Omaha, NE to Pierce, NE (September 20)

Distance covered today: 132 miles

Distance covered total: 1,916 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,118 miles (53% left to go)

“America is all about speed.  Hot, nasty, badass speed.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936 (except actually from Talladega Nights)

My time in Omaha passed as though I were on the Island of Calypso- not that I felt a sense of entrapment, but rather that my three-day wait for scooter parts (which had initially sounded like a long break from the road) flew by quickly.  It was nice to have the extra time to steep in Nebraska’s cultural hub, especially with Bikelock around, balancing his roles as host (providing an insider’s scoop on places to go and people to meet around town) and social commentator (as a recent transplant to the area, he could laugh alongside me at certain elements of Nebraska culture).  One such thing that never ceased to amaze/humor us was the masses’ rabid devotion to Cornhuskers football.  While the obsession with the ‘Huskers manifests itself in many forms, my favorite example was in the Five Day Forecast on the local news.  The weather guy had the typical screen with “partly cloudy” and “sunny” graphics for WED, THU, and FRI, but where the rest of the Western world observes the phenomenon known as Saturday (or “SAT” in this case), Nebraskans mark the occasion with a big, red N, proudly designating a home game that weekend.

There’s a saying that “when a man growns tired of London, he has grown tired of life.”  For all I know, the same applies to Omaha as well, ‘cause I hadn’t quite gotten my fill when, before I knew it, I received a call saying that the scooter’s new parts were in place and it was ready to go.  I promptly rounded up my stuff and bid farewell to my digs in Omaha, as I intended to leave straight from the Honda place and gun it as far as possible before sundown.

At the garage, I was given not only the keys to the revamped Metro, but also some words of warning from the mechanic responsible for nursing it back to health.  He asked where I was headed (based on my license plate he had guessed I was going back to New York), and when he heard of my intention to carry onward, he repeated an earlier warning about the precarious state of my well-worn tires.  He had a point- they did look kinda shabby, but they weren’t completely threadbare, and the scooter guys back in South Bend seemed to think that the tires wouldn’t be an issue.  I briefly considered his well-reasoned forecast of peril, but ultimately his words of warning went as unheeded as Starbuck’s plea to Ahab.  Nay, I answered.  For now, I decided I would take my chances.

And so, with the scooter restored to health- albeit on dangerously balding tires- I finally put Omaha in the rearview mirror and again headed boldly into the West (hopefully with better results this time around)!  As I pulled onto the road and joined the flow of traffic, out of habit I casually glanced at the speedometer and did a violent double-take that nearly caused me to swerve into oncoming traffic.  With only a slight turn of my wrist on the gas, it said I was going 35 mph!

Scooting through Northeast Nebraska- just like Lewis and Clark before me.

Impossible, I thought.  33 mph was firmly established as the scooter’s upper bound- it had maybe sniffed 35 mph before when I was flooring it downhill, but on level ground, without cranking back on the gas?  What was going on?

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke or some optical illusion, I hit the gas to see what the Metro’s terminal velocity would be.  To my astonishment, the needle kept going… 35, 38, 40 mph!!!  It could even touch a blistering 42 or so when gunning it down a slope.

I still couldn’t believe it.  In fact, one of the first explanations that popped into my head was the suspicion that the mechanics at the Honda place had tampered with my speedometer to make it look as though they were miracle-working alchemists who had turned tortoise to hare.  How else could I explain the scooter suddenly going almost 25% faster!?

But it did kind of feel like I could keep up with traffic better, so maybe I was clipping along at a white-hot 40 mph.  Could it have really been friction from those not-so-perfectly-circular bearings holding me back all along?

Whatever the reason, I wasn’t gonna ask questions.  I was just going to bask in the glow of the Metro’s heaven-sent newfound speed.  Like an uncaged bird or a tethered beast with its shackles severed- whatever your preferred metaphor for repression bubbling into liberation may be- can only begin to describe my sense of elation while rocketing across the sunny Nebraska countryside.  This was going to change scooting as I knew it.  A 5-7 mph spike in velocity might not sound like much to the average person, but to me it felt like warp speed.  And when you consider that I spend at least 6 hours a day driving, that adds up to an extra 30 or 40 miles of distance per day.  That extra ground will be worth its weight in gold, especially as I traverse the wide open Plains and deserts of the West.

Another salute to Meriwether and William.

Throughout the day I would look down and admire the beauty of seeing the speedometer needle at 35, 38, 40.  It looked so foreign (not to mention badass) to see the needle dangerously tilted at an extreme angle to the right, instead of the boring 30-33 to which I had grown accustomed.  Obviously, in my couple months of knowing the Metro, the “35”, “40”, and even a little notch that would suggest 45 had always been there, but they were just a cruel tease.  Impossibly unattainable.  Forbidden fruit.  And since the scooter had always gone 33, I foolishly dismissed the notion that those numbers were telling me all along that the motor wasn’t living up to its full potential.

Luckily, I was so enthralled with going 40 mph that I hardly even noticed the painfully uneventful day of driving.  The weather was nice, but except for an occasional small town like Tekamah, there wasn’t too much happening.  I did have one major landmark to look forward to though: the 98^th meridian.

The 98^th meridian is said to be the approximate demarcation line of where East meets West.  The land becomes a lot more arid west of the Meridian, giving rise to many iconic species of “Western” flora and fauna (think jackrabbits and sagebrush).  Though there was no indication of where exactly I crossed this threshold, one subtle clue hinting at my transition was that the cornfields which had unblinkingly served as my backdrop throughout the Midwest began to taper off and gave way to a greater number of feedlots and hay fields (which are much less water-intensive operations).

With the sun creeping lower and lower in the sky, I finally split from the day’s backroad highways for the even more lightly traveled roads that led to Willow Creek State Recreation Area, not far outside of the small town of Pierce, where I had chosen to camp for the night.

Puttering into the park, I found that the entrance booth was unattended and a sign indicated that the nightly camping fee should be placed in an envelope and dropped in a lock-box.  Tempting though it was to ignore the sign and/or pretend that I didn’t have exact change, like an honest native of the Heartland, I paid up.  You’re welcome, Nebraska.

Wallet lighter and conscience satisfied, I drove further into the park to find a suitable campsite.  Sure it was the middle of the week, and it wasn’t really the summer travel season anymore, but I expected to round a corner and find at least a couple tents and trailers and some Nebraskan father tending to a grill of burgers and brats.  But just like at the park’s entrance booth, there was no one to be found.  Pretty soon it began to feel like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone rather than a state park, and I finally accepted that the place was completely deserted.

Occupy Willow Creek.

Though intrigued by the haunting emptiness of the place, there wasn’t time to dwell on that for now, as I needed to set up my tent with darkness closing in fast.  I picked a patch of ground only a few yards away from the shoreline of Willow Creek Reservoir (a surprisingly large body of water) and then dug the tent out from the belly of the Metro.  Like summoning a seldom-used relief pitcher from the dregs of the bullpen, I didn’t really know what to expect from the tent.  A couple weeks ago I had successfully practiced pitching it, but I didn’t know how things would go in this high-pressure game situation.

Luckily, my concern was much ado about nothing, as the tent was delightfully user-friendly and went up in a flash.  After soaking in a moment of triumph (and snapping the above photo to document the historic occasion), the loneliness of my surroundings crept back into my bones and consciousness.  To be frank, it was a little eerie to be all alone on this lake in the middle of the prairie.  Willow Creek was a beautiful place, offering prime waterfront real estate and a stunning view of the sunset, but I could only focus on those things peripherally.  I was distracted and on edge due to my solitude, as my imagination loved nothing more than to remind me of the creepy vacuum I’d call home for the night.

As much as I would’ve liked to have friends or neighbors for a little company, it occurred to me that the only thing scarier than having the park all to myself might have been sharing it with just one other person.  Initially it might seem comforting, but there would be that lingering mistrust (What was their story? Were they an axe murderer on the lam?), and an uncomfortable tension, as I waited for a Most Dangerous Game scenario to play out.  But alas, there was no such stranger around to personify my fear.  Instead, my homemade brand of paranoia was my own worst enemy, and I passed the time peering around nervously for prowling cougars and whatever other deadly forces stalked the countryside of Pierce, NE.

Sunset over Willow Creek Reservoir.

The sun was really my only companion, so I had bittersweet feelings about watching it set over the reservoir as I ate my dinner.  Shortly thereafter I was alone under an impressively clear night sky (not surprisingly, Pierce isn’t very guilty of light pollution).  At that point, there really wasn’t much else to do except gaze into the heavens, but my time doing that was short-lived, as it was getting chilly and I was still a bit spooked by the desolate blackness in which I stood immersed.  Retreating into my safe cocoon of a tent, I typed a few notes for a future blog entry but called it a night pretty soon, electing to preserve both my computer and biological batteries.

Now, I didn’t want to admit this ‘cause it makes me sound like an idiot, but I didn’t really pack a sleeping bag… I mean, hey, it was September, a supposedly balmy summer month!  In my effort to skimp on cargo at all costs, I felt as though a wafer-thin sleeping bag liner, used in tandem with articles of clothing, would suffice.  Temperatures on this fine September night were gonna dip into the low 40s, so I called all hands to the front, with even my travel towel and raincoat getting incorporated into my still-disappointingly-thin heap of bedding.

But no matter how cold or uncomfortable, after a day on the road, falling asleep is pretty easy.  Without a single noise from human civilization within earshot, I dozed off and eventually reawakened later in the night.  It was still dark outside, but I guessed I had spent several hours asnooze as I rolled over and checked my phone for the time.  Nope.  It wasn’t even midnight.

Crap.  It was gonna be a long, cold night.

Town(s) of the Day:

-Norfolk, NE

Shoutouts:

-Mr. Carson back in The ‘Ville. Thanks again for lending me the tent!

-Teenage kid at a gas station in the quiet town of West Point.  Upon seeing my license plate and going through the customary “Did you ride that thing all the way from New York?!” exchange, he gave me a sarcastic “Welcome to Nebraska!” that suggested he was bored with his home state and probably thought it was lame compared to the bright lights of New York.  I wish he had more Nebraska pride, as I had rather enjoyed my time living “The Good Life” down in Omaha and was in no hurry to leave.  Maybe someday he’ll go to New York and in absentia come to appreciate the subtle beauty of small-town life on the Plains.

 

 

Omaha, NE to Tekamah, NE… and then back to Omaha, NE (September 17)

Distance covered today: 50 miles

Distance covered total: 1,784 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,266 miles (55% left to go)

Warning: No pictures to document this abbreviated day of scooting.

“The adventure doesn’t start until something goes wrong.”

-Yvon Chouinard

I spent a day off in Omaha, living “The Good Life” as advertised on the Nebraska welcome sign.  Mostly, that entailed blogging and planning the next week of my trip.  I called up Dan, the professor who ran the buffalo ranch, to tell him my story and he told me a) that I was crazy, and b) that I’d be more than welcome to stop by the ranch.  And just like that, I was going to South Dakota!  Except the actual going to South Dakota would not happen “just like that.”  Omaha might mark the approximate half-way point of my journey, but it signals completion of the easy half.  I knew that Part Two of my trip would entail a new level of difficulty, altogether (yes, that’s an Airplane reference).

Making my way across the emptiness of the Plains was just the first test in the gauntlet of obstacles remaining. After that, who knew how the Metro and its 4.5 horsepower engine would fare in the Rockies, or across hundreds of miles of desert, or if it could hurdle the 10,000-foot Sierra Nevadas in the home stretch.  Clearly the Metro and I still had a lot to prove out in the Wild West.

Up until this point, my route had sounded like a concert tour, making nightly stops in cities like Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, and Omaha, with other sizable towns like Syracuse, Ann Arbor and South Bend sprinkled in between.  But from here on out I’d be seeing a lot fewer people, with Nebraska towns like Pierce (pop. 1,767) and Valentine (pop. 2,820) as my destinations for the night.  I suspected that many people in these small Plains towns had never seen a moped before, and could only hope that they would take kindly to the city-slicker scootin’ type, like me.

With three very full days of driving separating me from the next roof I’d have over my head, some good weather would’ve been much appreciated.  But true to form, the weather was its usual depressing self, sending me off in a cold and drizzly haze.  I was pretty well saturated by the time I was only 20 miles outside of Omaha, and was resigning myself to endure a long, miserable three day push to the ranch.

Little did I know that this light rain was just a minor nuisance compared to the trouble lurking around the next turn in the road.  Only 50 miles into my day, it happened- The Little Engine That Could finally faltered, and I broke down.

I made it just past the small collection of houses known as Herman, NE (proudly advertised as having a population of 310), when suddenly the rhythm of the Metro’s engine was interrupted by a faint sound I would characterize as something between a click, a rattle, and a vibration.  With the scooter still chuggin’ along just fine, to an average driver the sound may have been imperceptible or easily dismissed.  But after 2,000 miles together, my ears and the rumble of the engine had become one, and although I couldn’t isolate exactly what was wrong, I knew that something was amiss.  After listening closely for a few more seconds, the half-click sound persisted and I pulled over for closer inspection.

Pretty soon it was clear that I had a big problem on my hands.  When I revved the gas, the engine would purr, but the wheels wouldn’t spin.  My hunch was that the belt had worn out- something my modest collection of wrenches couldn’t remedy.  Time to start pushing.

In the earlier stages of the trip, I had expected that a breakdown was inevitable and depending on where it happened, the gravity of the problem, and the cost of fixing it, I would calmly and rationally decide how to proceed.  Just because I had previously braced myself for a setback didn’t make it any easier to stomach now that the moment had come.  And after making it to Omaha (halfway along my originally intended route) in only two weeks, I had begun to think that just maybe I’d be able to make it all the way without any major snafu.  Fifty miles and one cold dose of reality later, my hubris was put in check as I walked the Metro towards the next town.

Four or five miles down the gray stretch of highway was Tekamah (pronounced tuh-kay-muh), where I hoped to find an auto garage and tow service or someone in a pickup headed back to Omaha.  I was closer to Herman, but I wasn’t likely to find help in a town that size.

I hadn’t pushed very far before a friendly Nebraskan stopped to see if I needed help.  He only had a small sedan though, so I politely declined his offer of help as I was holding out for something that could accommodate the Metro.  It wasn’t long before a good Samaritan in a pickup truck pulled over to lend a hand.  We tossed the scooter into the back and hauled it to an auto garage in (or maybe the auto garage was) downtown Tekamah.

Ideally, I was hoping to find another person in a pickup headed for Omaha whom I could persuade (along with $20) to take me back to Omaha, but on a Saturday afternoon such as this, there wasn’t the usual stream of commuters down to the Big O.  It looked as though I was gonna have to have the scooter towed (and by towed I mean having it thrown in the back of a company truck for a hefty sum).

At first, I was a little nervous about prying a Nebraska man away from the Cornhusker game, but it turned out that the tow driver, Jim, was an interesting character who I got along with pretty well.

Jim was a man of the Plains.  Born and raised in Tekamah, it was revealed in conversation that he’d been as far west as Chadron (a dot on the map in the western part of the state) and that he’d been to a NASCAR race in Kansas City (and it sounded as though that was roughly the extent of his travel).  He was interested in hearing details of my trip, and also shared details about life in Nebraska.  I was a fan of his gritty, country dialect and his expression “man, they’re thick through there” when describing places where prairie dogs and other critters were in abundance.

Jim dropped me off at a Honda motorcycle place in Omaha, where the Metro checked into rehab.  Sure enough, my initial diagnosis was confirmed when the mechanic in the shop showed me the disintegrated remains of what used to be the scooter’s belt. He also showed me the wear on these circular bearing parts that spin along with the belt.  Presumably they had been perfect circles to begin with, but now they were misshapen and didn’t look like something that would spin smoothly for 200 miles per day.  It was going to be a pretty easy fix but they’d need to order replacements for both, so I had a few days to better acquaint myself with The Pearl of The Big Muddy  (Omaha’s unofficial nickname).

I urge you not to feel sorry for me for breaking down- direct your sympathy instead to the poor soul who got stuck with me for three more nights than he bargained for.  That would be my former college roommate Tim (a.k.a. “Bikelock”) who had settled in Omaha to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  Bikelock came through in the clutch, making me comfortable in his new apartment and adhering to life’s cardinal rule of helping friends in need, especially those in the midst of a motor scooter odyssey.

Another reason not to feel sorry for me is that by breaking down where I did, I caught a pretty fortuitous break.  Coincidentally (or perhaps by fate), before I had hit the road for South Dakota, Bikelock had bestowed upon me a laminated four-leaf clover for good luck.  Though not normally the superstitious type, when you’re attempting to ride a scooter from coast-to-coast, you’ll take all the help you can get.  Clover in hand (or wallet, rather), one of the first things that came to mind after I broke down was a bitterly sarcastic cry of “some lucky clover!”  But really, I shouldn’t have scoffed at its mystical powers, because after getting over my initial disappointment, I realized that really, my breakdown was not so unlucky after all.  Mechanically, it could’ve been a lot worse (the new parts would cost me more time than money), and logistically, it could’ve happened in a much worse location (I was lucky to be within towing range of Omaha, where I could find a certified Honda repair place and was afforded the luxury of staying with a friend, instead of being stranded in a speck of a town waiting to fall victim to Malachi and the Children of the Corn).  The Metro had survived its first scare and was gonna live to see another day.  Those buffalo and the Wild West would just have to wait.

Shout-outs:

-Bikelock.  Sorry to have doubted the power of the four-leaf clover.

-Jim.  Thanks again for the lift!

-The two people who pulled over to see if I needed a ride.

Town(s) of the Day:

-Tekamah, NE