Beating Tito

This will be a long, slow day trip. Starts now and ends in March.



I'v never competed in a motorcycle event before. But Friday I signed up to try and beat Tito.



I counted six entry forms on the clipboard. It was closing time and I would be the last. Well, if two drop out before March 15, and Tito gets the flue... I might have a chance. I think I ride a lot. Tito racks up 50 miles a workday commute. Hard to beat.

Tito may be motivated by employment, but being retired, my ace in the hole is the honey-do. The Treasure Valley of western Idaho runs elevations under 2500 ft. and does not hold snow floor for long. By Sunday I figured Tito was up on me by 100 miles. Then my lovely wife says, "Babe, I forgot to pick up water at Costco."

From my front drive I see the northern end of the Valley.



and the eastern edge, where one finds Boise.



Costco is SE. I head west to Oregon.







Tito has to ride the same route every day. I ride down to the Snake River and cross to Adrian. I pic up some corn on the west edge of the valley then head south along the Snake.





CORN





The Snake swings east and I cross back over in Marsing and wander off to Costco.



A few hours after arriving home with water my Babe finds she is out of Milk Thistle extract. I ride North toward Ontario OR in the fading light.





Home after dark. Two honey-dos... 130 miles.

Yesterday, two trips to the post office only netted 25 m. But once more my lovely bride exercises her wifely duty.

"Babe? Did you call the VA to schedule a butt-scope like I asked you?"
>No, Love.
"Snore test, new boots, eyeglasses, adjust that new leg brace?"
>No. I'll make those calls today.

This is where an old duff can rack up the miles against a young pup. Peeling the VA's bureaucratic onions and attending clinics scheduled on separate weekdays will run a dozen trips... about 1200 miles, and the travel-pay should offset $300 of the $400 in fuel it will take to beat Tito.

I like to ride; like the feel of leaning a turn on two wheels. I like to go. A wife, fulfilling her need to nurture and nest, will soon civilize her spouse and teach him to grasp the way of happiness: do what she likes. Babe likes things to work, including her man, so I look about, searching a compromise.

"Got'a run to town, Babe, the lawn tractor has a flat."



Sand Hollow Creek



Our tire guy is in Nyssa, OR. When rail came down the Snake River, the New York Sheep Shearing Association put in a siding, stock pins, and a N.Y.S.S.A. sign. The hotel went up in 1904. The town boomed in the mid-thirties with the new Sugar Factory. The rail station, long closed, is where my dad left the farm to join the marines in 1937.





My mom came out with her family, fleeing west from the dust bowel. Her brother found work at a buck an hour, so they built a tar-paper shack and stayed. This rusted old light and sign-pole still stands where my step-granddad built a gas-station/store along the highway. Later he built the Arrow Head hotel.

][/

I think you'll beat him for sure.

you've got a good sense of humor, I hope you beat him!

Go Papa go!

Turkey day. Cooled down a bit last night, 29 this morning and I'm off to pick up our turkey. Cross the Snake and scare the mud hens.



The bird's a snug fit in a 5 gal bucket.



About 100 years ago Ridgeview was established on the east side of the Snake River. There was a cable ferry and sheep and pigs would be driven east through Roswell to the rail-head in Parma. Ridgevew didn't grow any bigger than the old mercantile / post office because the new railroad came down the west side of the river. The post office was moved across to the new Ridgeview, soon renamed Adrian.



I hear my Babe, who was baking pies and cheesecake most of yesterday, calling from the kitchen, "Hon, will you run to town and pick up a couple bags of spuds?"

"Yes, Dear."



I wish you all a good turkey day and heartburn free night. .

"Youth and speed are no match for old age and treachery."

Ah, Tito is still bringing out the competitive spirit! I once rode with him to Cape Breton. All I remember about that trip is two gas stops. I had $4000 worth of digital camera and lenses with me, and got about four photos from the entire trip.

Good luck beating him. He is known to ride 800 miles for a Big Mac.

Crap. All I knew of Tito was gleaned from the picture on the contest flyer: happy guy astride a Vstrom with a well traveled looking set of panniers, and that bike-shop-guy said he commutes to work on his bike. Again, I say, "Crap". You have put the myth to the man, infused his two dimensional likeness with the fleshing effigy of saga and lore. Eh. I shall plod on undeterred.

Ok, I'll follow along in your quest to beat Tito. Glad you're adding a little history from the local area of things I always wondered about, including the mercantile building everytime I drive by it. Ridgeview=Adrian, interesting.

Yeah, beat Tito! Enjoying the local color!

When I run to town, like I did yesterday to pick up 8 gal of distilled water for coffee, I'm riding on the route of the Oregon Trail. The trail drops down a shallow canyon wall to ford the Boise River just north of Caldwell. A memorial stone was set near there 90 years ago with the construction of a new bridge.



The bridge was built on ST "O" in '22 before the US highway system. Idaho's earliest highway designations were the Sampson Trails, marked with a bold black letter on an orange paint background, named after Charles Sampson, a Boise businessman and Good Roads booster.



A set of 90 year old mile posts survive and I fantasize about stealing them to set at my drive. There is a diversion here that sends river water along a main canal that snakes down the valley and flood irrigates my lawn in Roswell. The sandy and shaded river shore makes it a popular swimming hole. They recently banned jumping from the old span.

Freezing fog on the trees and shrubs in the lower valley today. Rode along the southern edge of the Boise River's flood-plane; scared up blue herons, ring-necks, mallards, snow geese, and a golden eagle ripping apart a muskrat on a fence post. For no apparent reason, the right lens of my eyeglasses popped out, clattered against the inside of my face shield, then dropped through the small gap that was keeping the shield from fogging. Crap.

Mileage check day at Birds of Prey. With 333 I'm beating Tito. But some Yahoo who commutes from the last town down stream in the Treasure Valley, Weiser, has racked up over 900. "What's he ride?" I asked.

"Yamaha Maxim 650."

"Cool. It will break down before spring and be getting ice in it's carbs." I announce hopefully.

The style is dry, the way I like it. I'll be following this story for sure.

Aj Mick

Took a ride around the "Bend". The Snake runs east across Idaho until it runs up against the Owyhee uplands. It then swings north and is the state line between Idaho and Oregon until it's confluence with the Clearwater at Lewiston WA. An old survey's error starts the straight line south to Nevada a bit after the Snake turns north and created the Bend, the only bit of Oregon east of the Snake. The first cattle drive to the Idaho Territory ended in the bend. With the Snake on two sides and the marsh at the confluence of the Boise and a sandy ridge on the other sides, it was perfect for wintering the heard that was incrementally supplied to the miners up in Silver City on War Eagle Mountain, at astronomical prices.

This water tower sets atop a hill overlooking the Roswell Marsh. It is the end of a conduit to the main ditch running along the sand hills across the marsh and contains checks to open the flow of water at the level of the main ditch.



Being cut off from the county seat in Vale, the homesteaders in the bend became a stubbornly Independent lot. They had their own grange, schools, and with the advent of the auto, rejected being part of the county's road districts. I had to dig my old Willys out of a snow drift there one winter when the roads on ether side of the bend had been kept plowed and clear. When I lived there, in Oregon, our party line was an Idaho number and all calls to Oregon (except little Adrian) were long-distance, as were all calls to Idaho. The power lines are still strung on glass insulators atop rotting wooden pegs. Power outs every time we had a good blow our ice storm. My wife was visiting a friend two miles down the road when lightning struck a tree, our car (cooked the computer) and the power pole. Because the old power poles grounds have rotted, it came all the way to my house and fried the TV, microwave oven, and phone.

the old grange on Redtop Rd,



This old pump house is all that's left of a large park. I remember the stone and iron gateway and huge old trees before they were cleared to farm. It was the pride of the bend, with a dance pavilion and band stand. People would come by wagon and carriage a days journey from Idaho and Oregon on the 4th of July and camp over. The bend is mostly depopulated now as farms grew larger and most old homesteads and schools have vanished in the past few years.



The bend.

The Treasure Valley is greened here by the Snake, head-watered in Wyoming, comming out from deep canyons into this valley, silted by the confluence of five rivers. This is the Owyhee, lined with native black willow. It's headwaters are in Nevada. This is near it's dumping into the Snake.




I rode down the Oregon side (N) of the Snake today. On an obscure farm road that dead ends at the river are a retired silo and tractor. And a local shoe tree.

Love your writing style! You definitely have Tito beat in that department. I don't think he slows down enough to commit anything to posterity. Be sure to rack up enough miles so you have a safety margin. As deadlines approach he resembles the Patriots marching 97 yards downfield for the winning score.

Thanks to all who have read and commented. I may have a bit more kick late in the stretch. If Jayson, manufacturing my trailer, finishes a production proto by Jan, I'm off. Every Podunk biker swap-meet or poker run I can find, I'll be there showing off Spud and taking orders. With Spud's bed and a galley, just gas and groceries and I'm on my way.

But today, It's rain and wind and a nice 50 out. Swapped out my milk crate and saddle bags with a dry-bag... and mounted some Christmas lights. I,m off to the remnants of a CCC work camp, Japanese internment camp and German POW compound.

This is cow hollow. The Oregon Trail fords the Snake at a crossing where islands formed from the influx of The Owyhee and Boise rivers; then here at the hollow, along a creek, joins the alternate (southern) route of the trail. This has always been a place for gathering. In 1935 a large CCC camp was built here and filled with young men from New Jersey. With the war the camp turned semi-internment and was filled with families of Japanese.







The trees outline the camp's yard. We set up here, in their shade, my first son's wedding.



Not much camp left.



Foundations churned up by roots. One old quarters.





The camps gate posts have been toppled and shoved to the weeds and rubish at the roads edge. The foot stone bares a mason's mark. I feel a duty to save these artifacts. FDR was driven between these pillers. If I can line up five fit men and a truck they would do well in my wife's gardens.





The weather is playing nice as I ride to the POW camp.







Flag popping winds.