flipping wood thing so it could say open/closed as they saw fit. Who’s they? No idea. What gate? No idea.
Five miles later I found the locked gate. Why was it locked? No idea. Is it always locked? No idea. Could I get around it on my bike? Easily. But then what?
I turned around. I’ll have to make some calls and find out if it’s closed for a reason of logistics “road washed out at mile marker 32” or some sort of regulation “closed during migration season of the rare and endangered North American slime-assed snail”. Further investigation is merited.
I’m glad I wasn’t trying to make the passage in the Dodge. I’d have had to back up at least a mile before there was space to turn around. Honey Badger can do a U-turn in a few feet so I zipped around and was back in business.
Update: I made some calls and found out the road was washed out this spring. It’s likely to be fixed around fall. (In general any road that’s still closed during big game season pisses people off.) The guy I talked to seemed like a genuine human being. He didn’t make a washed out road sound like the end of humanity. Refreshing in a government employee. The road was blocked mostly because they didn’t want someone getting in there with a huge RV and creating issues or getting themselves in trouble. Having to back an RV ten miles will mess up anyone. Rather than communicate all that with a poster or whatever, they just chained the road shut. It’s all very reasonable.)
On this trip I’d packed some new camping technology; dehydrated wipes (a.k.a. toilet paper, a.k.a. shit tickets). They’re pellets the size of a throat lozenge (bad analogy but I’ll leave it there… think of Menthos?). I can carry a dozen in a tube about twice the length and slightly larger diameter than AA batteries. They expand to the size of a decent washcloth. You can see how that would be handy!
I’m a cautious guy and also had regular t-paper just in case. Dehydrated is a strange phrase for wipes but they definitely only pop open if they get wet. I got them insufficiently wet and so they only expanded partly. Thus, they worked but not excellently. I’m still evaluating this technical marvel. I’ll report back when I know more.
I also forgot my folding shovel. Whoops. Meanwhile, every mosquito in the county took a tax in blood from me.
(To be continued.)