Sierra Blanca Checkpoint

East of El Paso on Interstate 10, the daytime legal speed limit is 80 mph. There's not a whole lot of traffic, it's flat, desert, no one seemed to go over 85 mph. I watch what other drivers are doing; I try not to stand out. So I went with traffic, kept my sped down to around 83, and cruised past few sneaky patrol cars, speed traps, just waiting to accelerate out onto the super-slab, and nab some law breaking speeder. Forty miles west of Van Horn, all traffic was funneled into a Border Patrol checkpoint. The officers looked very serious, and had serious looking military style equipment. There was one man in the booth, one man standing near the side of the lane with a short barreled assault rifle, and one man holding a vicious looking dog on a short lead, all at the ready, and very serious. No smiles, here. The dude in the booth, he asked me a question, but my hearing was all shot to hell from all the wind noise of high speed riding, and the roar of the engine. On a good day, my ears still ring from Vietnam. But I could see his lips moving, but I just couldn't hear a fucken thing he was saying. His lips moved again. "WHAT", I yelled. Rose leaned forward, cupped her hand, and yelled in my ear, "... they want to know if we are citizens." The soldiers were waiting for my answer. Very serious. Yeah…I nodded affirmatively. The lips moved, and I accelerated hard, brought that bike fast up to 90, made some thunder blasting back out onto the highway, then dropped her back down to 83 mph, and cruised. Willie Nelson got busted there, when they found something illegal in his tour bus. So did Snoop Dogg. A few more miles down the road we would turn the clocks ahead…Central Time.

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519 to Buttzville

519 is a road, mostly smooth, curvy, two lane blacktop. At the New York state line, I followed her down. It’s cow country, sheep; 20 mile per hour turns that sneak right up, a narrow tunnel, and there’s Vernon, and Hope. All the way to Buttzville; so named because, at one time, it was the butt watching capital of America. Butts reigned supreme. Not so much anymore. But there was a nicely packed butt in skin tight camo, right in Hot Dog Johnny’s. So I ate lunch: two dogs, mustard, pickles, and kraut with a big cup of buttermilk. That’s the special. And I gassed up and headed north on 519, all the way to the state line, with a song in my head, from Bob Seger: She's totally committed, to major independence But she's a lady through and through She gives them quite a battle, all that they can handle She'll bruise some, she'll hurt some too But oh, they love to watch her strut…Bob Seger

Nevada Backroads Ruined My Belt

rear sprocket pac man damage miles and miles of gravel Drank too many of those 32 ounce beers last night. Got back on the Loneliest Road and went east through Ely, where we found Utah route 21, which seemed even lonelier. It's narrower, hotter, and has a lot less traffic. Lonelier. Almost scary. Gravelly. A good place to pick up a stone and break a drive belt. When we crossed into Utah, we set the clock forward to Mountain Time, and got on I 15 southbound to Hurricane, UT, where the temp. was a searing 98 degrees. This was quite a change from the 48 degrees when we left Eureka, NV. We couldn't find a restaurant near the hotel that served beer (Mormons!), so we opted for Subway sandwiches and a six pack in the room. Took the Road Glide through a nearby car wash and removed just some of the over 4500 miles of bugs and grime. Pack Man Cracks: that’s the official designation in the Harley Davidson Service Manual, and I discovered it after returning from a cross country bla

Route 32 Walt's Speedometer

It was late afternoon in Albany, NY. I was riding the four speed Evo; Levi had his Sporty; both Mike and Walt were riding clean Shovels. The plan was this: we were gonna run south down route 32, make a few miles, then maybe stop at some juke joint or tavern, but closer to home. Once we got out of the city, the road opened up, and the throttle hands got looser. We were doing maybe 60 mph, in a tight pack of four, and we'd roll up behind some sedan doing 55, and most times, with plenty of room to pass, we'd give 'em a little gas, and just blast right on by. But each time we did that, we'd gain a little speed, and pretty soon we were kind of hammering down the highway, maybe 70 or 75. And I could see in my mirror, Walt was dropping back. He'll catch up, I'm thinkin', he's probably just not used to that kind of riding. So anyway, I'm watching Walt in the mirror, and he's back there maybe 50 yards…then I look again, he's still with us, but maybe

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