Last year we had Slotoja©. And despite the fact that we changed the dates from the traditional weekend, KB did not join us. Which was her choice but somehow I get blamed for it, over and over and over and over… Anyway this year, I decided that it would be fun to do a Slotoja© trip in the South. Seeing that there is plenty of opportunity for hoboing in the southern part of the state, this seemed like a good idea.
A big part of having a hobo adventure is that you don’t really know where you are going or how exactly you are going to get there. I tried to explain this to KB, but it was just too much unknown for her. She had never ridden loaded, other than from the grocery store, never done any kind of touring and the idea of sleeping on the side of the road was akin, to well, sleeping on the side of the road. A little less romantic than the way that I see it. So I kind of shot myself in the foot by not planning anything.
The original plan was to ride from the Lounge toward Zion, passing through to Glendale where we would camp somewhere in the vicinity. From there it was up and over Cedar Mountain en route to camp #2, Cedar City. From the Juniper Palace, we would pedal toward Enterprise, most likely camping on the Pinto road and then down and back to the Lounge. For me, this was the plan. It didn’t pass the KB litmus test.
There were a couple of big problems with this plan that I didn’t want to pay attention to. The biggest and only one I will mention here, is the fact that KB had never toured. There was no connotation of what this was going to be like. Looking back, we should have done an overnighter sooner. We were also completely unaware of how her bike was going to handle. And I was particularly worried, once I thought about it, about the rack that was attached to the Purple Unicorn. I may have had to modify it to get it to mount. It feels sturdy.
Anyway, Thursday came and we weren’t even in the vicinity of going on our adventure. We decided, together, that the house needed some work, and then we would do a quick trip to try out the bikes and give KB an idea of what it is all about. And then we would hit the Goose.
After working on the Lounge, yup the kitchen finally looks different, we awoke Friday and gathered our things to go on KB’s first tour. And what happened to be my first overnight tour, as I had always done at least two nights.
I pulled my Nice Rack off of the Turbo and mounted it to the Purple Unicorn. It fit perfectly and felt a hell of a lot sturdier than the commuter rack that had been hanging there. Then I took the CX bike and put some sealant in the tires and pumped it up. Lubed the chains and the bikes were ready. KB was going to use my panniers that had been given to me when I road to Chile but only made it to Mexico.
I’ve used those panniers for many things since, but there’s a funny thing about commuting bags, they don’t ever seem to get completely cleaned out. So when KB dumped them out there may or may not have been a few things that were in there from seven years ago. Including these two patch kits, unopened.
KB loaded up those two bags with as much clothes as she could jam inside. I filled BOB with the essentials, like the stove, food and some water. Then we strapped the two bags to the rack and bungeed the sleeping bag and pad to the top. KB looked like she was head out for a good 7-10 days. The only thing she lacked was front loaders.
We pedaled our way over to the beautiful Red Cliffs Recreation Area, set up camp and then sat there and listened to not silence. Damn place sounded like Disneyworld. And then the Scouts showed up. The moon was full and bright. About every hour I would wake up wondering what the hell that light was only to realize the moon was beaming into my eyeballs.
KB got the fun part of touring down and then couldn’t stop blubbering about how “easy” it was and how much she wanted to keep doing it and where she wanted to go. Dammit! I created a monster and she still has no idea what it’s like to really tour.
Part 2 of the weekend began as soon as we returned from our “tour.” We pulled everything off the bikes and dumped in the living room. Then we gathered the other bikes, the dogs and some other gear (meaning beer, food (meaning Funyuns and Doritos)) and headed toward the Goose.
Kenny and Heather had invited us to enjoy the views and amenities of the Yurt.
The weather was amazing. Not much of a breeze, the sun was shiny but not burning making for a perfect afternoon. After arriving and getting things set up we headed out for a short jaunt with the dogs on the Practice Loop. Seeing that we ride the Goose so often we did a couple of laps on the PL just for fun. Meaning that I got to ride the Wall of Death three times before we headed back to camp.
Super D, Joey and Q showed up about 15 minutes after we had started enjoying our adult beverages. They quickly caught up.
We enjoyed the sunset and then enjoyed the fire.
And then this happened.
I don’t recall what led up to this picture other than a lot of talk about eating wieners.
The next morning dawned and I was anxious to ride. Kenny and Heather had coffee and a warm yurt waiting for us. We sat around and shot the shit for about an hour and when it was finally getting really deep, Heather suggested it was time to pedal. And it was.
We headed out on the Windmill, up the North Rim and down the South. There was a lot of rolling down rocks, dropping off rocks and riding up rocks. All of which I am fairly confident led to this post,
That’s a slippery slope. First it’s an all mountain hard tail and next thing you know you own a six inch trail bike that you only ride when you go to the mesas. Yup, I highly recommend falling down that slope.
We made our way back to the yurt and basked in the sun enjoying a few beers and a sip or two of Johnnie. When it was obvious there was nothing left to drink, we packed things up and headed back home. KB and I hit the lounge at 5. I was starving as the Funyuns had disappeared quickly. We left everything in the living room and the truck and then went to Benja’s. With our bellies full and the weekend essentially over, we wasted the rest of the day horizontal.
It wasn’t a Slotoja© style adventure, but we didn’t have plans and we had fun so it still can be considered hoboing©.
P. L. and R.
