It was to be our second "big ride" and Sherry and I made all necessary preparations for a two week adventure, exploring the history of the Old West along our eastward trek to the Great Plains.
I took our '84 Electra Glide to the dealership in Springfield for routine servicing, wherein all prescribed maintenance issues were to be addressed. Because I'm no mechanic (I'm lucky if I can pull off an oil change) I have no choice but to trust the folks who work in these "Harley Shops" and so forced myself to avoid stereotyping the burly-bearded-tattooed-mechanic at Eastside Harley Davidson, a place owned by a back-slapping good ol' boy I remember as "Frank". Always jolly and congenial, Frank greeted customers with down-to-earth friendliness, and you couldn't help but like the short, stocky proprietor who's appearance could be likened to a jovial Nikita Khrushchev, the communist leader of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Much as I liked him, I would eventually learn that Frank had a knack for hiring misfits.
None of that can be blamed on the broken speedometer cable that happened right out of the chutes, before we got out of Oregon. As I recall we were nearing the first day's destination at Wallowa Lake when that first malady was noticed. It would have to wait until Lewiston, Idaho to be addressed.
Our promising June weather turned to intense rain that night, quickly revealing as a mistake my plan of "camping out" along the trail. Our 2-man pup tent was a pretty snug fit for our 1-man-1-small-woman duo, especially when trying to create an island within to avoid the encroaching river that surrounded us outside. Can't recall if I dug one of those recommended moats the night before but by the next morning our sleeping bag edges were soaked from water wicking through the sidewalls. The good news was that our "rain-fly" worked well and we were otherwise dry after the night-long downpour.
I can't recall why we spent another night in the Wallowa Lake area because our planned "tram ride" to the top of nearby Mount Howard was canceled due to high wind. Maybe it was the wind that kept us off the road for another day? Whatever the case, we spent the next night in a small motel in nearby "Joseph" with our tent hanging over the shower rod and our sleeping bags stretched on the floor, hoping all would be dry before departing north the next morning.
The Harley Shop in Lewiston had no speedometer cables. Would have to order one. Would be a couple of weeks. So far, the slow roads we traveled didn't lend themselves to law breaking speeds and I was probably within the ballpark on my speed estimations using the tachometer and rise and fall of gear vibrations. I was pretty good at it by the time we reached Denver where the speedometer cable was finally replaced.
Other than that one minor set back, things were running smoothly (as smooth as a Harley can) meandering up and over the Lolo Pass to Missoula and south through the Bitteroot Valley. It was while climbing out of the valley, up the 7241-foot Chief Joseph Pass on the Continental Divide, that an alarming problem was revealed. While pulling the grade a sudden revving of the engine and loss of momentum indicated a slipping clutch, then it would kick back in. Then it repeated. Then it quit. The back and forth sensation plagued us all the way to the top. My mind was also slipping between anger and concern as I downshifted and limped to the top.
There wasn't a problem going downhill and the problem was minimal, nearly gone, on the flats. At least that must've been so because I don't recall having further issue until we reached Yellowstone Park 355 miles later.
It was our first of three visits to Yellowstone Park over the next 22 years and our first opportunity to watch the steam-exploding phenomenon known as Old Faithful, which happens like clockwork every 45 to 125 minutes. Naturally, when we arrived the event had just completed and the maximum wait was starting over. Foremost in my mind was to secure lodging before dark and it was already late in the afternoon. The crowded-reservation-only Old Faithful Lodge standing in front of us wasn't an option. Our geyser-watching-wait lasted about 10 minutes before we gave up and returned to the road, slip-clutching our way toward Cody, Wyoming in search of lodging.
Like a desert oasis, we stumbled onto the "Trail Inn Motel" about 20 miles shy of Cody. Far enough away from Yellowstone to be crowd-free and close enough to Cody for through motorists to ignore it, the Trail Inn was a peaceful comfort that has forever remained a memorable highlight. It wasn't a motel, really, but a group of small rustic cabins, so small the door nearly scraped the foot of the bed when opening and closing. Adding to the ambiance was a three-legged dog (black lab) scratching at our door. I don't recall but it's quite possible Sherry let the dog in for the night.
The door-scratching dog might have followed us from the cafe where we had at least two of them at our feet while eating the only thing the shift-ending cook was willing to cook, hamburgers, which was fine with us after our hard and hungry all-day ride. We dined that evening with dogs at our feet and the family who ran the place at a far table, playing cards, waiting for us to finish so they could close.
Next morning, though 120 miles or so lay between us and mechanical security at Billings, Montana, my concern must have waned long enough for us to stop and enjoy the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, because I have many pictures proving our visit there. I don't recall a struggle on the way to Billings but do recall major shifting and clutch problems while lurching from stoplight to stoplight in the city itself, in search of the Harley Hospital.
Hospital aptly describes the place. The head mechanic, a beardless, tatooless man of sophisticated posture, walked about in a calf-length white frock, clipboard in hand, and accepted my road-weary tale with compassionate concern. He assured us our problems could be remedied by closing time, except of course for the speedometer cable, which would have to be ordered. It could be there in a couple of weeks.
By and by, the frock-wearing-clip-board carrier approached us in the waiting room with startling news. He opened the palm of his hand and showed us a broken metal rod, saying it came from our transmission that was "dry as dust". There was no doubt in his mind the transmission had been purposely drained. It couldn't have gotten that way under normal operation. The broken part was a result of no lubrication.
Furthermore, it was discovered the slipping clutch resulted from lubricant being added to it when it never should have been, because it was a "dry clutch." What is known as a "wet clutch," which does in fact require lubricant, came out on Harley's 1985 models, but the '84 models, like ours, were "dry clutches".
The head mechanic agreed with my quick assessment that the entire problem was due to inept workmanship at the Harley Shop in Springfield, Oregon, 1000 miles in our rear-view mirror. In actuality, it speaks highly of our bike's endurance to have made it that far with no transmission fluid and oil in the clutch.
Needless to say, I was livid. Ask Sherry. She probably remembers my window-rattling rant that culminated in a phone rant when I called Springfield. I went so far as to have the Billings mechanic take the phone and explain, in technical terms, the nature of the problem and the only way it could have happened.
If memory serves me right, whoever was on the Springfield phone didn't need a whole lot of convincing as to the deficiencies of their mechanic because he'd already been fired for complaints other than mine. As for my demand that my "Billings Bill" be compensated for, the answer was to come and see them as soon as I got home and bring the receipts. I didn't have a definite answer from the guy I was talking to and "Frank" wasn't available.
I want to say the repair bill was in the neighborhood of $200, though I'd consider that cheap now days when the cost would probably be three times that. I say $200 based on my "Pavlov's-dog-response" for several years of, whenever passing a Harley Shop, having this inexplicable urge to just stop and give them $200 for no particular reason.
Though we had another "growing" mechanical problem when we left Billings, I wouldn't know it until we reached Denver after our farthest eastward point at Deadwood, South Dakota. It would be awhile.
Our only calamities between Billings and Denver, other than visiting Calamity Jane's grave in Deadwood, was enduring a painful grasshopper bombardment somewhere around the Montana/South Dakota border and a nostril-shutting side-wind between Lusk and Douglas, Wyoming where we backtracked to escape a lightening-laced thunderstorm.
Other than that we put problems aside and focused on the pleasurable parts of the adventure. We had a fascinating visit to the Little Bighorn Battlefield, experienced the teeth-shaking crossing of the Cheyenne Indian Reservation on pot-hole-covered Hwy 212, a face-to-face look at Mount Rushmore and walked the bawdy streets of Deadwood where I was even caught up on the witness stand in the trial of Wild Bill Hickok's killer, Jack McCall.
After a raging night of thunder and lightening, we left Douglas under overcast sky and crossed the Colorado border in dripping rain that followed us to our day's destination at Brighton, in the farming country northeast of Denver. It is there and in nearby Wattenburg where Sherry's ancestry, second generation German immigrants, arrived and homesteaded in the 1870's. The Stoltz family are her father's people and remnants of the clan remain.
Sherry delighted in visiting her great aunt, great uncles and various degrees of cousins. We stayed a few days with her Eppinger cousins and toured the old homestead, recently sold when the last of the Stoltz's, "Great Uncle Heinie" (John Henry Stolz, Jr) joined his brother Karl and Karl's wife "Ceil" in an assisted living complex in Brighton.
I took advantage of the down time to make an appointment with the Denver Harley Shop for a speedometer cable. Miracles of miracles, they had one. I don't believe I knew of any other problems when I arrived there but certainly knew before I left, because I paid for much more than a speedometer fix.
Our 1984 bike was the last of the "chain-drive" Harleys. The next year is when the low maintenance belt-drive came out. Those chains needed constant lubrication, hence the oil-filled rubber "boot" that housed the chain. Another feature of the chain was the need of adjustment from time to time, loosening or tightening as the need dictated. If I was aware of that it had slipped my unmechanical mind. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem the "loose chain", which ricocheted inside the walls of the rubber boot and caused the leak that caused the dry chain that caused the near breakage that caused, that caused, that caused ........ should have happened between servicing, and I never missed in keeping with the maintenance schedule. I don't remember if the actual chain had to be replaced or just the rubber boot. And though I don't remember the actual cost it was much more than the cost and replacement of a speedometer cable; the total cost probably more than the usual $200. One would think if the chain had been properly adjusted at the Springfield servicing, it wouldn't be that out of whack by the time we reached Denver?
We left Denver and crossed The Rockies on Interstate 70, traveled through the mile-long Eisenhower tunnel and angled north, back into Wyoming for one last fling of pleasure ..... The Grand Tetons. We had a good time there. Trouble free. No complaints ..... but we weren't home yet.
Basking in the beauty of The Tetons, we departing the Jackson Lake Lodge along the shore of Jackson Lake on the back road toward the town of Jackson. As soon as we were out of convenient reach of civilization, throaty gasps of complaint emanated from the engine until all was quiet and we coasted to a fog line stop in the middle of nowhere. What now? I didn't know what was wrong except that we were stranded and cell phones were still in wait of invention.
Actually, we weren't in the middle of nowhere, just on the edge of nowhere about 25 miles from Jackson but only about a mile from from a couple of houses I remember passing. The occupants were home at the first place and allowed me use of their phone and phone book.
The good news was it wasn't Sunday and Jackson was open for business. The bad news was that Jackson had no Harley Shop. The good news was they had a Honda Shop who would send help.
Next thing I remember is our Harley strapped to a flatbed trailer behind a pickup truck where Sherry and I were wedged with the driver on our way to Jackson.
Sherry likes to tell the story of her ride to a dumpy motel with a seedy cabdriver while I remained at the Honda Shop waiting for our problem to be diagnosed. She says she arrived at the motel in time for round two of a domestic dispute taking place on the other side of the thin walls separating our room from the chaos. I can't remember how come it was my fault, but it was. I must've sent her on ahead, to secure lodging, lest we be homeless that night in the fast filling tourist town?
The problem with our bike was a dead "coil". No juice to run things. Required a simple replacement, so I don't know why it wasn't ready until the next morning? Could it be discrimination? After all, the shop owner said when he saw us arrive ..... and I quote from all these years later ....... "Best thing you can do with that thing is jack it up and put a Goldwing under it." With 800 miles left to go, I was in no position to argue.
We covered those 800 miles in the next two days and within the week I was at the counter of Springfield's Harley Shop with a handful of receipts, demanding satisfaction.
First thing I remember is being met with confusion. No one there had any idea what I was talking about. At the time I remembered the name of the guy I was on the phone with when I called from Billings, so was able to tell them who I talked to. Well, thereya go..... he no longer works here, they said, and, no, he never wrote anything down about your call.
Seems I ended up going to Frank himself and telling the whole story again. Frank agreed it sounded like something that the fired mechanic would have done. I was reimbursed for the Billings job, but of course I was on my own for the Denver and Jackson repairs.
Needless to say, I was reluctant to go on any more trips with that motorcycle. Too stubborn to take the Jackson Honda Dealer's advice, I didn't put a Goldwing under it but traded for a 1989 Harley in September 1988.
Highlights of the South Dakota Ride are contained in this slide show:
Smugmug Version
