OUTIS TOO, Dorothy, the oyster shucker, black aligator eyes watching us ride by from slime green roadside canals. This is LOUISANA swamp & forest country, green & lush with aged cypress oaks dipping with Spanish Moss encrusted with chittas & red itchy bugs. It gives you that eerie southern feel & you can imagine grey clad confederate soldiers marching through a low clinging mist in this landscape that today is peppered with the occasional shack that is literally rotting into the ground.
It was 2008 when we happened upon OUTIS TOO, an Oyster Bar nestled into the forest, a few bikes parked haphazardly amongst the trees, a stage with good ole biker boys in bibbed jeans chewing the fat. Then inside we meet Dorothy in her blues & American Flag bandana. She owns this fine establishment & shares her hospitality over steamed oysters & tasty blackened Gropher with Hush puppies.[ spicy deep fried corn meal balls ] We politely turn down the offer of a pottle of Boiled Peanuts which are an acquired taste experience for new comers.
Hold on a moment. Our adventure actually started in CHICAGO which was an outstanding experience for all of us. Magnificent in its buildings from the stylish uptown glass structures of the world of money & finance. Did you know it was here the Futures Market was first conceived & started. Elevated trains rumbled overhead, then disappeared amongst the skyscrapers that had amazing sculptures by artists like " Piacasso" & his STEEL HORSE, THE EYEBALL, & other futuristic metal forms. Then downtown was littered with Cafes & Bars. We enjoyed a few quite's at DILLENGERS which came complete with his letter to the Ford Motor Company stating that he only used their cars for a bank robbery because they were reliable & fast.... that was if he could steal one first !
OH NO, RAIN. we are in ORLANDO Florida now & have just taken delivery of our Harleys just as Hurricane Dianne pasted over with BIG WINDS & driving rain. [ which was warm ] But after waiting for 3 hours we hit the road & in the rain that evening we passed a town called CHRISTMAS. There it was, a road sign, neon christmas tree, a little nativity crib, a few old wooden shacks & we were out of town - BRILLIANT.
The next day dawned clear, sunny & hot as we embraced the many expressways & bridge overpasses into the Art Deco south end of MIAMI. It reminded me of what America is really all about.... CONCRETE & CARS.
Thumping & bumping Baby, laying it down at 85mph in the fast lane on a 8 lane turnpike crammed with vehicles, ain' t life grand !
Picture this, we are sitting on the beachfront bar cruise, margaritas in hand, scimpy talent smiling as they glide by, warm evening breezes & a colourful flowing shirt .... life is pretty good. After a brief flirtation with the Bridges of the Florida Keys, some more blackened fish & a glass of wine, we are ready to continue. Mid morning saw a smiling bunch stepping out of a swamp air boat ride & Margi exclaiming that there were plenty of gators gazing back at them with unblinking black eyes.... " Don't rock the boat Dai "
The Biloxi to Gulfport coastline sparkled with its super white crystal sands & amazingly there were no signs of the recent oil disaster although some of the coastal mansions remained wrecked and flattened from Hurricane Katrina's winds. Then our eyes popped as we rode into a Cruise Weekend. HOT RODS & grossly oversized muscle cars were everywhere, fabulous in the sun with owners bloated with pride to be part of the American Dream. Many vehicles were for sale & most reasonably priced ....oh well !
The night air is shattered by a thunderous high revving Nitros breathing V8, its HUGE & the sole purpose of this monster BAR STOOL is to lay rubber doing donuts in the carpark .... we are at PANAMA CITY BEACH for Bike Weekend, a small gathering of about 60 thousand bikes & biker that have far too much money to waste. Outlandish colourful paint jobs, neon lights over engines, very stretched swing arms with Nos Bottles & the marvellous drone of motors in the night air while Molly Hatchett played to a very distracted audience.
Approaching NEW ORLEANS [ N'AWLINS as locals call it ] we are now riding on a dual lane bridge with a separate dual lane bridge for traffic coming towards us & hell there's another dual lane bridge about half a mile away all going across this sparkling sea to a shoreline so far away that we couldn't even see it. The style & shapes of these bridges will blow you away & the length of some - hell mother, the longest one was 24 miles long & dives into a long tunnel at the other end. Even sitting on 80mph it takes more than a few moments to cross.
I am not seeing well this morning, could it be riding into the sun yesterday, the late night on BOURBON ST. or the Absinthe, ... never mind it's all good as we explore The FRENCH QUARTER with its fabulous aged buildings & balconies covered in greenery. JAZZ hangs in the air from street performers & bars & all the while funky types slide by as donkey drawn carriages full of tourists listen intently to the history of N' AWLINS as recalled to them by a Negro with a southern drawl through a mouthful of pearly whites & a pink straw hat. LOVE THIS TOWN.
AHHAH ! that was lunch at CROSSROADS, the site of one of The Civil Wars actual battlefields. Jo O' Neill with his new grey Confederate cap & Paul Spearing in his new Yankee blue cap emerged from the historic log cabin store & so we could lunch. We had PO BOYS toasted & to die for pizza on the way to Memphis before heading out on the highway to play again - really it is The Purple Heart Highway & all the traffic on this dual lane interstate is sitting on an exhilarating 80mph [ legally posted at 70, but 80's ok ] even the " OVERSIZED" & labelled big rigs were in amongst it, complete with pilot vehicles carrying flags & flashing lights, and occasionally one of these monsters passed us which meant they had to be doing 100mph or so. The Cottonfields we have been riding through looked marvelous because it is harvest time but are now giving way to grasslands & deciduous forests that are turning to their autumn colours.
The PLANTATION ALLSTARS in BEALE ST, MEMPHIS are really world class & produce a wall of sound, swapping from Jazz to Blues, then a sensuous little Negros lass from the crowd blows our minds when she sings the Blues, gob smacked we are, especially when mid number the lead guitarist went to the bathroom still playing, the electric power cord under the door .... moments later he appeared still playing & takes his seat.... now there's talent.
"Just step around those parts" says Lew Elliott. Lew owns SUPER CYCLE which in its day was the place where ELVIS came to get his custom bikes & trikes. The shop appears to have stood still in time with gorgeous windows of 1960's choppers, signs & just plain old stuff all covered in a generous layer of dust & cobwebs. Not to be outdone the whole shop is like Burt Munroe's shed. Parts & piles of bike bits, paperwork just waiting for Lew to get around to it, but at 75 or so, he's in no real hurry nowadays, wonderful.
This the bible belt & roadside billboards have messages such as, Prepare to meet thy God. If God intended money to grow on trees there wouldn't be any shade. The 10 commandments are not a multiple chose question, and people have names like, MILT, POLK & JEB, wow.
A dry county you say ! " Yees Sir" says al ocal from the cab of his old green faded pickup .. " but ifs you's go 25 mile down thata ways into the next county ... they sells it, we only gots shine." Fair enough but nevermind, our bed for the next couple of days is BLUE WATERS MOUNTAIN LODGE & that has a licence & moments after our arrival we are diving off their jetty into the warm waters of this beautiful mountain lake which is surrounded by a Tennessee autumn forest, no other houses in sight, just us & on our return a waitng Budweiser - perfect !
The next morning finds us at "The Tail of The Dragon" DEALS GAP. Known to the biking world for its 318 corners in 11 miles of exciting banked & cambered corners threading their way through the mountain scenery. A great ride which lands us in CHEROKEE Nations Homeland with its stunning rivers, the occasional fly fisherman & sunlight casting shafts of light down on sparkling waters - damned it was a memorable ride.
Well surprised I was! CHARLESTON sure enough was the riches's capital city of per Civil War days but I didn't know where its wealth came from. RICE !!!! How amazing ..... but really obvious because the delta land was low & water was everywhere, although it took an army of slaves to move more dirt than the total tonnage of rocks to build the Pyramids when they constructed the rice fields, dams and canals of Charleston & Savannah.
Ya Welcome Ya All ! The Bohemin Hotel in Savanna was a hit with its oyster shell lamps, shrimp languine & reasonably priced menu ...everyone loved it ! The rooftop bar at dusk, the lit up bridge & temperature was a BIG hit.
A quick stop for lunch while we check out ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH, where the Spanish first landed, then the British forced them out only to have the Spanish take it back.... & now its American. That history has left behind some authentic old buildings, great Spanish influence and a real treasure to behold. But its off to DAYTONA BEACH for us.
My god, they're all here. Good old boys who make a Harley look small, lots a babes riding rowdy stretched out choppers with outstanding paint in colours, really wild colours, a trike in flames & the shape of a 56 chevy, rats & bobbers, hell stop me but the convoy of bikes totals thousands with them lining the roadside & bars outside Broken Spoke, Iron Horse Saloon & White Eagle Saloon & Froggies ... time to party. Buds up crew.
But Daytona Beach BIKETOBERFEST is much more than the 160 thousand bikes that turn up, its brilliant uncrowded beaches with walk right in warm water, the beach side fresh water pools & spas, all with Pelicans surfing the breeze of the coastal hotels. Well that was our month long ride, we enjoyed the hell out of it and may be next time you will join us, hope so, cheers Dennis & Jo, JD's motorsickle tours.com
2010-08-31
WOW. It’s amazing, moments after riding away from Buffalo Bill’s Irma Hotel in Cody we join a column of bikes going our way across this prairie landscape where the highway extends to the horizon.
We are 30 Harleys that form a snakelike line as we gobble up other bikes, all Sturgis bound, This is Riding The American Dream and at a lunch break in a small town called Ten Sleep a rider returning from Sturgis, which is still two days away reports that motel and campgrounds are saying that bookings are well up and they estimate that 800, thousand bikes will be in the area this year!
That blows us away, we just can’t imagine it and yet we are doing it.
On the road again and our group cruises along a big 4 lane interstate through mountains that roadside signs say are 3 Billion years old – Gob Smacked I am !
But hold on. I should take you back to where this adventure all began. In San Francisco we are joined by John and Libby from Brisbane HOG for a couple of days sightseeing , visiting Alcatraz and a general getting to know each other over some of the Best Italian cuisine in our funky downtown hotel.
Then a short flight to Denver finds our hired Harleys awaiting us, each one bright and shiny with its riders name welcoming us on the windscreen .... what a buzz ... even some nervousness from our girls some of which have never ridden Harleys before, much less on the wrong side of the road and on an interstate. But these brave ladies evolved into hard core scooter babes, reclothed in chaps, neck dusters and bandannas, and when I asked Suz, ”How is it?” she always replied, “I AM LOVIN IT!”
Before we knew it days had sped by and we found ourselves standing on the Acoma Pueblo Mesa, an Indian Village in New Mexico, which is the longest continuously occupied village in North America. Below us it’s hot, the truckers pound the interstate in an endless procession that we must join.
Now I glance at the speedo and realise that we have been sitting on 100 mph for at least 15 minutes. Couldn’t do that at home and our riders are really buzzing – hardly any traffic and a good blowout ... brilliant!
In Taos, a small Mexican adobe town where we stopped for lunch a motorcycle cop we spoke to replied to the question, “ What’s your approach to the speed limits on interstates?” he said that with a70 mph area they allowed motorists 30 mph extra but anything over that was reckless driving and you went to jail. Now you can’t argue with that! Especially when he was wearing a Tazer gun on one hip and a service revolver on the other.
He even stopped the traffic so our group could depart in one column, very obliging.
Talking about HOT, we left The Roadkill Cafe [ you kill it – we grill it, is their slogan ] at Seligman on Route 66 for a cruise to the Hoover Dam that proved a bit much for some of our bunch who dropped to the ground at the car park. 127 degrees F, or 53 C [ DAMM you can roast a chicken in that temperature ] proved a bit too much but after lots of fluids and fan waving they were away again into Las Vegas.
Now if you haven’t experienced Las Vegas --- you must before you die. Not only the brash and brazen new Vegas but the old. Fremont Street has the largest L.E.D. lightshows under one roof in the world. Dizzy we were and loving it!
But the best was still to come with the amazing colours and rock formations that made up the landscape of Zion and Bryce Canyons. Capital Reef with its towering isolated mounts that appeared like colossal stone ships in the desert, and through all this wound our brilliantly smooth motorcycle dream road. What an absolute delight, just superb.
This landscape is a visual overload that continues for days, NOT minutes or hours but days.
Cruising the rolling grasslands you can’t help but notice the signs advertising l.M.LIGHT & Sons store in Steamboat Springs and sure enough a visit proved irrestible to many of our band. They emerged sporting cowboy hats which if you have been in these parts, you will know most folks wear. Cowboy boots, belts and stuff found homes on our bikes, along with big grins.
Hats on and seated on the saddles up front of the bar in The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson Hole was perfect, all the while a steady stream of Harleys rumbled through the night air .... could it get much better that this?
Well yes it does ! Quickly, Off the bikes, there’s a grizzly bear with cubs coming through the trees over there. It’s Yellowstone National Park and only a few miles on from seeing Old Faithful blow its stack we are entranced by a herd of Buffalo up close, and because it is mating season, head butting and flinging dirt about is a must. Fantasic.
In fact we have seen Elk, Moose, Prairie Dogs, Wild Turkey, Deer of all sizes, [ that frighten the B Jesus out of you when they run across the road in front of you ] Turkey Buzzards and some wild looking women .... just great, bring it on.
BLAM and a shotgun goes off and does nearly get me to unload my strides, it’s the same in Silverton, but this is Cody and outside The Irma Hotel local cowboys enact a street theatre gunfight.
Oh I must mention the Cody Historiaal Museum which is argueably the very best in the west. Its gun section takes hours to view and the Indian displays tellls the true events.
The anticipation is building now and we lead a very nervous and bewildered group into Deadwood. Down the main street, park up and walk the town .... the intensity of so many bikes, so many bike people and the constant drone of Harleys, well some are totally overwhelmed and just sit with a beer looking at each other, speechless and grinning like schoolkids.
What is Sturgis like if Deadwood”s so crowded? IT’S CHOAS, mad and pulsing at the seams as we turn into Main Street. Cameras clicking, eyes bugged, mouth dry but trying to remain cool and blend. Yeah right. Not a hope in hell. This is what we have ridden 3 weeks and 4 thousand miles to witness.
That night ZZ Top played at Buffalo Chip, the Bob Dylan ripped and because you can ride your bike in and close up to the stage, we stood amongst booming music that impacted on your chest, bikes being revved, lights and strangely dressed [ or undressed ] women, having the time of our lives.
Day trips to Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower, Alzada [ the oldest biker bar in the USA ] Iron Mountain Road, The Needles, combined with bargin hunting amongst the huge array of vendors then easing the pain while giving the easy to look at bar girls of One Eyed Jacks a chance to impress just add up to The Trip of a Lifetime.
So it’s all good and really great to ride a Harley in America. Ride safe, hard and fast,
Cheers, Dennis and Jo, JD’s MOTORSICKLE TOURS.COM
JD's MOTORSICKLE TOURS.COM
THE NORTH AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE
TOURING COMPANY