cold trip

[Butch]

just got back from a three day ride from phoenix,started out nice enuff,Phoenix to Flagstaff was a nice 75 and sunny stopped in at the Flagstaff Vic dealer and topped off my oil,shot the shit a bit and off i went.

Clouds started rolling in and before long i was dodging rain(without much success) so i stopped in Gallup,New Mexico and got some rain gear,found out a little about the weather too.Seems i was doomed to the wet traveling,and the temp. was dropping high about 46 degrees.I just gritted my teeth and kept on going determined to eat up as much road as possible,I-40 and truckers go hand-in-hand and it wasn't long before i'd had enuff of their road spray so i kicked it up to 85mph which i kept up,stopping only for gas as at that speed i was only getting around 125 miles to the tank. I'm sure I passed the same trucks several times as I finally rolled into Tocumcari,New Mexico about 10:00p.m. and got a motel,found a bar advertising mud wrestling but timing was off for that and there was just the local bar hounds.

On sat.it was a brisk 35 degrees out when i started out,i'd looked at the map and decided to take hiway 54-64 slicing NE thru Texas,Okla.panhandle and into Kansas,towns became few and far between and it was staying cold, my fingers numbed up after only a few miles and i just sucked it up and kept going but i started thinking about how to warm up,after a couple hours of very little traffic and only the cold wind for company it dawned on me i could use roadkill as an insulator!what the hell,there was enuff i'd passed by,so the next pheasant i saw i stopped and with my handy knife i managed to quickly slice it in two and stuffed half up each pant leg to block a draft that had been bothering me, IT WORKED,i felt the warmth coming back to my shins and i thought there might be something to this so i started looking for roadkill for my knees and it wasn't long before i saw a head smacked coyote,again with my knife i fashioned some half chaps out of his hide,all that deer skinning is paying off i'm thinking,now i know this sounds a bit far fetched but i was in 35 degree temp.,wind at 10 to 30 mph and rain,what about windchill?damn right that's why i'm slicing and dicing my way across these states.But it was working,the critters didn't stink(much)no maggots(too cold) and i was starting to put on some more comfortable miles,but the wind and the rain never let up and when i saw a big old dead cow next to the fence i knew that was the mother load!Let me tell you about west Texas,they got cattle yards MILES long with thousands of cattle just waiting for slaughter i guess and i had one i could chop some kind of wind guard out of,but it was very cold and hard to the touch so i had to lay on it for what seemed like hours,just watching the occasional truck pass and kind of dozing in and out until it was supple enuff to start cutting up.

I made lower wind guards,providing only enuff room for the oil cooler and a nice poncho(i thought).That was the ticket,i could now stay fairly warm and i got thru into Kansas,and i didn't give a crap what i looked like at the gas stops,they weren't going to see me again anyway,i'd gotten further up nearly to I-70 and it was getting dark and colder and my fingers were killing me and i finally saw a couple young raccoons that i fashioned into a pair of choppers.Now i was good and warm and flying down I-70 with feathers and hide flapping in the wind doing 80mph and zeroing in on the home stretch,Turner Turnpike,the attendant about fainted when i pulled up and i held up traffic a bit as i fumbled for the ticket,but at midnight i didn't care.Luckily the rain stopped and i drove on thru the nite a little more comfortable but definately feeling tired and wore down, but sun up summoned new strength in me and i reached Iowa.

Now that sun was also warming up my coat of many critters and it started to decomposing...fast.I had droplets of all kinds of foul liquids rolling down my arms and legs.I couldn't stop at rest stops anymore,having scared a couple moms and kids and a few yuppie dads as well.I took to giving shocked looking gas attendants more money as i didn't want to wait for change,and i could barely stand the smell myself when i was standing still.I wanted an adventure and i got it.Now i got to figure out how to wash these clothes as the wife forced me away from the house at gunpoint.

[Swiffer]

LMFAO!!

Steve

[Sparky_Bill]

Magnum, you related to Pecos Bill??? If he were riding today, I think he would have been just like you. No horse, but a strong cycle.

Glad your finger thawed well enough for you to be able to type and type you did. Here is an old story of Pecos Bill.
******************************************

Now everyone in the West knows that Pecos Bill could ride anything. No bronco could throw him, no sir! Fact is, I only heard of Bill getting' throwed once in his whole career as a cowboy. Yep, it was that time he was up Kansas way and decided to ride him a tornado.

Now Bill wasn't gonna ride jest any tornado, no ma'am. He waited for the biggest gol-durned tornado you ever saw. It was turning the sky black and green, and roaring so loud it woke up the farmers away over in China. Well, Bill jest grabbed that there tornado, pushed it to the ground and jumped on its back. The tornado whipped and whirled and sidewinded and generally cussed its bad luck all the way down to Texas. Tied the rivers into knots, flattened all the forests so bad they had to rename one place the Staked Plains. But Bill jest rode along all calm-like, give it an occasional jab with his spurs.

Finally, that tornado decided it wasn't getting this cowboy off its back no-how. So it headed west to California and jest rained itself out. Made so much water it washed out the Grand Canyon. That tornado was down to practically nothing when Bill finally fell off. He hit the ground so hard it sank below sea level. Folks call the spot Death Valley.

Anyway, that's how rodeo got started. Though most cowboys stick to broncos these days.

[Butch]

that's good stuff,seems there might be a resembelance somewhere

[Kit]

There must be some missing details to this story. I don't understand how you made it through Iowa without being ravaged. I don't think the Iowa ladies could resist all of that (ahem) "Animal Magnetism"

Kit

[Butch]

thought this might help get the cold edge off everyone

[Sparky_Bill]

I saw that and I thought, he's done it AGAIN???? Then I noticed that I responded..... too funny.