After a fabulous time riding the black hills, visiting Sturgis, Deadwood, and other cities, it was time to head for home. We were suntanned to a leathery sheen and we had survived our first long ride together. It really was a fantastic, exciting, and relaxing experience.... until the ride home.
The day we headed east on Interstate 90, the wind was wicked. Coming straight out of the north, Mike drove well, leaning the bike to the left, to counteract the wind, while I whined on the back. I was exhausted. I was getting deafened by the wind in my left ear; it sounded as if I was in a wind tunnel and it actually hurt. Not wanting to finish that ride home that day, I would have insisted we stop, if we did not have a commitment to be home that evening. Not only was it windy, the sun was bright and hot, without a cloud in the sky. The wind caused us to make frequent stops along 90 at rest stations to get off the bike to rest and get fluids. About 2/3 of the way home, we stopped at a rest stop and I was in tears. My ear hurt from the wind, and the backs of my hands actually had started to sting. When we stopped, I took a good look at my hands and noticed I was so sunburned that I was blistering. I had neglected to sunscreen the backs of my hands! All these past days, I had religiously rubbed sunscreen in my hands and rubbed it on my back, arms, and face, but not the tops of my hands! I could only cry at that rest stop. Without gloves, I had no choice but to try to wrap some extra bandannas around both of my hands and climb back aboard that damn bike to continue to head east.
At the next rest stop, an angel was sent to rescue me! Standing by a soda machine, we happened to look on top and saw an older pair of leather gloves that fit me to a tee! I looked around and saw no one there to claim them, so I put them on my sunburned hands and rode the rest of the way home with my blisters protected from the cruel sun. I still have those leather gloves... they will always be dear to me... and I want to thank the biker that lost them, for they went to a gallant use that day.
The most comical part of the trip though was just 30 miles from home. We were taking an entrance ramp back on to Interstate 80 east. The ramp was a very sharp turn, graded at 25 miles per hour. We were traveling so slow on that ramp, that the bike actually just fell over. As we felt the bike go down, my left leg instinctively came off of the passenger peg and firmly planted itself on the pavement to hold us up. Mike also had his left leg down to hold us up, but the weight of the Harley Davidson was too much for us and we had to manage to jump and wiggle out of the way as it slowly sank to it's side... right in the middle of the on-ramp. We were either very lucky or extremely unlucky that no one was around, because somehow we managed to pick up 760 pounds of metal. How embarrassing! We slunk the rest of the way home, happy to find our little girl waiting for us with open arms and more than happy to find air conditioning, our own beds, and clean clothes.
We were already plotting next year's trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment