17/06/2009 by Brigid.

The best way, we thought, not to get lost, would be to follow former Rally Master, Pat Evans. After all, we thought, who, having ridden The Mother Road, every year since the Rally began, could possibly know the road better …

Each year, Bourbeuse Valley Harley Davidson, the only H-D dealer with the distinction of being directly on old Route 66, lays on an exclusive Sunday breakfast of Krispy Kreme Do-nuts, fruit, coffee and juice, for the Rally participants … and each year, we have apparently been with the only group of riders to get lost and miss out. With that in mind, we hooked up with Pat and a small posse of old hands.

The dealership opens specially for the group and breakfast is free. Well, ‘free’ in the sense that you are welcome to help yourself to as much as you want. However, few people who go there leave without buying the odd extra T-shirt, quart of oil or chrome accessory. I suspect, forking out for a couple of hundred Krispy Kremes and some nice fruit, is well worth their while. And, with such a helpful team of sales assistants, it would be rude not to …

Following breakfast, Pat wanted to ride a bit of the old road: perhaps a bit that he hadn’t had the chance to see with the group in previous years. We followed a clearly-marked stretch for a while after leaving the dealer until a sign directed us across an Interstate bridge. At the T-junction, there was no clue as to which way we should go, so we turned right. Some miles further on, Pat’s voice came over the CB, “I’m not sure, but this road doesn’t look right to me”. “That’s because we’re going the wrong way”, came the reply. Unfortunately, it quickly became evident to the GPS-users, that we had already gone too far to simply turn back. The next major intersection was 40 miles on.

No one worried. We all had plenty of fuel, and it was a lovely road, twisting and turning and undulating, at one point like a giant roller-coaster, through cool green forests and pretty villages proudly displaying the star-spangled banner on every street lamp. “How thoughtful of these folks to honour my Birthday”, joked Pat over the CB, “I’m truly humbled”. “Say again, Pat”, someone cracked, “You’re what? Crumbled?”

On and on we rode, further and further from our intended path, until we came to a small town called Potosi. The various GPS units had been giving conflicting information about road names, so I pulled out our road atlas – for no better reason than just to get some idea of how far we had ridden. Pat came over. “If I’m going to be asked where we got to today, I’d better know the name of the forest”. I found it on the map, the ‘Mark Twain National Forest’. “This is part of the ‘Lewis and Clark Trail’”, volunteered John. “Oh good”, said Pat, “Then I can tell people we did this on purpose … it’s a sort of ‘make-it-up-as-you-go’ tour”.

Your secret is safe with us, Pat!

We parted company after lunch. I was being just a little too slow in changing from water-proofs to warm weather gear. By the time I had stuffed my rain jacket away in its roll-bag and bungeed it back onto the seat, the others already had their engines running. We said we would catch them up but, in the event, they had a ten minute start on us, so we didn’t see them again until the Eisler Brothers Store in Riverton, where a TV reporter was interviewing several participants about their experiences on Route 66.

Then we spent a few minutes taking photos at the Rainbow Bridge which used to mark the State Line on Route 66, between Missouri and Kansas, before heading for our Miami hotel and dinner at Montana Mike’s.

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15/06/2009 by Brigid.

The alarm clock went off at 4.30am but, truthfully, we had both been semi-conscious since 3.30am. Though it was still dark, we could see that it had rained overnight. Even at this hour, there was activity in the car park as participants dried off their bikes and stowed their belongings. The promised hot breakfast consisted of hard boiled eggs, coffee, waffles and toast. I couldn’t complain that it wasn’t “hot”, but I am more of an eggs and bacon type.

At 6.30am sharp, George put on his helmet and tooted his horn and the 15^th Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally was under way: George’s first as Rally Master. This year we had a police escort to ensure that we all made it through the first set of traffic lights and on to the Interstate.

We rode with the group into Chicago for a wet photo opportunity on West Adams, now officially recognised as the start of Route 66, and stuck with them all until Wilmington. This year’s group seems enormous, compared with past years. Doug and Joanne caught us up at the Launching Pad Drive-Inn, so we let the others go ahead and trailed along a few minutes behind. Somewhere outside Gardner, we noticed we had picked up a tail. It was only mid-morning, but Jim had broken down in Chicago, found a Harley dealer 50 miles south of the city, had his bike fixed, and still managed to catch up. He stuck with us as we visited the old Sinclair filling station at Odell, Funks Grove (where I bought a little bottle maple “sirup”), and the Route 66 Museum in Pontiac, then rejoined the main group after lunch.

We temporarily abandoned the itinerary to see the Lincoln memorial in Springfield, where we rubbed the great man’s nose.  (It’s good luck, apparently.) Then we stopped again outside Chatham to ride an old section of brick road that George had added for the first time this year. After that, we hit the Interstate for the next 80 or so miles for an extremely rare opportunity to ride across the original Chain of Rocks Bridge that spans the Mississippi. There were about 80 of us, and it was quite a sight – especially for the pedestrians who thought that the bridge was closed to traffic, as we weaved around the permanent picnic tables and reproduction vintage fire truck!

Our overnight stop was unspectacular. There is nothing whatever to recommend the Red Roof Inn in St. Charles. In 2006, we opened the door to our room to find an unmade bed … This year we couldn’t open the door at all. We had to wait an age in the hot sun before the unfortunate duty manager was able to fix the lock. Even then, the bathroom was so small that you had to raise the loo seat in order to shut the door, and the alarm clock (conveniently pre-set to 6am) seemed to have no “off” switch.

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15/06/2009 by Brigid.

We were due to leave for Chicago between 9am and 10am. I set the alarm for 7am, but couldn’t sleep that long. I could already hear Doug and Joanne moving around, so I took the opportunity of calling the hospital and managed, at last, to speak to my mother. It has to be said, she did sound a bit wobbly, but seemed in good spirits and generally pleased to hear from me. So the trip is still on … for the moment. Assuming no change, we’ll do Route 66, and reassess the situation when we get to Santa Monica.

Otherwise, John and I spent the next couple of hours repacking and redistributing our luggage, losing stuff, finding stuff that we meant to pack, and generally faffing about. We grabbed a quick breakfast downtown and called into Verizon with a borrowed mobile phone to equip ourselves with a US cell number. Then it was time to hit the road. We aimed to be at Willowbrook around 4pm, and we were, despite some necessary running repairs to John’s CB antenna.

The car park at the La Quinta motel was three-quarters full of bikes. Familiar faces greeted us, and it felt like we had never been away. Unloading the bikes took an age as we fell into conversation with old friends and new. At last, we found ourselves more or less alone and realised, although we had lost an hour since Michigan, it was time to eat.

Del Rhea’s was packed. There was standing room only as we waited for a table. So we had a couple of pints of Route 66 Red and chatted with other late-comers including Fred and Mary, Joe, and Mark and Gina (none of whom are riding this year), and a bemused New Zealand couple, Brian and Barbara, who came in place of Cameron and Ngaire. With no hope of a table any time soon, Geoff Wilde suggested we eat in the adjoining dining room. A sensible enough idea: it was a bigger room and there was no shortage of vacant tables. But we were immediately shoo’ed away by a particularly officious manager, who clearly didn’t want biker riff-raff mixing with ‘quality’. However, not wishing to turn away a table of seven, he reluctantly gave in.

Dinner was rather unsatisfactory all round. We missed George’s first briefing as Rally Master, and the waitress somehow mistook my pronounciation of chicken in a basket as sautéed chicken livers. Still, we had a good laugh about previous years, as Joe did his best to scare the newbies with hilarious tales about these two equally green Brits who showed up in 2001. That was, until I reminded him that his own antics that year had given rise to the “Wally Award” …

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15/06/2009 by Brigid.

Well, I couldn’t speak to Mum this morning after all. She is out of intensive care, but couldn’t come to the phone and her bedside phone had not yet been connected. Otherwise, the news continued to be encouraging. The nurse reassured me that Mum was doing “very well”, so I passed on our love and said I would call again tomorrow.

We put a load of washing on and went out for breakfast. Joanne is now officially on holiday, but woke up feeling under the weather with some sort of infection. Not wanting to disturb her, we then borrowed Doug’s suburban and went shopping in nearby Flint.

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

Today’s news is much more encouraging. I rang at around 10am and discovered that Mum is doing well and they are expecting to return her to a normal ward later today … which means I should be able to speak to her tomorrow.

We spent the morning doing various useful administrative things and searching, unsuccessfully, for a phone card to try and cut down the cost of calling home. Then, this afternoon, Doug took us out to his country club, and John got to play his first round of golf in three years …

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

I think a note of thanks is due here, to Guy and Vickie, and to Theo and Alma, for allowing us to bend their ears. I don’t think we were exactly sparkling company and it is especially dull finding oneself discussing other people’s ailments ad nauseum.  But, from my point of view, it was a real comfort to be amongst friends.

There was no mobile phone reception at Theo’s farm, which was a particular worry, as I had no idea whether anyone had been trying to contact me. We left after breakfast and made a quick call to the hospital from a gas station outside Hamilton. The news was better. Mum was conscious and “doing well”, though still receiving oxygen and a little support for low blood pressure – normal, apparently, in older patients.

We are due to spend the next couple of days with Doug and Joanne in Michigan, before riding with them to Chicago to start The Mother Road Rally. Logistically, this is the first point from which we could, practically-speaking, abandon the trip, if necessary.

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

The talk all day has been around whether or not we can continue the trip and, if not, would the insurance cover our repatriation costs. The news from the hospital is that Mum is still sedated and on oxygen, but otherwise “comfortable” in Intensive Care. For the time being, there is nothing we can do except keep going. We spent the night with more friends in Beamsville, Ontario.

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

As we were packing our bikes to leave, my mobile phone rang. Odd, I thought, that my aunt should be calling me. Surely, Mum would have told her that John and I were travelling …

It was bad news from home. My mother, probably my number one Blog fan, had been rushed into hospital. “She told me not to tell you and Sarah”, Margaret Anne said, “But I thought you ought to know”. I rang the hospital. It was not a reassuring conversation. A distinctly sickly-sounding nurse told me that, as it was Sunday, Mum would not be seen by a specialist until tomorrow.

For now, there was nothing John and I could do. We just made as good time as possible to our next destination, Beeton, Ontario. Thank heavens we were staying with friends.

It was about 6.30pm by the time we arrived. We overshot the driveway by a couple of hundred yards, and discovered that we had the wrong house number. The phone rang again. “Your mother is having emergency surgery tonight.”

Not the news we wanted but, at least, she wasn’t lying on a trolley in a passage somewhere, still waiting to see a doctor.

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07/06/2009 by Brigid.

Today was an Interstate day or, rather, being for the most part in French-speaking Quebec, an Autoroute day. We checked out of the hotel, had breakfast in a local restaurant, and hit the road. Apart from a nervous moment in Montreal as my fuel gauge showed 6 miles of fuel remaining in the midst of a stationary and, seemingly, endless, traffic jam, there were no delays or anything else remotely interesting until we arrived at our next overnight stop at Brockville, Ontario.

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07/06/2009 by Brigid.

Millinocket is a charming little place on the Appalachian Trail. This is small-town America at its best.  Since we normally only do “chain business, just off the Interstate” America, this was a bit scary at first. We rode the whole length of the town looking for a motel but, five minutes later, on the third sweep of the main street, we realised there weren’t any, so settled on a B&B instead. True, the house reminded us slightly of the Bates residence. Still, at least it had a bright orange Honda Goldwing in the driveway, which was more than could be said for the B&B next door which looked …well … dead. The Young House was, perhaps, comparatively expensive, but the facilities were considerably nicer than your average Days Inn or Super 8. The owners were friendly and offered free wi-fi and an excellent cooked breakfast. We had home-cooked meatloaf for dinner at a mom-and-pop restaurant round the corner, and then wandered down the deserted street for a couple of beers at the Blue Ox Saloon.

There were a few regulars around the bar who, recognising that we were strangers in the area, took it upon themselves to recommend some local highlights. Top of the list seemed to be the Ripogenus Dam, a veritable “must see”, by all accounts. We asked if the forestry road was suitable for bikes. “No problems”, they said: an opinion shared by our B&B inn-keepers, and by the forestry service guy that John had emailed about possible trail-riding in the Appalachians.

So, the following morning we set off down the Golden Road, a rough haul road where, we were warned, timber trucks, up to 4 trailers long, stop for nothing. I suppose it was the fact that three separate sources (including a forestry employee) had recommended the Dam as a local attraction, and that each had said that we would be fine on bikes as long as we didn’t venture beyond, that blinded us to the apparently obvious signs prohibiting motorcycles and ATVs. Anyway, it didn’t cross our minds that we were doing anything wrong until, after 20 or 30 miles, we were pulled up by a park ranger just a few hundred yards short of the Dam. “I could issue you with a ticket just for being here”, he said, “You need to turn right around now.” We apologised of course, and explained about the exchange of emails with the forestry company, while neglecting to mention the conversation with the reprobates in the bar. The ranger was clearly unimpressed. Nevertheless, he conceded that we were nearly there … if we were to take the next right and follow the gravel road down the hill. And so, amazingly, he let us go.

In the event, I am not sure that the Dam was worth the trip. However, John and I did get to do a little genuine off-road trail riding to get there, and we got to see our first moose: a mummy moose, in fact, with her calf. Sadly, I didn’t have the right lens on my camera, and by the time I had got the camera out of its bag, the two of them had sauntered off to the side of the road.

Once back on the highway, we headed for the hills and the Canadian border, and civilisation …

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