The rough day turned mild as I rode past inert poison gas signs and countless antelope. Delightfully, nothing weird happened. I baked dry in the sun and settled into the rhythm of the trip.
My next milestone, the “town” of Lost Cabin, wasn’t really a town. It was entirely owned by an energy company. There were no services there.
From there I caught a few miles of pavement to Lysite which was technically a town and had a scant few services, I didn’t stop. I blew past my turn but caught myself when the pavement crossed a creek I was supposed to follow on dirt. I backtracked less than a mile and turned onto quite remote Badwater Road.
I was humming to myself. I chuckled that I’d only been on pavement a few miles and got lost while on pavement.
As one should, I began to think.
In the poem Paradise Lost, by John Milton, Satan says “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” At the risk of taking advice from Satan, I had a jolly good time riding 30-odd miles of absolute shit. Why? Because it was sunny and I was happy to be there. What more could I ever want from life?
The second reason I mention it is because it’s a glimpse “behind the curtain” of our current time of madness. I Googled the quote to make sure I had it right. In verifying a line out of Paradise Lost, written in 1667 to address Satan’s fall from grace, Google helpfully pointed out the line was written by the fifth Governor of Florida, who left office in 1865. This is AI. People who should be capable of better behavior already use AI. In time more people will get dumber as they believe AI over their own damn noggin!
In a Large Language Model, if words go together in a way that is plausibly similar to other arrangements of words in the “teaching set”, it will spew forth said words. Great tides of ignorant midwits stampede across social media and they will accept such bullshit at face value. Why not? They themselves are less human than possible and more Large Language Model than desirable.
We witness mobs of people publicly declaring their feelings and opinions solely to signal their membership in whatever group they desire. Unthinking meat-bots, they plausibly arrange words to sound like the center of the bell curve of their desired social status. Of this, they confidently speak. When you see a hundred people all agreeing on some specific thing as soon as the hot new thing is announced; that’s humans failing to be human. To me, they sound like seals barking because their words are not their own. The actual thing spoken (or written) is more a slogan than an idea. Most people in real life are not intelligent. Artificial intelligence is not intelligent. Due to these tw0 things, my computer reports facts that aren’t true.
John Milton, the 17th century English poet, and John Milton, a Civil War Era Governor of Florida are not the same thing. Ours is a time of mass stupidity because my computer says otherwise.
I had a point to all this so lets return to the 30 miles of nothing. My second day of the BDR was drawing to a close. The first day had been an “adventure”, the second first a slog and then a cruise. For 99% of that time I’d been off grid, away from media, out of cell reception, on dirt, and entirely engaged with nature. Why wouldn’t I be happy?
One thing about adventures, they’re not perfect. My ass was sore! Even with a sheepskin, the seat on a Yamaha TW200 is like a plank after several hours. But that’s ok. I had decided to get to Shoshoni and go no further. There would be gasoline, a restaurant with hamburgers (and softer seats than my bike), and there was a campsite nearby. All glory to my ass, which was metering the number of miles I could physically handle and doing so admirably.
I dithered about on that chunk of nowhere. I was happy as a clam. I liked that Badwater creek smelled like Sulphur. I’m sick of eco-twerps who bitch at me about plastic straws and think all of nature looks like the Ansel Adams poster they hang in their cubicle. Nature is not created solely to be a plaything of the idle classes. Sometimes the water is nasty because nature isn’t a playpen and geology has variation. Badwater creek wasn’t unpotable because Exxon took a shit there it was unpotable because that’s how it is. I found the honesty in my environment refreshing. I was at peace.
Far too early in the day, I emerged on pavement and slogged about eight miles to Shoshoni. I say far too early because I really ought to use that daylight to go further. Then again my ass and I had discussed things and I’d promised to stop riding at Shoshoni.
Shoshoni was a huge letdown. No burger joint! There was a single gas station with a righteous attached convenience store and pretty much nothing else. I topped off the bike and clambered into the store. I soaked up AC and gobbled up a gas station pizza (it wasn’t half bad).
The little tent icons on the map had misled me. Camp wasn’t exactly at the town. I would have to backtrack eight miles on pavement. My aching ass was not happy with the news.
I loitered near the gas station, using its Wi-Fi to examine my options; which were quite limited. Also my gadgets were dying. My cell phone wasn’t served by whatever service might have been there and its battery was almost gone. I dug out my iPad and used Wi-Fi to investigate alternate campsites to no avail. Reserving a campsite at the only campground was difficult with a non-cell device and probably not necessary but I was hindered by fading gadget batteries. I have a cigarette lighter plug with a USB adapter but it wasn’t keeping up with the load. My GPS and GoPro were deader than a doornail and my cell phone and SpotX were low.
I met two guys riding the BDR on ADV bikes. They bought a couple of gas station pizzas crammed one each in their huge saddlebags, and rolled out for camp. They had done several BDRs. They had their shit together. They made their decision and rolled out efficiently. When I grow up maybe I’ll be cool like that.
One thing I’ve seen motocampers do on YouTube is buy a sandwich at a deli somewhere and eat it at camp. Rather than Mountain House freeze dried, I’d do the same! I bought a sandwich and crammed it in my dusty luggage. I didn’t know what I’d find back at the campground. I assumed it would be empty but who really knows… and once there I’d be stuck. My ass would go on strike if I went 8 miles and then had to go somewhere else.
Batman and Kim Possible both have what I call “the man in the chair”. While the hero is actively doing hero stuff they contact their trusted help. “Alfred, I’m chasing the Joker down this dark ally, please have Uber deliver a box of ammo to my location.”
I fired up my SpotX and sent a short message to Mrs. Curmudgeon. “Please go to the Wyoming State Campground site and reserve a spot for me at Boysen State Park.” Without waiting for a response, I rolled out.
At the campground I turned on my SpotX and all was well. Mrs. Curmudgeon had made the reservation and reported it back to me on SpotX. She’d even looked at the online interface trying to choose a “pretty spot”. I was very relieved to have that stress handled. Her choice was indeed gorgeous, just like she’d hoped. I sent many words of thanks and then shut the nearly dead SpotX down. I plugged it into my Noco jumpstarter to charge overnight. Batman had Alfred but Mrs. Curmudgeon is way cooler!
The campground was nearly empty. The two ADV guys had setup a camp across the way. They were probably asleep before I’d pried off my riding boots.
Most riders “camp to ride”. They camp as a necessary hassle to facilitate more miles. I’m the opposite. I like camping. I tend to hang around the campfire “wasting time”. I’d happily gone from one campsite to another at a range of about 120-150 miles but I’d be just as happy at 50 miles.
Yay camping! I setup my fancy tent and sleeping system. I heated some hot cocoa. It was the first use of my old JetBoil on this trip! The sunset was gorgeous. I made a second round of hot cocoa.
The next campsite over a nice couple parked a Toyota pickup with a pop-up slide-in camper. They kindly invited me to join them. Surprisingly, they were driving the BDR! We sat by the fire talking about places we’ve been and things we’d done.
That night a storm blew in. Given the sedative effects of working my ass off two days straight, I slept like a baby. My tent rode the storm out like a boss. I found myself using the word “trusty” as an adjective when thinking about the tent.
It had been a good day.
