Thursday, August 21, 2008 - Posts

Thursday, August 21, 2008 3:36 PM

A Mystery Ride: Warriors, Wagon Trails, and 109 Degrees!

This year, our chapter directors made a slightly insane decision and assigned “Three Wheels West” to Chapter W's Ride Schedule Committee.  Members were requesting more scheduled Saturday rides and weekend campouts to accommodate their work weeks.  The committee was game to add extra weekend events.  Any excuse to get together and ride with the herd was fine with us… then came the Mystery Ride.

Each year, one of our Saturday rides is designated the Mystery Ride.  In a Mystery Ride, only the planners know the destination.  Everyone else relaxes, enjoys the ride, the sight-seeing, and a meal or two among friends.  In mid-May, RR, Hammy, and I planned and tested a mystery ride route.  We designated fuel stops according to our member-bikes’ “miles-until-empty” statistics, and tried to select locations along the way for stretches and meals according to our member-stomachs’ “miles-to-cranky” stats.  All aspects of the ride easily fell into place during our dry run.  The total mileage was perfect – around 325 miles total.  Even the weather was beautiful, and the spring rains had made the views from the bike nothing short of a glimpse of paradise.  To top things off, nobody was able to pry the secret destination of our ride from Hammy.  She never spoiled the surprise for the other members !!!

August 2nd, the day of the Mystery Ride, was forecasted to be a scorcher.  All week long, we’d battled the heat.  Even so, eight bikes and 11 riders showed up at Mac’s Superfoods in Wallace prepared to ride.  After a pre-ride meeting, the group headed North for Hershey and North River Road.  This stretch has become a favorite route to North Platte for us, but not all members had ridden it.  We enjoyed the scenery along the North Platte River and were entertained by some sharp turns and a collection of old bath tubs sitting alongside the river.  This area is an especially beautiful ride when the cranes are on the move and when the leaves are turning in the fall.

Our first stop was at North Platte’s Court Square, where we stopped and admired the restored Sioux Warrior that had been rescued from Sioux Lookout.  In November/December 2007, Nebraska Life magazine published an article on the history of Sioux Lookout and the statue.  We’d all passed this statue time and time again while shopping in North Platte, but never paused and really admired it or read the historical marker posted there.  It’s sad to think that the remarkable and talented sculptor Ervin Goeller died without means to finance his own burial.  Much of the money he earned from his works was said to have been sent home to help his family still in Europe.

(Click here to see all the mystery ride photos.)

Our second stop was at the recently dedicated Twentieth Century Veterans Memorial on the south end of North Platte.  This was another one of those “I’ll stop there someday” moments.  This time we stopped… and remembered.  It was interesting to see the sculptures and tributes paid to the defenders of our country and to the North Platte Canteen workers by the talent of local artists such as the late Ted Long, whose last memorial statue was finished by his son.  Their stories had been featured in the North Platte Telegraph during the dedication of the memorial earlier this year.

After lunch and a root-beer float at the local A&W, we rode south to retrace a portion of the original Lincoln Highway from North Platte to Gothenburg -- via a stretch known as the Gothenburg Stairsteps.  This route travels south of the Platte River unlike a lot of the LH due to the existing roads at the time of the highway’s formation.  Along this portion of the river, most of the existing roads were trails created by farmers taking their harvest to market.  Since the land north of the river was sandier, there weren’t many farmers or trail roads along this stretch; therefore, the original Lincoln Highway ran south of the river until it reached North Platte.  One look at a map tells you how this stretch got its name:  the Highway formed a series of right angles as it coursed along existing property lines like a flight of stairs.

Shortly after leaving North Platte, we passed the Sioux warrior's original home – Sioux Lookout.  You could still see the eroded path used by locals to climb to the top, the highest point in Lincoln County.  Years ago, Indians used this sight to track buffalo herds and wagon trains as they followed the Platte River Valley.  Nebraska Life tells of a “businessman” who hired scouts to report on approaching wagon trains.  These wagons were attacked and robbed; the stolen goods were re-sold to the pioneers of future wagon trains as they restocked supplies for the next leg of their journey west.

Stop Number 3 was Fort McPherson National Cemetery.  Fort McPherson was originally established nearby to assist travelers along the Oregon Trail and ensure peace on the frontier.  The route used by the Pony Express along the Oregon Trail passes through this cemetery.  The cemetery was established in 1873 to hold the relocated remains of soldiers as well as those of settlers.  Four recipients of the Medal of Honor (our nation’s highest award for valor in military combat) are buried here (3 from the Indian Campaigns and one from the Vietnam War) and a group known as the Buffalo Soldiers.  It is a beautiful and peaceful place of rest to remember those who died fighting for our country.   An impressive white marble monument marks the group burial of the 28 soldiers who were killed in the Grattan Massacre.  We spent time locating names on the headstones while enjoying the cool shade as the heat really started to climb. 

Our mystery ride included one short gravel-road detour to avoid a bridge replacement near the end of the stairsteps.  This job was supposed to have been finished by July 1; it wasn’t.  Near Gothenburg, our group turned south and then east for a scenic ride to Elwood and then Arapahoe.  Here’s where the ride got interesting.  We knew the temperature was supposed to reach the 3- digit mark, but when we turned south at Elwood, it was like hitting a solid wall of furnace-blasts.  Never have I ridden in temperatures where you actually got hotter as the wind blew stronger.   The only way I know to describe it is a blast of heated wind similar to what a storm jumper must feel when the forest fire he’s battling creates its own weather.  The blast of heat on the plateau was not something we’ve encountered on the bikes before in this area.  The thermometers on our bikes showed 110 degrees at one point.  The Coolies around our neck had long since dried up, and the water bottles were near empty. 

When we entered Arapahoe, we bypassed the fuel station and headed straight for the air conditioning of Goodrich Diary.  I thought I was fine until I climbed off the bike and took about 10 steps…. Whoa, just a little dizzy.   We took our time eating ice cream, lowering our body temperatures, and rehydrating before riding on. 

By the time we reached McCook in the early evening, the mercury was still reading 109.  One exception: the Stone Monument Company’s reading was 115 degrees.  Those of us able to find humor in the heat, joked that the company's thermometer wasn't wrong, merely a forecast of a few customers' final destination.  At this point, we surrendered and headed for Taste of Texas BBQ for the evening meal and plenty of iced tea and water. 

During the final leg home (somewhere around 8 – 9 pm) the temperature finally dropped to 90, and we were able to enjoy the beauty of the clouds above the setting sun during the final leg to Imperial and then home.  Chapter W’s 2008 Mystery Ride was one for the record books.  Good friends, good food, and good …. Well, we’ll certainly remember what a difference an extra 25 degrees can make while riding a high plains plateau. 
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