“People like to hear the bad stuff. No one wants to hear that my flight left on time, my seat was the one I wanted, I liked the meal and my baggage turned up.”
-- Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet

“Lisa, it’s Kerri Miller. I’m OK, but my bike might not be.”

If you’re going to call the rally master for any reason, but especially before their morning coffee, it’s always a good idea to start off the conversation by letting them know you’re safe. I can’t imagine the burden of hearing that phone ring, and having to pick up, wondering if it’s someone who can’t find the bonus that they’re standing in front of, or if it’s a call from the emergency room. Take a half-second and lower their blood pressure from the start.

As I rolled up the entrance ramp back onto I-90, I looked at the prairie grass growing shoulder high right up to the edge of the pavement, and I thought “man… this is deer country, for sure.” I was looking forward to stopping in Gillette, WY for breakfast and possibly a couple hours nap to get me across the plains, but this felt like dangerous territory, so despite my longing for a breakfast sandwich, a cup of coffee, and some shuteye, I kept my speed down to 55mph and my head on a swivel, watching for wildlife. My lights flickered across the tall grass, the stalks an effective barrier, so flimsy and easy to part, but impenetrable to vision.

That’s when I saw it.

“No no no no no YOU STUPID–”

The motorcyclist who travels at night has a litany of close-calls, pucker moments, “oh shit” swerves.. but when it comes down to it, until you actually hit a deer, you don’t really think it will happen to you. You’re unprepared for the physical jolt, the sickening thud as a brown kamikaze ungulate launches itself from the side of the road, across 2 lanes of blacktop, on a suicidal mission to unalive itself under the wheels of your machine.

The deer was, thankfully, a smaller white-tail doe. I braked, desperately scrubbing speed, and realizing that I was going to slam into ~100 pounds of venison, I instinctively leaned into it, tipping the bike to the right, like a linebacker dropping a shoulder before a sack. The deer struck the front right crash guard, it’s rear spinning up and slamming into my motojug and right-hand pannier, tumbling away behind me in the darkness. The bike wobbled violently, the front-end slapping back and forth wildly. I let my arms go limp, heart in my throat, knowing there was nothing I could do, and trying to steer out of this was just going to make things worse. Oddly, my dirt skills surfaced, and a scrap of memory from an afternoon on the range and an instructor saying “it’s going to do what it’s going to do - let it” came to mind as I held my breath.

It was only a second or two, but it felt like eternity for the bike to smooth it’s death wobble, and continue humming down I-90 as if nothing happened. Adrenaline raced through my veins, and I took stock. The bike was running, no weird sounds. I was going 40mph. Both panniers were attached still. I was fine, although I flagged that my right foot had been hit and while it didn’t yet hurt, I knew it would as soon as the adrenaline crashed out. I was fine, bike was fine… was it? It looked like my right-hand aux light was shining directly to the right, probably knocked askew. I flipped through the diagnostic screens - oil was fine, temp was fine… shit, did I just escape a deer strike relatively unscathed? The first of the Gillette exits was up ahead, there’s a McDonalds there that should be opening soon, I’ll pull in and assess the damage.

Aux light mount snapped, and the light itself shoved into the space between the right-hand radiator and cylinder head.. looks like the deer left a little meat behind. 😔

Plastics in the beak broken and flapping; I know from previous experience that the price tag on this part alone will have a comma in it.

Getting a sense of where the deer hit, some part of it definitely struck the front tire and forks..

All in all, not too bad. My water jug was dented pretty badly, and my pannier and racks torqued and bent, but those are “sacrificial” by design, and were still firmly mounted.

Years ago, I read a book about airline pilots and their walk-around checklists, which include a line item to the effect of “does this look like an airplane?” so I stepped back for a wider view.

See it yet?

Uh… why is my bike leaking?

It looks like the deer took out the radiator guard; the fins themselves are intact, but the impact bent the mounting bracket at the bottom of the radiator. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that the bracket is molded into the return reservoir, and in the process of bending opened up a 2-inch crack, letting coolant escape.

So no problem, it’s a small crack, so if that’s the only issue I could probably patch it with some JB Weld (2-part cold epoxy) which I’ve got in my emergency kit, and can… wait. Shit. I used that at the start to help someone patch up their engine. Time for Plan B!

There was surely an auto parts or hardware store somewhere in this town. There was nothing at this exit but fast food and chain hotels, but at the next one a mile down was a Flying J and a Walmart (there’s always a Walmart somewhere!) and either of those would probably carry it. The bike hadn’t complained about coolant temp, and it was only a mile, so I rolled the dice that I could make it the mile, even if I had to coast. I switched the display to show me engine temp and headed out. The bike started complaining as soon as I accelerated up the ramp, but as soon as I got up to speed the temp stabilized, but still in the yellow zone. Quickly I rolled off the next exit, through a lucky green light, and into the parking lot, shutting off the engine and coasting into an out of the way parking spot.

Adrenaline was wearing off at this point, and I realized I was either going to DNF here or be severely delayed. I decided that it was probably appropriate to let Lisa know, so I gave her a quick call to fill her in on the situation, and assured her I had a plan (of sorts) and would update her if I needed a bat signal for additional help.

Since Walmart wouldn’t open for an hour or two, I wandered around the truck stop for a bit, not finding anything that would help, but I did take the opportunity to restock travel supplies. I killed time sending out text messages and doing some research, and walked over to the Walmart parking lot, hanging around outside until they opened at 6am; you haven’t lived, truly, until you’re the first person in the door at a Walmart!

I beelined to the automotive section and found JB Weld, and while I was at it, I grabbed coolant that I thought might work with the bike, as well as some clean up supplies. I got a text message from a friend who was watching my tracker, saying “Uh-oh.. you’re wandering around a Walmart… is everything ok?” A short phone call, and they offered to come to Gillette with a trailer if me and the bike needed an extraction, but we both agreed that my plan might work and we should give it a chance.

Supplies in hand, I headed back to the bike. I mixed up the JB Weld, slathered it on, and set an alarm on my phone; it would be a 4 or 5 hours until it set up, so I had plenty of time for breakfast.. and maybe a nap. I also took a moment to call Rally HQ to let them know I had a plan and probably didn’t need help sourcing any local assistance at this time.

Just slap that stuff on!

I also noticed that the fan that draws air through the radiator while the bike is stopped had broken off it’s mount, not leaving enough structure behind to cobble together a remounting solution.. but as long as the bike was moving, enough air should be forced through the radiator. I might have some issues while stopped, but if I kept the bike moving, I might be ok. I unplugged the fan and the aux light with the broken mount, stowing them in my panniers. I then used a couple dozen zip ties and bit of Gorilla tape to secure the broken plastics as best I could. There wasn’t much I could do now but wait.

"That ain't going anywhere." I said when finished.

Feeling somewhat uninspired and not wanting to go too far away from the bike, I went back into the truck stop and spoke to the manager, letting him know “hey, doing a little repair on the bike, it’ll be here a few hours, so will I, here’s my number if someone complains” etc - trying to be a good neighbor, I guess. He just smiled, saying I wasn’t the first person to do some parking lot mechanics work there, and he’d keep an eye out as best he could. I meandered to the Taco John’s next door, empty at 7:30am, ordering up a somewhat boring breakfast burrito and iced tea, taking a quick 5-10 minute snooze in a booth. I took advantage of the AC to make my final call-in bonus of the rally.

67) CALL4 - Leg 3 Call-In Bonus 2 - 1,000 pts

9:29 EDT

The next few hours were pretty uneventful. There was a small cluster of scrawny trees next to the 75’ sign on the corner, right by where the highway exit joined the surface streets. They provided some shade for a wobbly picnic table, and it was there I set up, took off my gear, did some paperwork, charged up the phone, and settled in to wait for the blob of JB Weld to slowly cure.

At one point, I laid down and took a nap for an hour or so, until I was woken up by a local sheriff’s deputy doing a wellness check. While not unusual (nor resented!) to have law enforcement make sure I’m ok while taking a nap, this turn out to be a welcome interruption, as the deputy was an IBA member, and had been following the rally! When he spotted what looked like a rally bike, he checked the anonymized rider location map on Spotwalla, saw that the bike (and rider) had been parked here for a few hours, and wanted to make sure I was safe and secure. I shared the story of the deer strike and my repair efforts, and he took a look at both the damage and my repairs. and nodded approvingly. We shook hands, and he gave me his phone number in case I needed anything; yet again I was surprised at the generosity of the long-distance community.

I’d sent photos to some BMW folks to see what they thought of my repairs and whether or not I could continue, and everyone said “give it a try.” I exchanged texts with Gary Huff, who had struck a deer with his BMW RT somewhere in Montana during the 2021 IBR and rode it back to the finish without active cooling, and between his experience and what I could gather from the internet, the general consensus was that my hunch was correct – as long as you could keep the bike moving > 20mph, you’d get enough airflow to make up for the missing fan, damaged fins, and the coolant loss. I splashed a little coolant in to bring the level up to at least the minimum, and hoped it would suffice.

I wanted to give the JB Weld plenty of time to cure, but 5 hours was all I had patience for. I fired up the bike and held my breath, riding it back and forth around the parking lots, watching the temp rise every time I stopped or slowed. I had no idea if this was going to work, but the JB Weld appeared to be holding, and the bike wasn’t leaking, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. After 7 hours of hanging around this Flying J truck stop, I was more than ready to get rolling!

I eased back onto the highway, and what a beautiful day it was; brilliant blue sky, white puffy clouds. I kept an eye on the temperature and played around with speed and RPMs, finding that the bike was staying plenty cool as I rolled through the last bit of Wyoming. Soon enough I-90 was curving around the northern edge of the Black Hills, and I passed through Sturgis, which I had set as my bail-out spot if things didn’t feel right; I might be on a BMW, but Sturgis would have enough motorcycle shops and services to sort me out if I needed to stop.

Those gorgeous sunny skies were about to come to an end. As I passed Sturgis, I got a weather alert on the phone - severe thunderstorm warnings. Checking the radar, a mid-size storm was moving quickly from the north, angling southeasterly, and would intercept me around Rapid City. The wind was already starting to kick up a bit, It being more or less lunch time, it seemed like a good time to stop and take stock, so I pulled into a Perkins, ordered an ice tea and a big salad, and pondered.

The bike was running fine, although it would rapidly overheat anytime I stopped. I wasn’t entirely sure the repair would hold, but I wasn’t sure if I should push the bike and continue with my rally plan. I had enough time to easily get back to Pittsburgh if I headed straight there on I-90, and enough points to be a finisher. Cutting out so many bonuses would mean a much lower position, but at least I’d finish. I decided to err on the side of caution, plotting a more or less direct route to the finish. MY rally might be “over”, but I still had a fair bit of riding to do!

I called a few people to update them on the status of both the bike and myself, and sat back in the sticky vinyl booth, watching the storm send thudding gusts of rain and wind across the parking lot. The storm had slowed and turned to the east, it’s southern edge tracking along I-90, dropping near-continual lightning strikes as it went. I could easily outrun it, but first I’d have to punch through it. Unless…. yes, if I routed south along SD-44, I could pop back up north to I-90 through the eastern end of Badlands National Park, getting ahead of the storm. I had plenty of time now, so why not do some flower-sniffin’?

Zipping along, I kept flipping back to the weather radar.. the storm was continuing to track perfectly along I-90, and I got ahead of it with ease. Dipping into the park, I got stopped a couple times waiting on construction zones. Come to a stop, turn off the bike no matter how long it looks like I’ll be held for to stop it overheating, fire it back up. It’s a cycle that I would refine over the rest of the ride. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The rest of the day was smooth-sailing, just putt-putting across South Dakota. Shortly before 8pm, I stopped at the rest area overlooking Chamberlin, SD, visiting the Dignity statue, and realized how tired I was; the overnight, the drama of the repairs, the stress of watching the temperature gauge all day, it was finally getting to me. I booked a hotel in Mitchell, SD, about an hour down the road, and dreamed of a roast beef and a shake from the Arby’s next door. Once at the hotel, I checked the repair job on the radiator. It looked fine, but in the name of “can’t hurt” I slapped an additional layer of the JB Weld on, knowing I’d have time overnight for it to cure. I grabbed dinner from Arby’s, and soon my head was on a soft pillow, and I fell deeply asleep, relaxing for the first time in over 48 hours.

Day 10: 1,000 points -- 451 miles
Leg Total: 30,114 points -- 3,514 miles

“When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. what do you call it, freedom or loneliness?"
-- ~Charles Bukowski

We’re in the end game now, just a couple days more riding left, and if I could make good time across the plains, I could pull off a sweep of the Gut Bomb Bingo, and possibly some good points in Canada and even New England.

First though, it was time to bank some sleep. I set the alarm before falling asleep, and took a full 8-hour rest bonus.

64) REST3 - 5,760 pts

01:16-09:21 EDT

When I woke up, I felt good, refreshed, ready to tackle whatever the last few days decided to throw my way. Everything was going great - the sun was shining, the hotel had bananas in the breakfast area, loading the bike was smooth, the gas station next door had a perfect timestamp and address on it.. everything was looking up!

Smiling, I turned on some tunes, and punched in the next bonus, just a quick run up one of the many small valleys from streams tricking down off the eastern slopes of Mt Hood and the Oregon Cascades Plateau into the Columbia and.. what the heck? The next bonus was BEHIND ME?! Somehow, I had overshot the highway exit for the next bonus, picking a hotel 15-20 miles past it; I would have to backtrack half an hour, then retrace my way back, costing myself an hour.

Is this all you got, rally? Bring it!

65) ORHR - Packer Orchards - Hood River, OR - 1,396 pts

09:50 EDT

I hated retracing my steps, but what else could I do but eat the lost time and keep the wheels moving? I was still on my home turf here, and I enjoyed the morning, heading east on I-84, picking up I-82E as it curves around the east side of the decommissioned Umatilla Chemical Depot, which at one time held nearly 15% of the nation’s chemical weapons. In the 2000s, as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the depot’s entire stock of 7.4 million pounds of nerve agents and gasses were destroyed, incinerated in high-temperature furnaces over the course of 8 years. The base has reverted to Oregon, and is in the process of being redeveloped as an industrial park at the junction of I-82 and I-84, with a large portion set aside as a wildlife refuge. The large, hardened bunkers that used to house some of the deadliest and most painful chemical weapons ever invented still dot the plain in an offset checkerboard pattern, like some gigantic mole burrowing up through a chess board.

I-82 crosses the Columbia, and soon after I exited onto US-395 north through the Tri Cities - Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, just downriver from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, site of the breeding reactors that distilled plutonium for the first atomic bomb, tested in the Trinity test, and fueled the bomb (“Fat Man”) dropped on Nagasaki. During the Cold War, it was expanded to 9 breeding reactors, and the Tri-Cities swelled and thrived on DoD contractors and employees. While that infrastructure is mostly decommissioned and radioactive waste cleanup is an ongoing project, the site itself, as large as Rhode Island, is still home to several high-energy research laboratories, and has one large nuclear reactor producing millions of megawatt hours every year.

US-395 wanders north, and from it I soon cut east on WA-26, the main east-west route across central Washington, through the southern edge of the Palouse region and its endless rolling hills of Ice Age silt now covered with wheat and rye, and into the college town of Pullman, WA.

64) WAPU - National Lentil Festival - Pullman, WA - 2,005 pts

14:09 EDT

I parked across the street in the empty parking lot of an adult bookstore; not a lot of customers there at 2pm on Tuesday afternoon. In fact, most of the town was pretty quiet, which isn’t entirely atypical of Pullman, but it felt more quiet than usual. I could hardly complain, since it meant I could get out of town and push on without the usual crush of college traffic. I headed northeasterly, crossing over into Idaho to pick up US-95, riding north 90 minutes or so to Coeur d’Alene, ID, passing quickly though town and onto I-90 heading east.

I often forget to eat while riding, and my tummy was howling for something that didn’t come out of a seal plastic pouch at a gas station, so I stopped at a McDonalds in Kellogg, ID for a quick bite and to use their bathroom. I sipped an ice coffee and checked my email as well as the route, still trying to decide if I wanted to take the “southern” route through South Dakota, or to stay north and take I-94 out of Billing, MT, which would set me up for the 3,000 point bonus in Thunder Bay, ON. It would be close, but I could just do it.. or I could stick to I-90, and score around 100 points less, but have far more cushion time, as well as the possibility of a Tim Hortons somewhere in Detroit or Windsor.. in fact, the more I looked at it, the southern route was more time efficient, and opened up some nice “outs” in the last 12 hours of the rally, so I got back on the road and crossed into Montana, I felt like I had a solid plan for remaining time.

Montana riding is one of my favorites, and western Montana in particular. Wiggling through the Rockies, wiggling east along the Clark Fork River as it flows west, then past Missoula, the hillsides that surround it tracing the faint lines of ancient beaches from the ice age lake that filled this high mountain valley. My next bonus was just a few minutes past Missoula, and I was glad to finally stop at the exit where a billboard proudly announces the dates for the current year’s Testicle Festival.

65) MTCL - Rock Creek Lodge - Testicle Festival - Clinton, MT - 703 pts

18:33 EDT

The afternoon was getting warm, uncomfortably so, but when a friend sent me the weather report for the south, I was extra glad I was sticking to the northern tier.

I might be missing big points, but at least I wasn't in hell.

I could see the forecast was calling not just for heat, but for thunderstorms across southern Montana, and once past Bozeman I found myself racing against the gathering storm clouds to the south of I-90. It seemed like they were always ahead of me, even as I was catching up with trailing edge, and by the time I got to Big Timber, MT and my exit, I was just behind the edge of rain. Since the bonus was 15 miles or so south of the highway (and thus in the middle of a deluge of rain and electricity) I pulled over under the gas pump awning at a truck stop and waited for 15 minutes the storm to move on.

66) MTMC - Holly’s Road Kill Saloon - McCloud, MT - 1,668 pts

22:16 EDT

90 minutes later, I rolled into Billings, MT, 10pm local. It was too early to stop for the night, and the weather was good, so there was no excuse except to push on; I’d stop and nap as I needed to. I did hope off the bike for 40 minutes or so, and enjoyed the finest of truck stop sandwiches, walking around to stretch my legs, call some friends to check in, catch up on rally news and emails. I realized I was dawdling, but also that I was getting towards the end of my day and would need to rest soon.

The only problem with not stopping early in Billings is that there isn’t much for a few hours, until I reach Gillette, WY, and I was already pretty tired. Safety first, so about 45 minutes of riding, I stopped at a Love’s in Hardin, MT and took a nap next to the bike. I flopped down on the mattress pad, using one of my dry bags and my 2023 IBR fleece as a pillow, and snoozed for 20 minutes or so. Never doubt the power of a nap!

I clearly needed it; about an hour later, I noticed I’d left my dry bag and fleece in the truck stop parking lot. Well, shit… do I go back for it, and burn 2 hours? It was just a dry bag and the fleece, do I just keep going and chalk it up to a stupid mistake caused by fatigue? If nothing else, it was surely a sign, so after finally crossing into Wyoming, I pulled off in Sheridan and napped for half an hour at the Sheridan Visitors Center rest area, but I couldn’t really get comfortable - signs everywhere warning of rattlesnakes, and no picnic tables.

I repeated the pattern 45 minutes later in Buffalo, WY - find a place to nap (outside a rather large and fancy looking church), get 30 minutes of uncomfortable sleep, then back in the saddle. I was a little over an hour to Gillette, WY, and I decided once back on the highway speeding through the night that I would stop there and get a room, trading precious clock time for a sustained 4-5 hours of rest and the opportunity for a hot meal.

I hadn’t yet developed a strategy for managing Day 8 and beyond; every other rally or endurance ride you might take on is usually on the order of a few days, and definitely less than a week. The Iron Butt Rally (and it’s new sibling, LDX) will surprise the unwary. Imagine you were really good at running 5ks, and finish them comfortably, sweating and tired, but in reasonable enough condition that you could, say, drive yourself home. Now imagine you got to the end of that 5k, and suddenly oops, there’s another 5k to run.. and then another. Day 8 and 9 is where every strategy for managing your emotional and physical reserves has to face the fact that you may never have ridden a motorcycle this far, nor for this long, while making calculations around routing, keeping track of the clock, the sheer amount of THINGS YOU’VE SEEN piling up inside your skull. “Was I really just in New Mexico? Did I visit a Moon Pie mural in Tennessee 5 days ago?” It’s a mind-bending experience to live in constant motion, with no opportunity for reflection, reset, or grounding yourself, and even when you have every other aspect of it managed, most people are just not wired to experience so much newness, to create so many new memories, and even for those of us who thrive on novelty and delight in exploration and experience, it can be overwhelming.

Halfway to Gillette, speeding through the darkness, I felt that familiar call of nature, and seeing nothing on the map but grasslands and ranches for the next 25 miles, pulled off at the next opportunity, a ranch exit in a decreasing spiral of asphalt ribboning through tall prairie grass, unmown by Wyoming’s highway department, illuminated starkly by my brilliant aux lights. The exit ended in a small paved area, with a pair of dirt roads leading away into the night, and as I turned off the bike, not a whisper of humanity could be heard. I took care of what prompted me to stop, and stared up at the sky, studded with stars and planets whirling over head, the grass chest-high and growing right up to the edge of the road, like the slowly shifting walls of some trench cut through the American savannah. I listened to the buzzing of insects, a cry from a coyote, and watched a shooting star clip the atmosphere, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scratch of dim light briefly marring a perfect velvet darkness. The warm wind brought the smell of grass and life, and I wondered to myself about how lucky I was, how fortunate and blessed to be here, in this place, at this moment, seeing these small, insignificant things around me. If I had not tarried here, would any of this ever be seen.. be witnessed?

Breathing deeply, I took stock of the world, and as all meditations must, in time I returned to thinking about myself in this moment. Time get the wheels turning again. 20 minutes to Gillette and a soft bed. Time to go.

Day 9: 11,532 points -- 1,163 miles
Leg Total: 29,114 points -- 3,063 miles

Onward to Day 10 ➡️

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of the world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend”
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

When one first considered riding the Iron Butt Rally, it can seem as impossible as summiting Mt Everest, or diving to the Titanic – sure, it’s possible, and people do it all the time, but are you one of those people? If you find yourself progressing in long-distance riding, you inevitably encounter problems - fuel range, hydration, staying alert, keeping muscles limber, shortening the time spent on fuel stops. Each of these problems have a solution, and you start to see the means and methods others have used to arrive at them. Drawing on the collective wisdom of the riders who have pounded out millions of miles of highway before you, it’s easy to make a checklist of sorts - GPS units, aux tanks, custom seats, water jug strapped to the passenger footrest? Check, check, check check. What gear to wear as a base layer, how to organize your equipment, where to carry your credit card to make refueling quicker.. it’s easy to go down the checklist and simply add each advised item to your gear, hoping that some of the magic of previous IBR finishers will rub off on you.

Take, for instance, the #1 recommended alarm clock recommended for long-distance riders who want a cat nap instead of a deep slumber. The Screaming Meanie alarm clock](https://screamingmeanie.com/) advertises itself as

For 20 years, Screaming Meanie has been the most effective travel alarm timer on the market. No other alarm timer can awaken even the deepest sleepers as reliably as Screaming Meanie can. You will be shocked at the volume level of our alarm. 70 dB and 120 dB – 120 dB is equivalent to a chain saw at close range.

It might be the loudest alarm clock available, advised by truckers, travelers, and motorcyclists alike, but on a June morning in Idaho, I slept right through it.

What woke me up was Bill grabbing my foot and shaking me awake. “C’mon Kerri.. let’s go! We gotta get going!” I groggily dragged myself out of the black abyss I had wrapped myself into, and peered at my phone; 2:30am. It had been about 4 hours… plenty of sleep! We quickly loaded up and returned to the bikes, where we realized that in the wind and rain last night, we had parked nose-down on a slopping parking lot, so a little muscle was needed to back the bikes out of the parking spot and be on our way.

This sticker on Bill's bike really struck a note this morning..

The night air had that cool, clean nature that only comes after a huge storm sweeps through. The road was already dry, the air sucking every drop of humidity up, but small puddles in the cracks and crevices still remained. As we roared through the night along I-84 towards Boise, the smell of smoke occasionally drifted into my helmet, and I spotted in the distance the amber-orange glow of a brush fire across the scrub and basalt of the Snake River Plain. The storms had left their mark.

49) IDBO - Idaho Candy Company - Boise, ID - 755 pts

05:35 EDT

While riding, I ran a few scenarios through the GPS; Google was still claiming the road up to Yellow Pine, ID for the 4,236 point bonus “World’s Best Tater Tots” was closed, so after a quick consult with my not-a-team-teammate Bill, I punched in a counter-clockwise route to sweep up the points in Seattle and northwest Oregon, and off we went.

Boise is just a hair under 500 miles from Seattle, but it’s a route I take multiple times every year, and I have a regular cadence of rest areas and fuel stops that set a comfortable, mindless pace for me on this section. With Bill along for the ride, I tried to see it through fresh eyes, and I tried to tamp down the impulse to play tour guide as the sun rose behind us, casting a golden glow across the Blue Mountains of Oregon, the grasslands of north central Oregon, and the vineyards and hop gardens of central Washington. We scrawled across the map, finally dropping down across the Cascades into the Puget Sound area, skipping north around the edge of the Seattle metro area to the north, to the next bonus located in the satellite city of Everett.

50) WAEV - Table of Diversity - Everett, WA - 2,106 pts

13:16 EDT

We made a brief stop at a McDonalds next to the bonus for a quite bite and a bio break (and some conversation with the local parking lot residents), as well as making our call-in bonus.

51) CALL3 - Leg 3 Call-In Bonus 1 - 1,000 pts

13:30 EDT

Details taken care of, we rolled south into Seattle proper. I waved like a loon at my building as we passed by; someday I’ll stop at home on a rally, just to say I did. Today, however, was not going to be that day, as Bill and I had important business to attend to in downtown Seattle.. like finding parking! The next couple bonus locations were in Pike Place Market, and I tried to remember what day it was, hoping to outsmart the tourists who jam up the streets and parking lots nearby. There’s a Target store next to the market, and their parking garage is free for “customers” for an hour, and relatively secure, so I led us through the maze of one-way and bus-only streets until I found the entrance.

We parked and locked up the bikes, and of course as soon as we were out of the building I realized I’d forgotten my flag on the bike, so had to tromp back down, stinking up the elevator in my unwashed gear. No harm, no foul.. but this wasn’t going to be the quickest of stops, no matter how fast we moved. Back on the street, we ventured into the market to look for the next bonus, one of the many decorated pig statues that abound.

52) WASE2 - Pike Place Market - Seattle, WA - 1,109 pts

14:35 EDT

As we left the market, we found time to take a quick selfie.

Team Notateam!

While taking the photo, we noticed.. yes! A Luke’s Lobster! That was one of the Gut Bomb Bingo locations! We returned to the bikes, circled the block, and after negotiating some traffic cones, snapped a quick photo.

53) N5 - Luke’s Lobster - 297 pts

15:02 EDT

54) NCOL - 642 pts

One of us (who shall remain nameless to protect her identity) parked with her front tire literally in the gutter, and needed help from her teammate to push the bike backwards up out of the 6” deep rain trough. Such foolishness barely slowed down Team Notateam, and we zipped across the Duwamish River to the White Center neighborhood in southwestern Seattle.

55) WASE - Lee’s Produce - 1,235 pts

15:24 EDT

I dilly-dallied a little bit, not wanting to face the next section; traveling through Tacoma, past Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and then into Olympia is always a roll of the dice. Today everything went smoothly for a change, and before we knew it, Bill and I were rolling up next to the fabric arts studio on the campus of Evergreen College.

56) WAOL - The Evergreen State College - Geoduck - Olympia, WA- 1,266 pts

16:52 EDT

Getting back out of Evergreen College, we headed west and south towards Long Beach, WA, a few miles north of the mouth of the Columbia River. We were officially done with traffic for the next several hours, and boy was I glad of it! We were moving at a decent pace for the day, and I hadn’t done this many bonus stops in a single day since the first leg.. I just felt busy and it was doubly-nice to be running around my own area. I had fun zipping along the roads clinging to the shore, a thin ribbon of asphalt with a steep forested headland on one side, and a smelling, muddy tidal flat on the other, a ride I’ve done dozens of times; I knew exactly where the next bonus was, and could’ve done it without any navigation tools whatsoever.

57) WALB - The World’s Largest Frying Pan - Long Beach, WA - 2,155 pts

18:59 EDT

Now we head south on US-101, a scenic and beautiful road, across the Astoria-Megler Bridge, a 4-mile steel truss bridge that soars high into the air as you approach the southern bank and Oregon, the road spiraling down off the span in a great corkscrew that lands you back at ground level. Astoria is the town where they shot The Goonies, Short Circuit, Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy, and a number of other films in the 80s and 90s, and the Oregon Film Museum is a great visit.

Of course, Team Notateam didn’t have time for such sight-seeing opportunities. We were after a different thrill - corn dogs.

58) ORRB - The Original Pronto Pup - Rockaway Beach, OR - 1,312 pts

20:52 EDT

Our next stop was just a few miles further down US-101, and it’s a popular tourist spot for Portland residents escaping to the coast for the weekend.. and it’s where I always stop for a snack!

59) ORTI - Tillamook Creamery - Tillamook, OR - 1,467 pts

21:21 EDT

I dithered for a while at this stop, first with getting a good parking spot in the pothole-and-mud-puddle lot, running in to use the bathroom, then wasting about 7-8 minutes getting the right angle – my brain was getting a bit mushy at this point, and Bill and I were a little antsy at this point, having ridden the majority of a Saddle Sore with each other. We did a quick google search and found our next destination, a Gut Bomb Bingo stop, and set out. I took the lead as I had all day, and I set a rather “spirited” pace winding through the mountains, moving briskly through the Northern Oregon Coastal Range, a mass of wrinkled granite hidden beneath the impossibly thick greenery only a coastal rainforest could provide. One of my favorite roads for sure, another that I’m very familiar with, and soon enough we arrived at the last bonus for Team Notateam.

60) B5 - Burgerville - Hillsboro, OR - 332 pts

22:41 EDT

61) BCOL - 625 pts

We each ordered a meal and sat inside, leisurely enjoying the AC and our burgers. Team Notateam was officially dissolved, even though were heading for the same bonus ahead; I would let Bill leave a few minutes ahead of me, just to make it official. The next stop was in downtown Portland, and I wasn’t really looking forward to being in that part of town at all, so I dragged my feet.. it had been a long day, almost a thousand miles, running on short sleep. I was completely ready to bed down for a little bit longer break tonight… but first, donuts!

63) ORPO - Voodoo Donuts - Portland, OR - 2,235 pts

23:45 EDT

I got out of downtown Portland, crossed one of the many bridges that gives it nickname “Bridge City” and worked my way onto I-84 east through the Columbia River Gorge. There was some small bits of rain, but the evening was cooling quickly, and the ever-present wind through the gorge was at my back for a change, and as the sun dropped I was finally heading back east. I was getting a little wobbly, and looking forward to getting my head onto a pillow for a few hours. My next bonus was just south of the river and the city of The Dalles, so I stopped about 15 miles short in Hood River, OR and found a hotel in The Dalles for the night. I knew it was a good idea, for as soon as I stopped the bike and I could feel my legs weakly duck-waddling the bike into a parking spot, I knew I was cooked and it was time to be off the bike. I unloaded my overnight kit, tucked the bike in, got my room key, took a shower, and was out in about 5 minutes. Tomorrow would be more familiar territory, but the only territory I was traversing the rest of the night would be that of the dream realm.

Day 8: 15,894 points -- 1,019 miles
Leg Total: 17,582 points -- 1,900 miles

Onward to Day 9 ➡️

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”
-- Susan Sontag

Up and at ‘em, the alarm blasting Duck Tales, and I blearily head down to the hotel’s ballroom to collect the packet for Leg 3. The rider meeting was surprisingly brief, lasting maybe 10 minutes in all; by this point, even the rookies know what we’re doing, and there was nothing but business to attend to, some details on procedure for the finish.

"Monkeys don't cramp!"

This leg would be 5 days long, with 2 call-ins and 2 rest bonuses.. and a ton of points! I’d fallen to 66th place in the standings, and I knew it was going to be an uphill climb just to hold on to that position. I wanted a “rookie ride” and I sure had done one. If I’d gone to Santa Monica like I knew I should’ve I would been in the top 30, but there’s only 3 things to say about that:

• Shoulda
• Woulda
• Coulda

I sat for a bit eating breakfast and trying to soak up the scene, feeling more connected to and part of the IBA community than ever before. I wanted to hold on to this feeling of belonging. The way people just came together to help me.. it was just overwhelming. I didn’t want a moment of this to pass by unnoticed.

(Photo credit: Tobie Stevens)

As I was chatting with people and making my (by now) usual excuses about my “poor” showing so far, I resolved that I was going to continue my plan - ride reasonably chill (IE still no heroics) but to find a route that was both challenging AND went someplace I wanted to go; if I was going to sniff flowers, then by god I was going to sniff the flowers I WANTED to sniff! Besides, I only needed 80,000 points to be a finisher, I was sitting at 48,810 already, and the call-ins and rest bonuses would score me a little over 9,000 points.. so I really only needed like 22,000 and change to be a finisher.

I retreated to my room by 5am, and took stock.

My Gut Bomb Bingo card after Leg Two

Flipping through the packet, I was disappointed to see there were only 2 bonus combos, and no additional combos or points for the Gut Bomb Bingo. I had totally fallen for a red herring! All that work (and more importantly, TIME!) to score these restaurants had been a waste. Still, I was committed now. I knew that Burgerville is a Pacific Northwest chain and that Schoop’s is in Chicago, and with the others were scattered around the country, I might be able to squeeze still more points out of this, salvage some kind of moral victory here.

Nothing TOO obvious here...

The rally packet only had a pair of combo bonuses, neither of which appealed to me; after several days in the hot southern tier, I was ready for some cooler weather across the north. Taking a look at the spread of bonuses, a loop up through the PNW, then head back east to cross into Canada at Detroit for a Tim Horton’s, swinging back around south and east into New York for a Friendly’s made sense. I threw together a route that would clear the PNW in 2 days, and mapped 2 alternative plans for the remainder of the leg; I would do route planning along the way, depending on how I was feeling.

One of the possible options; after the bonus in Montana, I'd figure out where to go.

I set up my route in the GPS, transcribed the plan to my cloud-backed notes, and loaded up the bike. I grabbed a handful of dates from a spread that Wendy’s daughter had thoughtfully provided, and had the bike loaded in short order, pulling out of the hotel at 7:20am. For once, I was getting out ahead of most of the pack, maybe 2/3rds of the bikes quietly waiting for their riders to finish their own plans and machinations.

(Photo credit: Tobie Stevens)

47) COKE - Kuner Feedlot - Kersey, CO - 535 pts

10:27 EDT

While taking care of the paperwork for this bonus, I noticed that someone had decorated my machine…

I found out later that Wendy's daughter decided my bike needed a little more color!

Now I was facing a classic multi-day rally ride - 7.5-8 hours and nearly 500 miles until my next bonus. I’ve ridden I-80 across southern Wyoming so many times, including on my very first mutli-day trip so many years ago.. so I knew what to expect. It used to be one of my least favorite sections of slab, but I’ve come to appreciate the rolling prairies, the hardened mud formations of the Great Divide Basin and the Red Desert, the odd-ball gas station town of Little America, and remnants of the Lincoln Highway stretching across needle grass and antelope-strewn horizon.

First though, I had to crawl north out of Colorado, opting for the fast and direct US-85 to Cheyenne, picking up I-80 west as I passed by the Red Lion Hotel where LDX started in 2022. A creature of habit, as long as a place is reasonably acceptable, I’ll return, and I’ve ended up staying at that place over and over again, despite it being… not the best hotel in the world. Still, it’s cheap and they don’t hassle me about parking my bike under the portico.

I-80 can be a slog, and there’s big long sections that expose you to the regular north/south winds in the area, tossing your bike around. I’ve seen 18-wheelers tip up off their wheels, I’ve had to shelter from flash floods, snow in August… but today the winds were calm, the sky was blue, and the temps hovered in the mid-to-high-80s all day. A calm, quiet ride… until I saw the Mongols.

Look.. I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to get to Salt Lake City and my next bonus.. but the Mongols, riding ahead of me in a pack of 50 or 60 bikes, weren’t making my day any easier.

Parked in the left lane, they were going just under the speed limit when I came up behind them. As soon as I realized who they were, I stayed back a respectful distance, but that didn’t stop 2 of them from dropping back to see what I was about. I gave them my best goofy-ass smile and derpy wave, mentally crossing my fingers that they’d see my pink helmet and rainbow array of cartoon stickers and leave me alone.. which they did, but not before gesturing at me to stay well back from their pack. No argument from me! Besides, I wanted in no way to be near or identified with them, given their road behavior, sending prospects cutting between cars, screaming up the breakdown lane on the right to brake-check tractor trailers.. they were a danger to themselves and others, and I felt an urge to grimace and shrug at every car I pass. “Sorry! I’m not with them! #NotAllRiders!” I mentally screamed at them, but I think they mostly ignored me - most of them were on their phones.

Annoying and dangerous - not the best combination, but I patiently trailed behind these FINE LAW-ABIDING GENTLEMEN, because I knew their true weakness - those dinky little fuel tanks on their chopped up custom bikes! Holding maybe 3 gallons, they’d need to get off the highway together, like college girls unable to use a bathroom except in a roving pack. Sure enough, they zoomed off at the next town, I was able to get back up to cruising speed and chew through some miles.

There must have been some kind of big meeting or confab they were heading to, as I’d see a few more packs of these guys over the course of the day, usually at rest areas, weigh stations, or at gas stations just off the highway. I did see 2 packs of them pulled over on the side of the highway, each accompanied by at least a dozen Wyoming state troopers; I suspect the car drivers on their phones had given them a heads up. Scary, dangerous shit, and the less involved I was, the better. I was glad to leave them behind.

The day passed uneventfully otherwise. I stopped in Little America for a quick bathroom break and to refill my water jug; I’d neglected to top it off when leaving the checkpoint, and had run dry about 45 minutes earlier. I crossed into Utah, slotting down through Echo Canyon, but instead of turning right to pick up I-84 to head towards the Pacific Northwest, I stayed on I-80, bearing left and south around Echo Reservoir, past Alta into the southern end of SLC, before making my way north on surface streets to my next bonus.

48) UTSL - Crown Burgers - Salt Lake City, UT - 1,153 pts

18:00 EDT

I bid my adieus and left Cory and Annette to catch up. Snaking through Salt Lake City traffic, I picked up I-15 north, soon climbing out of the SLC metro bowl, bearing west on I-84 towards Idaho, my next bonus being in Boise. The weather was heating up, and I stopped at the Lake Bonneville rest area, 2 miles past the Idaho border. Knowing the risk of high winds and storms across the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho, I kept an eye on my weather apps; the National Weather Service was posting increasingly dire notices about the threat of severe thunderstorms, and I-84 offers no cover at all, just a long, boring highway zipping across a high, flat plain, broken only by the occasional lump of basalt poking out of the thin soil and scrubby grasses.

I-84 heads northwest for another 30 miles or so, before joining with I-86 and running west across southern Idaho. About 30 minutes after that merge, I saw a rally bike ahead of me - aux fuel cell, loads of stickers… one of ours? Yup - Bill Karitis! Bill was another one of the other rookies in a small group chat, sharing music, rally news, and general positive vibes, as well as being part of the village that changed my tire, but I didn’t know he was heading up to the PNW, too. I was pacing a little faster than he was, so as I closed the distance and pulled even with him, I gave him the “speed it up, Karitis!” hand signal! I didn’t expect him to actually speed up but he did, falling in behind me, and then my phone rang; Bill was calling!

We chatted for a while, getting caught up on rally gossip, commiserating about the heat and the approaching weather, setting a nice pace along I-84. Rallying is such an individual, solitary sport, it was a nice change to ride with someone for a little ways, even if in theory you’re competing with each other!

Passing Twin Falls, the wind picked up, suddenly cold and swirling, a cloud of road dust and debris skittering across the pavement. The bike leaned into it, Bill and I kept heading west, cutting through tumbleweeds, past trash swirling in little mini tornadoes at every bridge pillar and embankment. I’d been keeping an eye on the weather radar, and saw some big boomer cells creeping across I-84 between us and Boise, big angry purple blotches looking mean. I decided it was a pretty good time to take a meal break, and called Bill who was still right behind me, to ask if he wanted to join me. “Besides, you’ll get to see where that lady backed over me and Jo’s motorcycles!” I promised, pulling off in Glenns Ferry, ID…. and that’s how we found ourselves at “Beck’s Railhouse”.

Surely there's no trouble these 2 could get into in a small town bar in Idaho!

Beck’s is just a small bar in a small town next to the railroad tracks; hence the name. We parked and ran in out of the rain, a handful of bored 20-something locals at the bar hootin’ and hollerin’, and for neither the first nor last time on the rally, I wondered “what day of the week is it, anyways?” We got ourselves situated at a 2-top by the door, and ordered some soft drinks from the bar, as well as a pizza; apparently they’re made locally and frozen, but we didn’t care – I’d take a freezer case pizza at this point, and the luxury of a sit-down meal with a friend in the middle of all this rally nonsense was welcome.

Our pizza came out in due course, as did the sun briefly, and we took advantage of the wifi to check in with our people back home. Several of the bar patrons wandered over to strike up conversation with the weirdos in the spaceman outfits, as we were clearly the most interesting thing to happen in town this week. Bill turned on his charm to full force, taking one for the team as the answerer-of-questions and the teller-of-stories while I wolfed down slices.

While Bill played host, I took a few moments to consider my plan. After Boise, I’d originally intended to head north into the mountains to the remote town of Yellow Pine, ID for the 4,236 point bonus “World’s Best Tater Tots”, which involved 50-60 miles of unpaved National Forest Service roads. Back in Denver, Basecamp and Google were both claiming it would add 3.5-4 hours to my route. Right now, Google was refusing to route me to Yellow Pine at all, and after some internet sleuthing, the road in from the south (which I’d be taking) was marked as closed, requiring a multi-hour detour to the west to get into town from the west. Given the weather, it wouldn’t surprise me to find the road closed due to tree fall or washout; indeed, the weather radar was still angry, the storm seeming to slow to a crawl, sitting over us all the way to Boise, mad purple and red, lightning and strong wind warnings galore.

I mentioned this to Bill, who mentioned he was heading there as well, but was reconsidering. This sparked a conversation about our general plans for the PNW. Given that there was really only the decision to go clockwise or counter-clockwise around the region, and neither of us felt like we were trying to contend for a top slot this year, we decided hey, what if we ride together tomorrow? The rules say that as long as we don’t ride together more than 24 hours, we wouldn’t qualify as a team, and we already had the same plan for the region, so why not?

I stepped outside under the porch awning to stay clear of the rain, and made a call to Jeff Earls, who confirmed the rules, and thanked us for letting him know. Stepping back in, Bill’s court had grown, and he was telling stories from the road to an appreciate knot of kids. I let him know that Jeff had cleared us to be “TeamNotATeam”, and I joined in the conversation and storytelling. After an hour or so the rain had cleared, and we thought we saw a gap in the storm that we could just squeak through. We gifted our leftover pizza to the guys at the bar, and while Bill settled the tab, I went outside to get the “prelaunch sequence” started.

Outside, one of the young women from the bar was smoking with some other patrons, and as I started packing the bike, checking latches and straps, she sauntered over, a little unsteady on her feet, and with a slight slur from the half-empty beer bottle she’d left the bar with, started asking me about the bike. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bill approaching right behind her, and I assumed it would be the usual battery of inquiries - “The Iron Butt Rally? You mean like Sturgis? A scavenger hunt? A thousand miles a day?! I don’t even like to drive that far!”” - but instead, she started… well, flirting with me. “It’s… such a big bike. Do you give rides, ever?” she mumbled, clumsily stroking the Russel Day Long saddle.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bill snort and chortle a little to himself, and I didn’t know if I should blush or chuckle myself! Picking up a local girl at a bar in rural Idaho was NOT an approved bonus for this rally, after all, so I answered her series of increasingly suggestive questions at face value, while continuing to put on my gear, check the GPS for the next bonus, etc. Eventually I had to ask her to step back as I swung a leg over the bike, and she made sure to flutter her lashes at me. saying “stop back sometime and we can go for a ride together..”

Bill: “Seems like you dodged a bullet on that one, Kerri!”

Me: “Glad you were here to witness it.. no one would believe the things that we see out here!”

Bill: “Yeah… I certainly don’t think you could get a dated business receipt from her!”

We rolled on, aiming straight for a gap between the storms. The wind was whipping something fierce, as we were caught in the downdraft of both storms, and we saw 2 different fire crews working on putting out bushfires along the highway, started by lightning strikes. With absolutely no shelter along this stretch, and certainly nothing higher than the top of our helmets, discretion was clearly the right choice to have made.

That self satisfaction justifying an hour or so off the bikes was short-lived, as just 40 minutes later it became clear we were not getting past this next line of storms.. in fact, we rode right into the teeth of it. As we passed through Mountain Home, ID, the heavens opened up and in the resulting deluge we had to slow to a crawl, hazard lights flashing while the wind spun sheets and waves of frigid rain across the highway. Within minutes we were both drenched, and I pulled off the last Mountain Home exit on the west edge of town to seek some shelter at a gas station that glowed a comforting amber through the storm.

Pulling up to a pump, the wind rocked the bike even while parked in the “lee” of the gas station building itself. I didn’t really need fuel, but I decided to top off the tanks while I was stopped, and that’s when I noticed that nearly every other pump was surrounded by a cluster of choppers, cruisers, and other representatives of the Harley-Davidson brand… we’d caught up with the Mongols! A glance over at the gas station, and I saw a group of a dozen of them huddled under the awning, looking utterly miserable in their sleeveless cuts and blue jeans soaked through, bears and long hair matted and dripping. Inside, I could see a crowd of another 20 or so filling up the convenience store area. If I was struggling even with my waterproof gear and heated grips, I can only imagine how miserable they were.

I glanced back at Bill at the pump behind me, and he was making a “let’s not linger” face at me. One young guy with a relatively clean back patch was on the other side of my pump, filling up multiple bikes. I don’t know what possessed me, but I just hollered out “Man… this weather huh?” and he looked at me briefly, and then looked away. I was not to be deterred; I followed up with “You guys all riding somewhere?” He looked up, peering at me between stringing locks of wet, ratty hair. “Huh?” he coughed out at me. “Well.. just seen a lot of you.. everyone getting together someplace or something?” He stared at me for a beat, with a look of disbelief, and then turned away and went back to filling bikes. I looked back at Bill, who now had a “What the hell is wrong with you, girl?” look, and I imagine he was trying to decide if it would be better to call 911 for me now, or wait until he got a safe distance away from the scene!

I walked over and laughed an apology, and we huddled to make a plan. The radar was just looking like crap for the next couple hours, and it being almost 10pm local time, we decided to grab a hotel room and take a short break of a few hours. I made a reservation for a hotel in Mountain Home, and we braved the wind and rain to backtrack on a frontage road back into town, where after a little kerfuffle with parking, we set up Bill’s Screamin’ Meanie alarm clock. I laid down on my bed in my LD Comforts, and almost immediately fell into a warm, deep blackness.

Day 7: 1,688 points -- 881 miles

Onward to Day 8 ➡️

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
-- Ernest Hemingway

Sleeping more than 3 or 4 hours felt luxurious; sleeping 7 felt down-right decadent. For once, I was leaving a hotel while their breakfast area was open, so I grabbed a couple bananas and an untoasted bagel for later.

42) REST2 - 4,800 pts

23:39-07:51 EDT

Loading up the bike, I topped off the fuel tanks, setting the GPS and Waze to the next destination. I didn’t really pay much attention to the routing back in Tulsa, but as I rolled north into Colorado, I realized “hey wait a minute… isn’t this the Million Dollar Highway?!” Sure enough, I was about to hit one of the top motorcycle roads in the west, if not the country!

First though, I had to pass through Durango, Colorado. It always reminds me of a smaller, slightly more “lived in” version of Moab, and as I hit city limits, I remembered that IBA member (and all around Good Dude) Steve Kotlarz and his wife own a EconoLodge here, and I wondered if maybe I should’ve tried to stretch yesterday and just stayed at their place, given them some business.

I was pondering this minor bit of logistics as I rolled through downtown Durango on US-550, and I spotted Steve’s establishment ahead on the right… and who is that on the sidewalk? Is that Steve, in his riding gear? I blinked, then pulled a u-turn. I just had to say hi!

I rolled to a stop, and before I could say anything, Steve exclaimed “There you are! Pull around front, I’m ready to go!” and dashed inside. Did I give Steve my tracking link, and he saw I was riding through town and had decided to ride with me a while? I turned off the bike and hopped off, removing my helmet, curious as to what the plan was. As I did so, Steve popped back out. “Wait.. you’re not Bill… Kerri! What are you doing here?!” We had a good laugh about the mistaken identity - he hadn’t seen my new riding gear, and thought I was a friend he had only recently met who he’d planned to go riding with this morning.

He invited me in for breakfast, and I grabbed a coffee and yogurt, then retreated outside to a patio to chat with he and his wife for a few minutes, catching them up on the IBR news, how my rally was going, etc. We chatted for 15-20 minutes, because while I was on the clock, I also had several hours of slack in today’s schedule, and man what a great story to tell, randomly meeting and stopping for coffee with unsuspecting IBA friends during the IBR! Bill showed up after a bit, and we talked motorcycles for a while, got an update on road conditions ahead of me, and after thanking them profusely for the breakfast, I suited back up - Lisa and Jeff were expecting me in Denver, after all!

What a wild coincidence.. only on the IBR could such a chance encounter have so much meaning. After the disaster of the first 2 days of this leg, I felt restored by the great ride last night, a good nights sleep, and now a lovely coffee break with friends who are also some of the only people who might understand the undertaking in which I was engaged. I was energized and ready for the rest of the day! Now to tackle The Million Dollar Highway.

For years I’ve heard people talk about this amazing road, but I was still floored by what a spectacular ride it was. I stopped a number of times to take photos, to try and take it in and hold on to this memory somehow. Photos, of course, can’t quite capture experiences that last more than a moment. It might be ok to let the moment fade into a vibe, as I know it’s a ride I’ll have to return to again sometime when I’m not on the clock.

Passing through Ouray, CO on the north end of the Million Dollar Highway, I thought of all the other people in the motorcycle world I know who call this patch home. I wondered if they felt about this road the way I feel about the roads near Seattle that similarly defy explanation or description - WA-20 through the North Cascades National Park, or the ride between Asotin, WA on the Snake River, up over the plateau and down to Boggins Oasis at the bottom of the Grande Ronde River valley, or a half-dozen more across islands and through rain forests, past volcanos and across the debris of ice age floods.. would I want to live here myself, someday? Where else would I ever want to live besides where I do now? What place would be better.. could a place be better?

Ponderous thoughts as the road straightened and pushed on towards Palisade, CO, a small community just east of Grand Junction, CO, where my next bonus lay.

43) COPA - Palisade Peaches - Palisade, CO - 1,734 pts

12:51 EDT

I was feeling a bit on the peckish side, ready for a real breakfast, so I did some light Googling and found a Gut Bomb Bingo location back in Grand Junction, just a few miles of back tracking west.

44) I4 - Jersey Mike’s - Grand Junction, CO - 79 pts

13:48 EDT

Tummy full of deli meat and leaf juice, I back-tracked out of Grand Junction to I-70, my next bonus a relatively short hop east to Glenwood Springs past my favorite town names - Parachute.. Rifle.. Antlers.. Silt.. basically naming towns after whatever noun happened to be lying around. At Glenwood Springs, I got off the interstate and headed south a few miles.

45) COCA - Colorado Rocky Mountain School - Carbondale, CO - 1,251 pts

14:23 EDT

As I was leaving, Wolfe Bonham rolled in; he and I would play leapfrog the rest of the day. Getting closer to the checkpoint, I assumed I’d see more and more rally riders, as we converged on the checkpoint just outside Denver.

The weather remained pretty great, and I-70 slowed smoothly. I stopped in Edwards, CO for gas, and had a lovely chat with a woman on a Tiger 800 (one of my favorite bikes!) and while shocked at the enormity of the IBR, she didn’t respond with the usual disbelief that “anyone” would want, let alone could, do such a thing. After giving her one of my stickers, I smiled at the idea that just 24 hours ago I wasn’t sure I could do it, let alone want to do it. What a difference a good night’s sleep and some good riding will do for your attitude!

Onwards… Vail, where I took a nap behind a heated concrete tree planter at 3am that one time… Frisco, where I napped for half an hour on a bench outside a closed gas station… Silverthorne, where I napped in a McDonalds booth… was Colorado just a tour of places I’d napped?! Dropping down Eisenhower Pass, I was flowing with traffic perfectly, and the day couldn’t get much better. I needed to stop for a bathroom break, and set my sights on the rest area and visitors center in Georgetown, CO. Two-thirds of a mile before the exit, however, traffic came to an abrupt halt, just stuck completely, cars in front of me started turning off their engines, always a bad sign. Oh well, time to ride the shoulder to the exit, otherwise we’re gonna have a really unpleasant ride into the checkpoint!

As I was leaving the visitors center (with freshly washed hands!) and grabbing a quick snack from the top case, I was approached by a young woman visiting from India, who asked me to take her photo with the mountains. I was happy to help, although I’m not sure if I took a decent enough photo.

Sliding back onto I-70, traffic was flowing again, and I dropped in behind a sport bike and wiggled through traffic. The sense of freedom and flow was to be short-lived, however, lasting only a mile or two before my TFT screen was filled with a huge amber alert - “Tire pressure not at set point”. I glanced at the TPMS readout and saw my rear tire was at 36psi – low, but not dangerous. Sometimes the sensors in the tire misbehave with big changes in ambient temperature and pressure, and I was dropping down from the pass oh wait, now it’s at 34.. 32… the amber screen flashed to an angry red, “Tire pressure unsafe!” The bike felt squishy as the pressure dropped below 30, and I looked for a safe spot to land. Luckily, I was just approaching an exit, and I gingerly crossed to the right and got the hell off the highway and out of traffic.

Cramped between walls of a gorge, there was nothing off this exit but a parking area between the frontage road and the highway. Consisting of loosely packed gravel and sloping steeply away from the road, I had no choice as my tire pressure dropped to 16psi; this is where we’re doing this! I tried to find the flattest spot I could, and shut down the bike.

The back tire was extremely un-inflated, and not immediately seeing the leak, I struggled to get the big GSA up onto its center stand on the sloped gravel. A mother-daughter pair appeared out of nowhere and gave me a hand before disappearing again, and I spun the tire looking and listening for the leak, but couldn’t spot it. I needed to talk out the problem with someone, so I called a fellow rider and explained what I was seeing. “What do you have with you?” they asked, and I immediately remembered I had a small bottle of Dr Bronners castile soap, which I could use to find the leak.

I don’t remember if my JBR partner Nick called me or I called him; he was riding in the rally as well, and we’d traded a few check-in calls over the past few days. As we were chatting, the soapy water I was pouring over the tire started bubbling in one spot; I had found the gnarly gash in the rear tire.

“Oh fuck” I said, “it looks bad.” Before hanging up, Nick suggested “Are you in a safe place? Maybe call Lisa and let her know you’re ok in case someone spots you stopped?”

One thing you really don’t want to do is call Lisa with some minor problem you can probably solve yourself. Still.. I dialed. As I started explaining “I’m ok, it’s fine, I’m good” my brain and mouth disconnected. I don’t know, maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe I was just moving fast, but my explanation was garbled. I hung up thinking “great, now Lisa thinks I’m useless, too.” I had the tools to fix the problem right here, I just wanted to keep people informed!

Nick called me back. It was 4:50pm; if I needed a new tire, I was gonna have to think fast. “Hey, you’re gonna need a new tire! Wendy is right here, what do you need?” I passed on my tire specs, and the request was relayed. “Mike will be right there.. oh, and someone posted a distress call on Facebook!”

Great. Now everyone knows I’m an idiot. I breathed, and sipped a little water, and a little of an energy drink; plenty of time to make it to the checkpoint. Just work the problem; worry about what people think of you later.

A big cruiser rolled up; Matthew Rutledge, who lived nearby, was keeping tabs on the rally and saw the Facebook post, and came running. I showed him the gash in the tire, and while poking at it, Mike Loomer rolled up in his truck. Wendy’s better half, apparently he was heading east to the checkpoint anyways when Wendy called him.. so 5 minutes after I talked to Nick, I’ve got 2 people on the scene to help, and Wendy is off racing to the local motorcycle shop to find a tire for me before closing.

I showed Mike the gashed tire, and together we poked around at it a bit. In doing so, we realized that even though it looked completely smoked, the gnarly part of the damage was in the tread block; the actual puncture, while at an angle, was relatively small. “A plug should get you into the checkpoint,” he said. Wendy called from the cycle shop; she’d gotten them to stay open a few minutes late, and wanted to confirm which of the available tires would work. They didn’t have my preferred tire, but had an Anakee Adventure available. I’ve ridden on them quite a bit so trusted the rubber, and besides, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Plugging the tire went smoothly; I got the hole reamed out, and a single worm plug was holding air. I hadn’t actually had to plug a tire during a ride before, just at like demos and the like. Mike was great, just answered a couple questions I had, but otherwise let me do the work. “Just tell me if I’m about to do something REALLY dumb, ok?” I jokingly said. Tire patched, He offered to follow behind me into the checkpoint, in case the plug failed, and Matthew rode along side into the hotel.

50 miles to go. I took it nice and slow, staying 5 under the speed limit, not feeling confident in testing the structural integrity of a plugged tire. Every bump, every little rut, I wondered if the glue and physics would suddenly stop working and fling wide the interior of the tire again, spilling me onto the interstate in the process. Of course, I didn’t die, and I rolled smoothly into the parking lot, with enough time to tackle the repair before heading into scoring. Wendy rolled over the fresh tire, and a literal pit crew descended upon me and the bike, pulling the punctured carcass off and wedging fresh rubber into its place.

Pretty sure this is OSHA compliant, right?

It takes a village...

Tire issue solved, I popped inside to do my paperwork, loving the AC. There was no place to sit outside scoring except by the checkin desk, and while juggling paperwork and binders folks kept stopping by to make sure I was ok; apparently the Bat Signal was effective in alerting everyone.. but I didn’t feel like anyone thought I was useless, just… support? Commiseration? It might sound a bit cornball, but seeing the community around the rally coming to my aid was just… humbling. Thank you, everyone.

…of course, I didn’t really have time for chit-chat, since I had scoring to do. While it was lovely to see folks concerned, the conversations did trigger my ADHD to overlook claiming my TRK2 tracking bonus; if it isn’t on your claim sheet, you don’t score it.. so I dropped 1,000 points. Ugh… ugh!

Time to rest. I headed up to my room, showered, changed into pajamas, set the alarm for 3:25am for breakfast and Leg 3 packets at 3:45am… and promptly passed out. Goodnight, Leg 2.

Day 6: 3,064 points -- 520 miles

Leg Two Total: 48,810 points -- 2,591 miles
Leg One & Two Mileage: 4,935 miles

Onward to Day 7 ➡️

“Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt

It often amazes me at how adaptable humans are. Any environment, condition, or situation you inflict upon us, and generally speaking, we will survive or even thrive within it. The suffering our ancestors endured makes all the disasters and dramas we face shrink by comparison. As British archaeologist Alice Roberts put it, “[early humans] were people like you and me, and it is humbling to think of the challenges they faced. People like you and me crossed vast oceans. People like you and me overcame the Neanderthals. People like you and me made it through the Ice Age.”

None of my ancestors dealt with the panic of someone pounding on your door at 1:30am (3:30am rally time), hollering for Emma.

Boy, was he surprised I’m not Emma. Poor thing, with his little pint bottle of whatever cheap booze the kids steal these days, his try-hard crustache quivering as he backed away, apologizing to the middle-aged momma bear he just summoned from her slumber, and turning tail to run back down the hall. Watching his retreat, I heard for the first time the loud music and chatter from other rooms on my floor.

Emma, you can do better.

I collapsed back into bed, but my mind was awake and the worry stone was still tumbling around my brain. So tired my eyes seemed to hurt when I closed them, I would squeeze them shut and turn on my side, counting breaths, then sigh and roll over, staring at the ceiling, listening to conversations and party noises. These kids were having a great time, and I didn’t really begrudge them the audacity of youth, but here I am exhausted and angry in a motel in Las Cruces, NM and for what? Chasing my tail in a competition that seems almost willfully designed to make me fail, where none of my cleverness, my ability to tease out patterns and see the shortcuts will do anything for me. This rally is purely about riding hard and riding far, and no amount of smart helps with that.

I groaned and rotated to my stomach, burying my face in the bleach-scented pillow. What’s even the point of continuing? I could just say a mechanical failure or illness had struck, and no one would think less of me. Finishing this stupid thing gets me what - a 3-digit number and a license plate frame? Bragging rights? I already was letting everyone who thinks I’m some kind of bad-ass down with my performance so far.. and maybe worse, I’ve let myself down. Why continue, when you’re only going to lose? Bail out now. Call Lisa and make up some vague excuse. Turn off the tracker and head back to Pittsburgh a week early.. or better yet, just go straight home. I can be in my own bed in a day and a half. Do that, and all this stops.

The music somehow increased in volume.

Sleep isn’t going to come, so I might as well go. I dragged on my gear, brushed my teeth, and headed to the bike. Standing in the dark parking lot, 4:30 rally time, 2:30 local, looking up at the lit windows of the partiers above, I ate a snack and stubbornly, spitefully, decided to keep going.

37) NMHA - Hatch Chile Mural - Hatch, NM - 1,877 pts

05:09 EDT

Waze and Garmin agreed on sending me southwest on NM-26, cutting around Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument; I can’t say it was scenic, since it was 3am local time. The road was thick with darkness, and I was feeling the lack of sleep after only an hour or so back on the bike. My eyes kept a steady scanning pattern left-ahead, right-ahead, left-behind, right-behind, left-ditches, right-ditches.. repeat. Every couple of minutes, reverse the pattern - right-ahead, left-ahead, right-behind, left-behind… staying alert, watching for deer, or antelope, or whatever it is that lives out here that requires so many wildlife crossing signs!

None leapt out of the darkness, and indeed the only other living soul I came across, besides some widely spaced house lights set far back from the road, was a large utility truck like a plumber or electrician might drive, the kind with lockers and racks of pipes or cables, a ladder poking it’s head out of the back like a large, angular orange retriever. The truck was going well under the speed limit, possibly due to the large speed boat it was towing, completely mummified in a wrapping of heavy black plastic, but unmistakably “boat shaped.” I pulled past them smoothly and quickly, and the rest of the morning my mind would drift back to this chance encounter, wondering where in New Mexico one would use such a vessel, or indeed where they were dragging it to. Was there some waterskiing championship or yachting club at some obscure reservoir or irrigation lake? It was a ridiculously sized boat for any of the small lakes or rivers I’ve seen in the southwest, other than Lake Mead or Powell, but NM-26 isn’t the road you take to either of those destinations…

A quick gas and bathroom stop in Deming, NM, the town silent pre-dawn. I jumped back onto I-10 here, heading west away from the sunrise that would gradually lighten the sky behind me, yet I stayed wrapped in darkness, batting away exhaustion as I enjoyed the relatively balmy comfort of 88F. I finally couldn’t stand it, needing eyedrops, a bathroom, and maybe a few minutes of sleep, so around 5am I dropped off the highway in Lordsburg, NM, just east of the NM-AZ border, pulling into a Pilot truck stop. After a visit to the ladies room, I slid into a booth at the attached Arby’s and caught 25 minutes of shuteye, taking advantage of the AC and their lack of pre-dawn customers.

The sun was cracking the east when I resumed my westward trek, hurtling across the golden glowing hills and bleach-white playas of southeastern Arizona. A fuel stop on the outskirts of Tucson, and then skimming the south edge of town I kept heading west past the western unit of Saguaro National Park to the access road to Kitt Peak National Observatory, my next bonus stop. This bonus was only available from 9am-4pm, local time, and since I’d cut my rest break so short, I counted on finding some shade and napping for a bit.

38) AZKP - Concrete Donut - Tucson area, AZ - 6,155 pts

12:00 EDT

As soon as I got close, I saw signs saying the the road to the observatory was closed due to wild fires, and indeed there was a locked gate with signs reinforcing the fact that only authorized personnel were allowed. I briefly scouted a second access road, but determined it was more of a private, unimproved driveway than a public highway, so quickly gave up. There was one other rally bike parked at the gate, so after a quick call to Jeff Earls to confirm, I got my photo of the locked gate and then parked nearby to wait until 9am to submit it. I chatted briefly with the other rider (sorry, I can’t remember who you were!) before I threw out the bed roll and got some z’s, first grabbing one of my classic “sleepy Kerri” photos.

Around 8:30am, I was awakened by vehicles approaching - the contractors working on repairing the road were showing up, as well as workers for the observatory. They assembled into little convoys of 3-4 vehicles and one guy was flagging them through the gate. I wandered over and let him know who were were, what we were doing, and confirmed that public access was prohibited - after all, if ANYONE can get a photo of an “inaccessible” bonus, then anyone who submits only the photo of the “Road Closed” sign would be out of luck and receive no points.

The flagger thought a minute, and said “well, if all you need is a photo of the donut, I’d be happy to drive you up and then back, if you can wait until 9:30.” I laughed and said thanks but no thanks, realizing immediately that it would be supremely unfair to screw the rest of the field out of such a large bonus; yes, by the rules I would’ve been the only person able to claim the bonus, but it was still 100% off-limits to the general public. This decision, while probably in the spirit of the rules, wasn’t the letter of the rules, and debating the finer points of rally sportsmanship on this situation would be a topic for many a conversation later on… but for now, I went back to the shade.

I barely closed my eyes again when the first of 30-odd rally bikes rolled up, and I became the de facto information bureau, answering everyone’s questions - Yes, the bonus was inaccessible. No, the dirt road wouldn’t get you there. Yes, rally staff are aware. I caught a few snatches of everyone’s Leg 2 experiences so far, and what the plans were - nearly everyone was going to the next big bonus, the Santa Monica Pier.

It was a bit of a crush of getting so many bikes staged and photos taken, and it gave me time to chat. “You’re not going?! What am I missing?” more than one incredulous rider exclaimed, thinking that the genius wunderkind of rally planning had somehow found a way to skip the more than 16,000 points waiting on the far side of Los Angeles. “Nothing,” I had to reply, “Just riding a rookie rally.” They’d nod and wish me good luck, one person confiding they felt better knowing they wouldn’t be fighting me for a finishing spot. I just nodded, wincing slightly at being no longer seen as a competitor. I didn’t think anyone noticed, but one rider did who gently asked why I was skipping Santa Monica. “It’s just a Bun Burner” he said. “I just don’t think I’ve got it in me this time” I shrugged. He looked me square in the eye, sitting in the seat of that Indian, and said “You’re thinking - that’s the problem. Get out of your head and do the thing.” With that, he dramatically fired up the bike and took off with the rest of the pack.

“Get out of your head and do the thing.”

Oof… that phrase would stick in my head the next few hours, like a mental popcorn kernel between the back molars that you just can’t dislodge. I continued on to the north, brain stewing in my helmet as the thermostat slowly began to stew my body inside the gear. I thought I was upset before, but by the time I got to the Phoenix metro area following I-10 as it sped north, the cluttering and clanking sound inside my head was turning to the angry hiss of escaping steam, an engine fueled by fire and smoke threatening to explode. I needed to get off the bike and reset.

39) G2 - In-N-Out Burger - Chandler, AZ - 207 pts

14:38 EDT

As long as I was stopped, I might as well do my call-in, claiming another 1,000 points. Making the call right as I got off the bike, I was still a ball of anger and unhappiness, and I tried not to sound it, but once I left the relevant information I felt like I had to at least give a status update. I kept it simple - “How I’m doing… I’m angry. I’m pissed off. I am full of resentment and frustration and… I’ll just leave it at that.” What more needed to be said? I was unhappy, and keeping my emotions to myself has always been a struggle.

40) CALL2 - Leg 2 Call-In Bonus - 1,000 pts

14:39 EDT

Getting back on the bike, the temp had risen to the low 90s, and traffic out of the Phoenix metro stew was slow, methodically 5 miles under the speed limit. I gritted my teeth and tried to let the last bits of lingering frustration slip out my pores with the sweat I was generating, but I was mentally stuck. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a huge personal blunder by choosing not to compete, to just “ride to finish”… that I should be 4 hours west, riding towards Santa Monica and keeping up with the pack. If I’m not competing, if I’m not striving and trying, why even bother? I could just go home right now; I could be in my own bed in 2 days. Just make up an excuse, no one would care.. some badass I am, huh?

Realizing that I wasn’t able to disrupt the negative loop in my head, and feeling myself getting angry at the pokey traffic, I called up Johanna for an impromptu coaching/therapy session. We talked through the rally, what I was seeing, what I was feeling, what my plan was, given where I currently was. Having someone to talk it all out with was massively helpful. By the time I started winding through the Salt River Canyon, with it’s dramatic cliffs, the road hairpinning its way through ancient gorges, I was starting to feel more grounded and my normal self. Eventually our call dropped, signal blocked at last by the dense walls of the canyon rising above, but I felt a renewed sense of purpose and direction, the choppy waters of my brain finally settling out as I finally came to feel at peace with the decision to “rookie ride.”

Emerging at last from the canyon, the cooler air of the high-altitude pine forests of central and eastern Arizona offered relief at last from the scorch, and my improved attitude held steady as I passed through Show Low, AZ, home of my ex-in-laws (my out-laws?) Familiar streets and businesses slid by as I rolled along US-60 heading east. I briefly considered making a detour to visit my father-in-law’s grave outside Concho, AZ but it would add a couple hours, and even if I was feeling more collected and chill about flower-sniffin’, I still was on a clock. My next bonus was a daylight only, and I had plenty of time.. but not enough for nostalgia.

41) NMPT - Pie-O-Neer Homestead Cafe - Pie Town, NM - 3,257 pts

19:54 EDT

I took a beat here, sitting on the porch, to look at the map and see what the plan was for the rest of this leg. My next bonus location was in Grand Junction, CO, several hours due north, passing through Farmington, NM and Durango, CO, but I also needed to take my 8-hour rest bonus break, which HAD to start before midnight. I was still feeling the exhaustion of a sleepless night, so decided that Farmington, NM was going to be my first goal; if I still felt good and the timing worked out, I’d stretch to Durango, but I had a couple reliable hotels in Farmington bookmarked from previous trips through there.

With that in mind, I double checked the routing from Google and Garmin. It looked here were a couple routes from Pie Town, but Google wanted to send me on 20 miles of gravel.. or I could take an extra 5 minutes and stay on pavement. Not really a hard choice when you get down to it. It meant I had to backtrack ~15 miles west to Quemado, NM before turning north. You never like to backtrack, but the timing and convenience made it only a minor pill to swallow.

If only I knew what the next hour and a half of riding would bring! 20 minutes or so after taking NM-36 north out of Quemado, I turned right onto NM-117, and I settled into another long, boring stretch of Southwestern scrub-desert, when I passed a sign - “Entering El Malpais National Monument”! I’d somehow managed to route myself onto one of New Mexico’s scenic byways, “The Trail of the Ancients”, and it did not disappoint! Shortly after entering the monument, the road begins to slip between towering yellow sandstone cliffs to my right, and to the left, the rubble and debris of a barren lava field stretching out as far as the eye could see. Arches and bluffs, lava falls and tubes, the occasional stand of scrubby piñon and juniper trying to find purchase amidst the lava, isolated on small kipukas (islands that the lava flowed around), aspen filling in the margins on every scrap of thin, sandy soil left untouched by the flow of molten rock. These lava flows were as new as 3,000 years ago, surely witnessed by the men and women who lived in these lands. I began to smile as I rode, even laughing a bit at serendipity gifting me such a wonder to behold. I stopped to take photos several times, and left behind me in that volcanic badlands all my anger, fear, and negativity I had been carrying since Tulsa. My heart was clean for the first time in days.

La Ventana Natural Arch

Like all moments, it had it’s end, passing through the ranger station at the north end of the monument and I soon found myself heading northwest-ish on I-40 for 40 minutes, exiting in the small town of Thoreau, NM, heading north on NM-371 through Navajo Nation trust land, Chaco Culture National Park, and Navajo Nation itself. Pronghorn grazed far back from the highway, a lonely road only traveled by dusty pickup trucks and big rigs hauling who knows what supplies to the small settlements along the way. The sun was low in the west by the time the road dropped into Farmington, and I soon found myself unloading the bike at a hotel I’ve stayed at a few times, a small bit of familiar, ready to be off the road and close my weary eyes.

Lights out by 10pm (midnight, rally time), my spirits remained high, peaceful even, as I lay in that bed and thought of all the things I’d seen and the places I’d been so far, the emotions that had been going back and forth like sloshing water in the bilge of my brain. I’ve done big rides, ridden long rallies, but this.. this was a low and a high together that I’d never grappled with before; how I could be so close to calling it quits and then have it all fly away with the smallest of things - a phone call from a friend, nature revealing it’s scale and majesty, the immensity of El Malpais shrinking my rage and anger into petty whining, letting me ride clean for the first time in days. What a gift this day was.. but it was nothing to the gift the rally would give me tomorrow.

Day 5: 12,496 points -- 1,046 miles
Leg Total: 22,700 points -- 2,123 miles

Onward to Day 6 ➡️

No matter how bad things may seem, you can always make them worse.
-- Astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson

I slept well in a comfy bed up on the 7th floor, waking up at 3:30am – I wanted to try and beat the breakfast rush, helping myself to a breakfast sammich and a banana and found a seat at a table with some other rookies. Leg One behind us, we mused a bit on what Leg Two would bring, and a consensus emerged that this would be where the REAL rally would start; surely now we’d get really juicy combos, and that Gut Bomb Bingo would play out with a neat twist.. sure, Earls said that the bonuses for filling in the card wouldn’t change, but nothing was said about getting ADDITIONAL cards, right?!

While at breakfast, Leg One results were posted; I was 51st out of 106, so squarely in the middle. Not bad for not trying hard!

Lisa and Jeff brought us to attention at precisely at 4:00am with a quite stern lecture regarding the behavior of some riders. It’s Rally 101 that if you find someone else’s flag that they left behind at a bonus, you leave it there – you never know if they’re already realizing their mistake and heading back for it! Someone else got caught riding their motorcycle back and forth through a park, looking for a bonus they would’ve been scouting out on foot. The most heated scolding was saved for telling us exactly how the rally staff felt about someone posting details about the group photo bonus on social media. For once, I wasn’t the reason a rule was being made, but even I felt a bit sheepish and chastised by the tongue lashing we got!

Look, I’m a rebel and all, but I agreed to a certain set of rules and expected behavior, and don’t pretend that I’m special. If I break a rule, I expect to be punished, so it makes me angry when people break rules and flounce away without consequences.. why do I bother following the rules, if it ends up not mattering? It felt disrespectful to those of us who were playing by the rules, and really got my blood boiling.

There were a few other announcements, routine stuff around timing for the next checkpoint in Denver, and then we got our hands on the Leg Two rally books. I had an embarrassing moment here, as they had staff members arranged around the dining room with a small stack of the packs. Of course, each pack has our individual rider number on the outside, so we had to find the right staff member who had our number. “Where the heck is 107?” I thought I muttered to myself, but between being more tired than I thought, a bit upset about the misbehavior of others, and echo-y room, and a rather inopportune lull in the background chatter, and what came out of my mouth was a terrible and forceful bellow – “107!” – that reverberated like a thunderclap. The entire room went silent and 105 other riders turned to stare at me. Chris Sakala raised his hand and beckoned me over to him, and red-faced I scampered over, grabbed my packet, and skedaddled.

The view from my balcony at dawn.

I was back to my room by 4:30am, watching the sunrise while I waited for the digital version of the rally book to appear in my email. It took a few nervous minutes it to show up, and I flipped through the printed copy in my rally packet while waiting. During the day yesterday, I had been pulled into a Spotify playlist sharing group with some other riders, and our little chat thread was full of nervous “did you get it yet?!” messages.. ah, rookies!

The bonus listing for Leg Two was surprisingly thin; only 26 bonus locations. Surprisingly, no puzzles, no combos… and perhaps most worrying to me, no additional Gut Bomb Bingo cards, bonuses, or anything! A bad feeling started to form in the back of my head – did I over-think this entire rally?

My Gut Bomb Bingo card after Leg One

It didn’t take much work to run the data through my usual processing tools, and came up with this spread:

It quickly became clear that there were really only two routes - head to Wisconsin for the 12,334 point Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center bonus, or head through the southeast for 16,431 points at the Santa Monica Pier. I ran the numbers for both, and still holding on to the idea that the Gut Bomb Bingo just HAD to come back in Leg Three, a loop through the southwest now would secure me the local chains, and leave a “northern tier” ride back to scoop up the remaining regional chains (including a Tim Hortons, rare south of the Canadian border..) Running the numbers, for some reason that I couldn’t make the route to Santa Monica work, not without severely pushing myself.. and remember, I’m on a “rookie ride.”

Taking a short (4-hour) rest around El Paso/Las Cruces would put me at the Kitt Peak Observatory south of Tucson, AZ right about when they opened tomorrow morning (9am local time) and then a full 8-hour rest on Day 5, and get me to the checkpoint in Denver on Day 6 right on time. It also would keep me from having to cross the Mojave Desert in the heat wave being predicted for the next couple days; it would be hot in the Tucson/Phoenix area, but if I climbed out of the valley and into northern Arizona by noon I should miss the worst of it. It wasn’t a GREAT route, but it was safe and easy… a “rookie ride.” We only needed to score a total of 36,000 points between Leg One and Two to stay on pace for finishing, so this would keep me in the safe zone as far as that was concerned.

The route I settled for.. I mean, on.

Now I just had to schlep all my gear back down and across the hotel; it took 2 trips, which I was a little annoyed by, since I’m usually able to live with one bag and the case with my laptop, but having to also juggle GPS, digital camera, helmet, scoring paperwork, etc, and I needed an extra hand to cart things around at checkpoints.

A good number of bikes were already out the gate; unsurprising, given there really were only 2 basic routes worth anything this leg. I chatted a tiny bit with Herakles, whose aux fuel tank mount had broken during Leg One. He was off to find a welder to tack the cracked aluminum plate back together. Some riders were just standing around the parking garage chatting, I left the parking garage at 6:30am local, heading back down I-44 towards OKC where I picked up I-35 south into Texas.

“Rookie ride”… “Rookie ride”…

I couldn’t stop turning the pebble over in my mind about the lack of any sort of logistical challenge on this leg.. or really so far in the rally. I really thought the Gut Bomb Bingo was going to get more complicated in Leg Two - why else invest so much time into it? Did I fall for a “sucker bonus” (that is, a bonus or combo that teases the rider into committing to a plan that would cost them more then it would benefit them)?

This leg, especially, just seemed so simple- pound out a ton of miles, and you’ll score well. There seemed to be no benefit for riding smart.. but clearly there is, since so many people tell me constantly what an amazing puzzle the IBR is, what a pretzel it will wrap you into mentally, trying to sort out the devious tricks and traps planted in the bonus listing for the unwary. I excel at figuring out the routing optimizations and quirks to get the highest score, but all I was seeing was 2 routes that needed tight timing and big mile days.. there wasn’t anything “clever” in this. What wasn’t I seeing?

The pebble turned over and over, gaining a few edges and enlarging, irritating the back of my mind, bouncing forward into the front of my grey matter over and over again. I’d tuck it away behind a memory of t-ball in 3rd grade or that time I crashed a dirt bike I wasn’t supposed to be riding when I was 10, but it would slip forward every few minutes, and soon I was noodling away on the GPS and Google Maps, trying to find what I was missing.. is this really just a marathon event, where pounding out stupid amount of miles is the only way to score points? It simply can’t be.. it just can’t. What am I missing?

27) OKD - Arbuckle Mountain Fried Pies - Davis, OK - 884 pts

09:58 EDT

As I was getting ready to leave, a 2-up couple pulled in, and hopped off all smiles. “How’s your rally?!” they excitedly asked.. and friends, I’m a bit ashamed to admit, I told them. “Pretty awful,” I blurted out, honest for the first time. “I’m really frustrated!” They made “aww that sucks I’m sorry” noises and I realized I was just standing there feeling like a total heel. They were clearly having fun on their Iron Butt adventure, and here I am, a grumbling jerk in the parking lot. I laughed it off and said something about the heat (which was getting a little toasty already this morning) and they went inside. Wolfe, who was still hanging about, raised an eyebrow and I shrugged. “Just not feeling like this is a rally designed for me to do well in,” I explained. What else needed to be said?

Onward into Texas, my next stop was a BBQ place in Frisco, TX.. but first, I stopped in Denton, TX to snag a couple Gut Bomb Bingo locations.

28) I5 - El Pollo Loco - Denton, TX - 206 pts

11:38 EDT

Luckily, in the next shopping center over, there was another Gut Bomb Bingo location…

29) B1 - Taco Cabana - Denton, TX - 371 pts

11:49 EDT

30) 1ROW - 562 pts

Time to get moving again.. the day was really warming up now, touching above 90F as I merged over to I-35E and then east over the Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge. Somewhere along the way, I fell in behind KSolo and let him set a quick pace through town, until we got to the home of the Hutchins BBQ, birthplace of the Texas Twinkie.

31) TXFR - Hutchins BBQ - Frisco, TX - 1,544 pts

12:33 EDT

I beelined up to US-380W to avoid going back through Dallas traffic as best I could, heading back through Denton before heading northeast towards the Texas Panhandle. Coming down to Texas every year for the Heart of Texas Rally, this is my usual route home; US-81 to to US-287 to I-40W. The sun was beating down as I ticked past familiar small towns – Decatur, Bowie, Wichita Falls slid past, the thermometer on the bike hovering in the upper 90s, flirting with 100F.

While not the most memorable of sections for me, one notable moment happened right as I left the town of Vernon, TX - my odometer ticked over 100,000 miles! I had to pull over and capture the moment.

Not bad for a 3-year old bike!

I stopped at an Allsups for gas and grabbed a cold 2L water out of the cooler to try and recharge my sweat reserves; it was seeping out of my pores and dissipating as fast as I could generate it. I soaked my LD Comfort base layer, and used some eyedrops on my sore eyeballs. I thought I was avoiding the the desert on this route?!

32) TXTU - Turkey Statue - Turkey, TX - 2,469 pts

16:56 EDT

Setting my sights now on El Paso, TX, I had several hours of riding across west Texas to get through. The temps were hovering in the low- to mid-90s as I headed southwest towards Lubbock. Meanwhile, I was getting messages from riders who were also venturing across west Texas and Arizona about the blistering heat they were facing, claiming over 105F and a punishing sun. It was 95F as I rolled through Lubbock, and needing a break, I pulled off when I spotted another Gut Bomb Bingo bonus just off a downtown exit.

33) B3 - Wienerschnitzel - Lubbock, TX - 231 pts

18:57 EDT

It was hot out, but not bad; the temp had dropped back down to a tepid 90F. Rolling past endless farmland, tractor supply shops, gas fields, and small, nameless towns clustered around grain silos and train sidings, I thought “I don’t know what those guys were complaining about…”

I was about to find out.

Cresting a small rise and descending an unremarkable, shallow slope, I was slammed by a wall of heat. Heavy, scorching air pressed through every vent, unzipped seam, up my pant legs, drilling through my pores and squeezing my eyeballs dry. The sudden shift made me blink and shake my head, disoriented, like a dog trying to get away from the flea meds on her neck, my skin simply exploding with sweat that was quickly sucked away, leaving me furiously sucking water from my water jug, vainly seeking some equilibrium of intake and loss. Relief was impossible, each breath a scorching inhalation, like standing impatiently over an open oven door, but without the sweet smell of baked goods promising a tasty prize.

The next two hours were some of the longest I’ve endured on a bike. The temp gauge topped out at 112F, and I bitterly cursed every thing, muttering in my helmet, inventing new phrases worthy of my immediate drafting into the Navy. No one, and nothing, was immune to my wrath, as my brain attempt to squirm and distract me from the misery of baking under the solar anvil of the West Texas/Eastern New Mexican sun. I laughed at my own misery, that I signed up for this, this stupid event which was nothing more than a machine for turning gasoline and rubber into pain. The fact that no one twisted my arm, that I applied for this torture… who is the real fool?

Clearly, the fool whose water ran out 30 minutes before arriving in Carlsbad, NM.

The temp dropped a few degrees as I slid into town, shakily stopping at a gas station for fuel and water. I bought 2 gallons, one for the hydration jug and the other I sipped, refilled empty sports drink bottles along with electrolyte mix, and soaked my swollen, dry skin. Retreating to some late evening shade of the pump awning, I sat next to the bike, back against the cool metal of the pump, and closed my eyes briefly, basking in the comfort of 102F.

I actually dozed off for maybe 5 minutes, a passerby detouring from getting back in his truck to come ask me about the map of the United States on my pannier. “You been to all them states?” he drawled, clearly not believing I was at all sane for having done so. I can’t say I blame him for not believing me, I was such a wreck. He shook his head and soon departed, and I was again reminded of how foolish all this was, but rather than the tortured anger I felt before, I now felt bemused - I did, actually, sign up for this. I’m doing this for fun… yikes!

Before continuing onwards, I did a quick check of the map. Realizing I was in a Big Town, I took the opportunity to scan for additional Gut Bomb Bingo locations, and noticed a Blake’s Lotaburger on the north side of town. It would take me at least a half hour to go fetch it, but what else was I out here for? Clearly not my sanity…

34) I3 - Blake’s Lotaburger - Carlsbad, NM - 281 pts

22:13 EDT

35) 3ROW - 615 pts

Clearly, I wasn’t having a great time, but back on US-62 heading south the road was fast, and as the sun dropped behind the peaks of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the temp dipped below 100F and I felt refreshed by my extended delay. Darkness fell along with the temperature, and I settled in for a few hours of empty night, uneventful except for one moment of excitement. In one particularly dark, long straight stretch of dark, aux lights blazing away, no one else on the road at all, I spotted a car pulled off the side of the highway, its lights off. Radar wasn’t pinging, but I slowed all the same. Lucky thing I did, because when I was about 2 seconds from passing them, the car suddenly lurched onto the road in front of me, lights off in the darkness! I braked, slowing hard and coming up hot on them, getting as close as 35-40 feet before dropping back to a VERY cautious follow distance.

They proceeded to crawl ~10mph under the speed limit for the next 15 miles - lights off the entire time! I could see there were 3 or 4 people in the car, but whatever they were up to I wanted no part of it. Once I spotted an area where there wasn’t much of any ditch on either side of the road (in case I needed an escape route) I blipped past them and continued on my way. I kept an eye open for them in my mirrors, but they didn’t do anything but continue slowly onwards… fine with me!

Soon enough I spotted the lights of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez on the horizon, and slipped through late evening traffic to the next bonus, L & J Cafe.

36) TXEP - L & J Café - El Paso, TX - 3,041 pts

00:57 EDT

I was feeling a bit tired and needed to put my head down for a proper snooze. I was about an hour behind my most optimistic schedule, and luckily I had included a 5-hour layover somewhere tonight, so I looked for a room in Las Cruces. Usually it’s a snap to find a cheap motel, but everything between El Paso and Hatch, NM was booked solid! I finally found a Super 8 that had an over-priced room available, so I burned a couple points of my credit rating and headed west on I-10. El Paso at 1am was quiet except for a herd of super cars that zipped past me. I paced behind them for a couple miles, getting an eyeful of an orange McLaren and a green Lotus, but I let them go after a bit; I was tired and just wanted to get my head on a pillow for a bit.

The Super 8 was like every other Super 8, although the parking lot was full of busses and vans; clearly some kind of sporting or school event was happening, which would explain the lack of rooms. Pulling in at 01:45, I made sure to park in an extra well-lit area and secured it a bit more than I usually do, not wanting some drunk student to mess with it. Glad I did, too, as I almost literally ran into 3 of them running up and down the stairwell as I hiked up to my 4th floor room (because of COURSE the elevator was out…) I showered and was lights out by 02:15.

Day 4: 10,204 points -- 1,077 miles

Onward to Day 5 ➡️

The world is big when you fight against it. We move with it.. it is small for us.
-- Anon

The alarm went off at 5am, and I sat up, wondering where I was. I seldom experience the sense of dislocation that many riders in multi-day rides or rallies experience; I usually save the “waking up confused and wondering why your bedroom looks so different” for after the rally. I felt rested and ready, and headed across the street to pull a receipt from the gas station across the street to mark the end of my rest bonus. I was about 10 minutes short of a full 8 hours, so I waited, sitting on the sidewalk in the pre-dawn gloom, eating some breakfast and doing some routing with Google. A 2-up couple pulled in to get gas. We exchanged waves, but little else; I’d see them tonight in Tulsa, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

23) REST1 - 2,880 pts

21:26-05:27 EDT

I suppose this is as good a place as any to drop a quick note about how I generate these reports, or at least the statistics for mileage, time, and score.

Mileage

For most rallies I’m not keeping strict track of mileage, nor looking at my odo at each stop. Some rallies require this as part of the paperwork for scoring, but since this rally uses electronic submission, such record keeping isn’t required. Starting with HoT this year, I started photographing my odometer (and clock) at each stop, but in general I’m generating the mileage by looking at the Google Maps estimate based on the embedded map shown in each bonus I list here. This is a bit inaccurate at times, and the actual number of miles day-to-day may differ from this. This is often caused by my not accounting for any mileage incurred by gas stops or rest areas, or for the natural drift between a motorcycle’s odometer and reality.

Time

I use the electronic timestamp on the photo I submitted to scoring, as well as my satellite track in Spotwalla to calculate the time between 2 bonuses, as that will also account for stops, traffic, potty breaks, performance awards, etc along the way. This is why you’ll often see it taking longer in the stats box than what the Google Maps embed claims. I do the time elapsed and time remaining semi-manually, sometimes using a time calculator, sometimes in my head. Regardless, I sometimes mess up doing the math in time.

During the rally, I left my motorcycle’s clock set to “rally time” – that is, the time at the finish line in Pittsburgh (EDT.) Additionally, I used EDT for every entry on my scoresheet submitted to the scorers at each checkpoint; it keeps the math simple, and I’m less likely to make routing mistakes based on thinking I have an hour one way or the other.

Score

I’m keeping a running tally at each bonus location that includes the points I am claiming from bonuses, as well as combos as I score them. Rest bonuses are also included, but not any non-riding bonuses (such as we might earn for getting our pre-rally paperwork done on time, or having our location tracker registered with Spotwalla correctly) are not included. You might see a difference between the running tally and my final credited score for a given leg; this is likely due to one of these non-riding bonuses (or penalties..) or I’ve made a math mistake somewhere. Don’t worry, it all comes right in the end. I promise.

I had originally intended my next bonus to be ARDA, a fried catfish joint in a building made up to look like a riverboat. I was looking at a tight time window to get to the relatively valuable (>1,600 points) for the group photo bonus, and ARDA, at 165, seemed like an easy bonus to bypass. Garmin was showing me that I could gain back 45 minutes if I dropped it.. and besides, it was dark, and I’d already heard word about Lisa Rufo and daughter Molly hitting a deer and going down, as well as Gerry Arel having what was rumored to be a run-in with construction debris in the same rainstorm as I was in the night before, and it spooked me a little. I already had secured enough points to stay on track for finisher status, and in the grand scheme of things 165 points doesn’t matter unless you’re shooting for a competitive slot. A 45 minute detour through rural Arkansas for 165 points I didn’t need? It was an easy call.

Of course, later on in the comfort of home, I would double check this routing, and found that it only would've added 15 minutes. If I'd know that at the time, I wouldn't have passed it up.. but would that have been the right move?

Riding through the pre-dawn along I-40, I saw a highway maintenance crew cleaning up the roadkill. They had a heavy-duty truck with what looks a lot like a bucket loader attachment on the front, except instead of a bucket it had a large shelf or panel that they sort of slide under the body of the deer – sort of like a pizza peel but for carrion. I didn’t get a look in the back as I passed, but I imagine it was full of other casualties. The fact that they have specialized equipment for dealing with dead deer should give one pause; in fact, shortly after passing the truck, I start seeing roadkill every few miles. I passed the time by counting deer carcasses, and felt better about my choice to stick to the highway with each one passed.

I-40 skirts around the north edge of Little Rock, following the Arkansas River along it’s northern bank. It runs mostly through farmland, the foothills of the Boston Mountains to my right, framed most of the way by a curtain of trees on either side of the highway and the median, giving the road the feeling of remote wildness, a green tunnel through the Ozarks. I stopped at a rest area about 25 minutes east of Fort Smith, AR and the Oklahoma border, and had a protein bar and mixed up a bottle of electrolytes, the sun already starting to threaten a hot day ahead of me, casting a menacing orange glare. I wondered if there were fires or pollution nearby causing the discoloration, while moms and children clambered out of SUVs, giving me stink eye and judging my road-worn appearance. I smiled and sighed at the same time; smiling because oh lady, wait till you see me in another 5 or 6 days, and sighed because it’s always the same… but if you don’t let people disappoint you, you’re never going to be ready to let them surprise you, either.

Eastern Oklahoma was a bit of a revelation. Having done next to zero travel through this part of the state, I didn’t realize how beautiful it was. The deep forest of the Ozarks giving way to patchy copses of trees, gently rolling hills of grass as woods and prairie disagree about where one ends and the other begins. It reminded me of parts of Texas, and with good reason – this is part of the “Cross Timbers” region, and was a significant challenge for early settlers to blaze a trail through, a thick, dense woodland marking the edge of the Great Plains.

I was keeping an eye on the weather, and when I stopped in Checotah, OK for gas, I spotted some danger on the horizon; a fast-moving derecho was forming west of Wichita, and was sweeping southeast at a ridiculously fast pace, straight at Tulsa. My route had me heading to the west of Oklahoma City, then doubling back east to Tulsa and then north into Kansas. I was going to have to keep an eye on this one; I might sneak in behind it, or get out ahead of it to Tulsa.. or even head north first THEN cut east behind the storm. I’d have to make that call as I was leaving the next bonus.

About an hour later, this is how the map looked...

When new rally riders ask me about what sets the big multi-day rallies like the IBR or LDX apart, it’s that there’s times when your bonuses might be hundreds of miles apart, and today was a good example of this. Besides a stop for gas and a couple rest area breaks, nothing broke the routine for more than 400 miles. I-40 a long, straight ribbon of concrete and asphalt, and the weather, sunny and warm most of the day, was starting to cloud up to the north as I passed through OKC to a small town on the eastern suburb of El Reno, OK. A handful of miles before exiting I-40, I yet again found myself riding behind Danny Dossman, and we both arrived at Sid’s Diner, home of the Fried Onion Burger Day Festival.

24) OKER - Fried Onion Burger Day Festival (Sid’s Diner) - El Reno, OK - 702 pts

11:13 EDT

Leaving the bonus, the weather radar looked good, and I thought I could slip in behind the storm front as it passed south across I-44. However, the storm had other ideas; as I crossed through OKC in record time, it chose to slow down, and I soon found myself getting tossed around by wind, some of the blackest clouds I’ve ever seen just to my left, blue skies to the right. I wondered how far I could reasonably get before needing to take shelter, and a scan through the maps showed me there was almost nothing between OKC (which I’d just left) and Tulsa, and as the wind really decided to shove me around, I watched lightning bolts splashing left and right across the northern horizon, marching close and closer. I needed to find shelter, and fast.

An exit came up, and seeing a helpful “NEXT EXIT 30 MILES” sign, decided to err on the side of safety and burn into the nearly 90 minutes of buffer time that I had and get under cover of something. I headed south on the Kickapoo Turnpike, and as soon as I did, the angry wind just stopped – I was moving with the storm now, ahead of me nothing but blue skies and stillness, but in my mirrors nothing but terrible, roiling darkness.

5 miles to the first exit - nothing! It’s all grass and farms. 5 more miles, the storm wasn’t gaining on me, but I was burning miles.. this exit for sure! I spotted signs of life, and squeaked off the turnpike into the small town of Harrah, OK, pulling into the first fast food place I saw, a “Taco Mayo” (an apt name, judging by the menu and the clientele..) As soon as I stopped, I felt the full force of the wind gusting around, sending grass clippings and detritus from the fields skittering across the pavement. I grabbed my rally paperwork and camera and ran inside just as the first fat drops of rains started smashing down.

One of those modern, hip taco places - you know the ones, with the corrugated metal used for roofing as walls, fast-food aesthetics but with a surprising “fusion” menu, a TV mounted high in one corner was tuned in to some sports event, perched between a parrot piñata and a hanging Corona beer sign. I claimed a booth, and knowing I’d be here for a bit, put in an order, then watched the storm break through the window. The first bass drum crashes of thunder shook the windows, and one of the girls working the counter turned the TV to a local news weather report - big damage in Tulsa, a crawl of counties and towns under extreme storm warnings crawled through the chyron. The kitchen staff, seemingly with nothing else to do despite it being lunch time, emerged from the back to stare out at the wall of wind-whipped water… again, when the locals are impressed by the weather, you know it’s something else.

I almost timed it right!

I hunkered down and tried not watch the clock; instead, I went over my paperwork, checked that all my photos were in place, and caught up on rally news. It looked like Lisa, Molly, and Gerry were all OK, but that for them, the rally was over. I also saw a rather shocking bit of news that someone had posted info about the group photo bonus to the FJR forums, and someone else had posted a photo of a page of the rally book to Facebook - what on earth were they thinking?! You may or may not agree with the “no social media” policy, but there a difference between saying “happy birthday” to a dear friend and posting where and when you can find rally riders. It’s the very REASON for the policy, explicitly and meticulously explained to us, so there’s no plea of ignorance possible… how do you break that rule?!

At least my bike (and laundry strapped onto the panniers!) got a good wash..

Slowly, inexorably, the storm passed overhead, having eaten up nearly all my buffer time. When the radar showed that the worst of it had passed, and with no backside lightning to contend with, I got back on the bike and got the wheels moving. I had maybe 15 minutes of slack time remaining to get to the group photo bonus, but the sun soon came out, and I made good time zipping northeast towards Tulsa on I-44; I even picked up a few minutes, buzzing along.. but as I got closer and closer to Tulsa, the wind started picking up again as I caught up to a band of the storm that was marching slowly west.

I needed a bio break anyways, so I pulled into a QuikTrip on the western side of Tulsa. I had to be at the group photo location in Coffeyville, KS at 16:00 exactly, and my current ETA was showing as 15:42 - I had time, but I needed to keep moving. When I came back out to the bike, the wind was swaying the tall signs advertising services to the highway, and a sideways rain started, swirling dust and stinging drops of needle-cold rain around. I glanced at the radar, saw another blob of yellow and red sliding slowly across Tulsa; no lightning, at least, but if I kept going I was going to be in it for sure. Watching the block, I gassed up, while one particularly strong gust rocked the bike, noticeably shifting it up and taking weight off the side stand - yikes! I blinked back dust, sheltered somewhat by the gas pump, and decided to give this part of the storm time to slip east and out of my path, watching the ETA to the next bonus click up..

15:50… 15:52… 15:55.. yikes!

Realizing it wasn’t going to get any better, I steeled my nerves and got back on the highway, blinking back a mote of dust that found its way into my helmet as I accelerated up the ramp. I merged gingerly, rain pelting down, and soon found myself crossing the Arkansas River south of downtown Tulsa in a wind-driven downpour on one of the worst-maintained stretches of interstate I’ve ever been on. Going 40mph with my blinkers on, visibility dreadful, I hit pothole after pothole, hammer blows of cold rainwater smashing into my legs with each puddle I plunged into. Big trucks blew by, giving a moment of relief from the wind only to pay it back in spades with a blast of turbulence and muddy, oily spray misting across my visor.. truly miserable.

15:56… 15:58…

The miserable conditions almost caused me to miss my exit, but luckily I was already in the right-most lane and slipped onto the exit at the last second, twisting around an under-construction cloverleaf onto US-169 north. The rain and wind started to settled down, but the road here was 1 narrow lane between Jersey barriers, and I was still losing time.

15:59… 16:02 …16:05

I was going to have to hustle and hope some combination of making up time and Garmin/Waze inaccuracies would work in my favor. Luckily for me, US-169 soon burst clear of the suburbs, right about the same time the rain and wind faded to nothing and a weak, patchy sunshine broke out. The next hour was a familiar pattern - fast roads with high speed limits, every 8-9 miles having to slow to a crawl through a small town. My radar detector chirped as I passed through each rural hamlet, and I saw multiple police parked along the main road through town, just waiting for someone in a hurry… someone like me. I was able to make up time despite these intermittent speed bumps of civilization.

16:04… 16:03….

One particularly large town, I got stuck behind someone going 15 in the 25 through town.. then 30 in the 40… and 35 in the 50! The first moment I had a clear view ahead, I zipped around them, just trying to keep the clock rolling down.

16:02… 16:01…

A white motorcycle pulled up fast and tight behind me, and I gulped - did I not notice a motorcycle patrol cop through one of the towns? Was I pinched? Nope - just another rally rider. As I slowed and pulled right, assuming they were law enforcement who wanted to discuss the finer points of Oklahoma law with me, they cracked it open and zipped right past me. I laughed and drafted behind them, as there was no other place they’d be going in this area, at this point in the rally, and certainly not with this amount of speed!

16:00… 15:59… we were both going to make it!

25) KSCO - ICEE Machine (Omar Knedlik) - Coffeyville, KS - 1,632 pts

16:00 EDT

At this point, all pressure for the leg was off. It was around an hour and a half to the checkpoint hotel, and about 5 hours until we reached penalty time, so I took my sweet time packing up the bike. I took a few minutes to sort the packing on the bike, gathering up random fast food wrappers, tightening straps, etc, chatting with a few folks who were similarly taking their time. Leaving town, I slow poked back south on US-169. On the north edge of Tulsa, I spotted a Whataburger, so pulled off to claim another Gut Bomb Bingo bonus.

26) O1 - Whataburger - Owasso, OK - 248 pts

17:28 EDT

From here it was an easy run to the checkpoint hotel, only about 18 miles or so to the south side of Tulsa.

Getting my odometer reading confirmed by Chris Hopper
(Photo credit: Tobie Stevens)

I got myself signed in with Bill Thweat, officially stopping my rally close and starting a new one – I had an hour to present myself for scoring. What I should’ve done is used 10 minutes of that hour to get myself checked into the hotel, but instead I sat in the lobby and finalized my paperwork, which only took 20 minutes (if that) and then signed in for scoring. There was a huge backlog of riders who were in line ahead of me, pretty much everyone who was at the group photo a couple hours before. We all sat on the floor in the hallway outside the basement conference rooms, waiting for our number to be called. You could tell the rally vets at this point, who had used the hour between sign-in and scoring to get their rooms and change into street clothes, some of them taking advantage already of the dinner buffet that was available in the next conference room.

I sat and waited, finally starting to relax, but too worried about missing my number being called to go fetch dinner; there were vague threats of “consequences” if you weren’t immediately available when they called you! I really wanted to have an actual meal, go check in to my room, and take a shower.. but wait I did. Eventually though, I got pulled into scoring, where I surrendered the SD card from my camera, and then was assigned to a scorer – Chris Sakala – to go over the photos, receipts, and any other items I might needed to have brought to the table. I received a single 10-point penalty for a small error I made in writing down the code for a bonus on my claim sheet (I wrote “CALL” instead of “CALL1”…) but otherwise it was a smooth, painless process.

Released, I wandered over to the dinner hall, dropped all my gear on the floor, and tucked in to a plate, chit-chatting a little bit with folks, but I really wanted that shower, so I went and stood in line waiting for the front desk to sort out my reservation. Keys in hand, I soon found myself on the 7th floor on the complete opposite side of the large, sprawling hotel from the parking garage; that would be fun in the morning.. but that’s a problem for Tomorrow Kerri. Today Kerri needs a shower and to get her jammies on because she has to be downstairs for the mandatory rider meeting at 4am!

Day 3: 7,452 points -- 729 miles

Leg One Total: 18,246 points -- 2,344 miles

Onward to Day 4 ➡️

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-- Henry David Thoreau

I snoozed for about 30 minutes on the picnic table before being woken up by children running around in the rain, shrieking and laughing. For a split second I thought “Oh no, I really overslept!” but it was 1am - still dark, and still raining; if anything, the rain had gotten a little heavier. I sighed and heaved myself upright, and sat, snacking on a protein bar, looking out at the sodium-lit parking lot. A little rain wasn’t stopping the Big Dogs, and while I wasn’t “Big Dogging” this rally, I still needed to get a move on if I was going to get to Tulsa in, what, 46-ish hours? Time to go..

Back on I-40, I finished the twisting slide eastward down out of the mountains to Asheville, NC, where I picked up I-26 towards Charlotte. There’s a bingo location, Biscuitville, on the western outskirts, and I could hit it right when it opened at 5am, and then find a place to sack out for a longer rest, hopefully someplace out of this dang rain! It was coming down strong and steady, and brought with it a chill that permeated everything, making me sleepy.

After about 45 minutes, I just had to stop, and slipped off the highway in Hendersonville, NC, looking for a motel, covered park bench, all night diner.. but the town was buttoned up tight. After riding through the length of the town, I spotted a car wash, and pulled into one of the bays, thinking it might be, as they often are, a convenient and discrete place to shelter for a bit, but as soon as I got off the bike I started shivering - not a good sign at all. If I was shivering, I needed to be off the bike, pronto, and warm up! I took a look at Google and spotted a Waffle House at the next highway exit, so I made that my next target.

The Waffle House was absolutely empty, which probably isn’t surprising for relatively rural North Carolina at 2am on a stormy Tuesday morning. I dragged my soaked, shivering carcass into a booth, and the waitress brought me coffee without even having to be asked. I let her know I was going to be an easy customer, that I just needed to get out of the storm for a bit, that I’d holler if I needed anything.

Too awake to rest, I instead took the opportunity to double-check my rally paperwork.

Of course, I was the most interesting thing that had happened in Flat Rock, NC in weeks, so instead of doing some paperwork quietly and then shutting my eyes slouched over in a sticky Waffle House booth, I spent the next 2 hours getting the life story of the waitress, Cathy, learning all about her multiple divorces, her special needs son who lives with a foster family across the street on account of her drug arrest, how she loves working the graveyard shift at Waffle House because it’s so quiet and restful, and ultimately her Testimony and salvation story when she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. I was polite and friendly, and tried to disengage a number of times, but she just kept going.. finally a local overnight delivery driver stopped in for his lunch break, and I got a chance to look at the weather map; it was still absolutely cats-and-dogs out there, but it looked like there was a 15-minute gap where I could slip between 2 red and purple blobs of lightning and get out ahead, so I settled up and, mostly dry, ventured back out into the night.

(Of course, I’d realize about an hour later that I didn’t get the required “motorcycle outside the restaurant” photo… DOH! Not a real big deal, since Waffle Houses are everywhere, but it was a real head-shaker moment. I’m barely onto Day 2, and I’m already messing up bonuses? I know we’re not going hard on this rally, but seriously we’re going to go this SOFT? BAH!)

I was feeling tired, but a bit better, and at least the rain had stopped, and the lightning far, far off.. or so I thought. 5 minutes down I-25 and I ran into a veritable wall of water, a real frog-strangler of a storm. There was no place to stop, no exits, no hint of shelter. In a nice change of pace, this particular deluge was warm, and felt like I was standing in the shower. The seal on my helmet’s visor did an admirable job, but finally gave up, and water leaked in, and everything fogged up, forcing me to decided between “super-soaker of tepid water to the face” or “15 feet of visibility” – I chose “super soaker” and laughed every couple of minutes at how ridiculous a situation this was, every breath getting a snout full of lukewarm water, peering ahead at the taillights of the only other vehicle dumb enough to be out here at 4am in this weather.

I kept a good distance back from the small sedan, so as not to pressure them, and I’m glad I did. We came up upon a construction zone that diverted the eastbound lanes into a single lane of the westbound side. The crossover was paved, but dipped down as it crossed the median.. a median full of storm water! The rooster tails and fish-tailing brake lights of the car I was following gave me enough warning to slow down, but not enough to stop. All I could do was hope that Cathy’s promise to pray for me had convinced Jesus to ride pillion with me tonight. I popped up into the standard Adventure Rider pose, perched on the pegs, and just went for it. The bike hit the water and it felt like a jack-hammer on my feet and lower legs, the bike slowing and pitching me forward slightly; if I haven’t been ready for it, I would’ve surely crashed and had to make Lisa pull out her “red book” that she keeps for emergencies.

Of course, I survived, but the next 10 minutes I was a lot less entertained by the ridiculous weather, and gritted my teeth, praying for an exit off this road. Finally one appeared, and I gratefully took the exit. Of course, just as I signaled my turn, BAM! The rain stopped, as sudden as if I’d emerged from a waterfall. The rain was just.. gone, and the air felt warm and muggy.. damndest bit of weather I’ve experienced in a long time!

It was 4:35am, and luckily there was a convenient gas station at the exit to refuel and check the weather. The radar map was just a jumbled mess, seeming to show the storm was dissolving and/or sliding north, and my route was taking me due east on US-74. It had only been about 30 minutes since I left the Waffle House, but it felt like hours, my heart was racing so. The parking lot was calm, I could hear crickets and frogs start up as they sensed the change in weather as well. There was nothing else to do but pull up my big girl pants and get back onto the bike.

The sky was starting to lighten, and the rain failed to rematerialize, a boon to me and the morning commuters who started to appear. Shortly after 5am, the inevitable adrenaline crash hit, body and brain shrieking “get off the bike, NOW!” I spotted what looked like a small bank with a covered drive through, which turned out to be a North Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance office (complete with signage for farm vehicle parking!) The ground was dry, so I parked in a far corner, rolled out the sleeping pad, and set my watch for 20 minutes before dropping into a bone-deep sleep.

Right on time, my watch buzzed, and I awoke refreshed and feeling ready to tackle the road. It had been a rough night, but the sun was coming up, the skies were clearing, and while in retrospect I coulda/shoulda just taken a 4-hour motel nap somewhere and made just as much headway, I was quietly tickled at hobo’ing it.. now to get some breakfast, and FINALLY some points!

13) B4 - Biscuitville - Kings Mountain, NC - 398 pts

05:54 EDT

I felt incredibly refreshed by my nap and now a tasty meal; never underestimate the restorative powers of 20 minutes of sleeps and a few hundred calories!

14) SCGA - Peachoid Water Tank - Gaffney, SC - 1,545 pts

06:29 EDT

Peachoid claimed, I topped off the fuel tanks and got back on I-85 south towards my next bonus at the convention center in downtown Atlanta. It never even occurring to me that my ETA was ~10:00.. it’s funny to me, in retrospect, that Atlanta’s infamous traffic hardly fazes me, let alone Houston or Chicago.. heck, even Los Angeles barely ripples my calm – I can lane split on the big chubby GSA with the best of ‘em! …but tell me I have to go into NYC… oof.

Traffic was the usual sort of Atlanta nightmare, a combination of drivers raised on NASCAR and Southern Manners that results in a dangerous mix of insane speeding and sudden bouts of politeness; it’s common to be hurtling along at 80, getting passed left and right only to have the person in front of you slam on their brakes, slowing almost to a stop to let someone merge in front of them while that person also slows, not wanting to take advantage, both waving at each other on the highway you-go-no-you-go-no-you-go-I-insist. I float as best I can like a cork in a rain-swollen gutter.. except the rain is 4,000 pound SUVs, and I’m not a bouncy cork but a fleshy sack of bones and liquid that really doesn’t want to bump into anyone or anything.

That was on my mind as news from Day One started filtering down through chats and short phone calls with friends who tried to summarize posts on the IBR website and Facebook. Details were sparse, but I got the general gist of things - rain rain rain, rumors of a crash, a deer strike somewhere, a missing flag… I felt so removed from the rally, not having seen anyone or been in contact with any other riders, I started to feel a little lonely.

Loneliness is an unusual emotion for me, usually something I feel only during the best moments on the road - a particular sunset, a ridiculous pun on a sign, the flash of a badger scurrying across the road between fields.. I feel lonely in moments that I’ll never get to share with someone else, moments that will, as the replicant in Blade Runner said, “be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Sure, I’ll capture them as best I’m able in a blog post, or a funny story over coffee, but if you’re not an LD rider, can you really understand? Will you be able to really grasp how weird it is to blink and have a hundred miles roll past? The dislocation of standing on the beach in Jacksonville, FL and pondering the fact that you woke up yesterday morning in San Diego? Only travelers and LD riders really get the madness of rallying, of scurrying into a museum to snap a photo of some random object, of sleeping on a grassy patch you hope isn’t a dog park or watered by automatic sprinklers, the spiraling anger at the indignity of having to SEE CLERK FOR RECEIPT, or the giddy feeling of slipping free of traffic and taking that one weird little shortcut.

No, only other long-distance and rally riders know the highs and lows out here. Not even other motorcycle riders get it.. “You don’t see anything if you travel that far!” they often say to us, without stopping to realize just how silly that is. We see far, far more riding 800, 1,000, 1,500 miles a day, moving through a vast and grand landscape, seeing so much and on a scale that opens us to to comprehending and contemplating the wash of people and regions butting against each other, the movement of weather across a slowly morphing and grinding earth, constantly reforming and reshaping itself. We see different borders than most people readily conceive of - some sharper, some softer, but all more keenly, in moments of clarity and stillness despite the buzz and hum. We travel outside the normal confines of who we might be at home, skip across jurisdictions and polities. We play the role of traveling Wise Men, of tinkers and navigators and voyageurs. We might be the most interesting thing that happened in whatever small town we stop in. We play a role, the outsider-other-stranger, the trickster, beggar-Odin. Those odd borders and divisions we see in the landscape of both land and people make us citizens of a different country, the rally book our passport, our motorcycle faithful companion.. We bought the ticket - time to take the ride.

15) GAAT - Georgia Peach - Atlanta, GA - 984 pts

10:03 EDT

I got the heck out of downtown Atlanta, heading north on I-75 about 30 minutes to my next stop, another bingo bonus - The Varsity, which until a few years ago held the record for “largest drive-in restaurant”.. I assume by square footage. Located in a shopping development/office park, I arrived a good 30 minutes before they were open for business, so I got a good parking spot for my bonus photo, took off my gear and found a shady spot to lay down for a few minutes and nap.

16) N4 - The Varsity - Atlanta, GA - 466 pts

11:02 EDT

There was one customer already in line waiting for the doors to open, and I took his advice on what to get.

Kind of reminded me of the "chili dog" I had in New Zealand..

Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten the whole thing.. but I did. I ended up not leaving this location until about 11:15, between paperwork and stuffing this monstrosity into my face.

Talk about a gut bomb.. the chili dog just sat in my stomach the next few hours as I headed north on I-75 out of Georgia and into Tennessee. At least the sun was shining! Just past Chattanooga, TN I spotted signs for both Waffle House and Sonic, so I pulled off to score 2 more Gut Bomb Bingo bonuses.

17) N2 - Waffle House - Tiftonia, TN - 275 pts

18) I1 - Sonic Drive-In - 163 pts

13:10 EDT

As much as I’ve traveled through bits of Tennessee the past few years, I’ve never been here in the south-central part of the state. Beautiful country, and the weather was vacillating between cloudy and sunny, perfectly warm with the occasional pocket of cool, moist valley air. Nothing to do but ride ride ride..

19) TNBB - RC Cola & Moon Pie - Bell Buckle, TN - 857 pts

14:58 EDT

I took advantage of the stop and made my call-in, claiming another 1,000 points. I tried to think of something witty or funny or on-brand to leave as a message, but kept it crisp and to the point. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

20) CALL1 - Leg 1 Call-In Bonus - 1,000 pts

15:02 EDT

As I was pulling out of this tiny village, another pair of rally bikes were coming in. Apparently there were lots of us on more or less the same loop through the south, and looking later at the Leg One tracking animation it becomes even more obvious about how the distribution of the bonuses encouraged some pretty linear thinking, and scoring would later prove that out, with similarly tight grouping or tiers of points based on which basic route you took. The Big Dogs headed to New England… as I suspected. While I’m still conflicted about my flower-sniffin’, I see it still as a good confirmation that my seeing that as the better-best route was indeed correct. All I can do is trust that a less-than-stellar finish won’t be seen as confirmation that I don’t belong here, and that I’ll be able to come back in 2025 and really give it my all. “Stick to your plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise.”

Back to the highway, I-24 then cutting over to I-840 to loop around Nashville to the south. My weather app, always a bit flaky with geolocation where I am at any given moment, starting pinging severe thunderstorm warnings. Out of curiosity I flipped over to the app to see if it knew I was no longer in Pittsburgh, and yup - another line of thunderstorms stretching across the entire width of Tennessee north to south was ahead of me. I did a quick check of my bingo cheatsheet, and with a little googling found a Shake Shack not too far out of my way, so I figured I might as well earn some points while I sheltered from the storm would at least keep me making “progress”.

21) O4 - Shake Shack - Bell Buckle, TN - 240 pts

15:59 EDT

While sitting there, waiting for Mother Nature to move on, I started to feel the first hints of frustration. These bingo bonuses were stacking up to score me some not-bad points, but they also were a huge time sink. Not quite a sucker bonus, but surely my suspicion that these would be a bigger deal would have to come to fruition.. right? Again, in a leg with no puzzles or twists other than “how hard can you ride?”, this one little bit of quirky-fun had to lead to something bigger later on. I sure hope so; yes, I’m riding an easy Leg One and taking the usual advice of “just finish your rookie IBR” to heart, and I knew I wasn’t going to make even a medal finish if I was guessing incorrectly, but I didn’t want to turn in a rally performance that was embarrassing. Too many people looking to me already with too many expectations as not only the only solo woman in the rally, but a rookie being picked to be one of the lead riders? I sure hope Leg Two has more opportunities for making the bingo bonuses competitive. 🤞🏼

The storm only took ~40 minutes to pass, but it felt like hours.

Back on I-840, I picked up I-40W on the western side of Nashville and continued on towards my next bonus stop in Memphis. The storm cleared the skies and offered a brief respite from humidity, but soon enough the hammering sun and the anvil of thick, heavy air returned to it’s normal practice of squeezing sweat and patience from me. I had a couple long stops to cool down, one at a truck stop and another at a rest area, where despite the humidity making it inefficient, I soaked my base layer in a sink, thankful for even the smallest amount of relief from evaporative cooling.

As I was closing in on the Memphis metro area, I got my first little bit of rally magic; someone had set themselves up on an overpass bridge with a big sign cheering on IBR riders! They must have been following the public tracking page and realized a ton of us were heading down I-40. Sir, I don’t know who you were, but you made my day!

Memphis was Memphis; broken streets, boarded up storefronts closed so long the plywood is stained with rust from nails and screws holding them in place, trash just floating in the middle of the streets, any nearly no one about. I easily made my way to the next bonus while dodging potholes and half-decomposed cardboard boxes flattened by traffic.. but I also could’ve just followed my nose, as the one good smell I got to experience while in Memphis was coming from the kitchen at Charlie Vergo’s Rendezvous.

22) TNME - Charlie Vergo’s Rendezvous - Memphis, TN - 1,149 pts

19:58 EDT

I-40 crossed over the Mississippi River, always a moment for me, and through the fields and fertile soil of eastern Arkansas, sugar and wheat and rice and who knows what else, just intensely green, riding right into the setting sun. I managed for a while, blinking back the orange glare, and started calculating when I should take my rest break - 6 points/min for a maximum of 8 hours would net me nearly 3,000 points, and sitting at ~11,700 a full rest would likely be the most efficient use of my ample time left this leg, both in terms of points and in making sure I was ready for route planning and then riding Leg 2.. I was already close to enough points for a bare minimum “finisher” status, as our target for this leg was 12,000 points, so any other bonuses would be about climbing in position rather than staying ahead of the DNF thresher.

I stopped at a truck stop for gas and to top off my 1-gallon thermos, booked a room at a nearby hotel, and soon found myself showered, pajama’d, and by 9:30pm I was in bed for the night.

Day 2: 6,077 points -- 935 miles
Total: 11,794 points -- 1,615 miles

Onward to Day 3 ➡️

Trust your fear, trust that the machine is going to work for you, trust your training. Your name wasn’t picked out of a hat.
-- Astronaut Mike Massimino

Slept like a baby, up at 6:30 for one last Dunkies, and breakfast of fruit and eggs. Everyone is getting into the zone now, so few people were at breakfast and even fewer felt sociable - game faces are getting firmly set. I went back upstairs to fetch the bags I was leaving at the hotel, and shortly after 8am moved my bike into the #2 position, getting my final odo check and the coveted orange dot sticker on my headlight that attested to my final sign-off from tech – I was set to go.

Final odo check, and I'm officially ready to ride!

Nothing else to do for the next hour, other than get the rest of the gear out of the hotel room and stored on the bike. I had a few quiet, private conversations with other riders and IBR finishers who were only spectators this year; as much as I felt ready to go and steady, it was nice to get the check in. Thanks, you know who you are!

The 3 yahoos leading this parade.. Ken Andrews, Bob Lilley, and myself. (Photo credit: Tobie Stevens)

I took the time to get the bike squared away; I was running light on this rally, leaving most of my usual travel gear stowed in the hotel storage room. I usually run with 2 22-liter pannier, carrying all the clothes I’ll need, including street clothes, extra this and that, a nice dress in case I need to go out to dinner, swim suit for emergencies, etc.. This time, I was running one topper with 4-5 changes of underwear, 3-4 pairs of wool socks, a backup set of LD Comfort base layers, pajamas, and my dopp kit.. why pajamas? I dunno, sure, I can fall asleep in my gear, but for the best possible sleep, a quick shower and changing into pajamas does wonders for my getting as much relaxation and recharge out of shut-eye as possible. The other topper was barely packed, with only the sleeping mat I picked up at REI the week before and the really warm fleece pullover we got as part of the rally swag. There simply wouldn’t been any need for any other clothing the next 11 days.

Home

I filled up my 1-gallon hydration jug with water and ice from the station setup in the portico outside the hotel, and wandered the lot a bit, chit-chatting with Team Kiwi (Chris and Stella Wiltshire) and just checking in with everyone else I recognized. The morning was already a little muggy, so I sat inside the hotel lobby and the A/C until the final rider meeting at 9:45, held in a patch of shade cast onto the tarmac by the trees along the creek bank. Dale squawked his bullhorn, and he and the rallymasters gave us our final instructions. Short and sweet - be safe, be smart, no changes to the rally book, etc.

"Remember, you're all representatives of the Iron Butt Association..." (Photo credit: Tobie Stevens)

(Photo credit: Tobie Stevens)

9:55am, back to our bikes, a hundred and some engines firing up early and throbbing away in nervous anticipation. You might know the sound, if you’ve been at the starting line of a motorsport racing, nervous throttles spinning open throaty, eager yowls from crashing cylinders, here and there an accidental horn bleating surprise. You might know the sound, but unless you’ve sat waiting for the GO signal, you don’t know the sound inside the helmet, the heartbeats and breaths that push down the cacophony of machine, until the noise is just a vibration, the engine beneath you keeping better time than any watch, ticking away in drops of vaporized petroleum the seconds until you can, if everything goes right and you don’t dump the clutch or drop the bike like some squid, smoothly roll on the power and cleanly parade your way past the honking and flashing of the 120 other people who share this same weird compulsion to ride and ride and ride and never stop, who coughed up the 4-digit entry fee for the pleasure of being Jeff Earls’ plaything as he dangles meaningless points in front of you, goading you to the far edges of the map, all the while knowing you HAVE TO BE IN TULSA, OKLAHOMA IN 61 HOURS which is ridiculous, how is that even possible, who in their right mind oh shit, Warchild is talking to Ken Andrews in front of me, a brief hug, quiet prayer, and a slap on the shoulder, and Ken is moving confidently forward leaving on this amazing adventure and wait no, I’m not ready, Dale, stop, a quiet prayer, a slap on my shoulder, no one in front of me Ken has rounded the corner, crap I’m supposed to follow him, right right ok got this wait I’m already moving, I didn’t stall the bike, move confidently and carefully, oh man Bob Lilley is RIGHT BEHIND YOU can he pass me in the parking lot?!?

Local PD guided us through the first of 2 red lights between the hotel parking lot and the I-376 onramp.. smack into a small traffic jam as a dump truck decided it had to stop at the light instead of following the cop’s direction to clear the intersection, backing us all up. Lilley was having none of this, and crossed into the opposing lane of traffic to cut around the block, which seemed a little risky to me - I was nerves, but an extra 10 seconds wasn’t going to make a difference, as impatient as I was. I then got to slooooowly follow the dump truck up the on-ramp, a string of riders behind me.. frustrating! I saw a gap in traffic and cracked the throttle wide, crossing the rumble stripped gore and getting right into the flow of morning traffic. A few riders passed me, but we were already moving at the 10-15mph over that local drivers seemed to consider normal, so I didn’t pay any heed to anyone who wanted to race.

It only took about 5 minutes before I came to my first turn, heading south on I-79. Only one of the riders who passed me took this turn, while the rest continued east, obviously heading for the New England Loop. Was a Southeastern Sweep going to be a bad idea? Riders behind me turned as well, and I slowed down a bit and let folks overtake me and set pace. I fell in with the Rufos - Lisa and Molly, the first mother/daughter 2-up team, and Stephen, as well as someone else behind me. A nice little pack, we set a good pace for 20 minutes, eventually turning west on I-70 towards Columbus, OH. Riders would occasionally pass, sometimes we’d pass them, and it soon was clear to me that lots of people would be heading to the same first bonus location.

After crossing through the northern arm of West Virginia, through the tunnels of Wheeling, WV, we soon crossed into Ohio, and I noticed that I’d forgotten to top off the fuel last night. No worries, I had plenty of range, being only down a couple gallons, but the last cup of Dunkies this morning prompted me to pull over about 45 minutes after the start for a quick bathroom break and a splash of gas. It might have cost me a few minutes, but I knew that the first bonus I had in mind - a specific statue of a corn cob in a field FULL of statues of corn cobs - would be much simplified if I arrived a few minutes after the rest of the pack. I wouldn’t have to waste time trying to locate the right statue if I rolled up and walked over to where the clot of other riders were taking photos!

By the time I got to Columbus, OH, the grey skies that had threatened rain at the start started to release their payload, a warm, muggy drizzle, very much like a proper Seattle storm. I fell in behind Danny Dossman for the last couple miles of city highway, before hopping off and meandering through office parks to the first bonus of my 2023 Iron Butt Rally.

1) OHD - Field of Corn - Dublin, OH - 1,267 pts

12:55 EDT

One thing I started doing during Heart of Texas was to photograph my bike’s odometer and the current time at each bonus. Since we had to fill out paperwork by hand recording the mileage and time of each bonus. The photo helps document the stop when I went back later to review the sheet before I turn it in for scoring.

Honestly can't believe I didn't think to do this sooner!

With business done, I was off to my next bonus. I was, according the itinerary, 9 minutes ahead of schedule… would that hold?

I call this photo "Good Intentions"

2) O3 - Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen - Cincinnati, OH - 73 pts

14:47 EDT

3) OHCI - Kroger - Cincinnati, OH - 541 pts

15:16 EDT

4) G5 - White Castle - Cincinnati, OH - 235 pts

15:32 EDT

That 9-minute buffer I had coming out of the first bonus location? Gone.. along with 30 additional minutes. These Gut Bomb Bingo stops were going to eat my schedule if I wasn’t careful.

5) KYW - Hall’s on the River - Winchester, KY - 727 pts

17:09 EDT

GPS and Waze agreed on a weird route, backtracking first past several horse farms then down a single-lane (but paved!) twisty hill road that cut through a Christian Bible camp before dumping me on a frontage road just shy of an on-ramp. Heading south, I stopped briefly in Mount Vernon, KY for gas, getting into a great conversation with a local who opened not with “where ya from?” or “I used to have a bike” but “how big is that extra fuel tank?” A retired welder himself, he was duly impressed with Lincoln Seals work, and after a few minutes of casual chat around “what’s it like in Seattle?” I managed to get back on the road.

6) G3 - Long John Silver’s - Corbin, KY - 113 pts

18:38 EDT

I called Gabby back, and chatted until I lost signal amongst the Appalachian hills. I briefly thought about stopping at the National Historic Park to grab a stamp, but I was already really behind schedule, and they were long closed as I passed them by, cutting through the tunnel and into Harrogate, TN past Lincoln Memorial University. I gave the statue of old Honest Abe a wave as I passed, remembering this stop on Day 5 of my 2022 LDX rally as a high-point, where I recovered from a sucky Day 4. What kind of low points would I see over the next 10 days? Would a sunny afternoon and a statue of a founding father lift my spirits then?

US-25E is a fun, fast road of sweeping curves through the hills of eastern Tennessee, and I easily made up some time here before crossing Cherokee Lake, a TVA-era hydroelectric and flood-control reservoir, and turned onto the commercial strip of Morristown, TN.

7) N3 - Pal’s Sudden Service - Morristown, TN - 358 pts

8) B2 - Cook Out - 294 pts

9) G1 - Bojangle’s Famous Chicken n’ Biscuits - 237 pts

10) O5 -Taco John’s - 158 pts

11) N1 - Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers - 128 pts

20:22-20:54 EDT

As I was leaving Freddy’s, I realized I hadn’t checked in to Johanna, so I gave Coach Jo a call and we chatted for half an hour or so. Heading south, I picked up I-40 and headed west for a stretch before turning south towards Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg when I said goodnight to Jo, promising to stay in touch during the rally. It was about then that I noticed the lightning on the horizon, and I stopped to check out the weather radar.

Uh oh!

I was getting a little sleepy at this point, between the weather, the junk food stops, and the sun having set, so I pulled into the Sevierville Visitors Center and took a nap while waiting for the storm cell to pass. I’m glad I did, as the wind kicked up and hail started washing over the parking lot in writhing, pulsing sheets of icy pellets… no thanks!

I've an entire series of selfies of myself taking naps...

They had these really comfy rocking chairs set out, so I dozed right off, just a quick 25-minute disco nap, and the rain settled down to a steady but not overwhelming soaking. While waiting, I texted a few people with check-ins, and had a little glucose snack to wake up the ol’ brain. All in all, I spent about 40 minutes off the bike. I felt the keen edge of competition calling me on, and I was struggling with purposefully moving slowly instead of rushing headlong into the drenched night. Why am I doing this, if I’m not competing? Maybe running a “rookie ride” isn’t the best plan.. maybe what I need to do is get back on the bike and GO!

Recommended by my triathlete and marathon friends

Back on the road, I didn’t realize I’d be going through Pigeon Forge, right past Dollywood and all the satellite attractions, like Ripley’s Museum, an aquarium, zip lines, ATV rentals.. every kind of tourist trap business imaginable.. it being after 9pm on a Monday, all were closed, traffic was erratic, and as I wiggle through the mess to downtown Gatlinburg, the rain clicked up in intensity 3 more notches until it was a veritable deluge. I had to slow down well below the speed limit with my hazard lights on, and I was starting to second guess if it was at all a good idea to be out here at all.

12) TNGA - Pancake Pantry - Gatlinburg, TN - 586 pts

23:03 EDT

Leaving Gatlinburg, I headed east on US-321, skirting the northern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The night was rainy and dark, with on-coming traffic around blind corners making it difficult to use my aux lights to really see much, so I took it slow and cautiously until I managed to get east ahead of the rain; it was really coming down, but it wasn’t moving fast, so soon enough I found myself out from under it. I came to a T intersection, and Wave wanted me to go right, Garmin left. I usually trust Waze, but as soon as I turned onto the new road I saw ahead of me a giant sign warning of “UNMAINTAINED MOUNTAIN ROAD” and something about GPS being incorrect. The sign sure looked official, so I decided to trust Garmin, and almost immediately after turning around and going the other direction, Waze picked up the new route.. I guess it just really wanted to save my 50 feet of travel or something.

I soon turned onto the Foothills Parkway, a beautiful little road that I would love to try sometime in daylight! It ended after about 8 miles at an interchange with I-40, a road I know all too well. I was feeling a bit sleepy at this point, so as I crossed into North Carolina I stopped at the rest area/welcome center to put my soaked jacket under the hand dryer while I checked the map for a cheap motel up ahead to get a couple hours of sleep. Everything for 40 miles was booked up, and feeling pretty beat I opted instead for another power nap. A convenient picnic table under cover, a bit away from the bathrooms and on the opposite side of the rest area from the big idling trucks looked appealing, so I racked out around 12:15am, which seems like a good place to end this day’s report.

Day 1: 4,717 points -- 680 miles

Onward to Day 2 ➡️