8:54 From Yuma

June 10th, 2008 · No Comments

Temecula, CA 225 miles

Finally, after days or pointing the FJR towards the horizon and hanging on, it was time to dance. I hooked my right knee on the tank and pivoted my body off the bike. The first corner in what seemed like forever hooked sharply up and to the left. I released the outside grip and let the FJR fall towards me. As I fed in throttle the big bike breathed deeply and danced through the turn. I pushed it back to vertical and slid across the saddle for the pirouette coming to the right. “Yeah baby, it’s time to dance.”

I packed up and left Yuma just a few minutes before 9:00 AM. After four days hidden away in a wonderful sanctuary in Tubac, Arizona, going to sleep in a stone cacita with open windows, desert breezes, and the still of the night, Yuma had come as a shock. The hotel I had bunked in on the first night of the trip was probably half as nice as the Oak Tree Motel in Yuma, but that was then. The charm of a randomly selected roadside sleep-o-mat had been lost somewhere in the southern Arizona desert.

By now, packing up the bike is a calming ritual. Everything has a place. Everything fits. Everything settles onto the bike ready to ride. Finally, I’m ready to go. The on-board temperature gauge says 92. It will get much hotter.

The experience of riding through the desert can be anything you want it to be. It’s a harsh, desolate place. The land barely breathes, conserving energy for a cooler time. People pass through, barely skimming the surface in their sealed time capsules. They don’t touch the desert and the desert doesn’t touch them.

On a bike it’s different because you’re much less isolated from mother earth. You can sense the desolation of the desert, but there’s much more information and insight if you turn the inner chatter off and feel what’s around you. There is life everywhere. It lays close to the earth’s embrace, drawing through deep roots. Movement is spare and taken with purpose, though the riddle of why the lizard crosses the road has yet to reveal itself to me. I wouldn’t want to cross this land in these temperatures on foot.

The Imperial Valley is a desert. It’s also home to vast tracks of agricultural land. For the life of me I can’t understand why. It was the smell that struck me first . . . the sweet smell of Alfalfa followed by fertilizer and then the pungent refrain of a massive dairy farm; acres of cows listless in the blistering heat. They’re not happy. This is no place for cows. This is no place for hay. This is no place for agriculture. It is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with American agribusiness.

Within a few miles of crossing the border into California I’m met by the second checkpoint of the ride (the first was just north of Tubac). I’m waved through without more than a glance. Later, not far from Borrego Springs, I’ll stop a third time.

“What country are you a citizen of?”

“US.”

“That’s a nice bike. What is it?”

“Yamaha FJR1300″ I say with some amount of pride.

“Nice. Have a nice day.”

“You too.”

It’s not that remarkable an experience but it strikes me as odd. I wonder how the folks who agitate so vigorously for fences and walls and more energetic law enforcement when it comes to “illegal aliens” respond when they get stuck at a checkpoint. I choose not to think too deeply on the subject but it nags at me. The idea of being stopped by men in uniform carrying guns and sporting dogs in my own country seems foreign.

I miss the turn onto Route 79 which will take me to Borrego Springs, a spot I mean to visit to honor my wife’s mother if even for a few minutes. I double back and set my GPS for a random address in town. Soon I’m in the middle of a rundown trailer park, if that’s what it is, in the middle of nowhere. My temperature gauge says 103. I’m wearing full Kevlar gear over what I refer to as my “wet gear”: a vest and neck wrap that I soaked with water 125 miles ago. They’re nearly dry. I realize I have to get out of the sun and soon.

I take another poke at finding Borrego Springs. This time I do. It’s 104 when I stop for lunch at a converted Quonset hut for a late breakfast. I’ve mostly sworn off eggs and such out of respect for my heart, but the sound of eggs Benedict on a tomato (on an English muffin) topped with crumbled bacon is too good to pass up.

“What will you have?”

“Can you make me an Arnold Palmer? A big one”

“Sure.”

“And I’ll have the Red Ocotillo Eggs Benedict.”

“They come with garlic rosemary potatoes. That alright?”

I smiled as wide as I could. Sounded perfect.

She brought me a gigantic Arnold Palmer and a carafe on the side. I drank deeply and topped off my glass again and again until it was gone. The eggs were glorious.

Dancing with Rocinante

Somewhere around Warner Springs Ranch it came to me. I don’t tend to anthropomorphize objects, and I’ve never once named any of my vehicles, but descending from my spirited dance through the Santa Rosa mountains into the canyons east of Temecula, I decided to name my bike Rocinante in honor of Don Quixote, my grandfather (a Cervantes Scholar), and John Steinbeck who called the truck he immortalized in Travels with Charley by that name.

Gearing up outside the Red Ocotillo, I prepare myself for more of the desert. I ride as mentally still as possible in order to pattern the rhythm of the land. Wide expanses invite expansive thoughts, but harsh conditions demand something different. Be still and listen.

As Rocinante gathered velocity beneath me, the road signaled a change. Suddenly it’s narrower, bisected by a double yellow line. Could it be? Yes indeed, it’s time to dance!

Rocinante is a big gal. Fully loaded and topped off with fuel the bike must weigh 650 pounds. With 15 pounds of gear, boots, and helmet on, I weigh in at 200. She dances but you must lead with authority. The road up and out of Borrego Springs is tight and taught and does not promise comfort if you place a wrong foot. I hold the bike in third gear: Rocinante gathers her skirts.

There are many styles of riding. I feel helpless and hapless just sitting on top of the bike when the road starts to bite. So I’m off the bike, hanging deep into the inside of the turn, my inside foot tucked in tight, my outside leg hooked on the tank, my knee skimming above the pavement, my torso and hips pivoted in and off. Every bone in my body is signaling the big bike, “We’re going that way.”

On a road like this, Rocinante is an able partner. The tires are warm, the pavement is clean and grippy, the engine is singing as we dance through corner after corner: Tuck the foot, pivot off the bike, trail the brakes against the throttle, drop the bike into the turn, looking, looking, looking, feeding gas, gas, gas . . . then push the bike up, slide across the saddle, drop to the other side, and let the bike fall into the next turn in the opposite direction.

The temperature breaks on the western side of the mountains. My gauge says 88, a pair of numbers I haven’t seen in days. The land is fuller here in canyon country. Oak trees follow the curve of the land, signaling the path of water in other times of the year. Cattle and cows look properly at home, chewing and standing instead of crowding under useless shade. The heartbeat of the land is quicker and louder.

The road has lost some of its twist but none of its charm. I bank through Warner Springs Ranch. As I watch a sail plane up above it comes to me: Rocinante. The bike is named Rocinante. It all makes sense. Maybe you had to be there.