24 » Friday, September 6, 2019
epnews.com
we ccan make it!” After all iit was still around mid day, we thought why h not? hy So after a quick trip to a small town on the Pacific Ocean, touching the water and a cup of coffee, yes it was quite cool, and a strong tail wind heading east, we made it to Mojave by 10:00 that night. That little one inch jaunt took seven hours! Thankfully there was one room left in an old run down hotel, the last one in the whole town. We just didn’t know there was a PowWow that evening, however we still slept quite well. The next morning we figured getting out on the road before daybreak would get us across the Mojave desert before it got too hot, well...let’s just say that didn’t hap-
when it turned 100,000 wonderful and fun filled miles. I think it was around 2009 that I took a trip to Ohio to visit mom, but before I arrived I wanted to stop and visit Uncle Clark and Aunt Alberta, they were in an assisted living facility. On this particular trip Uncle Clark was in rehab for a knee problem so when I got there I met with Aunt Alberta, wheeled her down the hall for lunch. After our meal we went to see Uncle Clark, then back to her apartment. On the way back she looked ahead and said “Oh, there’s our minister and his wife from when you and your cousin Jeff were born, 52 years ago.” The woman was a frail tiny thing and her husband was in the wheelchair, kind of bent over and not really involved in the conversation. But when I was introduced and told that I rode my Harley all the way from Colorado, the man lifted his head, eyes opened wide, he turned to look right at me and said “I used to have a Harley!” His wife looked at him with a shocked expression and said “I didn’t know that.” “What year” I asked, “1938” he replied. His wife said “You never told me that”....but just before lowering his head I heard him say... “It was before I met you.” How often will a 100k! motorcycle turn 100,000 miles, Let alone a Only 4 miles when new Harley? I asked my mechanic at the Harley shop down the road how many bikes he sees each pen. I learned that anyone can year with over experience the summer heat of the 100,000 miles, Sam desert by pointing a hair dryer, running replied “I’ve only seen three...ever.” full blast 5” in front of your nose. Yes, So the adventure on Route 66 took that’s what it felt like for the full four about seven days and covered 3,500 hours, riding through the Mohave desert miles, but there’s so much to tell about in June. my trips around the rest of the country, So at high noon, or close to it, we found and with our international neighbors as a place to have lunch, headed east to well, but how can I begin to share the Kingman and that’s were we met our journey in one short story? friend. The road has taken me and my faithful Can’t remember his name but I think Harley to almost every state in the counhe was a scientist, in another life that is. try, some trips to visit family back east, We stopped a few times to get gas, other some trips with my hoodlum friends and bikes would join us for a while and then some trips just because they needed to peel off. So at the end of the day we take place. parted ways, with our happy friend ridI know riding on the roads and highing with us, along that famous “Route ways can be dangerous, and one can 66.” never completely be safe from other That was my first Harley, the one I pur- drivers whether you’re in a car or on a chased off the showroom floor in 2001, bike, but the risk is worth it, at least for but this story is about my second Harley, me. the one I ride now. It came to me in Where will the next trip take me, what 2006, right out of the box with a shine adventure awaits? That story takes place that would never get old. It’s now 2019 just over the horizon, and I my and I just finished a trip with some mili- friends....intend to continue riding.... tary friends in Cripple Creek at the annual veterans memorial ride, and that’s
100,000 Miles On My Harley
By: Don Darling
ahead. After two days we dropped Andrea off at the camp. Getting there in He was missing a tooth but man could the late afternoon we decided to go to he smile, we were all smiling! After all the small town and get an ice cream we were heading east on the famous “Route 66.” The road ran alongside I-40, cone. While we sat there enjoying the modern highway from California, we the moment reminiscing the last couple days, a silver haired, were on a section east of Needles, just crossing into Arizona at Kingman. It was solid woman walked up with her arms behind and head after having an ice cream cone that we looking directly at those first talked. two shiny bikes. “I always My friend Bruce and I just delivered wanted a Harley when I was my youngest daughter Andrea to a camp a younger woman” she said. in the central California mountains “But my dad wouldn’t let me where she spent the summer as a camp get one.” She never looked up, counselor, that was the purpose for the just simply walked away. After a trip. Excitement oozing and the heart good nights sleep Bruce and I racing while sitting on my Road King, headed south through Fresno to Andrea on the back seat and Bruce on Bakersfield. I told Bruce, “It’s only that his Ultra Classic along side us, we had far,” showing about an inch between my nothing but blue sky and open road thumb and finger, “to the Pacific Ocean,
Celebrate Our National Parks With A Live Musical Performance With Singer, Songwriter Gigi Love
America’s national parks inspire us through their unique beauty and storied pasts. Gigi Love has captured the stories of these special landscapes in song. On Saturday, September 7, at 7 p.m. come to the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center in Rocky Mountain National Park to join Love for a live acoustic performance. America’s national parks inspire passion through their grand beauty and storied pasts. As a Trails & Rails Troubadour, Gigi Love, has traveled from park to park, capturing each unique landscape in song. Love’s music is influ-
enced by the time she has spent experiencing the nature, learning about the history, and getting to know the communities within the parks. Rocky Mountain National Park invites you to come celebrate the wonder of our landscape through song with Gigi Love. Between 2015 and 2017, Love worked on an album commemorating the National Park Service Centennial, traveling to nearly two dozen parks to learn their unique stories and capture them in song. Her folk music tells the stories of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Acadia, Glacier, and more. Of the Rocky Mountains, she wrote “hear the whispering pines of Trail Ridge Road, a bugling elk hits a high note.” Love’s album is dedicated to the park founders, the future generations, those who do not have access to nature, and Earth itself. She promotes stewardship of the land and protection of our natural spaces. The program is free and open to the public. For further information about Rocky Mountain National Park, please visit www.nps.gov/romo or call the park’s Information Office at (970) 5861206.