Primal Ice Cream Therapy
This month I’m making an unlikely
departure from my usual rant and rave style to expose
a soft, vulnerable underbelly. Each month, I bore
loyal readers in dimly lit restrooms all up and down
the Golden State with a repetitive “sky is falling”
scenario touting the diminishment of our essential
liberties. Undoubtedly, many of you have come to
wonder if I even ride anymore. I think the last
article I actually wrote about riding was my “Postcards
from Sturgis” article in September of 2004.
Yes, Virginia, I still ride. But
probably not for the reasons you might normally
assume. You see, any time a media hack asks a rider
why he/she rides, 9 times out of 10, the rider spews
forth the solipsistic “it’s all about the freedom
and the wind in my hair” line. Ugh! It’s at this
point that I stop reading and turn the page. Maybe
mine is a more sordid tale than most, but the honest
truth is, I ride for no other reason than the fact
that I’m cheap. It takes 45 bucks to fill up my car,
but I can’t describe to you how twisted my panties
get every time I have to pay close to 15 bucks to fill
up my bike, the Fisher Price Deathmobile™. My V-8
Ford gets about 19 miles per gallon with a good wind
behind me while the Deathmobile™ gets around 43
miles per gallon highway. That is, until the new
oxygenated gasoline blend manages to melt away the
rubber intake manifold gaskets to create a vacuum
leak, and I can always tell it’s happened when I
start goin’ on reserve at only 145 miles.
Yeah, I’m tight, but I’ve come
to understand that riding can be at least somewhat
therapeutic amidst its utilitarian nature. Sometimes
the windmills of my mind won’t produce quality
thought until I hit 60 mph. Then there are the times
where I’ll ride the 500 miles from my front doorstep
to the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento in one
continuous motion, without ever shutting off the
engine. Yes, I fuel up while the bike runs and it’s
probably stoopid, but it’s a P.O.S. Harley® and you
KNOW that starter gear is gonna self destruct if I
keep using it, so why tempt unneeded repairs and
downtime?
It’s during these longer hauls
that a new inspiration takes hold for me; the quest
for ice cream. Be it the chocolate dipped variety in a
sugar cone at the Dairy Queen® in West Yellowstone,
Montana or the world’s best chocolate malt at the
Culver’s® in Rapid City, South Dakota, I’ve begun
to define the quality of my rides by the culinary
delights awaiting me at the end of the day. It’s
what I look most forward to, and it keeps me going,
and going, and going.
I think it all started while I was
riding my old Yamaha Virago non-stop to Illinois back
in the eighties. There’s a McDonalds® built in the
middle of the Oklahoma turnpike, between the east and
westbound roadways for easy access from both
directions, and I remember that very first strawberry
shake I bought for myself as a reward for riding 1000
miles straight through, without a nap. They also make
you pay a toll to get OFF the highway there, it’s
ludicrous. While I’m on McDonalds®, the best
M&M® McFlurry® I ever had was at the Mickey D’s
in Tusayan, Arizona, the little village outside the
Grand Canyon. A cheeseburger was $5 bucks, but the
soft serve served as a delightful end to an arduous
day of riding in the rain & desert heat from
Durango.
The best strawberry milkshake came
from Del Taco® in Twentynine Palms, CA. A simple ride
to the Laughlin River Run in ’94 became a nightmare
when my girlfriend’s gas tank cracked, leakin’ gas
all over her pants for the whole 250 miles getting’
there. Stopped her from smoking that day! When we
arrived at the Davis Campground, I set up the tent and
got right back on for the 250 mile trip BACK home to
get the spare tank. Once home, I bungeed down the tank
and headed BACK to Laughlin again. It was beyond
midnight and I needed a milkshake something fierce.
Del Taco® was open late. I’ll always remember
trying to suck those REAL strawberries thru the straw
and having to dodge coyotes, kangaroo rats, owls,
bats, jackrabbits and alien spacecraft in the pitch
black darkness of the barren desert. A 750 mile day to
get to Laughlin. Twice. I unzipped the tent and
crawled in at 4 in the morning. Did I mention I’d
come down with the flu just the day before?
There was that chocolate malt in
Idaho, while watching the wildfires up in the hills.
The M&M® Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich at
Disneyland®, the Häagen-Dazs® dripping all down my
arm in Jackson Hole, the Wendy’s® Frosty in Cody,
that old time ice cream shop in Estes Park near Rocky
Mountain National Park. The chocolate waffle cone that
tasted like wax at Cold Stone Creamery® in San Luis
Obispo. The double scoop cookies and cream cone that
Deacon and Kay bought me in old town Sacramento after
a perfect day riding the Delta. The obligatory freezer
section “Drumstick®” outside the Harvey Store®
in Yellowstone Park. The chocolate malt at the tiny
shop in Cedar Glen after a day of four wheel drivin’
my two wheels in the mud. And how could I ever forget
that sweet old lady who gave away the tiny sample cup
of Borden’s® iced milk with the wooden spoon for
FREE to get customers into her antique store on the
way to Mt. Rushmore? Her husband created that concrete
Jackalope outside the store by hand, mixing each load
of concrete in a wheelbarrow. They tried so hard to
bring in customers and I hated to take her ice cream
because I knew she couldn’t afford to be givin’ it
away. All three of them are gone now so I have to get
my Black Hills fix during my annual Sunset Ride to
Rushmore where I get a cup of chunky monkey from the
college kids workin' the summer concession gig before
sitting down to watch ‘em light up the four faces.
The best A&W® root beer float
is always waiting for me in Greybull, Wyoming, though
it’s not a real A&W® anymore. There was that
time in Wisconsin doin’ Harley’s 95th when all the
restaurants were giving away FREE ice cream to
celebrate national dairy month! And the apple pie ala
mode in Osseo after a solid week of riding in the
rain! There was that Foster’s Freeze® on the way to
the old Bridgeport Jamboree and the nasty gooey self
serve stuff in the buffet at Wall Drug. Oh, and the
little old fashioned ice cream shop in Hill City, near
the Crazy Horse monument. I remember all the good
experiences because of one particularly bad
experience. In 1996, I had ONE day to get back to
California from Sturgis, so I pulled an all nighter.
Ever try to find an open restaurant after business
hours on Colorado’s I-70? I hit every off ramp they
had and still couldn’t find anything, so I rode on
to Utah and shared the moonless night with a couple
hundred mule deer, who love grazing in the middle of
the road for some reason.
Have ya picked up on a theme here?
Ice cream somehow tastes better depending on how far
you travel to get it. It seems the farther you ride
and the more adversity you survive, the sweeter it
tastes. Maybe it’s a cryptic combination of miles
commingling with the creamy reward, but it’s come to
be known as primal ice cream therapy to me, and I’ll
re-write this article in another ten years to share
all the new ice cream places I’ll be finding in my
adventures. You’re not living life if you don’t
have at least nine toes over the edge. That last toe
should always be keeping the door to an ice cream shop
open just before they close. Ride hard, and live every
day of your life as if it’s the last ice cream you’ll
ever have
Copyright
© 2006 Splatt. Reproduction permitted with
attribution
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