Nowhere to Be

It felt so good to feel the wind on my skin again and I'm sure Chance's engine was happy to return home to 5th gear. That had been the longest I had stayed in one place and like a limo driver I had met on my way out who dreamed of just driving his tethered vehicle out of town said, a week's all you need in the City of Sin to have your fill. As tempting what that oasis had to offer was, it was truly good to be back on the road once more.

East was all I knew but with the majority of the day burned, Flagstaff was the only likely destination I would make before the sun set. I could never tell myself "no detours," however, I'd inexplicably always find myself meandering. This time, we stumbled upon the great Hoover Dam - kind of a hard one to miss, admittedly.

Now there's a gig that you could proudly have participated in. Where was our Great Recession civil engineering calling?

Admiring this marvel was short lived as clocks on every tower reminded me that I had some miles to put behind me before the sun did. In my rush, however, I didn't realize that my fuel was low. I hadn't filled up once in the city but spending a week in traffic meant I burned more than my trip meter lead me to believe. I realized this about thirty miles from the last service station and the terrain in both directions was nothing but desert. I pulled over at a scenic turnout to contemplate my options.

We could turn back and ride hard until the motorcycle gasses out, getting as close as I can back to the station and minimize how much pushing I'd have to do since the chances were we were long past the point of no return... Or ride forward and hope that within the next 10 miles we'd somehow come across a fuel pump. Partly stubborn about backtracking, I risked riding on with the likelyhood of stranding myself with no means of communication to boot.

By golly, it was just my luck. Not more than half a football field away from the turnout was a sign indicating a slew of services, gas included, to be seen in just a mile! The sweat I wiped from my visor was not due to the heat but, dare I say, a bit or anxiety? The celebration lasted only a mile as I saw nothing but more desert and a small windy road into the horizon. So the sign should have read 1 Mile to the Road that Leads to Services. Great, now I didn't know now long I'd have to be on this back road before we could fuel up. Getting stuck here would be worse but alas, forward was always a good direction to me. Chance discouraged any of my bad riding habits that normally demand more fuel than necessary as we winded down that canyon path. Just around the bend at mile six, the canyon walls opened up to a glittering body of water, signs of human life, probably the lonliest mini mart in the US of A, and, lo and behold, one solitary gas pump!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Jesus, Allah, Buddah, I had never felt better about paying $4.70 something a gallon for gasoline! While feeding my starved tank I noticed the water before me was the very same I saw in the distance while weighing my options. I was staring at my savior that entire time.

Traversing the water's edge I noticed an old man with a telescope and recalled that another once in a life-time celestial event was occurring this very day. He would approach me later with a tip of the hat to Chance to tell me about his old Bonnie that took him around the southwest. Who would have thought that a British bike embraced the American dream better than even most homegrown machines? The stargazer mentioned the transit had just begun and if I planned to catch it, I best check it out before sunset. Flagstaff had pretty well-known observatory that surely had a public event so we must race the sun! Andele!

 

The winding road I had traveled early with such apprehension was now enjoyed. The hours of riding before me back on the highway were largely uneventful. Just lots of semi trucks, high winds, and for some reason, I seemed to be the only one willing to do the speed limit.

Unfortunately, I did not reach Flagstaff in time, even at a modest five miles above the limit at times. Instead, I pulled into a gas station just outside the city, whipped out my solar glasses which I had forgotten to return to the Banks family (expect it in the mail someday), and looked to the horizon. Somehow I expected to see a microscopic dot in the middle of the sun which, from where I stood, was the size of a dime. Oh well!

Finishing up the race at a leisure pace, I found cheap accommodations that night on a road that put a smile on my face: the historic Route 66.

If it didn't have that Americana charm attached to it, I would've found the constant trains plowing past across the street in the middle of the night to be unbearable. Funny how much power association can hold with an impressionable guy like myself.

Laundry, a cheap Chinese buffet and even a haircut later, I hitched up eastward again but with the intention of coming right back in the evening. There was a meteor crater that held my fascination since my parents subscribed me to science encyclopedias for children and it just happened to be on my way!

There she blows! Or blew, rather. I wasn't thrilled about having to pay to behold a natural wonder but the ticketer expressed admiration for my sojourning ways, even going so far as to confide in me her desire to do the very same before an affliction would claim her.

It was strange standing before something I had gazed at countlessly in pictures. The view was so familiar that it could be mistaken for just another two dimensional image below me. At first, I thought it was smaller than I had imagined but there were many points of reference within the crater itself that gave a better idea of its immense scale through one of the many telescopes at the rim. One was the debris to a Cessna 150 - a small aircraft, even smaller than the 152 I humored training in for a while. It crashed in the 60s and for some reason the twisted parts were never recovered but they serve well to anyone who knows planes at how huge this mile in diameter, 600-foot hole really was.

One more thing off the childhood dream list checked off, although my juvenile mind back then imagined parachuting into the base but I can live with the rim.

I woke up early again the next day thanks to the trains. Thinking I could take advantage of the extra daylight to push onto a new place, I whipped out the map and started plotting. However, during that process, as is the nature of the Internet, aka the rabbit hole, I discovered a cave that yearned for my exploration just 15 miles from here. What the hell, I thought - its not like I had any responsibility to be anywhere right now! When will I be able to say that again?

The route to this special cave was a gauntlet of rocky roads. Definitely gnarlier than any of the dirt roads I had tackled before but thanks to tailing Gulls for a weekend of learning to off-road on the fly, Chance and I charged forward, bravadic of my budding skills.

Before long, the trailhead was reached. As I geared up, flies we're all over Chance as if he were a real life horse. I wasn't overly concerned but I did raise a brow wondering why I had nothing to offer those annoying insects. Good luck with that, I jokingly said while walking away.

Ohoh, I guffawed in staring down the pit that, indeed, was the entrance to a mile long cave. It's the longest of its kind in all of the Canyon State, discovered by lumberers at the turn of the century and formed over half a million years ago when lava flowed out while the walls cooled, leaving the hollow tunnel. The description sounded awesome but then you stand over it and realize, damn, that's a real cave; no light, tons of rock overhead, no tour guide, chilling cold, and always the possibility of childhood monsters lurking at every corner.

I have this grunt of a nervous chuckle I do right when I start to appreciate the gravity of an undertaking or stunt I'm seconds from plunging into. This guffaw was already echoing into the darkness.

 

Unfortunately none of the footage came out the way I had hoped. Thankfully I managed to keep talking to myself out of comfort but to my audience's benefit, something to listen to while staring at the darkness that wasn't far off from what I was experiencing. The flashlight I brought was incredibly weak and my backup was a lighter. It was only good for looking a couple feet in front of me and to occasionally note where the ceiling was. Eventually, just listening to how muffled or echoey the shifting rocks under my feet would tell me if the passage was shrinking or expanding like a rudimentary sonar.

The cave was cold. Towards the beginning of the cave was supposedly the coldest point hovering around freezing point. Seeing my breath dissipate into the faint ray of light emitting from my sorry-excuse for a flashlight was creepy in the very least. I had seen too many spelunking/caving horror movies recently to find the slightest comfort in that overwhelming darkness. No matter how much I fought my imagination, all you had before you was black and the mind enjoys using that as a canvas to reflect your darkest fears. Yet I trudged on.

Company, though rare, was always a momentary sigh of relief. The tension of navigating the cave by one's self makes you gravitate to other lights like a moth. The first trio I ran into didn't seem all that thrilled. Though I could not see their faces, I felt that they were just eagerly focused on getting out. Made me wonder just how many people make it to the end or turn around before the natural house of horrors got to them.

I'll confess, about thirty minutes in I humored the idea of turning around before my mind could eat itself. Between the random sounds of dripping water, my heavy breathing, the clanging of rocks, and worst of all, at most other times the purely dead silence was maddening. The shadows casted by my light challenged every step forward. A daunting fork in the road would pull at my wit's end. The ocassional patch of ice would shake my balance but sweep away my peace of mind. But then, at about the halfway point, I ran into these two.

Their humor and commendation to my choice of caving attire perked up my spirits. From what I could tell, they themselves, were decked out in serious gear - headlamps and all. As discouraging the sight should have been, their words in passing did the opposite and I hiked, climbed and crawled on.

 

Over an hour would slowly tick away before I reached a point where the tunnel simply came to an end. It came as a surprise but without a watch or the sun, I really had no idea how long it had been. This was the warmest point in the cave at 40 degrees Fahrenheit but it wasn't all that cozy to be idle in. It was the deepest point, after all but at least now I could cling to the knowledge that the hair-raising adventure was halfway over.

You'd think the trek back would be a little more brisk and less anxious but it was still the very same cave and I was still very much alone. I did manage to zone out and naturally embrace the dark to let my body go into auto pilot at times.

After two hours in what purgatory must be like, the light of day came into view, I was greeted by a family to whom I was more than grateful to entertain a conversation with between catching my breath!

Once again above ground looking down into the pit, another laugh erupted from me, this time with a tone of disbelief in surviving that horror on my own. I grinned, walking back to Chance knowing deep down I loved every minute of it and had to bring fellow adventurers back with me someday soon.

 

The last coupe of days had been my kind of past times on my own terms. The feeling of not having to be anywhere for anything or anyone but myself was liberating and definitely good for the soul. Where will I be tomorrow? I'll simply be wherever I am.