End of the Road

Chicago traffic is terrible. Miserable. There is no way to avoid the gridlock. I assumed that heading into the city at around 6:15pm I’d meet backed up traffic coming towards me but I’d be ok enough going downtown away from the rush. Yeah, I was wrong. Lake Michigan makes a natural barrier forcing way too much traffic into Chicago. So I became that guy who weaves in and out of parked and slow moving traffic on his motorcycle. This is perfectly acceptable in most of the places in the world where I’d ridden before. In the US, however, motorists I passed were no doubt cursing me and secretly hoping that I’d get pulled over by a cop or maybe even that I’d get in an accident and become maimed in order to learn my lesson that the lines dividing the road into lanes are there for a reason. After an hour of stopping and going, bobbing and weaving I was slowly working my way through the traffic when the prayers of others were answered and the temperature light turned on as my motorcycle began to overheat when passing one of the toll booths. Argh! I pulled over to the side of the road in humiliation as cars slowly rolled past which I had just been recklessly (in their view, not my own) weaving through coming inches from their vehicles. Yes, several of them I could see laughing at me. Since I didn’t really know where I was going, I took this small chance to call Fletcher and find out if there was any advice he had on how to avoid the congestion and see just how much farther he thought I still had to go in this mess. Of course there are no roads without traffic in Chicago at this time of day, so after a couple minutes to stretch and let the engine cool down, I continued on my way.

I hate traffic!!!

It wasn’t too much longer till the traffic eased a little and I reached the exit. It was a great relief to be off the highway although trying to see the building numbers and road names while not hitting any pedestrians or cars on the narrow streets around UIC proved a different challenge. I only went past the building where Fletcher and Rachel live once before realizing it, and around 8pm I finally had a chance to allow my body to adjust to a more comfortable position than it had experienced most of the day.

It had been over a year since Fletcher and I had last met in Sudan and two years since our epic R&R on Zanzibar. We reconnected over a couple fine cigars on his back porch where they have a beautiful little garden to relax and soak in life. We really pondered existence that evening, and shared the joys and frustrations of the life we’d left in Sudan, Church, faith, and other deep things that make for good conversation while appreciating a nice cigar. While Fletcher had to be at work early the next morning, I had a chance to catch up with Rachel (they had just gotten married a few weeks before my visit). After a nice relaxing morning and a nice late breakfast, I headed east to the section of the journey which I’ve travelled far too many times already.

I started out in the late morning and avoided the worst of the traffic, though the construction just outside the city center was not so fun. My second home is in Northeast Indiana. Roughly 150 miles from Chicago, I always enjoy my visits to Bear Lake Camp and seeing all my friends/my second family there. It would have been easy to stay longer, but I did have an interview I was trying to get back east for, so I only stayed one night, attended Brad’s birthday party, and headed to Ft Wayne for the last night of the expedition. Chad, Ethan and Zeeb had plenty to say about my crazy trip and were pretty surprised I’d actually made it so far without having killed myself. Of course, if I had another month to start on another similar journey right then, I think in 5 minutes I’d have talked all three of them into getting motorcycles right then and there and joining me.

Bear Lake Camp in winter

The following morning I headed east where I intended to stop by and visit my Aunt and Uncle and a long time friend in Findlay Ohio. So, after 7000 miles of smooth sailing and no trouble with the police, I had my first encounter. It happened in Ottawa Ohio, with a population of maybe 5,000. I’m driving down the little 2 lane road towards the town with cornfields on both sides of me and a 55mph limit. I was maybe at 66 or 67 when the police car was coming towards me. Motorcycles don’t have cruise control, and I was a bit eager to reach the end as I expected to be home that night. It just had to be a woman cop. And by the looks of it, her husband was going through a mid-life crisis, had bought a motorcycle, and she wanted nothing to do with it or anyone else who might encourage him in the venture. I’ve gotten three speeding tickets in my life, 2 of them have been given by women police officers. Both of those were in Ohio. But, as far as problems that I could have encountered on the way, a speeding ticket is a minor one. And after a nice visit with Dave, Linda and Lance over lunch, I continued the remaining 350 miles from Findlay making only one stop and getting back at dusk 28 days after I’d left. I considered going the extra couple hundred miles to reach the Atlantic so that it could truly have been a coast to coast journey, but I was tired and satisfied enough with the road I’d travelled that I had no need to prove anything. And with that, the Blue Mamba Trail was complete. Good times, Good times indeed!

O Canada!

Hey ya hoser. In Tribute to Bob and Doug Mackenzie, and in honour (do they use the British spelling of honor with the u in there up in Canada?) of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics proving to be a huge success, I wanted to give some credit to the neighbor to the North of the US. And, with one of the best things to come from the country being a movie called 'Strange Brew', is it any wonder the women's hockey team celebrated the way they did? And is it really that big an issue that they did?

Like Dunkin Donuts only better

Congratulations to all you Canadians out there. You've got something to celebrate for quite a while. As the winter olympics finish at the end of February, you're able to hold the spotlight for awhile as there's not much else to do in February and early March but watch TV and read the news. And the World Cup isn't for another couple of months. So revel in the glory as long as you can, because we all know that while Canada may be good in the snow, they're not so well known for things which take place on grass.

Both very much Canadian




Near, Far, Wherever You Are!

Rain!!!

Today was the first time I saw rain here in Somaliland since early October. It was wonderful!! A whole 15 minutes of rain!! Sure, it didn’t last long, but it doesn’t take much to bring joy to everyone. And the way it looks, it might even just pick back up again and add a little more excitement to things around here. I was at the gate with our security guards when it started. It had been cloudy all day – this has only happened a few times in the past 5 months – and they’d become a darker shade all around. Consequently, all we were talking about was rain. (I had my English-Somali dictionary with me, otherwise we wouldn’t have even been talking but rather grunting, gesturing and trying to communicate using a conglomeration of my poor attempts at Juba Arabic, their poor attempts at English, and the 15 or 20 Somali words that I know).

Before the rain started, we could see several miles away that it was already raining. There was all kinds of dust in the horizon which they were saying (I only understood because of the sign language, though I’m sure they were saying it with their words also) is a sign of rain. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, the wind picked up and sand was blowing everywhere. It wasn’t a sandstorm, and I don’t really know if they have those here or not, but the sand was blowing at least a hundred feet in the air in a not too thick cloud, and so came the rain. No one was concerned to retreat under cover at first. We were all relishing the liquid falling from the sky as it brought at least a temporary relief to the dry, parched earth. But, wetness does result in discomfort, and especially as the sun was low on the horizon, no one really wanted to get soaked. So, we did hide under a small shelter with big smiles and a light-hearted atmosphere that persisted.

Praise the Lord for the rain! I welcome it as a break from the monotony, a relief to the heat, and a hope that it will ease suffering of all around me who struggle to survive with its absence. It has been 5 months without rain in Somaliland, but I got completely drenched in a downpour in Nairobi only 3 weeks ago. For those I interact with daily, it has been a lifetime of going months without seeing a drop of rain. No escape to a foreign land where it is common. Nothing but brown, sandy earth with little thorny plants here and there that spring to life for a short time whenever the few drops of rain do come. I know that tomorrow I’ll begin to see a little bit of growth and maybe even a little bit of green will spring forth in the next day or two. The roots are shallow, and things will inevitably be scorched and die again. But, these are the things that are just beyond my and anyone else’s control. People grow up in different areas and have different experiences. It’s not for me to determine what takes root and what doesn’t. I can do no more than trust that the Author has a purpose for creating things the way they are. I rejoice in my experiences. I rejoice with my neighbours today for the little rain that fell. And I rejoice that life is not in the big things, but in the small things to be enjoyed moment by moment.

What's so Great about the Plains?

From Camp Bighorn, the next place I really had any intentions or desire to stop was Minneapolis. (While there were other places I had some desire to stop at, I didn’t think it was worth the several hundred extra miles and consequently hours on the bike that I would’ve had to drive to get to any of them). So, I left early in the morning on September 11 and headed East on US Highway 12 across Montana. And I continued driving across Montana. Eventually I stopped at Sulphur Springs Montana, right in the middle of the state for a bowl of clam chowder. And then I continued further along the highway. Western Montana: beautiful. Eastern Montana: not so much. At sometime past 6pm, after 600 miles travelled and almost 11 hours on the road, the sun was beginning to set and it started raining. I was still 40 miles from any type of civilization. I was cold and uncomfortable. I considered stopping and putting up the tent for the night, but as I was already miserable, I decided to push on ahead to the next town and stay in a motel for only the second and final night on the trip that I would pay for lodging. 650 miles and 11+ hours from when I’d started the day, I was still in Montana. How can the state really be that long?

Saw some of these, and not much else (not my photo though)

After a night’s sleep in a bed to rest my stiff, sore body, I woke up to find that the rain hadn’t stopped overnight, so I was thankful I’d stayed in the hotel. With nothing but the Great Plains of North and South Dakota between me and Minneapolis, I knew it was going to be another long day. I continued the journey with the trusty overalls and rain jacket that Alex had graciously let me borrow. The rain let up by midday so I was at least able to dry out for the afternoon while soaking up some sun. I covered a total of 600+ miles going across parts of the Dakotas and Western Minnesota, but finally reached Nick and Christy’s place with an extremely sore bum sometime after 8pm (lost an hour due to time zone change). The 1300 miles I’d covered the previous 2 days had worn me out and while I was glad to see Nick and Christy again, I was asleep by 10pm even though it was a Saturday night.

I took it easy for a couple days choosing to mostly walk rather than explore much of the Twin Cities on wheels. My hosts live in a diverse community where there are dozens of ethnicities heavily represented, including a large Somali population. It was wonderful to eat some great food, meet some new folks, visit my old roommate and his wife, some other friends I hadn’t seen in years, and some cousins that had grown up way too much since I’d last spent any time with them. But, the date of my interview, which was the only thing that put a limit to the time I had for this cross-country expedition, was approaching too quickly. So I couldn’t stay long enough to help Nick and Christy move into or fix up the house they’d just bought and settled on the day I left… and it did need quite a lot of work. (At least that’s the excuse I gave to get out of helping.) Even though it took a lot of effort and all their extra time for awhile, I’ve seen pictures that show just how much they were able to do to turn the place into a nice, comfortable home.

My tour of Minneapolis

As I left Minneapolis, I headed towards Chicago which I’ll pick up with in the next instalment. But a couple of hour visit in Rochester on the way allowed me to meet the newest addition to Sarah’s family as she, Kyle, and Josiah had recently welcomed beautiful baby Briella into the world. Josiah loved the motorcycle, so even though he’s only 3 years old, I let him take it for a spin while I played with his Fisher Price toys. Ok, so his mom decided that it wasn’t a good idea to let him drive as it didn’t have training wheels. But we did get to play ball in the yard and I pushed him around in his Fisher Price racer. And that is where this edition of the Blue Mamba Trail will end.