Nonetheless, the first day had gone better than I'd hoped. On Day Two, however, I cratered after a mere 300 miles to Salina, Kansas. I didn't then yet know the whole country was in the grip of a massive heat wave. All I knew was it was so hot, I felt sick. And if I didn't stop, I'd fall off the bike.
That evening I asked the owner of the motel's restaurant, The Bombay Room, how far west I had to go before it cooled off. With an expression like the RCA Victor dog's-but with a strange mix of contempt and pity-he said, "This isn't hot." It had been 102 degrees in the shade at 5 p.m. Two hours later, the door to my west-facing room was still too hot to touch.
Day Three, Sunday, was a 400-plus-mile slog. Within 20 minutes of hitting the road, my mouth was dry. I stopped midday for fluids and another failed attempt to eat at a fast-food joint in Kansas, leaving the Whale parked in the sun on the vast concrete parking lot. When I returned, the bike's digital air-temperature gauge read 124 degrees. By the time I stopped in Colorado Springs, you could have stuck a truck-load of forks in me, I was so done.
Making it to the USGP was out of the question now. Shoot, I was so sick, shaky and miserable, I slept for 36 hours straight. Food? If I tried to eat, I'd gag. Which is why, even after sleeping like a cinder block, my heart was in my socks when I tried to saddle up again on Tuesday, Day Five. That's when I figured if I felt any worse, I'd just pull off the road and lie down.
After the emergency room visit, there wasn't much left to do but keep riding. Wednesday brought some temporary relief in the cool altitude of the Rocky Mountains and Colorado's magnificent Highway 550. Missing a half-dozen apexes in a row, though, made it quite obvious I still wasn't up to the task. A whopping 222 miles later, and back into the superheated air of New Mexico, we reached Farmington.
I have to admit, the Whale certainly did its part to help me get through the Trail o' Tears Tour. Honda's Gold Wing has remained largely unchanged since its makeover from GL1500 to GL1800 for 2001, and for good reason: For hauling one or two people and their stuff from one horizon to the next, few motorcycles can equal it, let alone better it. The saddle is magnificently comfortable, even after multiple high-mileage days. The engine gobbles up miles tirelessly, whether you're going 55 or 105. Almost nothing-including a cooling breath of air-gets past the bodywork's weather-protection envelope. The suspension, with its air-adjustable shock, makes compensating for a passenger and luggage a push-button luxury. And the chassis's road manners are as astonishing as ever for something so Brobdingnagian in scale.
Day Seven, Thursday, brought one of the trip's few high points: seeing dear, old friends Larry Works and his lovely wife Wilma in Snowflake, Arizona. Works is the best editor I've ever known and the man who first hired me in this industry at the late Cycle Guide magazine in 1982. He met me in town on Elvis, his Harley Road King, and we rode back to their spread, the Sixgun Ranch. We hadn't seen each other in more than a decade, so it was a joyous reunion.
My plan was to leave the next day, but a revisitation of nausea and the whirlies at departure time caused some second-guessing. When the symptoms abated somewhat, I decided to make a run for Flagstaff. Larry thought I was nuts and considered wrestling me to the ground to take the Whale's key, but I guess he could see how desperate I was to get home. Not, however, before I got a speeding ticket.
A detailed description of the calamities on Saturday, the ninth and final day of this doomed, Ahab-like voyage, likely would strain the readers' credulity beyond the breaking point. Suffice it to say it was 113 degrees by 10:30 a.m. and stayed that way, and that I saw both fires and rain, plus miles of choked-up traffic manned by a series of homicidal drivers. It felt as if all the universe's forces had aligned in some hellish plan to break what remained of my will and leave me hunched over the handlebars, sobbing, at the side of the road within sight of home.
But finally, 13 days after leaving Los Angeles, the Whale and I wheeled into the garage. I walked inside our squalid little hovel, shucked my gloves, helmet and jacket, and once again collapsed face-first into bed. The air conditioner was on, and I was home.