Re-entry

<![CDATA[

Re-entry Cottonwood, AZ

Cottonwood, AZ

　

Monday Afternoon we are downtown and see a 2008 Harley Davidson packed to the hilt and showing signs that it was ridden from the States. I look and see that it has a CA. plate. The left saddle bag is gone, and the brackets are held up with a strap. There are signs that it has gone down several times. The driver has more equipment than Jene and I have put together! I wait for an hour for the driver to show himself but no sign of him. We leave a note on the bike with our hotel and info on the shipping process we are working on.

We get a call from Osvaldo who hands the phone to Rob Jones. He owns the HD we left the note on. He is there at Osvaldo’s and is getting in on our container deal if we want. Of course! The price of shipping just went down! We discuss the situation and agree to meet for dinner. Osvaldo says we should come over later but that he will call when we should go over. We wait. Rob calls and says that he has finished the process of getting his info to the notary and he will be shipping out to Antarctica in the afternoon tomorrow! We have been waiting for Osvaldo and all the time we could have been completing the paperwork! Frustrated we go to see Osvaldo. He takes us to the notary where we give our documents and are told to return tomorrow at noon to get our forms. This contract gives Osvaldo the authority and we hope responsibility, to ship the bikes and get them through customs.

We meet Rob later in town and he is easy to recognize. His leather jacket is scratch so badly on the shoulder that there is no black color in the leather! We asked about it and he relates a gravel road experience early in his trip where he fell when he hit a gravel berm throwing him off the bike and fracturing his scapula! Apparently he recovered enough to continue. Come to think of it we didn’t get any other details, just went on with the conversation as if his calamity was expected! He ost his sadddle bag as he was moving. When he realized it was gone he backtracked but found nothing. All of his tools and spare parts were gone! And thousands of miles to go!

He talks of getting a deal that day on a trip to Antarctica. He will pay $4500 US for the 10 day trip. I looks like there is sufficient progress to think that we might go if we wanted, the bikes being stored by then as Osvaldo tells us. Jene is excited about going.

I do the numbers and think that I can’t afford the trip. $2000 to ship the bike back, and the price of a ticket home is $2676! Who knows what customs in the US will cost us. Even a screaming deal is out of my reach. I really never was excited about the southern most continent but did think about going and led Jene to think I might go. Now after reviewing the bucks and thinking about the next trips I might take the desire was just not there. I know I will not likely get a chance to get there certainly at this price but if its not a passion, why go when there are other things I am passionate about doing, and of course they take money.

When we started out it was such quick notice, forcing me to retire 8 months early, that I never really considered what the end might look like. Over the next months and year, I just focused on completing the journey. That meant that the end product would be my safe return to the US. The end was not Ushuaia, or Antarctica but returning to the US. I know from watching scores of mountaineers fail to come home but reaching the summit that it is bad to set your site on the top, you still have to have the focus and energy to come down. My goal has always been to come home. I am focused on that now and that has some effect on my decision to not go further south. I have lived in Alaska for some 10 years, living on a glacier for up to a month at a time. I have seen glaciers calve, snow covered peaks and all that the artic or Antarctic can throw at me from a visual sense. I might miss seeing another species of penguin, and the leopard seal, but not much else. It would be nice I suppose to set foot on another continent, but that has never been one of my goals, so it is easy to just say, sorry I’m headed home. I have my barn gait on now, and little will stop me!

Jene finds a deal for $3100 and that upsets Rob though he says little. I hope they don’t share the same cabin as that would really stink. Paying $1500 more for the same accommodations would **** anyone off. Then you have to think about those passengers that have paid up to $11,000!

We meet the next morning having to resort gear and abandon much of the worn out gear. T shirts that have been our wardrobe of choice for months now hit the to be tossed pile. We pack up and head out to Osvaldo’s. I can’t help weaving in my lane and just to feel the bike again. I miss her already. We arrive and wait for over an hour for Rob. We all follow Osvaldo to where we will store the bikes till they are put in the container. All of us weave back and forth, accelerate and break hard just to feel the bike under us one last time. Its funny but we all do it and can’t stop. I’m sure we all have the same feelings for this last ride.

We arrive at a small farm and the garage door is opened for us. We back the bikes in and after a few farewell pictures close the door on the bikes for a couple of months. I’m more that a little nostalgic about leaving Miss Liberty. She has been a dependable friend. Never let me down, always listened to my problems and fears. When I needed her to immediately respond she did, often keeping us both safe. She challenged me at times but we were always able to work things out in a reasonable manner and remain lovers in the end. How could I expect anything more! How could I just walk away? Seems to be my pattern since retirement, things are going well but I just have to move after awhile to get a new view. I wonder if I can keep up this pace much longer?

My plan was to find nice gifts and tokens of my trip in Ushuaia. I saw so many things I wanted to buy and at very cheap prices. I didn’t have any room on the bike for anything not immediately needed. But in Ushuaia I figured I would get rid of a bunch of things and that would give me room for such things. Things went as expected…The stuff available for purchase were not the handmade traditional gifts I had passed up earlier in the trip.

Jene gets on the boat Antarctic Dream at 4pm and my flight leaves at 10 pm. We say good by and shake hands and hug. Safe travels bro, its been great! I have had two great travel partners during this trip. Both dependable and trustworthy, now that I am on my own I am suddenly lonely. I know Jene and I have other adventures in front of us, I can’t wait!

I make it to the airport in time to find that my flight has been cancelled! But there is one leaving now that I can get a seat on! Sweet! A couple hour flight to Buenos Aries. Then a 10 hour layover. I sleep in the airport by holding my day pack on my lap and bending over it to sleep. I have the pack and my helmet with me. Sleep comes in spurts but I am so exhausted there is no way to stay awake. I walk outside along the Atlantic (I presume) and kill time watching people. I try to read but my eyes won’t focus. My flight to Sao Paulo is another couple of hours. I catch a break as I am the only one in the row. I stretch out as best a 6’ man can in the row and get an hour or two of good sleep. Another 10 hour layover in Brazil. I wished it was longer because the people watching (some of you that know me will interpret this as woman watching) is the best I have seen. The woman are all fashionably dressed, beautiful, thin, large breasted, with long dark hair, with great butts! Not sleepy, the time passes quickly but I do get a stiff neck with the constant moving back and forth so I don’t miss anyone. I wonder how the normal man would suffer this pain. I have been strengthening my neck by wearing a helmet that was trying to be ripped off my head for two months, priming me for this very moment in time. “
I hope this old plane just breaks down” so I have more time to enjoy the national treasures of Brazil!

Ten hour flight to Houston! I get some sleep on this leg too helping me recover form the long stressful layover in Brazil. The plane is moving to the runway when we return to the terminal for an ill patient. They page a Dr. a couple of times so I talk to the attendant and offer my services as a retired medic. Lucky there is a Dr. on board. We are an hour delayed, I will miss my flight in Houston. This leg is going as expected, but different than my planned itinerary!

I grab my bag in Houston and the assistant from Continental gives me a new boarding pass for the next flight to Phoenix. Good service! I pass through customs and immigration and get my bag to the connecting flights x-ray ramp.

The flight to Phoenix is nice. I have to rearrange my shuttle to Jene’s house. It is hard to imagine the difference between the services that are managed by hand in the country I left behind to the automated high teck environment at the Houston airport. They lost my luggage! Go figure. After paying $2700 for the flight, and after over 50 hours of travel I have to dig deep to manage my frustration at this latest development. I get over it by thinking about the ending blog I can write! Little consolation for me but I hope it makes you laugh and say Damn what next!

In the shuttle the three other passengers make the mistake of asking about my helmet and where was I traveling? I start relaying my adventure and they keep me going by asking questions. I stop several times to ask if I should go on? They all want to hear more. I rattle on enjoying the ability to express myself without having to struggle. I can get my point across without hand gestures, pen and paper and all seem to understand. By accident I use a few Spanish words but the audience doesn’t seem to notice. I tell tales for over an hour.

I sleep over 13 hours that night. In the morning I am lost without a routine. For months it has been to wake up, put the same clothes on and get packed. Load the bike have some coffee and get on the road. The same thing every day. Today I am naked trying to get some coffee going, being distracted by the clothes washer, then sorting gear for the machine while still only half dressed. I can only focus for about 10 seconds before being distracted. I realize that I have FBLP. That is a short for Full Bore Linear Panic! I move in one direction till I hit something that changes my direction, until I hit another object that changes my direction… It takes me two hours and a long hot tub to get reorganized.

My feminine side comes out also this morning. After the hot tub, I am delighted to realize that I have a suitcase of clothes to choose from! I don’t have to wear the same T shirt for days at a time. I have a large choice of clothes from which to choose. I am surprised to have this be so exciting! I put on the Jeans I left behind. I put on my belt on the same loop and start to walk away. My pants fall off! Thinking my belt came loose I am surprised to find it still buckled. Why have these pants gotten so big. I cinch the belt two holes tighter and my pants still are too loose to wear! What the Hell! I find Jene’s scale and weigh my self. I have lost 20 pounds! With out noticing it I have lost that much weight. I wonder about tape worms! I will have to Google it. I tell a lady friend of my weight loss and she says, “That is so outrageously wrong, all you did was sit an a motorcycle all day, drink beer at night and watch women! How could you loose that much weight!” “That’s just wrong!”

After being the center of attention the last two months it is now hard to be just another citizen. I don’t mean to be vain here but wherever we went we were noticed. The bikes, our size, and the color of our skin usually meant we were the exceptions and people wanted to meet us. We were noticed and without wanting it or trying to get attention it came our way. Now I find myself as just a normal person. Nothing sets us apart. I get over this in a few hours of moving around the city of Cottonwood. I’m OK now but there was a short time and I thought it interesting.

As best I can recall the bikes were very good to us. My bike needed the following parts and work:

Rear brakes, straighten the front break lever, one rear tire, chain and sprocket, rear shock rebuild, front fork seals, three oil changes (we brought the filters), replace the fuse on the cooling fan, replace the lock on one of my saddle bags, and a rewiring of the handgrip heaters and headlight. Two ounces of oil.

Jene’s needed:

Rear brakes, attempt to repair the speedometer cable, two complete sets of tires and one additional rear, chain, replace front fork seals, three oil changes plus several quarts in between, repair of the hinges on the saddle bags.

We traveled 8,000 miles this leg. That is like traveling from LA to New York City, back to LA and then back to Denver! We saw incredible places, met more incredible people and enjoyed the company that only good friends can have. When asked if I could do it again. My answer is an immediate Yes. But I choose to not repeat things very often. I choose the loop roads over the down and back ones. So I will choose to do a different adventure next. We have been talking about New Zealand! I have a different idea, one that no one has done to my knowledge, but I’m not giving it up here! You’ll just have to wait!

]]>