Riding the Fly-Overs

Visit Gillett Wyoming, check. There goes another one off the bucket list… no one has ever said that, no one actually knows what a ‘Gillett Wyoming’ is. But they should. Not because it’s hiding a fierce to-do list of summer Musts, or because it’s charm rivals my own, but because it’s a destination at the end of an adventure. What more do you need?


One of my own has been stationed in the quiet North East corner of that deserted in-between state of Wyoming. He’s manning a “Somebody’s Gotta Do it” post as one of those heroes who leave the real-world and battle the elements of the unknown. That was their plan for him, our’s was to life-line him back to reality.

Waiting 1300km from Calgary, Gillett was just close enough to tickle the idea of getting there on the pony. I hadn’t yet unleashed the Honda VTX on an endless highway since befriending it this Spring, so when a 5-day weekend gave the 1300km the respect in deserved, we started strategizing.

‘We’ was just enough of a team to be a convoy; Ali paved the way in the black Jeep making room for my VTX work-horse and the Royal Star’s two man team of Rick and Marie. We packed essentials, mapped out the possibilities, and drove off into the unknown lands of the Fly-Overs.

There’s something that carries the adventure a little deeper when you push yourself up off the crutch of jet-set travel, when you return to the road and become a part of the trip. On a bike it feels like you move the road, not the other way around. Without the window to hold back your imagination, freedom becomes the only thing that’s ever existed; you, the bike, and the unfolded stage are all in pursuit of the next line of the story. We were carrying everything we needed and charged south, one step up from the saddle of a cowboy’s old West ways.

The two bikes were sewn up at the hands of a couple of bungee-cord artists – bags draped across seats and saddle bags, equipped like life-rafts piggy-backing rocket ships. Our crew rolled out of the garage with more than enough enthusiasm to break through the city’s limits. We hopped from gas-bar to truck-stop, sampling coffee, beef jerky, and the best of the Diner’s 2010 circuit. Alberta faded away along with Wednesday’s setting sun. Time stalled only briefly as we waited at the border crossing, calming the motorcycles as they bagged us to push on. On the other side our introduction to Montana was a strange little world that existed only as two empty lanes. Beyond our modest head lamps, the secrets of darkness.

Nothing rewards the fight against wind and rain and bugs like bed. Like the distraction of competition found in sport, the open road and revealing landscape let you forget about the toll the task takes on you physically and mentally. It became routine for us to get off the bikes at the end of the day and instantly fall into a happy exhaustion.

The Thursday morning light mustered up an amazing Montana. This was why Gillett was introduced into our lives. Throughout the day the country side offered up everything from the big skies of the open plains, to the hidden valleys where land had escaped its surroundings, to towns that had always been there and never wanted more than their own existence. We weren’t in a rush. Scenic Byways, Alternate Routes, Rest Stops, Look Outs, Points of Interest, it was all part of our schedule. And along with some of the most beautiful performances that we could have hoped for, Montana carried us through into Wyoming with just as much disaster as dazzle. Depressing, desolate places that had seen nothing but tough times before coming across tough times. Ghost towns without the ghosts. And yet, even in the misery of broken down buildings, abandoned homes, and worn out schools, there was something captivating about this unknown. In each place that wandered across our path we caught a piece of the story, a sampling of what had moved through, shaped the community, changed the people into ‘folks’ (something that had found a home in these lonely states and felt comfortable enough never to venture on). In some cases the wild of the wild west had slowly started to take back what was once its own, leaving towns partially swallowed up by the land, half way between cute and crooked. If you didn’t keep moving, you would never move again - that’s how these places worked. We never stayed much longer than a fuel-up and a stretch, because although we weren’t racing the horizon, we could feel the next turn calling our names.

We left a short stretch ahead of ourselves for a Friday morning meet and greet with Gillett. Big Barbeque staked its claim on Thursday night, and worked hard to defeat our traveling appetites. Those American Cowboys know how to put together a meal, and they weren’t concerned with the confines of a single plate. There was almost as much barbeque chow on the table as there was great outdoors on the walls (it was a who’s who in the Wyoming zoo of trophy heads cozying up the cook house). We would pass other grill specialists, and our trip would eventually bring us to another BBQ house where once again I would be out done by the table full of plates that the kitchen challenged us with. Quantity, Quality, Atmosphere; these parts know how barbeque is done. The American Roadhouse has now become a staple of the open road in our circles.

Gillett, Wyoming. Over 800 miles had reunited us with Scotty. We settled into his apartment like escaped convicts resurfacing from the fugitive run. I was surprisingly comfortable with not moving. Even though the ride was the adventure and we had grown to love life on the road, a destination can be quite soothing; no need to play favorites. We told stories of the trip and were introduced into Scott’s new world. He had found his place in the town and had heard stories of the front lines, but only from the comfort of his desk. Scott wasn’t quite fighting the same pipeline battles that Daniel Plainview did in There Will Be Blood, but a pipeline’s a pipeline, things can get intense (I’d like to confirm that There Won’t Be Blood in Gillett, however I am told that evil Wyoming winters rile up the crowd something fierce…).

We toured by foot and by truck. On the run we got creeped out by the locals (antelope that suddenly appear in the open fields, watching, waiting, up to no good), but managed to convince them we wanted no part of their strange behavior. While seeing the sights via four wheels (I use the word ‘sights’ in a pretty casual way), we learned two things about Gillett; one, it’s entirely possible that no one is actually from Gillett (or visiting Gillett for that matter – you do your job and you get the he!l out of there), and two, you are only allowed to drive a truck. Motorcycles are allowed to cruise on through, but in no way does the term ‘Smart Car’ get you anything close to a nod of respect, it would probably get you a punch in the face. You gotta man up when you’re in Gillett.

In the US, the July 4th weekend is 1 part pride, 1 part waving stars-and-stripes, and 34 parts Fireworks. Every stop we made on our way to Gillett was decorated with a roadside shack covered in ‘explosive deals’, ‘blow out sales’, and ‘FIRE!’. At one point, a clown-car of a hatchback opened up and a pile of kids jumped onto the scene. After a nice round of the kind of too-much-excitement that only flashy bombs can put in the hearts of children, their dad walked away from the Fire Work Stand with a Wiley Coyote sized crate of celebration. He tossed the kids, the crate, and all that July 4th enthusiasm into the back seat of his stay-out-of-Gillett hatchback and took off to make some memories. Every night we’d been south of the boarder there had been a light show, and Gillett was no different. We saw everything from ‘Professionals’ to ‘a dude in a field trying to start a grass fire’. Grass Fire guy wasn’t very good at getting the Fire Works to go up in the air, he was better at having them jump up ten feet, dropped down into a crowd of kids, and fizzle out. The Fire Work scene never got old and we spent Friday night in Gillett becoming expert Fire Work critics.

The road was calling and it called us back west. We were on the move again Saturday morning, but only after Scott’s hospitality filled our bellies with his homemade flapjacks. He knew what the trail had in store for us. We explored more of Wyoming, and like the road to Gillett, our new route revealed more of American’s ‘Best Of’. Rick reminded us that the first rule of Road Rides is, never travel the same route twice. So we had kidnapped Scott and the five of us rolled through State Parks and National Forests into the booming rodeo world of Cody. As it turns out, everyone in Wyoming was in Cody. This was a complete one-eighty from the peace and nothing that makes up the rest of the state’s hot spots, and we ate up the energy.

You don’t have to own a motorcycle for long before it becomes part of the family. Not in the sense that unconditional love is dished out and you ignore siblings and parents in order to max out the quality time with the bike, but more so in the sense that the motorcycle is now part of your photo collection. It’s come to the point where it may actually be more likely to find a picture of the VTX and the Royal Star mugging for a shot in front of some expansive Wyoming display, than it is to find any of the Webbs locked in frame. I have dozens of shots documenting the travels of my bike. Like the Travelocity Gnome, the background becomes a slide show and the VTX stands front and centre, smiling about all the attention.

By Sunday afternoon we were watching Old Faithful continue its Cal Ripken Jr. streak, and the 5 of us to pictures of each other taking pictures of Yellowstone’s geyser king. It was after circling the park’s scenic highway, dodging herds of buffalo, and catching a Yogi and Booboo photo shoot, that our convoy split apart and passed each other the good-byes. Even Long Weekends are still a little too much Weekend and not enough Long. Scott and Al turned back eastward while Rick, Marie, and I reigned in the bikes and pulled them north; it was time to head home.

There’s no way to fake the kind of connection that creates itself when a couple of motorcycles train it through the country side. At first the stories are told at the rest stops, the moment the helmet pops off. The bikes will stop rolling and the Did-you-see’s, Remember-when’s, and When-we-were’s begin to fly back and forth. It becomes circled wagons without the campfire every hundred miles. Then, after enough highway has come and gone the detail of the debriefs isn’t needed, and the group becomes synchronized. Before long the rest stops are filled with only cues, collections of words and incomplete sentences that bring everyone on to the same page. “Back when we first turned on to the 87…”, “Yep. Incredible”, “…and that green truck?”, “Hahaha, I love it!”, “I couldn’t believe it, that last town…”, “I know, same…”. It turns into code, a language open only to the privacy of the bike entourage. But that doesn’t mean that isolation will creep into your ride, the motorcycle is your ‘In’, and from there the stories really get wild. We met people who had travelled near impossible mileage, bounced off each corner of the continent, traveled solo, as a pair, in a group, on stripped down Harleys, in tricked out Gold Wings, and with glossed up Victorys. We ran into stories about great stretches of road, terrible weather, must-see sights, and encounters with the bizarre. We shot-the-sh!t, talked about nothing, and discussed everything. It was an exclusive club that hide in plain sight, and we’d found our way in.

The three of us shared the journey home like it was a secret we had stumbled upon; some great discovery that gave depth to our understanding of what was happening and why we were doing it. An experience like the motorcycle trip cultivates history within the group almost instantly. And this history only gets stronger on the other side because once the bikes are tucked away and the pursuit of the next horizon fades, the memories start to fuel that tickle in your mind. The road never dies, it simple swings to the side and waits for you to leave your day-to-day rest stop. The key is to plan to plan and start your next countdown to adventure before your last outing has taken you back to base camp again.