An American Odyssey: Road to Sturgis, Part III: From Sin City to Mormon Israel: Nevada to Utah

Utterly disoriented by time and place, we roused ourselves to attention a little before noon in a town we had never visited before and would never visit again.

Do You Find This Map Disorienting?  That's how I felt riding new roads in unfamiliar lands. . .

Preparing for the day’s ride isn’t unlike preparing for a day skiing in the snow.  Namely, you’ve got gear up before your mission.  Denim jeans are essential for protection despite the heat.  Sturdy, steel-toe riding boots with thick tread allow you to maneuver your 700 pound iron horse, and to kick into high gear without bruising your big toe.  Layered cotton shirts provide basic protection, and leather vests and jackets give you real protection.  A handkerchief slipped around your neck allows you to cover your mouth and nose so you don’t ingest bugs, or to tie your hair back when you’re drenched in sweat.  A generous application of SPF 50, especially on your neck and schnoz, keeps the sun at bay for a few hours.

Once you’re geared up, you strap your luggage on to the back of your seat, stuff your saddle bags, pack water and a snack somewhere within easy reach, set up your playlist on your IPOD (essential for endless motorcycle trips), fill your tank with 91 unleaded, and launch.

Today’s ride was hot, flat, clear, and blue-sky beautiful.  We raced northeast on the 15 on a plateau ringed by Lake Mead to the south, the Valley of Fire to the southeast, and the Great Basin highway to the north.  Humans here have settled in river valleys and oases, magnetically drawing their lives to water like moths to flame.  I could see ridges, valleys, canyons, and foothills at every horizon, but my road ran straight and true.

We crossed from Nevada into Arizona at Mesquite, and soon I could feel the supernatural presence of the mighty Grand Canyon.  As we glanced from our motorcycles to the southeast, we saw terraced, eroded, heaving canyons displaying the blood, veins, and skeletal structure of the earth beneath us.  My wish was to turn off the 15 and vanish into the Canyon I once explored as a boy, but there isn’t enough time in this life to run every road.  

We hid from the heat at a mom and pop country kitchen, and as I enjoyed my hearty meat and potatoes afternoon lunch, I perused the local newspaper, full of news about country fairs, weddings, and the passing of people whose biographies sound like nineteenth century fairy tales to my 21st century coastal sensibilities.  (Married his high school sweetheart, survived by ten children, and said if he won a million dollars he’d still farm every day of his life).

Bolstered by lunch and sugary, caffeinated drinks, dad and I set out on the mountain pass section of the 15 called the Veteran’s Memorial Highway.  We bobbed and weaved our way through glorious, dry, mountainous, empty country.

A few hours after entering, we left the northwest corner of Arizona for Utah.  There was no town, landmark, or any real evidence of change, except I knew we had entered the Mormon Promised Land.  Within an hour we had entered fertile, irrigated, settled highlands, and the bustling regional large town of St. George.  We banked into the Best Western around 6:30 after six hours of riding.  

My dad’s bachelor buddy Steve Crouch was anxiously awaiting our arrival.  “You guys get lost on the way?” he croaked from the cool shade of his hotel room.  Steve had earned the nickname “Uncle Buck” years ago, for his propensity to be the freewheeling bachelor of comic relief at myriad of my family gatherings, and  for often being only a few steps away from mischief of some kind.  Uncle Buck had plastered a cardboard sign onto the back of his Harley, with the scribbled NASA-inspired message, “Sturgis or Bust.”  We weren’t exactly cosmonauts, but we still had a long way to go to complete our mission and success was by no means guaranteed.

We cruised the evening streets of this gorgeous, clean, picketed, white-washed, well-kept, Mormon American town as the endless desert summer sunset painted the sky saffron.  Steve was looking for a bar, and he was repeatedly shocked at how hard it was to find one in Mormon Utah, and shocked again at the most stringent alcohol rules in the country that limit the alcohol content in beer to 3.2%.  Uncle Buck made a friend of everyone in the bar by complimenting Mormon Governor Mitt Romney, and he dealt with the alcohol limitations by doing the obvious: consuming more.

Dinner was country-kitchen style, and I couldn’t resist ordering deep-fried chicken steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.  It may have been Friday night, but this town was asleep by sundown, as were my dad and I after dinner.  The next day held new adventures for us as we prepared to blast through majestic natural beauty and the Norman Rockwell orderliness of the Mormon Promised Land: Utah.