Breakout

[oldironnow]

Two years ago, a brother-in-law put some cash down on a gamble HD would bring out an anniversary edition of the Pan America.
Then he got the cancer, and after radiation, he bought the 25th-anniversary CVO edition of the Pan America.
An operation followed, and then following that, his wife filed for divorce.

We’ve driven to Montana to get the bike off her property and all the way home.










.

[Fatfatboy]

Good for him he was able to get the bike back and ride it home.
That is a sweet trophy for kicking the C in the ass.
That orange looks awesome. Sorta looks like the orange on my Challenger.
Best ending of a story that isn’t always so great.
I’m happy for him.
You’re a dude of greatness for tagging along.

[grado]

Pretty cool shot, especially if it was taken single handed.

Bummer what he’s going thru.

Effin bitches

[oldironnow]

grado wrote

….

Pretty cool shot, especially if it was taken single handed.

Bummer what he’s going thru.

Effin bitches

Extraordinary bummer !

All the road pics are from the driver seat of his Honda car.


.

[oldironnow]

Monday, the brother-in-law and I recovered the bike from the barn it had been sleeping in for months and, as seen above, rode it into town in mid-afternoon. Leaving was rough. Many hesitations. Clearing the ex’s name off the title. A trip to the notary. Parting with the pack of personable dogs. Leaving the ranch that had been a quasi-home for 10 years… that, really, in the end, had just been a retirement mirage.

Maybe it was my paranoia, but there had been a breath-holding tension among everyone for the entire 24 hours. Watchful gazes. Hooded eyes. Short sentences. Periods of silence. It weirded me out. Especially after the tour of the recent additions to the household weaponry, all laid out under the single-lamp glow bathing the kitchen table of the darkened house. Breaking down and examining the intricacies of the pistols and long guns. Noting the finishes and the accessory mounts. The red dot sights. Getting down to get spring-driven bypass guts… laying it all on the table. Still weapons, under a wobbly pool of light, slightly rotating from a barrel clipping the lamp shade…
“Well… I guess it’s time for bed… you guys can sleep in the shed…”

No rage, or anger, or derision…. just a reptilian quietude. Would they burst into action, or were they simply waiting for their mark to realize the game was over.

A tension.

[Fatfatboy]

A shed for sleeping. A couple vagabonds waiting to make a sunrise dash for the border with the HD jackpot.
It sounds like he won.

[motogrady]

oldironnow wrote

Monday, the brother-in-law and I recovered the bike from the barn it had been sleeping in for months and, as seen above, rode it into town in mid-afternoon. Leaving was rough. Many hesitations. Clearing the ex’s name off the title. A trip to the notary. Parting with the pack of personable dogs. Leaving the ranch that had been a quasi-home for 10 years… that, really, in the end, had just been a retirement mirage.

Maybe it was my paranoia, but there had been a breath-holding tension among everyone for the entire 24 hours. Watchful gazes. Hooded eyes. Short sentences. Periods of silence. It weirded me out. Especially after the tour of the recent additions to the household weaponry, all laid out under the single-lamp glow bathing the kitchen table of the darkened house. Breaking down and examining the intricacies of the pistols and long guns. Noting the finishes and the accessory mounts. The red dot sights. Getting down to get spring-driven bypass guts… laying it all on the table. Still weapons, under a wobbly pool of light, slightly rotating from a barrel clipping the lamp shade…
“Well… I guess it’s time for bed… you guys can sleep in the shed…”

No rage, or anger, or derision…. just a reptilian quietude. Would they burst into action, or were they simply waiting for their mark to realize the game was over.

A tension.

Agree with fat2……..he got his stuff.
That’s the most important thing.

Great post really.
Captured the moment for sure, even if the
subject was very unpleasant.

“You guys can sleep in the shed.”
I’ll say it again.
Effin bitches.  

[oldironnow]

Out of the house, we crunch our way across a dry lawn.

A dog has come along - with us, but arcing wide - away through the shadows, his four paws crunching at eight times our plodding rate, to come back and slip in around us through the shed door.

The single ceiling light blazes, painfully, and then immediately gets doused. Retinal memory holds the image of two air beds. We find them in the sudden dark, and piling into them brings the first comfort of the day. Not bad.

Through two windows, a low June Moon blares stark white rectangles on the floor.
Freight trains move in the valley. Their mournful squalling punctuates the night air's whispered breathing through the screens.

Sleep is desired. We're exhausted, but Bro-Law needs to talk. Bro-Law is struggling. He's doing a lot of reading up on the internet, especially on suicide rates on people with his diagnosis. We talk in the dark about realities.

He's rightly focused on all the huge negatives coming at him. I validate those realities, and add, in small doses, that these destructions of his life and body have also created opportunities. Out of this loss and chaos, a new life can come. Maybe even a first shot at real independence. But it's difficult to think of this when one is out of the fishbowl, flopping on the dry countertop.


.

[oldironnow]

The windows stayed open all night, and It’s cold under the thin sheet.
Five a.m. sunlight, and the dog wants the day to crank It UP !
We’ve survived the night and my paranoia.

Coffee is brewed, but I make sure not to drink the first cup.

Breakfast is planned, and I’m itching to go.
Breakfast is cooked, and I’m itching to go.
Breakfast is served, and my mind is derailed by eggs and sausage.
Breakfast is cleaned up, and I’m itching to go.

Bro-Law seemed to be on a ‘pleasant meeting with family trip.’ Talking about the past and future with breezy ease. Managing a “long-time, well-met” attitude, interjected with short bursts of weeping.
I had not seen past his bravado expressed during the journey north - super happy, “this is a great journey…”
I had suspected he naturally would be deeply hurt, and now the confidence façade is delaminating like an over-heated Daytona tire.

The ex disappears off into the ranch to attend to its constant needs. Her eldest son hangs with us while we spend a long time getting ready.
Eventually, I have to call it. “We really have to go man if we’re going to make that first-service appointment.”

Bro-Law wanted me to ride the river road to the dealership, but i flip it back to him, telling him (truthfully) that I’m not ready, but also keeping to myself the feeling that the act of riding will un-focus from what’s happened to him.

A couple hours later, we’re at the dealership, and leave the PanAm to check into the hotel. We get the bike back after awhile, and then spend the rest of the day futzing around with trying to pair his phone to the bike and the helmet comm. It just never sticks. Having his car nearby keeps breaking the connections, and we don’t think to delete his phone from his car. So I won’t be wearing one of his helmets with a Cardo, and we won’t be able to speak while riding. Just like olden days. Cool.

[oldironnow]

“Hotel Breakfast…..MmMM, MMmm, mmMmm…. Out on the road, somethin’ like 8, feeling good, and doin’ great.”

The overnight has washed up some bikes in the patking lot.

A DesertX and a bug-encrusted DessertX









Bro-Law is happy and excited to take the first leg.  We can either take interstates, or we can take the curvies. I advocate for the curvy path, as it is interesting and also shorter.





Lemme tell ya - ride Highway 12 between Lolo and Kooskia. Sequential sweepers. Endless lefts and rights that connect to each other directly. Straight sections that rise and writhe like the front straight at Mugello. Bro-Law gets hung up behind dawdling cars. Following in the Honda car, I’m whispering “…pass them…” And he does, over the lines on a left and gone by the following right. The PanAm leaping away.

I make a legal pass and soon reel him in. He’s diving into 35-marked corners at 55 without a glimmer of brake light. The bike and him look to be running really well along the Lochsa River valley through the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest. The clear river and the road and the giant trees in rank and file to the ridge-line peaks seem to be all ours.



We fetch up behind a ranger, and then stop at Split Creek Trailhead. Bro-Law says he’s in pain and needs to switch. So he made 110 miles. We were looking to reach Winnemucca today, but it fits in with my suggestion to just do a 250 mile day, then a 350 day, and then maybe a huge day at the end, all depending on strength. We just agreed we would do what we can each day. As my son says - “You have no where to be.”

Bro-Law says, “Go on, take off. I’ll meet you at Kooskia. I have to get out of this suit.”

It doesn’t feel right, but I do.




.

[motogrady]

If a guy hasn’t been riding a good bit,
250 in a day is a big day.

Nice to hear of these long haul guys going 400, 600 in a day, I’m telling you guys, at this point in time 250 would be a good day for myself.  

Which got me thinking.  
From my place to the Florida line is just over 1,000 miles.  
I might have that moto guzzi paid off next week.

It would take 2- 500 days for me to do bike week.

🤔

[oldironnow]

motogrady wrote

If a guy hasn’t been riding a good bit,
250 in a day is a big day.

Nice to hear of these long haul guys going 400, 600 in a day, I’m telling you guys, at this point in time 250 would be a good day for myself.  

Which got me thinking.  
From my place to the Florida line is just over 1,000 miles.  
I might have that moto guzzi paid off next week.

It would take 2- 500 days for me to do bike week.

🤔

I say go.

[hacksaw]

Seems like this thread lasted longer than the marriage.
Divorce  sucks. Nobody wins, especially if you have kids.  Which wasn’t mentioned in the posts I read. Lose your kids then worry about motorcycles.

Congratulations on beating the big C.