How could one person cram so much living into such a short period of time? He told me several times that he didn't expect to live a long life. I just thought he was trying to be dark and mysterious. If you knew Eddie, there wasn't anything dark or mysterious about him. But maybe he had some intuition about his future.
Just two months after our first meeting - I was about to experience a journey unlike any other.
It started simply enough. Proofread the bonus sheets for "Butt Lite IIII". For the non-LD riders, Butt Lite is a long distance motorcycle endurance rally that Eddie dreamed up on a dare. The first one was held in 1999 and it became an almost-every-other-year event.
By this time Eddie had already started calling me "Lurleen". I became a bit of a Team Strange phenomena in those weeks leading up to Butt Lite IIII. To the point of becoming a bonus. More on that later.
The rally started in Niobrara, NE. (Read previous posts to get that story, if you don't know). From there the riders made their way to Tombstone, AZ and then on to Marietta, GA. From Marietta, they would return to Niobrara. This had been decided long before Eddie & I met. Turned out to be damned convenient.
The night before the checkpoint opened at BMW Motorcycles of Atlanta, I hosted a bunch of "strangers" at my house - my first interaction with some of Eddie's closest friends - and their first look at this woman Eddie was infatuated with - Adam, E.B., Pedrow, Greg R., the Wooldridge's, and a few others.
I made my special lasagna and was the hostess my DNA expected me to be. I had no idea who these people were. But I knew immediately that I liked them.
The next morning I found myself in a motorcycle dealership with dirty, tired men and a few women in strange clothing sleeping all over the floor. What had I gotten myself into? I was supposed to "score them". I wasn't really sure what that meant but I figured it couldn't be that hard. Besides, Eddie would be right beside me in case I screwed something up. I think I did ok. Only one rider who sat across from me was sent away from the table for not bringing something important. Adam made that call, not me. (Boy, have I come a long way.) I was instructed to only answer to "Lisa" and to not mention "Lurleen". This wasn't too difficult since I've been answering to Lisa since I was a happy, drooling, blob.
Within a few hours, I found myself in a crowded mini-van with Eddie and two of the "strangers", E.B. and Pedrow. I'm a pretty quick study and I was already on to the fact that Pedrow was "different" and E.B. was quiet and brilliant. Our final destination was Niobrara and we had to get there fast. Tag-team driving was the order of the day with sleeping optional however you could manage it.
I had imagined a long, boring, uninteresting road trip along our long , boring interstate system. I was looking forward to traveling to states I had never been via car before but I had fairly low expectations of the mid west. Boy, was I unprepared for a road trip with this group.
Our first stop was Jack's BBQ in Nashville, TN. They talked about it from the time we left Atlanta. Jack's is on Trinity Lane, just north of downtown off I-24. I grew up in a region where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a BBQ joint. I like to think I'm hard to impress so I wasn't sure why they were salivating before we reached the Cumberland River.
To be honest, it was ok. These guys are from the upper mid-west. What did they know about southern BBQ? It turns out, more than anyone should. Over the years,
I grew to love Jack's not so much for the food but for the wonderful memories I have of all the visits that followed that first time.
The next first - Metropolis, IL. Who knew? They love Superman in this town and I got to see him for the first time. Eddie & I got to be super heroes for a minute.
From there I crossed the Mississippi River for the first time (not in the air). The Chain of Rocks bridge was a bonus and the high point of this stop was seeing Eddie catch a rider cheating. The guy was so stunned to see the rally master on a bridge over the Mississippi River that he dropped his bike. It was classic.
By now it was getting dark. As we traveled through Missouri, I had really no concept of where I was. By this time I was used to unscheduled stops - the group piling out of the van and Eddie leading us into some other adventure.
And so I found myself at the "Elvis Is Alive" museum in Wright City, Missouri. It needs no explanation. I am just so happy that I have seen it in person. (And so sad that it is closed.)
Eddie was tired and when Eddie got tired it came on suddenly. In that, he would be laughing, talking, DRIVING and then suddenly he would exclaim, "I'm going to sleep!" and boom he was out. In most cases he was coherent enough to pull off the road. Moving him to the back or passenger seat could be challenging. So E.B. took over the wheel, Pedrow settled in as co-pilot and Eddie & I smashed ourselves into a 1 foot wide x 6 foot long space on the floor of the mini-van to get some rest. While he slept like a baby, I lay there trying to figure out why this seemed like so much fun.
Because it was. I had never had this much fun in my life.
At 4am we arrived at the Omaha airport. I had been there several times before on business trips. But this time it was dead. No flights going or coming. All vendors closed up. Not a cup of coffee in sight. Eddie & I were to pick up another rental car to take to Niobrara. The others left us there and continued on to the Missouri River and then west.
We found a bench and tried to go back to sleep while we waited for 6am and the Avis counter to open up. Another first.
We finally got our Jeep Cherokee and headed up I-35 to Sioux City. Take a left and go about 90 miles to Niobrara.
Niobrara. I've written a lot about this place. The infrastructure of the town is not much to look at (except for the Two Rivers). But the scenery getting there and from the bluffs overlooking the rivers is spectacular. I fell in love immediately. To this day, I want to be there. But like the love you might have for a
man who is no good - too much time in Niobrara made me feel like I was choking.
But the first time was magical.
The next couple of days flew by.
I was a bonus. The last bonus, to be exact. I put on my Waffle House name tag with "Lurleen" printed with a cheap label maker and sat on the bench outside the Two Rivers Saloon. I didn't say much, per my instructions. I simply waited for the riders to find me. Once they figured out that I was Lurleen, they were supposed to hand me their rally flag and take a picture of me.
Sadly, many were so excited at finally seeing Lurleen in the flesh that they forgot to give me the flag to hold in the picture. Several insisted on being in the picture with me - without the flag. No flag, no points. Simple as that. And I wasn't allowed to help them. So quite a few of them lost points at the scoring table because they forgot to hand me their flag before the picture was taken. I felt terrible for them. Man, have I come a long way...
In Niobrara I met so many more of Eddie's friends for the first time: Wanchena's, Stueber's, Phillip's, Mark K., Critter, Keith, Rebecca, Curt, Jim W., Arlene, Kim & Rayder, Donna and so many others who have become life long friends.
The rally was over, the awards had been given out and more firsts were lined up for me.
We left Niobrara and traveled west by back roads along the Missouri River along the South Dakota border. We found towns with populations of 2, 4, 7 people. Eddie was stopped for speeding in Badlands National Park, where I am certain they filmed the fake landing on the moon.
We headed into Rapid City and I will never forget my first glimpse of Mount Rushmore. "I know I shouldn't be this excited, but I AM!!". He quoted me until the last day of his life. We stayed for the fireworks and the next day traveled to Custer State Park where the site of buffaloes wandering free caused me to almost go right over the edge of childlike glee.
Eddie was so thrilled to take me on this journey. I had a passport with many stamps in it by the time I had met him but I had never been on a real road trip across the US. To this day, it makes me smile at how much fun we had on this, our first of many, road trips. Even if the vehicle had four wheels.
Our final destination was Denver and the Iron Butt National Meet. I met Kneebone, Higdon, Landry and countless others. We had a room overlooking the atrium. One night I sat up there on our balcony and watched as Eddie made his way through the crowd of riders. At that moment, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was different. And special. And his "hobby" was so much more than that. Long distance motorcycling was his life.
I knew that I would never be one of those women who demanded that her man make a choice between his love of motorcycles (or anything, for that matter) and his love for me. I knew I would lose. And I didn't' mind. He was so happy when he was in this element. No, it was more like Joy. He was joyful in this environment. Why would I ever want him to give that up?
And now it is me who never wants to give it up.
Yes, it was a trip of many firsts. And many realizations about the man that I loved.
Jack's BBQ became a regular stopping point for us on our many trips between Atlanta and Minneapolis/Niobrara. Either way, it isn't always practical to avoid Nashville. I ate a lot of Jack's BBQ and came to love the food and the really nice people who work there.
So, it seemed like an appropriate place for me to leave a bit of Eddie.
No comments:
Post a Comment