Headed North - The Lemonade Tour

[oomis]

Only two pictures today





Tom and I met in first year of university. He was literally the first person I met, on the evening of my first day, on my way to the frosh mixer.

Like a lot of others, I was anxious to leave high school behind. High school was mostly fine for me, but I didn't really fit in with any social group. I played rugby and football, neither very well, so I knew the jocks. I was smart-ish, and in an academic French stream, so I knew the brains - though I never got their grades. I had made friends with a group of folks who liked to party, but I wasn't really ever cool or popular enough to be a part of their inner circle. I had a girlfriend at the tail end of school, but overall wasn't great with the girls.

And so my first day of school I made a promise to myself not to try and fit in any more. I wasn't going to invest so much effort into being like other people, because it hadn't gotten me very far to date. I figured that at university people would be more accepting, and that if I was just myself, I'd find my way. :norton

Outside of residence, on my way to the mixer, is Tom with a group of other people. Screwing up all my introverted courage, I introduced myself, and joined up.

That first year, Tom and I became fast friends. We didn't have a heck of a lot in common, but we had a lot of laughs. Tom was a popular guy, and I always considered myself lucky to be in a simpatico orbit. He threw killer parties, and attracted a great energy.

Long story short, in second year we drifted apart a bit, and I lost track of him when I graduated. As happens, Facebook reconnected us a couple of years ago, and our lives couldn't have turned out more different.

So on this trip, when I got the idea that I might be within 1000 kms of where he was in Edmonton, I figured "what the hell" and I sent him a message. The response I got back was polite, not overly exuberant, and so I started second guessing.

Would this just be weird?

He recommended a youth hostel which was local to his neighbourhood, the Hostels International Edmonton. My second hostel of the trip was pretty cheap at $33 for the night.

I shared a room with a 17 year old kid from the UK named Kyle. We got to chatting after a bit, and he had just decided to take a week and come see Edmonton. Apparently there was a cheap flight from London, and so there he was. I admired his approach - at 17 it would never have occurred to me to get on a plane by myself and travel so far just for the heck of it.

Tom and I were to have dinner at a place a couple of blocks away, and as I sat down at the booth with him I could tell this was going to be a good night.

The staff treated him like royalty. This guy was like Norm in Cheers - servers sat down to say hey and catch up, he was great friends with the manager... and as he was introducing me to all these people, these friends of his, it was clear that he remembered me the same way I remembered him.

And so the beers flowed. And so did the shots. And the stories.



Tom's a professional DJ, and a bit of a dinosaur for his industry in his 40's.

We hit a couple of bars, where he got the same VIP treatment, and the conversation just went all over the place.

We ended up climbing (staggering?) up a staircase to the rooftop of his apartment building. To be honest, I'm not sure how I didn't fall to my death on the way up, and then again on the way down.

It was just ... good. We all have these moments in time that we freeze and keep with us, and for the most part it's not a good idea to re-live these tidbits. They inevitably end up disappointing us.

This was not that - it was 2 old friends, picking up exactly where we left off. And in all the amazingness that is this trip, reconnecting so completely with an old friend was possibly the best part.

I've talked before about how tiring this trip was, how it seemed to be mileage day after day, but Edmonton totally recharged me. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was so in the moment that it didn't occur to me to take more pictures.

I was so hammered by the end of the night that the pictures would have been crap anyway.

 

[oomis]

So after getting my hung over self up, I was faced with a dilemma. What to do now? With Edmonton behind me, I'm at the point in the trip now where I'm firmly headed home...

The beginning of a trip, even short ones, is full of anticipation and excitement because you're going somewhere - headed to a destination. Once the return trip starts, however, that shine comes off a bit.

I'm on a bucket list trip. I don't have a date that I need to be home by. To be honest, I don't want to be heading back yet. I'm not done with my diversion. I'm not ready to head back to real life. I don't want to start looking for a job. I don't want to face my limitations as a provider to those that count on me. While my previous employer is still sending me paycheque (thank you severance package) I know that there's some soul searching waiting for me at home.

So...looking at google maps over breakfast - hey, Moab UT is only 2000 kms away. I love that town - love love. With that decided, I'm rejuvenated.

As I'm writing this, months later, I'm again cursing what a poor job I did of documenting the back half of this trip. Enough time has gone by that I've forgotten some of the details - a trip like this blends together at times. Again, I'll not make this mistake again. Film is cheap, and writing always makes me feel accomplished at the end of the day. If I'm so tired that I can't write, so focussed on what's ahead that I can't take the time to button up the details, I think that's a sure sign that I need to slow down.

What I do know, is my bike needs a bath.



I'm not really a "wash my bike every Saturday" kinda guy. In fact, I'm not at all kidding when I say that if it needs washing, I'll go for a ride in the rain.

Don't get me wrong - I spend hours staring at my bike. Looking over the nuts and bolts, sometimes not looking for anything in particular, but there's been plenty of times that I've found something that requires attention - sometimes urgently. My favourite place to do the end of day ritual is in a parking lot of a crappy motel, from a white plastic chair, with a cheap cigar in my hand and a can of gas station beer in my hand. This right here is a happy place for me.

But this is ridiculous, even for me. I have so much protein coating my bike that if the zombie apocalypse came today, I'd be able to lick my bike for weeks and keep nourished.





At lunchtime I spot a car wash bay. It's on!



Truth be told, it wasn't a spotless cleaning, but I removed so many bug guts that I'm certain I improved my power to weight ratio.

My end for the night was in Lethbridge, again forced to make that compromise where I could probably keep going for a bit, but I'm not sure that I'll find a place to crash. I'm done with camping at this point, and the map suggests that the next town that's likely to have a couple of cheap motels lies far enough away that I'll be riding at least at dusk.

When I'm riding solo, I don't like to ride at dusk. Too many animals, and I'm getting tired after a long day...

So Lethbridge it is. A hotel has a bar connected to it and free wifi, so I'm sold. There's some chatting with some francophones about the bike, in the parking lot, and dinner is a terrible burger at what turns out to be more of a seedy greasy lounge next door. Ultimately, probably poor choices all around.

 

[oomis]

I have Moab on my mind.

I'm finding myself a bit relieved to cross the border back into the US. Compared to Canada, I like riding in the US better. In my experience, motels and gas are cheaper, beer is easy to find at a gas station, speed limits are higher and the police don't have a "ticket first" policy. I can't remember the last time I talked my way out of a ticket in Canada. In the US, I've always been able to have a conversation first and sometimes I'll get a lecture and a warning instead of a "performance award".



My weather continues to be spectacular, and I'm back in foothills country. No huge mountains and valleys, no raging mountain rivers, no blankets of pine trees so dense it's as if I'm looking at a giant's beard. More open space, wide horizons and blue skies.







The evening brings me to Dillon, MT, and as I cruise the motel district my eye is drawn to the Sundowner Motel. Family owned, walking distance to food and drink. They put me in a room in the back, and I'm off to find dinner, which consists of a taco bus





Seriously good, and they're open for breakfast the next day.

 

[oomis]

Moab. MoabMoabMoabMoab.

I have been there twice before, and it's in my top 3 (in no order, Dawson City, Moab UT, Key West FL). The first time was in 2009, on a trip out to Colorado. I didn't know anything about Utah, and so I was just passing through after riding Pike's Peak, Mount Evans and all of the other amazing stuff in Colorado.



On that trip, I was riding a Yamaha FZ1, when I was going through a bit of a sportbike thing. I thought that the Fizzer would be a great all arounder that could scratch all of my itches, and I think it would have, if I was 4-6 inches shorter. I learned two things very quickly on that trip.

1. Horsepower costs money. The mileage on that bike was not great, though after I had modded the heck out of it (airbox, PC, ignition timing, sprockets, fuel cut eliminator, custom secondary butterflies and a bitchin' windscreen) I shouldn't have been surprised. I was getting 120-150 km/tank, which, as it turns out, is not ideal for touring as I discovered coasting on fumes into a gas station in Utah off I70 past Grand Junction that actually sold t-shirts that said "I ran out of gas in (wherever the heck it was)".

2. Hips are a thing that can hurt. Like, really a lot. After 45 mins to an hour, especially after a couple of days, I started cramping up in places that don't get touched on a massage table. It was genuine agony, but I'm stubborn.



Anyway, this is not that trip.

The second trip through was on a much more comfortable DL1000 in 2011. That trip had it's own stories, including dodging an epic performance award, a mysterious cooling problem that ultimately turned out to be a bad rad cap and this, courtesy of my riding partner:



The good advice I can give is don't ride a bike (Bandit 650) that was never sold in the US in the US. It makes finding parts, like oh I don't know, a brake lever that broke off at a zero kph tipover, really freakin' hard because
a) everybody thinks you actually mean a Bandit 600, which WAS sold in the US and
b) nobody can find a parts fiche for parts numbers for lookups to cross-reference common parts

She rode US 550, the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado, with a jury-rigged set of vice grips for a front brake lever. Credit where it's due...

Back to Utah. The plan was for me to take a couple of days, relax a bit and prep myself for the long blast home. It was going to be long, straight, fast and hot. Or in other words, in the context of my trip so far, absolutely terrible.

I had my sights set on renting a jeep and doing some off-roading. Also sitting by a pool and doing my part to rid the world of beer, one bottle at a time.

 

[oomis]

My home for the next few days was the Rustic Inn. I was considering camping, but honestly Moab is so hot that the last time I tried that it was really uncomfortable. Also, a pool seemed like a great idea.

The Rustic Inn was great. Central to Moab, walking distance to just about anything, a quiet pool, and a reasonable price. The next time I end up in that part of the world, I'll be aiming for them.

I regret not taking more pictures. I say that every time, with every trip. As I'm in the moment, I can't see anything that's worth taking a picture of, and so I don't, but why? Film is cheap!



I got a massage, and while I was waiting I saw this:



It made me feel very, very old.

Stupid kids, with their ride by wire, fuel injection and electronic suspension. What's wrong with the old ways?

Moab is just so beautiful. The setting and rising sun just light up everything in this surreal red glow that makes everything pulse. I'm not sure there's any other place quite like it.

 

[oomis]

But what I really came to Moab for was Jeeping. While I gave some brief thought to taking the GS off-road, a couple of things stopped me. Namely lack of tires (which maybe I could have solved for) but mostly lack of talent. And after my experience with the remoteness of the Dempster, and my experience getting lost hiking at night under what was supposed to be a full freaking moon before the storm rolled in at Arches National Park the last time I was here (oh, that was a frickin' doozy) I knew that this was not the sort of place one rides solo.

At the time, I had a Jeep at home. Nothing terribly special, a 2012 JKU Sahara with the 3.6 in manual, 36" Duratracs and a very mild 2" budget lift. I knew that Moab was Jeeping Mecca, and I wanted me some of that.



Are you ready to see the amazing machine I rented?



Insert a "mwah mwah" sound. It was not anything to get excited about. It was a base Sport trim with a 2.5" lift and that was about it.

The first thing was the White Rim Trail. I was concerned about doing the whole thing in one day. Lots of online advice suggested 2 days, and some even 3, but they were clearly out of the minds. One day it is, then. Hammer down.



Honestly, I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

























Yes, those switchbacks cut into the side of the canyon really are the roads. No, there isn't enough space for two vehicles to pass in most places, so it's the responsibility of the vehicle going UPHILL to reverse back downhill and find a spot where the vehicle doing DOWNHILL to pass safely. No, there aren't any guardrails. Or warning signs. Nor should there be - common sense rules here, as it did on the Dempster. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see how dangerous it can be in spots. Tread at your own risk.

This was the second time I had done the White Rim, and I felt very, very rushed. I was always looking at the time, conscious of not wanting any part of this nonsense at night, and not really sure what was ahead of me I pushed as quickly as I could. In the end, were I to rent another Jeep, I wouldn't do the White Rim unless I was going to do it more slowly. There are places to camp, and I think I'd want to take the opportunity to pause and soak it all in overnight.

I also wouldn't take a bike as bit as the GS though a trail like that. In at least one spot, there were uphill ledges that I think would have stopped the GS in its' tracks.

 

[oomis]

The next day I had Fins and Things trail on my mind. Near the start of the trail, I met up with two other rigs - one was a rental and the other was a 4.0 Cherokee who clearly knew what he was doing.

What I learned while I was wheeling was how amazingly capable a Jeep Wrangler actually is. As fun as the White Rim was yesterday, there were only a very few technical sections, insane switchbacks notwithstanding. The Sand Flats park, where FnT was, was an amazing collection of technical trails, and FnT is an array of hills, humps and ridges.

The rental performed amazingly. Really and truly, the Wrangler is basically unstoppable, even in mostly stock trim. There were incredible arrival and departure angles that the Jeep just swallowed up, and hills that are so steep I thought I was on a rollercoaster. But with enough gas, in 4x4 low, the Jeep really just ate it all and asked for more.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rMGiDYMUjxY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dffo7vQGR7s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xTVg6NGCKB0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E2YQ0YlVtrg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You get the idea.

Then there was this:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JM9W6ExcWsY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Not exactly my finest moment. Rule of thumb is to walk every obstacle so you're familiar with it, and have a plan of attack. For some stupid reason, I didn't walk this one, and as you can see, I did not follow the line. My only saving grace here was that I was able to ride it out. I didn't panic and over-brake; if I had, I think it would have gotten away from me in a bad way. All's well that ends well, though...

 

[oomis]

One last day in Moab.



And then time to contemplate the trip home. I always get a bit squirrelly when the ride definitively points towards home. Even though I have a couple of days left to go on the road, the best part is behind me and I'm done.

What am I going home to? To no job, to the prospect of facing what has felt like a professional failure, to the unpleasant and humbling task of finding the next thing, so that I can take care of those that rely on me. The settlement was generous, but the money isn't going to last forever and finding the next thing doesn't happen overnight. It takes time.

Sigh. I took almost no pictures after this point. No journal entries.

I remember swinging my leg over my bike in the parking lot of the hotel and realizing...



Seriously? It feels like every long trip I've done I've ended up with tire trouble. I can't get away from it. This, people, is why I travel with a patch kit and an air compressor. Because I can't count the number of times I've had to use it. For realz.

Tire trouble



Tire trouble



Tire trouble



Tire trouble



I could go on.

This is what I pulled out of the rear.



Whatever. I plugged it with the efficiency of a man who's been down this road before, and it held all the way home.



The trip was a blur. Interstate the whole way home, with one last stop to visit an inmate, Mike.



I met Mike on the first trip out west, randomly through the advrider Tent Space thread. He's been kind enough to put me up every time, and every time I swing by his house we end up in some kind of nonsense. Like this:



Yup. I walked into his kitchen in 2009 to find him in an argument with his buddy, who had blown up his hand welding an unvented propane tank. No health care, and they had both been EMTs in a previous life, so...

...last I heard, the buddy had regained most of the use of his hand.

This time was pretty low key. Some beers and catching up in the way common souls do. I don't know Mike really well, and have only really spent a couple of hours in his company, years apart. But every time we see each other, we fall into things easily.

The next time I see him may not be for years, but he's always welcome in my home as he's made me feel welcome in his. I think that's one of the things about motorcycles.

But after Mike, it's a straight shot home...the party has to end at some point, and while by this point I had desperately been missing my loved ones, and was missing people in general, this whole trip had been a deliberate distraction. Designed so that I didn't wallow, didn't crash, and so that I could have a clearer head when I had to get into the grind of job hunting.

 

[Triple]

I'm going through something very similar at work, and I suspect I'll be packing up fairly shortly. Sometimes "the ground shifts" beneath your feet and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Glad to hear you're making the most of the situation.

 

[oomis]

I realized that I put an epilogue into my thread on advrider, but didn't add it into this GTAM thread. So here's a copy and paste. The original was posted in October of 2016:

Epilogue

It's been a long time coming, but this story deserves her epilogue - if not for anyone who followed the story, then for me - for my records.

The opportunity to take 4 weeks and go on this trip was an amazing one, afforded me by a generous settlement package from a job that didn't work out and family that knew how important a break would be to my sanity. But coming home, I was really zeroed in on finding a new job, in my field, and sort of just soldiering on. I'm a well-educated guy who made a very comfortable living as a middle and upper management drone in the financial services industry, and so the natural thing to do was to find a way to re-insert myself into the workforce and just ... keep going.

And I did - sort of. After the usual job-search nonsense, I landed a role with a large financial services company, focussed on credit cards (which is one of my wheelhouses) but in a department in which I had little experience. All's good, they said. We want your fresh eyes, they said. The other skills you bring to the table are so valuable, they said. They said a lot of things.

And at first, it was kind of exciting. I vowed to divest myself of as much cynicism as I could, and to approach this new opportunity with a fresh perspective and optimism. If this role wasn't perfect, well, the company sure seemed amazing, and with a bit of time I was betting that I'd find my way into a better role. In November of 2014 I started.

Things took a turn fairly quickly though, and I soon came to realize the value of the cynicism I had cast off - with my heart open I really wanted this role to succeed, and when things started go turn, I started taking them really personally. I wasn't happy, I couldn't seem to make my bosses happy, and things seemed to be in a downward spiral. On top of everything, after 15 years of solid employment, it seemed like I was about to burn through a second job that didn't last a year. I did more soul-searching, had all the right conversations with my management, and when my director came back from vacation in September of 2015, I told her that I felt that things weren't working out and wanted to discuss an exit package.

She walked me out the door 2 days later, with another settlement.

Here's the thing - I had spent the last 20 years in pursuit of something I never wanted. I'm not a corporate guy, I have never been a corporate guy, but here I was, selling my soul to corporations that don't care in order to pay my mortgage. While I had bills to pay and a family to support, I needed to make a big life change somehow. Or else. I got back into the job market half-heartedly, and it became really clear that it was going to be harder than ever - perhaps impossible - to every be happy or successful in my old line of work.

I'm blessed with friends and family that are ridiculously supportive. My soul-searching led me to a very interesting place - when I asked myself the question "when, in my personal and professional life, have I been the happiest?" my answer was "when I can teach". Huh.

I had been a martial arts teacher for years - loved it. Built professional education in various capacities at work - loved it. Managed and mentored employees - super loved it. But does that even make sense - how does an MBA type make a transition into teaching? Maybe corporate education?

Then it hit me - high school teacher. Stay with me here...

Firstly, for the 'Murricans, I know that high school teachers down there don't get a whole lot of love and respect, but here in Ontario, it's a bit different. It's not a high-paying job, relative to what I was doing, but with my MBA and my psych degree, I actually have two teachables - General Business and Social Studies - and can therefore teach grades 11 and 12.

But there was the problem of my teaching certification - up here it's 2 years to get a Bachelor of Education (degree #3 for me). Here's where my amazing family comes in - everyone that I talked to agreed that this really was the right choice for me - that I'd make an amazing teacher, and that I'd be happy doing it. I've always loved school, and I've always loved kids - it's been forever since I attended high school, but I remember it well. My wife does well, and with some belt-tightening, we decided that we can make it happen. And so that's where I am right now - about 8 weeks into my Bachelor of Education, aiming to teach senior high school.

It's a 180 from my life before, and it's a huge weight off my shoulders. I've said to folks that in the corporate world, people want to do well. But that isn't good enough for me any more - I need to do good. This is an amazing opportunity to do just that, and I couldn't be more grateful.

This ride up the Dempster was the start of a monumental change for me, a ride that's not over just yet. Thanks very much for being with me.

 

[MacDoc]

Thanks .....big change ...
I got out of corporate when my normally well behaved sheep dog peed on the leg of the P&G handler I was attached to.

 

[timtune]

A head net? Would you recommend anything else? And is there anything I should be looking for when I buy it? Any material differences between good stuff and cheap stuff?

I don't think so. Mines a cheapie and it works fine.

 

[MacDoc]

Yeah very good idea ...including if you go to Chisabi. I could have had a meal off the bugs on my windscreen.

 

[kurtrules]

Digging up an old thread... Wow! You should consider shifting from teaching to writing as a profession

Being reading it since yesterday..

Brilliant trip, enormously inspiring, because behind all that wit and humour is a resilient journey. Thank you for this.. and the hurricane tunnel on the Demspter - duly noted!

 

[oomis]

Digging up an old thread... Wow! You should consider shifting from teaching to writing as a profession

Being reading it since yesterday..

Brilliant trip, enormously inspiring, because behind all that wit and humour is a resilient journey. Thank you for this.. and the hurricane tunnel on the Demspter - duly noted!

Super glad you liked it! Thanks for the kudos, man. It's really nice to hear that someone is enjoying this after all this time.

 

[voyageur]

Landed here while looking for a ride report on Yukon. Read somewhere that a couple of folks had previously toured NWT and Yukon. I enjoy reading these ride reports.

This one is a cracker. All power to you, what an amazing trip and well documented! Really enjoyed reading it. Cheers buddy!

Edit: and I hope Chris is still around and doing well

 

[oomis]

Chris has evolved... the kids found me a knit stuffy of a garden gnome. It makes for easier transport cause I can just stuff him into the topcase