Brrr….

A 007 Secret Mission…and a chilly one at that!

A very cold Rhode Island morning...

Man, it’s cold!  I’m in Rhode Island right now, a week after Hurricane Sandy hit and with an arrival inadvertently timed to coincide with the latest nor ‘easter these poor folks are struggling through.  The above photo was a quick iPhone glance outside my hotel window this morning…just looking at that photo makes me feel cold!

I just got back in from a great dinner at a local Portuguese restaurant here in the littlest state, where I had what is probably one of the best dinners of my life.  It was a chicken parmesan sort of thing with toasted cheese, mushrooms, and grilled onions on top of a very, very tender breaded chicken breast.  Just awesome.  I asked the guy who was tending bar (which is where I always sit for dinner when I’m traveling solo) if it was a Portuguese specialty. He laughed, and told me that it wasn’t Portuguese at all…it was something a customer asked for one night and they just kept it on the menu.  Thank you, Anonymous Customer, whoever you were.  It sure was good.

Anyway, this ultra-cold weather makes me think about the times I’ve been caught out in the cold, especially on my moto adventures.  There’s something about really cold conditions that intensifies the memories, and I’ve got more than a few of them.

One time my good buddy Welker and I were riding into the aftermath of another hurricane…this one was in, as you might guess, my favorite adventure riding place on the planet: Baja.  Old Welker and I had left at 0:Dark:30 that morning and we spent the day riding in the rain.  It was way before I got smart and discovered the joys (and comfort) of real moto rain gear.  On this trip, it was boots, jeans, and a leather jacket (I was on a Harley and I guess I looked the part).   Leather doesn’t do much for stopping the rain, but during the day it was bearable as we continued south through Baja.  By the late afternoon, though, the combination of being soaked to the bone and the wind chill caught up with me.  We checked into a podunky little hotel along Mexico’s Transpeninsular Highway, and by the time I signed the registration log at the front desk (they actually had one of those), I was shaking so bad I could barely sign my name.  I was hypothermic – I just didn’t know it. The shakes didn’t stop until about 4:00 a.m. the next morning. Man, that was cold.

The boys in Mexico 20 years ago, during a brief respite from the rain. Check out the moto rain gear we wore in those days!

Another time, I was in another country…actually, we crossed the border early in the morning going from Montana into Canada. I was on my Triumph Daytona on that one, and an outside thermometer at the border crossing said it was 34 degrees. And then it dipped further. Wowee…that was a rough morning!  The old Daytona 1200 threw a lot of heat up from the fairing, and that helped a bit.  That bike was a rolling sauna in the summer, but I sure appreciated the heat on that cold Canadian morning!

The last time I did my popsicle impersonation routine was on fairly recent trip….it was my ride to Lake Tahoe and back on the KLR.   I left Tahoe early on the ride home and it was a bone-chilling 37 degrees, where it stayed for the next 100 miles.  It was so cold that at one point I remembered the old saying about what to do if you ever get really cold on a motorcycle, and I did it.  I stopped the KLR along the 395 highway, and I got off and pushed the thing for the next 50 yards.  That helped a bit, but when I got back on the bike I got cold again pretty quickly.   It was brutal.  I finally made Bishop, where I stopped at the American Hotel for a very hot (and very  welcome) cup of coffee.    I stayed there for an hour to warm up.  Yowsers!

So…tomorrow morning I’m back on an airplane, headed home to So Cal…where it’s warm.  Warm enough, anyway.  My good buddy Eric told me he was cold because the So Cal temp dropped to 62 today.  I love it!

Later, folks.  Ride safe and stay toasty!