Excerpts

After the Vegas show, Dave drove us to a truckstop in Kingman, Arizona. Michael's computer had been replaced by then, and Mother and the Boys were once more playing nice together. After unloading the bikes in the morning, we followed my chosen route down through Western Arizona, on long stretches shown on the map as unpaved. We call those the "mystery roads," because we truly never know what we're going to get. On the previous tour I had chosen a road just east of this one--up through the Vulture Mountains toward Prescott--that was shown on the map with the same dotted line, and it turned out to be a nice paved two-lane through undulating cactus desert. This one started out as graded gravel, through the middle of what we would come to know is called the Arizona Outback. And we would come to know why . . . At this point, I stopped and straddled the bike and waited for Michael--hanging well back out of my dust. (For that reason, a crosswind is welcome when riding in the dirt.) I put on my four-way flashers and held up my hand--the understood signal for a photo stop--and asked him to photograph me riding through this background. Because, I told him, "It's the only place in the world where you will see both saguaro cactus and Joshua trees. And I believe the Arizona Joshuas are a slightly different species from the California ones." He shook his head and repeated, in a weary, acid tone, "I don't know how I've managed to live all this time without needing to know that." I suggested he perform an anatomically impossible act. The signs that welcomed us to a couple of long stretches of gravel, and an eventual rather desperate plight, were only mildly daunting. Most of the time, these "primitive roads" were decently graded gravel, and the riding was fairly easy, through vast, rugged panoramas of saguaro, mesquite, and Joshua trees. After thirty or forty miles we came out to pavement again, and paused for gas around Wickieup. From there we turned west once more, into the Outback, on Chicken Springs Road. (You pretty much know a road with a name like that is going to lead you into desert desolation.) For a couple of hours everything was fine, more graded gravel and fetching cactus desert scenery. The temperature climbed into the eighties--the first time we had been truly warm on the bikes for about two months--and it felt just fine while we were moving. It was November 24, 2012--the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend--so there were more people about than we would usually encounter on such a remote track. Ahead of us, long clouds of dust announced the approach of small all-terrain vehicles, "quads," and we kept well right on the track to avoid them--or let them avoid us . At one crossroads, Doofus and Dingus pointed us forward, but a large yellow sign announced, "No Through Road." A few big pickups with flatbed trailers were parked in a clearing, and people were loading and unloading their quads. One had a shotgun mounted across his handlebar, and I asked its rider what he was hunting. "Quail," he said. I pointed up to the "No Through Road" sign, and told him we were trying to make our way to Alamo Lake, then south to Wenden. My paper map and the GPS said the roads connected. He nodded, seemingly knowingly, and said offhandedly, "Oh, you can make your way around." Those words would come to haunt us, as we discovered what it meant to "make your way around" that lake. Alamo Lake is a reservoir on the Bill Williams River, and its deep blue expanse came into view among the folds of green-dotted brown hills ahead of us. Somewhere across that lake was the road we needed to get to--to get gas, to get water, to get anywhere. The road continued to be fairly firm gravel, with only a few deeper stretches where our wheels sank in and threated to "upset" us. Those tended to be in the lower dips--so-called washes--where flash floods leave loose debris that is later simply graded over. Sometimes we had our feet down as outriggers, ready for a dab to steady our balance, but there was nothing too dramatic. Just a normal "primitive road." However, as we neared the lake, that road became something less than primitive--either unborn, or long dead. We circled around a few small, rough tracks that meandered into dead ends, and it truly seemed to be a "no through road" situation, despite what the hunter had said. Trying one last loop, we encountered a couple sitting in their quad, and I pulled up beside them. With a self-deprecating smile, I asked, "Do you know where you are?" The woman laughed and nodded, and when I explained our situation and our quest, she said that one of the tracks looked like a dead end, but wasn't. She said they were headed back that way to their camp across the lake, and we could follow them if we liked. The man said there was some silt--"like talcum powder," the woman added--and a stretch of sand, but they seemed to think we could manage it. It is a truism of adventure travel that when things get really bad, you seldom stop to take photographs--you're busy trying to survive, and nothing seems more important than to keep moving forward. The trail they led us down was narrow and very rough, just wide enough for a quad to negotiate, with tight, winding switchbacks up and down through close-set ravines. The surface was rutted, eroded, and studded with rocks of all sizes and troughs of sandy gravel--fine for an all-wheel-drive quad, but more difficult for heavy motorcycles. As my bike bucked under me, and I fought for control over boulders and skidding in gravel, I was thinking, "I am going to get hurt." I knew I was going to fall over, it was only a question of when --and there were so many hard things to land on. Michael got stuck first, his rear wheel spinning into gravel and sand on an uphill hairpin. I parked my bike and walked back around the corner to help. His rear wheel was buried so deep that the best fix was to lay the bike right over on its side, slide it sideways a bit, then stand it up on firmer ground. We set off again, but minutes later, I was down. However, the bike lay against a rut that kept it upright enough for me to raise it myself. Then, trying to tiptoe down a steep, narrow, rutted incline, I went over hard, jumping clear as the bike landed far down on its side. Switching off the engine, I said some bad words. Another group of quad riders was waiting at the bottom for me to get out of the way, and a couple of them helped me get the bike upright again. The next time it went down, and we got it up and started again, a middle-aged guy with a Harley T-shirt said, "If my bike fell over that many times, it would never start again." By then I had lost count of how many times we had been over. Several times I got mired in deep, loose gravel, and smelled burning clutch as I tried to power out. This was all getting a bit . . . serious . Finally we reached the "landmark" the first couple had told us about--the rusted carcass of an old-style, rounded school bus, about half of it buried under sand and gravel. (Perhaps a clue to a flood that had destroyed what used to be a road around there?) We had made it through the silt, a few inches of light powder over a hard surface, so not too bad. But now came the sand, and the other quad riders gave us the impression there was quite a stretch of it. The exertion and the high-eighties temperature were getting to Michael, who does not tolerate heat well. He rested in the shade, grateful for a bottle of water and a can of Sprite offered by our "guides," Stephen and Karen. (I was carrying a little water, but Michael was not. I had asked him back at Wikieup, just before we turned onto Chicken Springs Road, with a store across the road, if he wanted to stop. He had said, "No--I'm all right." Now he wasn't. Some kids never learn . . .) I rode ahead to have a recon of what was ahead of us. Almost immediately I bumped down a steep bank into a deep expanse of sand. Down went the bike, and with it my heart. I saw that the expanse of bare, rippled sand stretched ahead a long way, and we were never going to make it across that. Yet going back was out of the question. We were getting low on gas, and even the spare gallon on my bike's rear rack might not be enough. And then, out of nowhere--a miracle of humanity occurred. All of those quad drivers gathered around to help us. Three couples, in their fifties, spent a good two hours of their holiday afternoon to help these two stranded motorcyclists. One couple had their dog with them on their quad, a black spaniel named Mandy, and I joked that I was going to remember this rescue as "Operation Mandy." The man called John brought over a length of heavy yellow rope--saying that his friends always kidded him about carrying it--and we tied it around the forks of Michael's bike. Tom, with the Harley shirt, and I held it upright while his wife, Cathy, pulled with the quad. It was still tough going, just keeping the bike on its wheels in that deep sand. Holding onto the handlebar and the luggage case, my boots scrabbling for traction, I was leaning so hard into it that it felt like I was supporting most of its weight. After a while I said to Tom, "I'm about to lose it." He said, "Me too," and called ahead for his wife to stop. (I liked how he always called her "Baby.") Behind us, another strategy was being attempted. Michael, Stephen, and John lifted the front wheel of my bike into the rear box of Stephen and Karen's larger quad, and that proved to be the best solution. Michael and Stephen crouched in the back to steady the bike, while Karen pulled slowly along. Their little caravan soon caught up to our noble but less effective effort, and a group decision seemed to favor waiting for the larger quad to get my bike to "solid gravel," then come back for Michael's. Tom and I were left alone with Michael's bike, and things were quiet for a long time. We stood beside the stranded motorcycle in the shade of cottonwoods, tamarisk, and dwarf willow in the dry river bed. This belt of green looked better watered than the surrounding desert, and I felt a distinct coolness seeping from them. I asked Tom if the river flowed underground in that area, as desert rivers sometimes do, and he said he thought it did. Tom and I made some small talk--he had lived in Arizona for over thirty years, because his wife was from there, and I told him that was why I lived in California, too. He scouted ahead a short distance, and thought the next stretch of the trail looked firmer--perhaps if we pushed the bike that far, it would be ridable. I said, "I like the way you think," and he replied, "I'm not the kind to just stand around and wait." I said, "Yeah--I'm that way too. I'll try pushing while you ride, if you like." It seemed right that I, as one of the "strandees," should do the heavy work, while my rescuer should ride--if he could, anyway. And it turned out that Tom's Harley T-shirt represented a real rider (not always the case, as even non-riders probably know). Just by the motion of his left hand on the clutch lever--smooth and easy--I could tell he was good. He sat astride the bike and got the rear wheel spinning, while I leaned into the rear rack and started pushing. Dust and sand sprayed up over me, but it worked. Our progress was slow, but steady, and when we reached the firmer area, Tom rode a long distance. I followed on foot--happy just to be moving forward. Eventually Tom got mired in soft sand again, and when I caught up with him I pushed for another stretch, until we reached a worse obstacle--a steep, rutted bank of sand up to higher ground. John came along in his little quad, and directed his wife, Pam, to drive it through the scrub up in front of the motorcycle. (These men and women were all so competent.) There he tied on his yellow rope and towed the bike up and over that last hump. The trail seemed ridable from there, so I offered to take over from Tom. He snickered and said, "Sure--let me do all the riding, then take all the glory!" The whole group of us, rescuers and rescuees, gathered where my bike had been delivered to the end of the gravel road. Earlier, after taking a few shots during a pause in pushing Michael's bike, I had passed my camera to John on his quad, asking him to take any photos he could. As we posed for a group shot at the end, with John's wife Pam holding my camera, someone pointed to it and said, "That is one dusty lens." Sure enough, the photo was a bit blurry, but--historical. It was at this point that I astonished Michael by introducing myself--by name and by profession--to our rescuers. I started by asking Tom, "Are you a fan of rock music?" He nodded tentatively, not knowing what I was getting at. Turning to face all of them, I said, "Well, I play for the band Rush. If any of you are going to be in Phoenix tomorrow night, I would like to invite you to our show." Tom shook his head and said, "Whoa--I used to listen to Rush all the time." Then he made a wry face, "I just wasn't sure if you meant that modern kind of rock." The rest of them seemed excited about the idea, so I brought out my little Montblanc notepad (always properly accessorized, even in the Outback), and they wrote down their names. Michael gave them his cell number in case they had any trouble picking up their tickets. (Later he said to me, "Wow--after traveling with you all these years, I've never seen you 'come out' before." I fixed him with an ironic glare, "Someday you'll learn that there's always a proper time to come out.") Our new friends looked at me with a little more "interest" now (I suppose to them, it was as if some kind of alien had dropped into their midst), but in a nice, easy, Western way. To me the important thing was that they had devoted all that time and effort to helping us--just because . I have learned from traveling in many inhospitable areas, from Africa to the Arctic to the American deserts, that people in such places band together. When you have a problem, if you are fortunate enough to find any people around, they are going to help. (In this case, they even invited us back to their camp for steaks! We were certainly hungry--but we needed to move on.) The sun was just setting as we fueled up at the Wayside--a funky desert oasis in the middle of the Outback, offering food, fuel, and RV spaces. With darkness coming on, we decided against the thirty miles of gravel that would bring us to the highway near Wickenburg--the nearest town where we might expect to find a motel and a meal. Instead we rode a few miles of gravel to a paved road, then down and around eighty miles. (Longer, but wiser.) The moon was nearly full, which cast a comforting light over the utter darkness of landscape and road, and the air was still warm. I rarely choose to ride at night, for reasons of safety and (lack of) scenery, but this was one enjoyable night ride, to a very welcome Best Western in Wickenburg, Arizona. When Michael walked out of the lobby after checking us in, he was carrying two small lunch-size paper bags, and handed me one. "A present just for bikers," he said. The brown bag was decorated with the above artwork, by the owner's seven-year-old daughter--"because she likes motorcycles," the front desk clerk told us. (You have to love the "ya-hoo!"--and the "harley-davidson" on the tanks.) When little Kenzie suggested to her parents that their motel should give motorcyclists a "special present," it was decided to offer these little bags--containing a couple of washcloths, for bike-cleaning (the darker reason for those being that too many riders use their room towels for that purpose), a Tootsie Roll, and a couple of hard candies. It was a sweet ending to a long journey. As Michael remarked, "This has been the kind of day that raises your faith in humanity." I agreed. The "better angels" had definitely been on our side, and it could have ended much worse. Excerpted from Far and Near: On Days Like These by Neil Peart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.