By Solana Kline — [A lifelong dog-rescue advocate and avid back-country motorcycle adventure rider]
Southwest Colorado. Finally out of any possible deserts for a couple of weeks and into the high country, into John Denver lyrics.
The tall mama Ponderosas shade out the late June sunbeams. A steady southern breeze whirls through the pine-tops. Betty (aka Dr. Sausage) and Mickey (aka Dr. Wiggles) dream lazily of squirrelin’, ice cream, and hamburgers. The occasional woof or tail wag puffs up mini Hiroshimas of dusty high-desert dirt.
I lay back in the sidecar, enjoying a cheesy romance novel, with moto boots drying in new sweat rings in the sun. Socks and pants can about stand up on their own by now.
We rest after 1.5 months and 2,800 miles on the road (or to be more precise, off-road), camping and hammering miles in our moto-sidecar. Today me and these two gems of doggies rest.
We left Prescott at the start of May and have been lucky to have no mechanicals, but the weld busted on the sidecar yesterday. This means we have the entire weekend to relax here in the trees, waiting for the gas-station welder to come back to work on Monday morning.
Lucky for us, we’re camped at USFS trails. Almost every night on this trip have been camped at USFS or BLM trails out in the backcountry. Starting each day with a new single-track trail, a good leggie stretch, and a load up into the sidecar!
Trails become these little veins into adventure and wonder and beauty and awe. They are the lifeblood of our dog pack, and we seek them out every place we go.
Trail time together bonds us like no other, teaching the pups and me to be a true wild pack. To keep an eye out for each other, to warn of danger. To joyfully roll in the grossest of rotting deer carcasses (I opt out of this one). To watch crocodile in clear, sun-sparkling, high Alpine waters on the toastiest of days.
To fly effortlessly forth down the single-track trail. To be free to roam and explore. To sniff new butts around every bend in the trail. To learn to be independent and healthy in wonder. To set boundaries, test limits, and to ALWAYS go full beasto into the beautiful unknown of mama nature.
Trail time as a pack is healing for all of us. Betty and Mickey, both ex-street dogs, had to learn how to be a pack in nature together. How to work together. How to leave old traumas behind and remember (or try for the first time) how to play!
They light up on a new trail, sensing the new explores to come. Knowing the drudgery of same-walk-every-day is not happening, they go turbo into the burmed switchbacks and scrub. They know new trails; it feeds their souls, as it does mine. They always dream bigger the nights after we venture new trails, imaginations and hearts full and happy.
A few quick welds Monday morning have us back on the backroads. The winding goodness of Colorado mountain roads is the honeypot of moto touring. We are unquestionably exhausted but still not ready to head back home, not with all the mountains on the horizon!
We moto forward into fields of late-June spring greens, fresh cool grasses, and budding neon-green fingertips of the pines. How many shades of green? They say the Inuit have hundreds of words for snow. I reckon we’d need a whole 48-count box or more of crayons for these greens.
We see beavers and bear tracks and fish. We smell Spring in the sweet vanilla of Ponderosa skin. In the Dorito goodness of napping puppy paws flopping in my face.
We venture into unknown wildness and wilderness, getting our showers from icy mountain streams and our grass rolling just about everywhere we stop here in the highlands. The doggies don’t miss a patch, whether groomed green grasses nestled in amongst the old mining towns, or the wild spring stems waving at us in the valley winds.
As soon as we park the Ural, the pups find the fresh cool greens and plot their somersaults: nose down first, shoulder drop, and into full flop and back wriggle goodness, wiggle butts a go-go, smiles on! I lay down and roll with them, soaking in the new perspective, wondering where the puffy white clouds go next….
We revel in the 10,000-foot camping and trails, cool breezes and snowy patches mashed full of adventuring puppy pawprints. We ride and hike and nap and dream.
We camp alongside overflowing Spring melt-off rivers and brave the blasting current to reach the trails across. Micks is seemingly impervious to the frigid temps and slick stones beneath our feets. Betts looks up wide-eyed for a suitcase carry across, which of course I happily oblige.
Our high-elevation trail adventures with 70-degree days and 30-degree nights make it harder and harder to think of rolling south through the broiling Ute and Navajo lands to make it back home to Prescott. Couldn’t we just stay here forever amongst these ribbons of single-track and tall green grasses?
But the quickly fading moto tire tread and the July black flies had different plans for us. Alas, it was time to head home. And so we suit up for the last time in our cooling vests. I douse the pups and their cooling bed in fresh mountain-stream water. We thank the mountains and promise to return soon.
We roll our longest day of the trip to make it back across the Navajo Rez’s burning desert. Radiant heat mirages across the impossibly straight single lanes with 110-degree blacktop temps lulling me into submission.
We pray for a cloud and a gas station before we reach empty.
Sunscreen on the pup nosers and a constant water spray down on their evaporative vests keep Betts and Micks nice and cool in spite of the convection bake we were riding across.
Gratitude doesn’t begin to describe seeing the monsoons looming above Prescott. Deep-dark purples and low, thick clouds are dropping our salvation just miles ahead. We roll into the walls of rain, embracing the chill and reveling in the awkward sploshing inside my “waterproof” boots.
We skirt the lightening and take in the last moments of our trip, pulling over for one last sniff-and-pee stop along a newly formed monsoon river just outside of Prescott. Soon we’d all be sprinting to our bed, relieved to be home safe, grateful for the memory foam and freezer full of Ben n’ Jerry’s.
But for right now, we sit next to these temporarily raging waters, sunset amber beaming on the doggies monsoon-muggy panting mugs. Nostalgia for our adventure already brims over inside me. I cry, from a combination of exhaustion, relief, awe, disbelief.
I’ve ridden countless backcountry motorcycle trips solo, and after getting to do this Epic with the pups instead of without them, I can’t imagine it any other way. Our pack will never be the same. We will forever be comfortable eating ice cream off the same spoon. Using each other as pillows. Unquestioningly listening to each other’s intuition. Holding a mutual understanding of exactly when to go full beasto down a new trail after giving each other that particularly wiley look.
Endless ribbons of single-track and tall green grasses, a true Wild West adventure to fill our hearts and dreams with possibilities. Endless ribbons of single-track and tall green grasses….
Until next time, happy tails and happy trails!
~ Solana, Dr. Sausage, and Dr. Wiggles ~
