Today's KLR adventure concluded with my bike on its side and I pulling and
pushing it to freedom under a tensioned barbed wire fence. As I write this
I am waiting for the
aspirin-Tylenol-Advil-Motrin-Methylsulfonylmethane-vitamin B-6 cocktail to
PLEASE take effect. My back is killing me.
It began as a simple task: see if I can ride from point A (my house) to
point B (the state line) without having to touch pavement. According to my
USGS maps, which are only 37 years old, the answer was absolutely, yes.
And so, after some quick calculations, I informed my wife that she should
start out after me in the Land Cruiser if I wasn't home in 4 hours. 3 and
a half hours later I stopped to check my progress with my GPS and map and
saw that it was only a matter of feet to the state line and a dirt road
which could get me to a phone before my deadline. It had been a great
ride. Beautiful day, Red-tailed Hawk, cute little lizards, old
Western-movie style canyons, smooth trails, rocky trails, no important
bolts vibrating loose...
So I continued north and soon saw the state line road. It stretched from
east to west as far as I could see. I knew that I could get to that phone
with time to spare. But then as I came up to the road I saw the fence. It
also stretched from east to west as far as I could see. And it was between
me and the road. I soon found a sign on the fence, but it was facing the
road. "NO TRESPASSING! Private Property. XYZ Ranch."
Now, this is not the first time that I've had this experience. Several
months ago, I decided that it would make returning my video rental a lot
more fun if I could get to the movie store without touching pavement. And,
of course, I made it 90% of the way before hitting "the fence." That day I
found myself trapped inside the property of our local industry. And, like
today, there had been no signs or fences on the trail going in. The sign,
on the other side of the big locked gate, let me know I was locked in --
not out. Fortunately, the wire fence was old and loose and I was able to
return my video before getting slapped with a heavy penalty by untieing and
re-tieing three lines of barbed wires. But not today.
Today's fence was new and tight and five feet high. And I was NOT going to
ride the long long trail all the way back home to an irate/scared spouse.
So I began the futile journey up and down the fenceline looking for a gate
or...something. Of course I knew that if I ever did find a gate it would
be locked with a giant chain and two padlocks (which was later proven
true). I pondered different escape options, recalling several scenes from
Chicken Run. Soon I came to a dry sandy river bed flowing under the fence.
Here was the only place this perfect fence had any give at all. Because
of the way the stream bed dropped down there was a two foot gap below the
lowest wire. With effort, I could pull up on the fence enough to make a
three foot high gap. And that's how I escaped -- on my knees, holding the
wires up with one hand (or sometimes with my shoulder, ouch), and scooching
my prone bike with the other. As you can imagine, this is hard.
I made it to the pay phone with only seconds to spare before my 4 hour
deadline. And I woke my wife up from her nap. Apparently, I never finish
anything in the time I estimate, so she just doubles it.
Slipped disk Bill
Somewhere near the Milagro Beanfield
nklr the great escape
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