Picto Diary - 06 to 09 September 2024 - LOLO Pass with Ahn Rhee
Above: Stinker Sinclair, I-84 Caldwell, ID. 06 September 2024
Out and about WITH the Duc.
A couple of months ago I had coffee with Ahn Rhee and Annie at Peets in Millbrae, CA. Ahn Rhee, recovering from prostate surgery, mused that he'd like to ride Lolo Pass. "Let's do it together," I said! Ahn Rhee replied that it depended on his recovery from surgery. "Call me when you're ready," I said. "We'll get the John Galt riders to join!" Ahn Rhee emailed me a couple of weeks ago and said he was ready to go. I notified John Galt. He said he was in and that we could start the ride from his home in Walla Walla. I would haul my Duc up to Walla Walla by van and trailer and sleep in the van parked in Galt's yard. Ahn Rhee could use Galt's guest room. Wyatt Earp's participation was unsure at the time. By the time of the ride on 07 September 2024, Earp was also a go. Ahn Rhee, Galt, and Mwah (sic) had ridden together in Patagonia some ten years back. This looked to be a great motorcycle riding reunion.
Above: John Galt workshop. Walla Walla, Washington. 06 September 2024.
Out and about on the Duc.
Image: Galt and Ahn Rhee shortly after Ahn Rhee's arrival by motorcycle from Marin County, CA to Walla Walla, Washington, 762 miles.
This upcoming ride with Ahn Rhee and the John Galt riders over Lolo Pass will be my first ride with Ahn Rhee in over ten years. Two or three times in the last ten years I've stopped in Marin County to have coffee at Peets in Millbrae with Ahn Rhee and Annie. Ahn Rhee, 84, is recovering from prostate surgery yet rides his KTM 790 Adventure motorcycle like he is twenty years younger. In 2017, Ahn Rhee rode 800 miles from Marin County, CA to Park City, to drop off at my house a gift to acknowledge my being sidelined with a broken leg (motorcycle accident in Colorado). I found the gift on my porch three mornings later after Ahn Rhee's wife Annie called me to see if I had received the gift. I walked out to the porch and there it (the gift) was! "Why didn't Ahn Rhee knock on my door and stay for a while?" I asked Annie. "Annie said, "it was 7:00 AM when he dropped off the gift and he thought it would be too early to wake you up. So, he rode back home." That's Ahn Rhee. For him a 1600-mile motorcycle ride was no more than an errand. There are very few motorcycle riders ride like Ahn Rhee. Circumnavigation of the Black Sea. Trans Russia. Iran. I've ridden with Ahn Rhee in Mongolia, Viet Nam, Ethiopia, southern Africa and Patagonia. I'm five years younger than Ahn Rhee. Still there is little chance that I'll ever catch up with his motorcycling accomplishments.
Above: Watching "Wheelin' Walla Walla. Walla Walla, Washington, 06 September 2024.
Three at right: Dagny Taggart, Ahn Rhee, and John Galt. At left: friendly neighbors. Small town America. America at its best... increasingly so.
Wheelin' Walla Walla — Downtown Walla Walla Foundation (downtownww.com)
Above: Banner. Walla Walla Wheelin' Walla Walla, WA. 06 September 2024.
Above: Model T. Wheelin' Walla Walla. Walla Walla, WA 06 September 2024.
Above: Kooskia Cafe. Kooskia, ID. 07 September 2024.
Out and about on the Duc.
Image: Post lunch, pre-Lolo. 173 miles ridden since Walla Walla, WA this AM.
Smoke seen here had dissipated by Lolo Pass summit.
Above: Lolo Pass, ID/MT, US 12. Winding Road Next 99 Miles. Motorcycle Nirvana.
Out and about on the Duc.
Bishop, John Galt, Ahn Rhee, Wyatt Earp.
This is my sixth traverse of Lolo Pass... three times each way. Today, eastbound. Little traffic today. Clearwater and Lochsa rivers were low... normal for early fall. I'd look to my right at the Clearwater, squint, and see the Lewis and Clark canoes drifting down the stream. There! there! Lewis and Clark's newfie, Seaman, in the middle canoe! Lolo Pass has become somewhat of a motorcycle ritual. Last year, I met John Galt Riders, John Galt and Wyatt Earp, in Salmon, ID. We rode north to Missoula and rode Lolo westbound. Last year, after lunch at the Kooskia Cafe with the John Galt Riders., I separated from them and rode south to McCall to spend the night. I rode to Park City the next day.
Above: Seaman, Sacajawea, Lewis and Clark.
Note: Readings in my retirement years have caused me to focus (try to focus!) on geologic time and distance in the universe. As I rode, I mused that measured by, say, the time since the Cambrian Explosion five hundred million years ago, the Lewis and Clark expedition and the John Galt Riders ride over Lolo occur at the same timeline data point.
LOLO
99 miles of curves in the Fall.
99 miles of curves.
Stay upright and avoid a stall.
98 miles of curves in the Fall
98....
97...
96...
Etc. ie. a one hundred stanza poem
Above: Rose Lake General Store, Rose Lake, ID. 07 September 2024.
Out and about on the Duc.
John Galt 2019 Honda Gold Wing
Ahn Rhee 2017 KTM 790 Adventure
Bishop 2021 Ducati Multistrada
Wyatt Earp 2012 BMW K1200 GS
Overnight in Missoula, MT. 700-mile round trip east bound US 12 to Missoula. West bound next day (08 September 2024) Via I-90, ID SR 3, ID SR 6, WA SR 372 to Colfax, county roads to Walla Walla. It was my first time riding the I-90 segment (east bound or west bound) between Missoula and Rose Lake (fifteen miles short of Coeur d'Alene). We rode the 130-mile segment early, from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM. The route involved a significant elevation change as we rode up and over and down the Bitterroot Range. There were some significant, read exhilarating, freeway curves at high speed on this I-90 freeway segment. At the early stages of the ride, I could see the sun rise, brilliant orange through the smoky atmosphere, in my left rear-view mirror... an unforgettable image.
At dinner at a pizza joint in Missoula, 07 September 2024, encountering a very personable gender fluid server, geezer, generationally challenged, John Galt Riders (at least his one) agonize over pronoun use and bathroom configurations.
Above: Mural. Colfax, WA. 08 September 2024.
Out and about on the Duc.
Lunch at Wild Ember Kitchen. Ignite your Taste Buds!
Image: Wyatt Earp looks on.
Seated at lunch, Bishop grumbles about female server who seemed to resist giving Bishop a straw (after temporizing a bit, she returned with a straw). John Galt Riders pounce on Bishop for his pettiness. Wild Ember Kitchen had been open only six months. Owned and run by a 30 somethings married couple. Our server was owner husband's sister who came up from Lewiston, ID every weekend with her bestie (female) to help bro and sis in law run the restaurant. The beef chili I had was very good. I'd go back for it. I told the owner he ought to serve it with bread or crackers and he reminded me there were croutons on top.
Above: Walla Walla, WA. 08 September 2024.
Out and RETURNED on the Duc.
Smoky air makes for unique sunset.
John Galt and Dagny Taggert, able hosts, serve grilled salmon and rice for dinner. Ahn Rhee, Mwah (sic), Wyatt Earp, and Sadie Marcus also joined (Sadie Marcus brought a great salad, with ingredients from her own garden, and desert).
Above: Walla Walla, WA. 09 September 2024.
Out and about WITH the Duc in the trailer.
Dawn. John Galt makes repair on fender of Bishop's motorcycle trailer. Bishop has noted some success over the years in befriending guys who know how to do stuff. He and TIMDT have secret plans to camp on the lawn of one of these individuals given the increasingly likely eventuality that the mud will hit the fan within our remaining lifetime. The Bishop remains ever grateful that he has lived at the apex as measured by the celebration of individual liberty, now dissipating.
Above: Ahn Rhee. Walla Walla, WA. 09 September 2024
Out and about on the Duc
First, breakfast at Bacon and Eggs in downtown Walla Walla, then Ahn Rhee, 84, motorcycles to Marin County. Probably, at 762 miles, an overnighter.