Team WinterErbes 2019 Iron Butt Rally - Here We Are Again

Team WinterErbes Strikes Again

Way back in 2017 I swore to everyone that I only wanted to finish one Iron Butt Rally.  I really wanted the experience and the coveted three-digit number.  One and done.  Period.  Really.  I mean it.

So, naturally, it was no surprise to Jim when I proclaimed to him in the parking lot of the Minneapolis Marriott at the end of the 2017 Iron Butt Rally: “I can’t wait to do this again!”

And so, we did do it again.  This is the story.

The Same But Different

Now that I was an IBR veteran, I didn’t have that pesky three-digit number thing hanging over my head.  It really is amazing how that changes your perspective.  I knew we could do things differently this time.  We could take greater risks and/or be more relaxed.  We didn’t have nearly as much prep work to do.

The mighty FJR 1300 was ready to go.  New tires and one rear spare for the checkpoint.  That was it.  Packing was easier because I already knew what would fit where.  We spent more time practicing our routing this go-around but that had a lot to do with the crazy winter we had in Minnesota.

Photo by Lewis Lakey

So, as the day for departure neared, we were more than ready.  On the morning of Wednesday, June 12, we pulled out of our driveway heading southeast.  Our good friend and motorcycle mechanic, Lewis Lakey, had shown up before 7 a.m. to say goodbye and wish us luck.

Unlike the 2017 Iron Butt Rally, which started and ended 12 miles from our house, we had a 1,200-mile ride down to Greenville, South Carolina.  We decided to take a leisurely ride.  We stopped just east of Louisville on Wednesday night.  Then we rode to Asheville, North Carolina, to spend Thursday night with my brother and sister-in-law. 

As Jim was getting off the Yamaha, he noticed something was seriously wrong with his right boot: like, the sole was coming off.  Jim wears Rocky Eliminator boots that he took to a shoe-repair shop to have extra-thick soles added. Jim is not what you’d call the tallest rider in the rally and the thicker soles are a huge help, enabling him to touch ground with both feet when bringing the 750-pound motorcycle to a stop. The first time the boot started coming apart was during the 2017 IBR and his toes stuck out the front. He made some emergency repairs with Gorilla glue and tape but now, two years later, it was his heel that was sticking out.  This time, it was a trip to Ace Hardware for Shoe Goo for a repair that held up for at least part of the rally

After a good night’s sleep and two truly great meals at my brother’s (my SIL is an amazing cook), we headed 90 minutes south to the Greenville Marriott and found a nice shady spot to park the bike.

We had arrived for our second IBR as a team.  This would be Jim’s seventh IBR start.  Now we would socialize and wait for Sunday night.  I’m not a patient person.  Waiting is not something I enjoy. 

The Road Less Traveled

On Saturday morning the official rally poster appeared in the hotel lobby.  And while it was interesting to hear all the theories on what it meant; it was our rally hats that gave more away.  There, on the side, were embroidered the words, “The road less traveled.” Hmmmm …

Now we had work to do.  It was registration day and that meant going through the many steps to make sure we could actually start the rally.  Tech inspection of the bike, odo check, waivers signed, more waivers signed, video waivers, camera check, insurance verification, etc. etc. etc.  And we signed some waivers. 

Since we had been through tech inspection on this bike before, we didn’t anticipate any issues.  We have an expanded 9.9-gallon “Frankentank” so there is none of the complications of a typical axillary fuel cell to deal with.  We were parked near three other FJRs with tanks made by the same person as ours.  Ron Messick, Chuck Lackey and Jesse Lucas have various sizes of the same enlarged fuel tank.  So, we had a few moments of panic when it seemed that Brian Roberts wasn’t all that sure about the volume of our tanks.  There was talk of having to drain them and measurements being done.  Yikes!  We weren’t counting on that.  Finally, Brian thought better of it but warned us that in 2021 there would be a better way to deal with the Frankentanks.  Ok.  As long as we don’t have to deal with that today.

Leaving for the ODO check.  Photo by Steve Hobart

Eventually all of this was done, and we could relax for a while.  That night we had a most-enjoyable dinner out by the pool.  Many Strangers gathered together in the gazebo.  It was a beautiful night with good food and company.  It was, as they say, the calm before the storm.

Photo by Steve Hobart

Sunday involved the rider meeting, a group photo and the starting banquet when we would finally get to see what the next couple of weeks would bring us.

The Road Less Traveled – Explained

All the waiting was done.  We had dutifully finished our dinners.  Lisa Landry was at the podium.  She explained that our rally number was based on our Iron Butt Association numbers.  That meant that IBR finishers with two- and three-digit numbers would have lower numbers in the rally.  Since we were a team, our number would be based on Jim’s IBA number since it was lower than mine.  There were only two other riders with lower numbers than Jim.  We would be Number 03 for this rally based on Jim’s 222 IBA number.  He finished his first Iron Butt Rally in 2001 and was the 222^nd person to do so.

As Lisa called Team WinterErbes to the front to get our rally packet there was lots of clapping and cheering.  I love these people.  Everyone is always cheering on everyone else.  It is the best community to be a part of.  We weren’t allowed to open the packet until everyone had theirs.  But I immediately noted a big difference between 2017 and 2019.

First, we weren’t given a full color, spiral-bound book of bonus locations.  Instead we had a pretty thin packet of stapled papers.  Really thin.  In some previous rallies all the bonus locations were given out at the beginning and then the point values were changed in subsequent legs.  This looked as if we were going to get more bonus locations later.

Once everyone had their packet, we were instructed to open them and place our lanyard around our neck.  This is a critical piece of rally equipment.  It identifies us for various stages in the rally and it also is used in the event of an emergency.  I don’t like thinking about that part.  But throughout the rally I found myself checking to make sure I still had my lanyard with my ID card attached to it securely around my neck.

Jeff Earls, the route master for both of my IBR experiences, walked us through some important points.  The most critical being that the electronic GPS waypoints we would be given were not necessarily the exact location of the bonus.  In some cases, it might be a few blocks away or many miles away.  This was done to force us to read the rally book completely.

Side note – As a rally master myself, I loved this.  As a rider, I hated it.  Nothing is more frustrating as an RM than to have riders completely ignore the instructions that have been carefully provided to them.  They will blindly follow the magenta line on their GPS and then try to figure out the bonus requirements once they get there.  It would be hard to do that in this rally.  It would take more time to plan the route and more time to claim the bonuses.  Genius … if you’re into that kind of thing.

Some questions were asked and answered.  And we were free to go start routing.  We avoided the jam of people at the two, very undependable elevators in the lobby by taking earlier-scouted stairs to our third-floor room.  We were seated at the laptop within minutes.

The good news about the small list of bonus locations was that it didn’t take too long to get them all loaded into Streets and Trips so we could start routing.  Once we could see them all on our HDTV, we started putting together different routes.  We came up with five or six versions before settling on one.

At dinner earlier, John Harrison, the rally scribe, read the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.  This rally was all about the roads less traveled and about the choices we riders would make regarding our routes.  Our choices would make all the difference in the final results and in each of our experiences over the next 11 days.

Mount Evans in Colorado figured prominently on the rally poster.  It was worth big points.  We didn’t want to go there.  We spent way too much time during the 2017 rally on tight, twisty and slow Colorado roads and neither of us was keen on a repeat of that.  We considered the big bonus in the Everglades and looked at the Outer Banks.  Huge time sinks.  There were some bonuses scattered nearby in the Smoky Mountains, including the group-photo bonus at Fontana Dam.  We routed this scenario.  I know this area of the country very well and knew that the roads were going to be slow and clogged with tourists.

Finally, we decided to go with a northerly route to Illinois, then proceed west to Mount Rushmore, Beartooth Pass and Old Faithful.  It would be a faster, mostly interstate route for the first part of the leg, saving us for the mountains later.  We carefully read each bonus we would be attempting to make sure we had the right waypoints entered.  In some cases, they were in the rally book, in others we used Google maps to locate the exact bonus.  Jim loaded the route into our three GPSs (two of them mounted in front of Jim and one, for me, attached to the back of his riding jacket) while I wrote out the bonuses in each of our notebooks.  I list the code, points, planned arrival time, planned mileage and a code for the requirement.  For better or worse, this little list rules our lives for the next four days.

We packed up the laptop, climbed in bed and tried to go to sleep.

Day One

We were at our bike before the 8 a.m. odometer check.  The rally team was fast and efficient as they checked our ID cards and read our odometer.  Now we would get to wait some more until the 10 a.m. start.  One of my sisters, Barb, drove up from Atlanta to be at the start with us. It meant the world to me to have a family member there.

There was a quick rider meeting and then it was time to put on our gear and get on the bike.  I was totally calm.  We were ready to go, and I was looking forward to a fairly easy day of riding up to our first bonus, LNHWY, the rally code for the Lincoln Highway Association in Franklin Grove, Illinois.

As the procession of riders began to wind its way out of the parking lot under the careful direction of Dale “Warchild” Wilson, we patiently waited our turn.  Dale gave us a little salute as we glided out of our parking spot, and we were off.

There had been some anxiety over the possible road construction on I-40 westbound between Asheville and Knoxville.  Again, knowing the area, we chose to take US 25 up to Hendersonville just in case we might need to detour around any issues.  I had Waze running on my phone and it was showing no traffic issues on I-40 so we made the transition from US 25 to I-26 to I-40.  So far so good.  Eventually, we did come to a standstill, but it wasn’t too terrible, and we finally got out of the mountains and started heading north toward Lexington.

We managed to arrive at our first bonus ahead of schedule.  Jim took a photo of our motorcycle, me and the Lincoln Highway Association building.  We stopped at a nearby motel for a six-hour rest.

Day one done.

Day Two

Our next bonus was daylight-only at the Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa.  It involved a short hike and two photos.  We had looked online to get an idea of the park layout so we wouldn’t waste time wandering around.  The Nuehring brothers (Corey and Brian) arrived right behind us and had also used Google to find the exact spot where we needed to park the motorcycles and begin our hike. The four of us headed down the trail to find the Natural Bridge.  The first photo was straightforward enough but it took a minute to figure out that we had to hike under the bridge and take the second photo from the other side.  One of the brothers figured it out first, thankfully.  We hiked back up the hill, did our paperwork and followed the brothers out of the park.  We arrived near the next bonus, which wasn’t open until 9 a.m., with about 45 minutes to spare so we ran into McDonalds for a rare treat of breakfast.  From there we headed to Crystal Lake Cave where we had to go on a tour and take a photo of an underground scene called the Chapel Formation.

Photo by Eric Chernin

By the time the cave opened for business there were a total of seven rally riders waiting to start the tour: us, the Nuehrings, Eric Chernin and Shirley Davis, and Mike Best.  Being claustrophobic, I wasn’t really excited about being in the cave, but I sucked it up and got the job done.  It was nice having the other riders with us to distract me from the fact that I was many feet underground with stone walls closing in on me.  At least it was nice and cool down there.

We asked the others where they were headed, and everyone was going straight to Mount Rushmore.  We had originally planned to visit the Wyman plaque in Ogden, Iowa.  It wasn’t worth a lot of points, but this particular plaque was donated by TeamStrange and was dedicated to Eddie James.  I’ve been to it several times and really wanted to go there on the IBR.  Going to a bonus for sentimental reasons isn’t always a good decision on the IBR.  After some discussion, we decided to take it off the list and go straight to Mount Rushmore.  In retrospect this was a smart decision.  We were going to be cutting it close to get to Mount Rushmore in daylight if we stopped in Ogden.

We arrived at Mount Rushmore with plenty of daylight to spare.  Again, we saw the Nuehrings, and Eric and Shirley.  Paul Partin was also there.  We had last seen him during the traffic jam on I-40 the day before.

So far, our rally was going fantastic.  We planned to head west on I-90 and stop for a room closer to Billings so we could cross the Beartooth Pass the next morning.

One thing you never do on the Iron Butt Rally.  Don’t get too optimistic.  Our rally almost ended just two nights into it.

As we made our way west, it started getting dark.  Really dark.  There was a huge storm system directly in front of us.  I opened my weather app to monitor things and it didn’t look good at all.  Jim was tired by this point and was having trouble seeing so we had decided to get a room sooner rather than later in Gillette, Wyoming.  I had made a reservation and we were hoping our time in the storm would be minimal.  Well, no.

We both have traveled extensively via motorcycle in bad weather.  Rain is typically not something we get too concerned about.  Lightening?  Meh.  Neither of us had ever seen anything like this.  There was lightening in every direction and very close to us.  It went from bad to worse in a matter of seconds.  The rain hit us like someone had turned on a firehose aimed right at our faces.  Jim was completely blind.  Thankfully, traffic was very light.  There was a vehicle with its emergency flashers on sitting off to the side of the road, but it was disorienting to say the least.

In his effort to avoid that vehicle we almost went down in the right-hand lane.  As the bike leaned dangerously to the left, I shifted all my weight to the right in a desperate attempt to help keep us upright.  It actually worked.  Jim regained control of the bike and slowly duck-paddled it over to the emergency lane getting us out of the way of traffic just as a semi came looming up behind us.

We sat there with our hearts racing while the storm hit us from all sides.  I lost track of time, but we were probably there for about 15 minutes.  The rain subsided a good bit and we decided to continue.  But it wasn’t done with us and within another couple of minutes the firehose returned, and Jim managed to ease us back to the emergency lane.  We waited another 10 or 15 minutes.

Finally, we went the last few miles to our hotel exit.  We were both shaken.  Once in our room we had our first serious conversation about quitting the rally.

Jim is unflappable.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, ever gets him ruffled.  For the first time I could see the concern on his face.  He kept talking about how he couldn’t see anything.  I decided we both needed to get some rest and as these things usually went, it would all be better in the morning.

Day Three

We were still five hours from Beartooth Pass.  After that we would go to Yellowstone to get a photo of the famous Old Faithful geyser as it erupts.

We got on the road just as the sun was coming up.  Within an hour on the road I started having intermittent issues with my Sena 20s, which is our usually reliable helmet-to-helmet Bluetooth communication system.  Sometimes I could hear Jim, but not always, and he could only hear me occasionally.  The problem got worse and eventually he couldn’t hear me at all while I could hear him.

At a gas stop I monkeyed around with it but was unsuccessful in fixing it.  So, we had to resort to hand signals and yelling as I gave Jim instructions on where we were going.  Yes, he has two GPSs but we typically rely on my GPS (the newest of the three) as it usually was more accurate.  I also can use Google and Waze as we travel along and can give Jim more specific instructions or can avoid things that he wouldn’t be aware of.

I sent an email to Matt Watkins to see if he could offer some assistance once we arrived at the checkpoint in Kennewick, Washington, the next day.  He said he had a lot of spare parts for the Sena 20s and would bring them; hopefully we could get our communication system working again.  There was nothing else to do in the meantime but hone my hand signals.

Beartooth Highway July 2007

As we started up the Beartooth Highway it was a beautiful, clear morning.  I had been here before in July of 2007, with Eddie James.  The weather had been really nice that day and I was looking forward to another ride on this amazing road.

As we climbed in elevation the clear, warm weather gave way to very strong wind, clouds and sleet.  The wind was progressively worse the higher we went.  Jim took it slow but there were a couple of strong gusts that threatened to toss us around.  We finally reached the summit sign, surrounded by snow, showing the elevation of 10,947 feet.  We got our photo fast but in the howling winds it was tricky holding the rally flag flat so we could take a picture of it next to the elevation sign.  We were both anxious to get to a lower altitude and away from that wind.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the northeast gate to Yellowstone National Park.  I had never been to Yellowstone before and was so excited that I would finally get to see the park and Old Faithful.  About two or three miles into the park we came around a curve and just to our right was a pretty-good-sized grizzly bear checking us out.  It was my first ever wild bear sighting but wouldn’t be the last on this trip.

Things were moving along for a while until we came to stand-still traffic.  Even though I had never been here before I knew what we were dealing with.  A herd of buffalo was crossing the road ahead and, of course, everyone had to stop their cars to take photos.  I was only mildly interested.  Yes, I like buffalo as much as anyone, but going along at a crawl all the way across this huge park to Old Faithful was going to be a pain.  And it was.

We stopped once at a roadside parking area with a bathroom.  We had a little snack before getting back on the bike and back into traffic.  We met up with quite a few other riders including Wolfe Bonham.  We chatted a bit as we crawled along.  We passed cars when we could and took advantage of rare stretches of no traffic.

Eventually, we arrived at the large parking lot for Old Faithful.  We gathered our camera, flag, phone (I planned to do our call-in bonus while we waited for the eruption) and started walking toward the geyser area.  Right about then here came Wolfe.  He had reached the geyser just a few minutes before us and got there exactly as it went off.  Damn it.  Good for him.  Bad for us.  We would now have to wait about 90 minutes for it to go off again.

We found a spot at the front of the viewing area and put our stuff down.  I made my first call to the rally voice mail with the information required to earn the call-in points.  I was cheerful and had a funny story of some kind.  I replayed it to make sure it was all perfect.  Most of it was garbled.  I didn’t have a great signal at this spot, so I walked over to some of the buildings near by hoping for a better signal.  I called again.  Again, it was garbled.  A third time.  Garbled.  I kept walking around to get better coverage.  Finally, on my fourth attempt and having lost all patience for this stupid call-in bonus nonsense, the replay sounded good.  But there was no sign of cheerful Lisa in my message.

I wandered back over to the geyser and waited with Jim.  As the minutes ticked by, I became increasingly convinced that this would be the day in history when Old Faithful would simply stop erupting.  I was certain of it.  Every once in a while, it would spit out some water and my hopes would soar.  But it was just teasing.

Finally, after almost two hours of waiting, the eruption occurred.  By now there were hundreds of people around us.  The wind shifted and all the steam was coming right at us which meant the view of the geyser wasn’t very good.  But how would I know?  My back was to it as Jim took a few photos to make sure there was a good one to submit for the points.  “I got it!”  We grabbed our stuff and took off for the bike.  I barely glanced over my shoulder to see one of the great wonders of nature.

That’s rallying for you.

We were now headed to the western gate to exit the park.  More traffic.  It was now 7 p.m. and we were with the masses of people who were leaving for the night.  We had been in the park for seven hours!  We were both exhausted.  We hadn’t really recovered from our near-death experience the night before.  The Beartooth and the never-ending Yellowstone traffic had worn Jim out.  By the time we got out of Yellowstone it was 8:30 p.m.

We needed to reassess our route for the last day of this leg.  After exiting the park, we stopped for gas in Ashton, Idaho.  They had a Subway in the gas station, so I decided that was just what we needed.  Our original route had us heading north to Yaak, Montana, for the Dirty Shame Saloon.  But what we really wanted was a motel room and a place to eat our sandwich.

I started searching for motels online around Idaho Falls but there was nothing for at least a 50-mile radius.  We found out later there was a huge soccer tournament going on and every single room in the area was taken.  We found a little mom-and-pop motel nearby and decided to ride over just to see if they might have a room.

They were booked but the very nice lady knew of one hotel in Idaho Falls that had rooms available.  Unfortunately, they were $200 a night.  I made the decision quickly and she was nice enough to call the hotel and I was able to reserve the room.  It was certainly not what I would expect from a $200 per night room but beggars can’t be choosers.  We showered, ate our sandwich and pulled out the laptop to figure out our next move.  Which included more talk of quitting the rally.

I can’t recall which one of us was in favor of it this time.  It was looking more likely that we wouldn’t be able to get the 16,000 points for leg one that was needed to be finishers.  We were really discouraged.

As we looked at the map, we made the decision to skip SHAME and go to GNITE instead in Granite, Oregon.  We had already made the decision earlier to drop off HURR – Hurricane Ridge.  So far, this rally felt like we were trying to run through water. 

We just couldn’t seem to get anywhere in a hurry.  Which was exactly the point.

Day Four

We headed out right before dawn and had a great ride along US 20 through Craters of the Moon National Monument toward Boise.  These were the moments you learn to cherish.  Those breaks from the stress of riding in the world’s toughest motorcycle competition when you can just soak up the scenery on a beautiful road.  That was, after all, the theme of this rally.  So, for the moment, we were both happy to be there.  We had a seven-hour, uneventful ride to the bonus in Granite.

As we were leaving the giant arch that welcomes you to Granite, all the GPSs wanted us to turn right on to a forest road.  We weren’t having any of that Garmin BS today.  We elected to turn left and go back the way we had come.  Shortly, all the GPSs agreed that would be fine.

Next stop, Kennewick and our first checkpoint.  We arrived before 6 p.m., got checked in with rally staff, found our room and gathered our stuff for scoring.  We had to check in with Bill Watt and then waited to be called into the scoring room.

We were scored by Jim Fousek.  We didn’t mess anything up, so no points lost at the scoring table.  But, to us, it was a dismal leg one.  We felt our chances to be finishers slipping away.

14,129 points, 3,174 miles

Once done with scoring we went looking for Matt Watkins.  He lives in the area and had graciously offered help to pretty much anyone who would need it.  He had a trailer full of tools, tables set up, a tire changer, the works.  He grabbed his box of spare Sena parts and quickly went to work on my helmet.  We determined that the mic had indeed gone bad (probably in that horrible storm in Wyoming).  He replaced it with his spare and voila!  Jim could now hear my voice again.  Matt gave us an extra mic, just in case.  Problem solved.

We took our dinner back to the room so we could shower and get some sleep before the 4 a.m. riders’ meeting the next morning.

Day Five

We joined other riders for breakfast at 3:30 a.m.  Then it was time for the riders’ meeting in the lobby where we would get the information for leg two.

Jeff held up a rally pack and announced that everything we would need for the rest of the rally was in that packet.  There would not be a second checkpoint, per se.  Returning to Kennewick on Sunday night would be optional and there would not be scoring at that point.  Leg two and leg three were now one very long leg.  However, coming back to the Kennewick hotel was a bonus itself and it was worth a whopping 23,591 points.  To earn those points, you had to check in with rally staff before 8 p.m. on Sunday evening and then check out with staff after 4 a.m. on Monday morning.

We had a tire change all ready to go for the second checkpoint so this wouldn’t mess with our plans.  We headed back to the room to figure out where we would go for the next couple of days before returning to Kennewick.

We planned a loop down to northern California with a stop at Alice’s Restaurant in Woodside, just south of San Francisco.  We had not learned our lesson from leg one and didn’t bother adding time to each bonus to help with our schedule.  Sometimes we are slow learners.

We headed out before 8 a.m. making our way through Bend, Oregon.  We decided to stop to pick up a low point bonus – 115 points - at Smith Rock State Park in Terrebonne.  It was a real quick in and out, so it turned out to be worth it.  At this point we needed all the help we could get.

Our next stop was Forks of Salmon, California, worth 2,466 points.  Sounds good.  Nope.  This bonus should have been worth a whole lot more than that.  It’s hard to describe the road up to the Forks of Salmon Post Office.  Altogether, the bonus required riding 60-some miles on a road that, in most places, wasn’t as wide as our driveway back home.  It was impossible to go more than 30 mph at any point and one-lane, hairpin curves were the norm.  Sheer drops down to the stunningly, beautiful Salmon River were constant – with no guard rails.  In more places than we could count, the road was washed away so you had to sneak past on an even-narrower slice of pavement, holding your breath in case another wash-out was imminent.  This is where Jim kept repeating a saying he learned from his off-road motorcycle sport of observed trials: Look where you want to go, not where you are afraid of falling.

Thankfully, the most-challenging segment of the trip was in daylight and we had another bear sighting.  He was a big black bear just sitting in the middle of the road.  Since the road was so narrow, he pretty much took up the whole thing.  We slowed almost to a stop as he gazed at us.  Finally, he turned toward the river and loped into the woods.  Eventually, we made it to the top and found the tiny post office.

There is no electricity up there, but they had a very clean outhouse that we took advantage of.  There was a family of locals kind of hanging around, so I asked the woman about our choices for getting back down the mountain.  It looked like we had two other options besides returning the way we came.  It was starting to get dark.

She said that if we continued westerly that the road wasn’t much better, but it was shorter.  That sounded good to us.  Shorter would be welcome.

About that time two other riders showed up.  One was Mike Baker on his first IBR. He looked like we felt.  He ended up following us down the mountain.  It may have been slightly shorter but doing it in the dark wasn’t too much fun.

The “we should quit this rally” thoughts stayed with me until we finally reached civilization again.  We decided to get a room in Eureka.  We both passed out immediately.

Day Six

By now the realization had finally hit us that we could not possibly get to all the bonus locations we had on our list for Leg 2A.  Sure, that was the rally design, but we had to start making accommodations for really slow roads and extended times to actually reach the bonus locations.

So, let the bonus-drops commence.  We had originally planned to get the bonus located near the Golden Gate Bridge.  Gone.  We would head directly to Alice’s Restaurant and reassess from there.

August 2009.  Photo by Eddie James

We headed down US 101 out of Eureka.  It wasn’t the fastest road to San Francisco, but it is scenic.  We got to go through Humboldt Redwoods State Park, another place I had visited with Eddie in 2009 just a couple of months before his death.  It felt good to be there again with Jim.

As we crossed over the bay on the Golden Gate Bridge we were welcomed with very heavy fog.  You couldn’t see the bridge and you couldn’t see the water, but you could see the pavement and the car in front of you, so for someone in “rallymode,” it was perfect.  The fog cleared as soon as we reached land.    

One of the “tricks” of this rally was the waypoints given were not always exactly where the bonus was located.  We had managed to stay ahead of this.  Unfortunately, Alice got us.  As we exited off the freeway the GPSs were telling us we had arrived.  Ummm.. no, we hadn’t.  I quickly pulled out the rally book and saw that the restaurant was 6.6 miles from this point to the “west and south.”  So, I told Jim to turn left.  Left would be east.  We traveled for 6.6 miles and never came to Alice.  We stopped.  I reread the directions.  DOH!  What a dumb ass.  We needed to turn right – or west.  We retraced our steps back to the freeway and then began our 6.6 miles up the very twisty, crowded road to Alice’s Restaurant.  There were cars, motorcycles and bicycles all vying for the same bit of pavement.

We finally came to the intersection where Alice’s was.  We found a spot to pull off, grabbed our stuff and went to find Jerry White.  We needed to have our photo taken with him to claim the bonus.  I consider Jerry a good friend, but we didn’t have any time for small talk.  That 12-mile detour cost us precious time, so we got the photo, said our goodbyes and headed back down the hill.

After doing a little research we discovered the road into Yosemite from the west to get to the Devil’s Post Pile bonus was closed.  That meant we had to get to it from the north which would add time to the trip.  So, that led to the decision to drop GEOCA for 1,186 points off the list.  DEVIL was worth 3,855 and was daylight only.  We had also heard through the grapevine that the road to DEVIL from the north was also closed due to snow.  We would still go there and document the road-closed sign which would still give us the points.

So off we headed east and north to a bonus we knew we couldn’t reach.  Hot.  Cold.  Mountains.  Twisties. Traffic. Eventually we found ourselves at the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area and a gigantic vista of snow.  The road just stopped.  There were bulldozers moving snow around and the whole place had that “ski resort” feeling.  There was no road-closed sign,  just massive amounts of snow blocking the road.  Right behind us came five other riders, including our friend Mike Heitkamp and three of my buddies from the south – Jesse Lucas, Chuck Lackey and Steve Snell. Rob Lightner was there too.  We all took our photo of the snow blocking the road and another photo of our GPS showing the coordinates of where we were along with our rally flag.  Everyone remounted and off we went.

Our original plan had us heading to Nevada to the KTS bonus.  We really wanted to go there due to the hilarious (although not at the time) story of Kirsten Talken-Spaulding’s night spent in an outhouse during the 2017 IBR.  This bonus had us going to the same state park and taking a photo of the KTS Hilton.  During planning we thought we might drop this bonus and so we did.

Instead of heading east to KTS we headed north to Fallon, NV to take our eight-hour rest bonus.

Once there we pulled out the laptop and immediately beat ourselves up over our decision to skip KTS.  It was totally doable, and we still could have stopped in Fallon in time to start the eight-hour rest bonus before midnight.  

Oh well.

We had another plan and were now pinning all our hopes of a finish on that.

Day Seven

The original plan for day seven had us going to HELL – Hell’s Canyon.  By this point we were totally shell-shocked at how long it was taking us to get to each bonus.  We were worried we’d take forever to go to HELL and wouldn’t get back to Kennewick by the 8 p.m. deadline.  We were not willing to take that risk.  Those points were the key to our whole rally and had to be claimed.

We had a tentative plan for leg 2B so, once again, we threw a bonus out the window and made our way straight back to Kennewick – a 10-hour trip from Fallon.

We got all turned around looking for a gas station near the hotel checkpoint but eventually we found gas and made our way to the Hilton Garden Inn.  We got checked in for the massive points and then proceeded to find Mike Heitkamp’s parents, Doug and Debbie.  They had been kind enough to bring our spare rear wheel with tire mounted along with a box of clean clothes and food from Minnesota.

While I repacked our saddlebags and trunk, Jim changed the rear wheel with the help of half a dozen well-meaning onlookers.  Jim has frequently practiced changing the FJR’s rear wheel in the driveway at home, even in the dark, and can do it in under 15 minutes.  It took a little longer this time because one of the onlookers kept saying Jim had forgotten to add a spacer in the hub, and Jim didn’t have a clue what the onlooker was talking about. Eventually, the crowd came to the conclusion that the spacer was required on a different year FJR, not our 2008 model.

Photo by Tobie Stevens

Photo by Tobie Stevens

While putting tools away, Jim noticed that his other boot was now coming apart. Rally veteran and legend Leon Begeman came to the rescue with a tube of Gorilla glue. That, and a little more tape to hold things together overnight, fixed the old boots good as new.

With the boots glued and the rear tire changed, we got some dinner, took it to our room and began planning leg 2B.

This portion of the rally consisted of many different combo bonuses.  It didn’t take too much analysis to determine the best chance at a finish for us would be the Mississippi River combo that would be worth a total of 41,467 points if we could manage it.  We felt fairly confident.  There were several bonuses in the combo that we had been to before.  We live two blocks from the Mississippi River – we HAD to do it.

If something went wrong and we messed up even one of the bonuses in the combo we’d be screwed.  We were going for it.

Day Eight

We gathered for breakfast at 3:30 again.  We had to check out with rally staff at 4 a.m.  The bike was packed, warmed up and ready to go.  We put on all our gear and helmets.  We went to the lobby and got in line to get checked out.  At 4 a.m. Lisa and Jeff checked our lanyards and recorded the time on their sheets.  We ran out to the parking lot, jumped on the bike and left.

Photo by Tobie Stevens

Our first bonus in the combo was the Mississippi River Headwaters in Itasca State Park in northern Minnesota.  It was daylight only so we would ride all day, get a motel as close to the park as we could find and get to the bonus at dawn the next morning.

Day eight began the string of bad storms that we ran into every single day for the rest of the rally.  As we made our way through North Dakota that afternoon, we came up on a pretty bad storm.  We pulled off at a truck stop and decided to wait it out with a sub sandwich.  Unfortunately, the bad weather wasn’t stopping, and we were in and out of storms all the way to Fargo.

We had talked to Connie Gabrick about getting a motel room in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, which was the closest town to the headwaters.  We opted to stop in Fargo instead.  Riding in the dark, especially in rain was becoming more and more problematic for Jim.

Our “we should quit the rally” thoughts started back up again.  We were so close to home.  We could just scoot down to St. Paul tomorrow and be in our own bed for the next night.

Day Nine

We arrived at the Mississippi River Headwaters just after sunrise.  We passed a couple of riders as they were leaving.  We found the marker, got our photo and swatted the Minnesota state bird (mosquitoes) as we headed back to the bike.  Our first bonus in the combo was done!

As we were getting back on the bike, we found that Jim was unable to hear me through the Sena again.  We’d been in that storm late the day before.  What was going on with my Sena?  So, we were back to hand signals for the rest of the rally.

We worked out a pretty good method of communicating and it served us well.  If Jim needed to change lanes, I would squeeze his right or left elbow.  For exits I would tap the right or left shoulder followed by showing him how many miles to the exit with my right or left hand.  If he had questions, he would word them for yes or no answers and I would respond with either a thumbs up or thumbs down.

During down times he would talk to me, tell me stories, make me laugh.  I just couldn’t respond vocally.  We managed just fine.

Now we headed to the Twin Cities on our way down to Lake City, Minnesota.  You would think this would be a piece of cake for people who lived there but it didn’t turn out that way.  Because of our lack of communication, I couldn’t really change our route on the fly.  Between road construction and rush hour traffic it wouldn’t be prudent to simply follow the GPS.  We planned to take 694 east to avoid both downtown areas and then get on US 61 south.  Seemed like a good plan but the exit for 61 landed us in the east St. Paul neighborhood.  We wandered around trying to get to where we thought we should be.  We finally gave up, followed signs and eventually wound up on the right road heading south.  Nothing like managing to navigate all over the United States in 11 days but then getting lost in your own hometown.

We quickly got the next bonus in the combo, a lighthouse-looking building at the marina in Lake City located on the shores of Lake Pepin, a mile-wide spot in the Mississippi.  Connie Gabrick had caught up to us.  She needed gas soon, so we continued on alone to Iowa to get Pikes Peak State Park.  She managed to get there before us, passing us when we stopped for gas.

Photo by Connie Gabrick

From there we headed into Dubuque for the Fenelon Place Elevator.  Connie pulled in right behind us and the three of us rode the elevator together.  This was a very cool bonus, and had us climb into a very short trolley car for a one-block ride up the side of a steep hill.  The view of the river valley was terrific from the top.

We decided we wanted to stop and attempt another repair on my mic so we parted ways with Connie and headed to a McDonalds.  We didn’t have the right size Allen wrench to take out the borrowed mic from Matt and put in the extra one he had given us.  So, no talking from here on out.

It was time to head to Hannibal, Missouri, for the Mark Twain lighthouse bonus, located at the top of one of the steepest bits of road you’ve ever seen.  The plan was to arrive there by 11 p.m. and get a room for few hours.  After the lighthouse bonus, which you could photograph in the dark, the next three bonuses in the combo were all daylight so we wouldn’t get them until the next day.

And then the storms came again.  We were on a very familiar road – Highway 218 through Iowa.  We travel it every time we go between St. Paul and Atlanta many times a year.  Once again, Jim’s vision issues meant we would stop early.  We got a room in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.

Day Ten

We left Mt. Pleasant at 2 a.m. so we could get to Hannibal as early as possible.  Jim was having trouble seeing but at least it wasn’t raining.

When we got to the turnoff for the Twain lighthouse, we both started laughing.  It was an extremely steep road – maybe 40 percent grade?  Jim slipped the clutch, gave it a lot of throttle and up we went.  At the top he said, “I just used every bit of motorcycle skill I have.”  After all the tricky roads we’d been on I was as calm as could be.  I’d seen it all, so this was nothing.

We headed to St. Louis where the next two bonuses were.  The first was the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in a park on the Missouri side of the river.  The road was closed due to flooding.  We could see on the GPS that there was another way into the park.  Right about then a guy in a truck pulled up.  He was really helpful and gave us directions to the other way in.  We rode over there and sure enough that way to the marker was also closed due to flooding.  We took the photos of the closure and coordinates on our GPS.  Jim Burriss rode up and was full of great info about the next bonus – the Chain of Rocks bridge.

We were required to get to the bridge on the Illinois side, but it was closed for repairs.  There were two photos needed – one of a sign on the Illinois side and then another in the middle of the bridge over the river.  Jim Burriss had been able to get on the bridge from the Missouri side, but he thought we might be blocked by the construction crews.

We went to the Illinois side and took a photo of the road-closed signs.  Then we went back over to the Missouri side to see what was going on there.  Just as we pulled up a man was closing and locking the gate to the parking area.  The construction crews were just starting to work for the day so we wouldn’t be able to get on the bridge.

Even though this would save us time by not having to hike out to the bridge, we were bummed about it.  Jim and I met on this bridge during the Butt Lite IV rally in 2006.  I was riding in the rally van with Eddie, David Smith and John Pedrow.  We were going from the checkpoint in Atlanta to the finish in Niobrara.  Eddie loved to stop at random bonus locations along the way.  Chain of Rocks was a bonus – so we parked on the Illinois side and hiked out to the middle.  There was Jim, claiming the bonus.  Jim got to witness the humiliation of another rider.  This is a pedestrian bridge and it was even written in the rally book that you had to park your bike and walk out to the bonus.  As we stood out in the middle talking to Jim, here comes a guy riding a motorcycle.  Imagine his surprise when he saw the rally master standing out there. He was so shocked, in fact, he dropped his bike – right there at Eddie’s feet.  It was a classic Butt Lite moment.  We were hoping to have some time out there to reflect on Eddie and the unexpected twists and turns we had both taken to get us back to this spot.

August 2006. Photo by David E.B. Smith

We documented that closed gate and headed to Cairo, Illinois.  The flooding and construction weren’t done with us yet.

The bridge over the Mississippi in Cape Girardeau was closed so we had to detour south to I-57 to get back up to Cairo.  As we approached Fort Defiance Park from the south, we could see flooding in all directions.  We pulled into the parking lot and stopped.  The road out to the bonus sculpture was completely flooded.  The mighty Mississippi was really doing a number on our bonus stops today.  Once again, we documented the closure.  Our buddy Ron Messick pulled up and did the same.  He still managed to beat us out of the parking lot.  Ahh … youth.

On to the delta of Mississippi, one of my favorite places to ride.  But we had to go through Memphis first which is one of my least favorite places to ride.  Finally, we were off interstates and could enjoy nice, flat roads.  There was construction off and on as we made our way to the casino in Lula, Mississippi.

We caught back up with Ron and followed him into the Isle of Capri Casino parking lot.  We had two requirements – a photo of the bike in front of the casino and then we had to go in and purchase a gaming chip.  Easy peasy.  We had a similar bonus on the Minnesota 1000 just a week or so before.  The trick was to find a blackjack dealer with no one at their table.  Jim went on that mission while I did our call-in bonus from the comfort of the casino’s air-conditioned lobby.

That done we made our way to New Orleans.  We only had one more bonus to get in the combo.  So far, everything had gone great.  We would get a room in New Orleans for our eight-hour rest bonus for this leg before heading down to Venice in the morning.

Day Eleven – Already?

We got out of New Orleans as early as the rest bonus would allow, hoping to miss traffic and heat as we headed all the way down to the bottom of Louisiana where the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  The road down there was surprisingly good and we met very little traffic.

We found the Venice Marina fish-washing stand easily.  We talked to a couple of people there who were curious about what we were doing since they had seen others on weird-looking motorcycles taking the same photo.  And just like that – we had successfully completed the Mississippi River combo.  If all went well, we would have enough points to qualify as rally finishers. Phew.

We had decided earlier that we wouldn’t even consider any other bonus locations until we had the river combo all sewed up.  Now we had time to add a few extra points to our score.  We headed right back the way we came, then west to the Tabasco Factory bonus.  We had almost overlooked this 3,667-point bonus as it had been hidden on our Streets & Trips map by another icon.  Jim was really getting tired by this point and his eyes were bothering him.  But we persevered.

We saw a couple of other riders at Tabasco and heard a funny story about a power-hungry security guard at the Port Pontchartrain Lighthouse back in New Orleans.  Apparently, she was chasing everyone away that she could and threatening to call the police on anyone who didn’t respect her authority.  We weren’t sure we were up for the confrontation, so we were on the fence about going there on our way out of the area. 

While in my office (the back seat of the FJR), I was reading John Harrison’s report as we headed back east, and he addressed that very issue.  Basically, they were instructing riders to get as close as they could, and they would accept the lighthouse photo.  That made our minds up for us and we headed over there.  We were careful not to even get on the grass but there were no signs saying it was private property.  There was no sign of security guards either so we got the photo quickly and got out as fast as we could.

That was it.  Our last bonus of the rally.  We had about 14 hours to get back to Greenville, interstate all the way.  

No worries.

Just south of Atlanta near the town of Hogansville, we decided to get gas.  It was about 10 p.m. and Jim seemed to be doing ok with his night vision if we were on the interstate with trucks to follow and reflectors on the road.

But I knew something was seriously off as we exited the freeway and made a left turn to head to the gas station.  We came to a traffic light to turn left into the gas station.  Jim was in the left turn lane but the lines on the road were practically non-existent, so he wasn’t sure about it.  A car making a right turn came into our lane and missed hitting us head on by inches.  Jim swerved us to the right and thankfully, no one was in the right lane or that could have been bad too.

He barely made it up the hill and into the parking lot.  We stopped to catch our breath.  For the second time on this rally I saw Jim clearly shaken but this time it was even worse.  I told him over and over that he hadn’t done anything wrong.  He was in the proper lane and that it was the other driver who misjudged.  It didn’t matter – he kept repeating  – “I can’t see!”

He moved the bike to the pumps, and I went inside to use the bathroom.  I was attempting to make light of the whole thing, but he wasn’t having it.  He wanted to stop.  He didn’t want to drive in the dark.  I looked around and saw a restaurant that was just closing that had a nice front porch on it with rocking chairs. 

“Let’s go over there and rest for a while.”

He moved the bike and laid on the porch for a little nap.  I pulled two rocking chairs together and made a makeshift bed out of it.  I really didn’t sleep but I may have dozed a little bit.  I did some math and figured that if we left by 4:30 a.m. we would make it to Greenville before penalty points started and Jim wouldn’t have to drive too much in the dark.  It was about 1 a.m. now.

I walked over to the truck stop to use the restroom again and that’s when I noticed a motel further up the hill from where we were.  I called to see if they had a room and they did.  I went back to Jim and asked him if he wanted to sleep on a real bed for a couple of hours.  He did so we moved up the hill and checked in.  I set the alarm for 4:15.

Less than 10 minutes after the alarm went off we eased back onto I-85, hoping to make it past Atlanta before too much traffic started.  We were slowed down by road construction near Buford.  The sun came up and Jim’s vision improved.  Now we just needed to grind out the miles to the hotel parking lot.

I was a little worried about hitting rush hour in Greenville but to be honest by this point we couldn’t do any better than find the fastest lane of traffic and hope for the best.  If we got into the penalty window, so be it.  We’d lose some points.

Photo by Colleen McPhee

As we made the turn by the Michelin building toward the Marriott finish line, we saw all the people out front.  There was cheering, clapping and a lot of smiling faces.  It was truly surreal.  Were they cheering for us?  Was there a more prominent rider behind us?

We arrived with 12 minutes to spare before the penalty window.  I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.  I didn’t do either.  I was in a fog.

We spent most of this rally thinking we would never finish it and yet, here we were.  Back where it had started 11 days before.

The End

We got scored by Cletha Walstrand who, coincidentally, had scored us in 2017.  We had enough points to be finishers plus some.  We thought for sure we’d be in the bottom half of the finishers.  We went into this hoping to better our finish of 66^th place in 2017.  This rally had been much more challenging for us in many ways so we figured we probably wouldn’t do much better than that.

So, as Lisa Landry began naming the finishers at the banquet that night, we kept waiting to hear our names.  And waiting.  And waiting.  Had she missed us?  What was going on?

Finally, she called us.

Team WinterErbes

Photo by Steve Hobart

106,430 points

9,354 miles

29^th place

A Silver Medal Finish

How the hell did that happen?  We were both shocked to have made it into the top 30 with any kind of medal finish.  We are still in shock.

Jim will be 70 on August 30.  I am 62½.  He had limited vision throughout the rally.  We spent most of the time not being able to communicate with each other.  We dropped bonuses left and right during the first half of the rally.  We questioned our sanity daily.  We had two serious near misses on day two and day eleven.

And yet, here we are.  Silver Medal finishers in the toughest rally we’ve ever ridden as a team.  We still love each other.  We still didn’t have a fight. 

And we finished.  With 12 minutes to spare.

Epilogue

Within a few minutes of pulling back into our driveway two days later, our friend, Lewis Lakey, showed up to welcome us home.  What a great guy.  He had been glued to our SPOT satellite tracker for two weeks and knew exactly when we would reach our house.

Jim went to a highly recommended ophthalmologist today.  They found he has cataracts, the cause of his vision problems.  The cataracts apparently developed fairly recently, since they weren’t diagnosed during a routine eye exam he had earlier this year.  He must undergo a glaucoma test before they will decide if he is a candidate for surgery.

Until then, I’ll be doing any night driving for Team WinterErbes.

Photo by Colleen McPhee