Robin: Travis, why don't you introduce this one?

Travis: I forget how the introduction goes. Um, let me just pull up an old document real quick.

Robin: Hi, my name is Travis Burleson. That's all you gotta say is, hi, my name is Travis Burleson. And then after we all go through it, you say, and this is the Writing Obsession podcast.

Travis: All right, there we go.

Robin: Really?

Travis: I had spin on it. Um, okay, ready? And I'm like sick and I got cold medicine in my system.

Robin: Oh, I forgot. I'm in Texas.

Travis: All right, ready? Yes. Hello everybody. This is Travis Burleson. I'm Robin Dean. And I'm Tim Clark. And this is the WritingObsession.com podcast.

Tim: Welcome aboard.

Robin: Hey, in this episode, you know, it's time to catch up with the previous adventure. You know, Tim Clark, we did part one for his 8,000 mile. It was actually more than 8,000. Was it more, more than 8,000? Just a hair over that.

Tim: Just a hair over. 8,085.

Robin: And it's his, it's his show. It still was. We promised a second bout with the topic of all things Tim Clark and adventurous writing in the, uh, in the loam of, what was it? Chicago to California, all the way up to Canada and back. And right now I think we just left off in Canada. Am I right?

Tim: That's as much as I remember. I think I just started talking about the first couple of days in Canada.

Travis: We just, yeah, there was some pretty rustic camping. There was bear boxes. Uh, I remember at one point you had like set your tent up inside a woodshed.

Tim: Oh, that's actually pretty far in. That was once I was back in the U S.

Robin: Oh really? Wait, wait, wait, wait. So let's make sure I didn't even, I didn't even double check where we were with any of that. Uh, Travis, you, you're saying that you actually confirmed that. Was that something you kind of, I don't know.

Travis: I just remember the picture. I'm looking through the pictures now.

Robin: I didn't even check the links there.

Travis: So there's Tim, there's Sylvia. We're in the border. I think we got to the point where you, you'd landed the ferry in BC. Like you're off, you're off the ferry after staying up all night and sleeping in a gas station parking lot in the morning.

Robin: Okay. Oh yeah. Uh, hold on here.

Travis: Yeah. Tim's up for like two, two hours on the ground in a gas station parking lot. So he could get the ferry in the morning.

Tim: Yeah. I wasn't actually sleeping there. I was just hanging out there. So yeah.

Travis: And then you stayed at the inn.

Tim: Wait until they were, let me get there.

Travis: With the nice people at the inn. And then you, uh, headed out. You got like a special tour from some creepy maintenance guy.

Tim: Oh, not creepy at all. Yeah. But it was the maintenance guy. Yeah. I didn't actually even get a tour. I just talked with him for about 45 minutes.

Robin: Which page of the smug mug 2018 trip should I be on?

Tim: I'm on page one. Go like page four.

Travis: I'm on page three actually. Page three, about a quarter of the way down is. Yeah. Once you see the, like the log dam, I think that's about where we are. Where there's that picture of the, the logs built up on the, on the dam.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: So are you driving? I think that's about where we were. Oh yeah. I think that is. You want to pick it up, Tim? Are you driving across the dam? Is that what's going on?

Tim: This was shortly after hitting the road. Finally, after screwing around and talking to the maintenance guy, I am actually finally on the road and taking a side diversion just to see what's there. I've just followed a gravel road off and it was a park with a, right at the foot of this dam that's got these logs piled up in front of it.

Robin: Yeah. It was a cold misty day. That's the, the picture of you on the woodsy side of the road. You're on the left side of the road. The right side of the road, technically. And it looks like a park road. Oh goodness. Let me see. It's the, on page three, it's one, two, three, four pictures down.

Tim: Keep going down a little further because that is the Vancouver Island one. So you're going to see some ferry photos and then the photo of the tiny room and the bed and breakfast. And then the, the old fishing museum or cannery museum.

Robin: Well, with my internet connection net being what it is, you and Travis talk and I'll sniff this whiskey.

Tim: Oh, okay. All right. So yeah, this is one of those times when I'm just stopping, I'm finding a place to pull over and snoop around and see what I can see. And I actually had a cell phone connection. This was before I really get away from civilization. So I was checking in with the family, taking a picture and saying, look, I'm alive. Here it is. It's cold, wet, misty, rainy. And my GPS has no idea where I'm at. I think it was the first half of that day. My GPS just kind of gave up. It's like, I don't know where the hell you are. Shit.

Travis: You're in Canada.

Tim: Like, like, you know, these U.S. satellites, they, uh, they don't cover this. So we don't really know where you are. Yeah. Thanks, Garmin. That worked great. Wow.

Travis: It doesn't do the, uh, the like Russian, the double satellite system.

Tim: I, it, I don't think that it does or it would have. Yeah. The Glonass or whatever that is. Glonass.

Travis: I think you're, you're saying your, uh, your emergency beacon has that. Yep.

Tim: Yeah. And I wasn't in, I wasn't really excited about testing out my emergency beacon in Canada because it was a separate registration for U.S. and Canada. Did you end up having to do that? I did not have to use the beacon at all.

Robin: Okay, good.

Tim: And that is, that beacon that I have, the, uh, rescue link is a no fuck around beacon.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: You do not hit that button unless you are ready for the helicopter to come and get you.

Robin: The only thing that would make that better on my end is the fact that I'm looking at a picture of a McDonald's parking lot. If you had to use the emergency beacon in a McDonald's parking lot, I would have been very happy about this. Jokingly, humorously. Go on.

Tim: All right. So, um, further on in these photos, you're going to see a couple of waterfalls. They're just, the water was this really beautiful green and this was an area called the, the drowned forest. And it was a, it was the lava field down this valley. And it was because it turned into a non-permeable surface. Like that whole section is just a miles long stair step waterfall.

Travis: And are you on a, are you on a road or are you on like a trail or like a?

Tim: I am just grabbing little pull outs and there, there were a couple trails walking back in there, but it wasn't hiking really.

Travis: Okay.

Tim: So you're like, get off the bike and walk a hundred yards.

Travis: So the bike, you're on, you're on a paved road and then you're doing these scenic pull outs.

Tim: That's right. Yeah. Oh, my Skype is doing something silly.

Travis: I don't think Robin clicked on the screen share.

Tim: Oh, Robin is sharing.

Travis: We're, we're way, we're way past that. Robin keeps going.

Tim: Go up, go up. You're too far. Oh, that's Montana. All right. That's Canada.

Travis: Keep going. Keep going up. Go, go back a page. You're on four. Yeah.

Robin: Now I get, now I know I'm getting it right. That's good. That's good.

Travis: Go up, go up, go up till they see waterfalls.

Tim: Okay. There you go. So the stop below that.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: All right. Fairy, fairy, fairy, fairy, fairy. I knew this would be the right thing to do in the end.

Tim: Yeah, that's the way to go. All right. So you're seeing these, it's mostly pine forest and everything's so overgrown.

Travis: It's natural, I mean, that's the. I'm, I'm liking these next couple pictures. Get it? Cause there's lichen on the volcanic rocks. But you can see here the volcanic field. Yeah.

Robin: I see what you did there.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: So I'm heading up towards a Indian reservation. And then I don't remember what the name of the Indian tribe was, but it was, it was the furthest North that I went. And I eventually joined, took this really long gravel road to join back up with one of the highways that links from Canada to Alaska. It's, if you're going to do an Alaska ride, that's the highway you join.

Travis: Okay. Like the, whatever the, uh, something that's got a, that's got a name.

Tim: Yeah. I can't even remember right now what it was.

Travis: Is that the, uh, the, the, the gravel road or is that just like the Canadian highway? Yeah. That's the gravel road. Yeah. So yeah. So guys do that. Yeah. Cause yeah, I know that the road you have to Alaska is like gravel, the whatever highway.

Tim: I think that's a Dempster highway. That is the one that is infamous for being just messy, sloppy, muddy craziness. If it's wet.

Travis: And guys do it on Goldwings and Harleys and stuff.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Yep.

Tim: So the photos you're seeing right here are, you know, it's a bridge over a really rough mountain river and this is taken late at night. Do you want to share? These were taken at about 10, 30, 11 at night.

Robin: Do you want to share your screen and I'll cancel mine? Yeah. It's the, uh.

Tim: Let's do that.

Robin: It's an icon on the actual chat window. Right. I think I just disabled mine. Can you see me now?

Tim: Yep. Well, I can see you. Are you seeing yourselves? Yeah.

Robin: Yes. Probably.

Tim: All right. There we go. All right.

Robin: Nice. Okay.

Tim: So here we go. So this was very typical of the gravel roads and bridges in rural British Columbia, where you're seeing just a timber bridge covered with gravel.

Robin: It's just a square log and like planks.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. It's like made out of railroad parts.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: Yep.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: And I, whenever possible, I would try and get out in the middle of nowhere and try and find a place to camp. So this first night out in the wild, I had been on the road for so long. I've been on the road for more than 12 hours at this point. And it's, I'm very far North and there's tons of light way late in the night. This is about 1030, almost 11 o'clock at night. And you can see there's still light in the sky here. And I am up against a barricade where I thought that there was a campground. And I did not. This is all Native American, Native, not Native American. Indigenous.

Robin: We call them in Canada.

Travis: Indigenous peoples. Indigenous. Yeah. I mean, they would be Native Americans. Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: No, technically we are Native Americans and they prefer the term indigenous because it means that they are the bloodline that started here.

Tim: Sure. That works for me. So there were a lot of protest signs around. Apparently they're fighting over some liquid natural gas pipelines. Yeah. Go figure. So some of these roads were just blocked off. It wasn't on any of the maps. The road that you thought it was clear was shut down. So I end up at this barricade. It ended up being that beyond that gate was not where the campground was. In the next picture here, you're going to see a little stretch of that bridge. And that barricade was off on the left and far on the right, somewhere in these trees was where the campground actually was.

Robin: So for the viewers, basically there's a bridge over a massive drop into a beautiful river that's likely colder than a witch's tit. And then on the far deep right is where he was supposed to go. How long did it take you to figure that you were going to have to turn around?

Tim: I spent some time looking at the maps and trying to figure out what I was doing, where I was at. I was pretty sure I was where I thought I was going. And of course, my phone is almost useless for maps at this point because most of the time I'm out of service areas. I didn't download the maps ahead of time. My GPS doesn't have shit for labeling. And I did find it ended up being a two-track going back into the woods here. And there was a bridge that was washed out over a creek that's joining this main river. I saw that there was a bypass, a nasty rutted two-track going down to this creek and then back up. Steep walls on both sides. It's getting dark. It's really rocky. And I couldn't tell how deep that water was down there. And I gave up on it. I went and I got myself a hotel.

Robin: All right. All right. But even still, that's a testament to the adulthood that needs to exist more today that I personally do not have in my repertoire. I know Travis kind of does too. Both of you, you would see that and be like, well, there's a problem to solve. Let's see if we can figure it out. Me, I would have just, you know, like, fuck this! Upset, breaking gear, slamming things on the ground. Where's the nearest hotel? I need a holiday in.

Tim: Yeah. And I was stubborn. I tried, you know, and that's when you travel alone, you always have to manage your risk and know when you're above your head.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: And before getting to this campground, I'd seen a bear.

Robin: Oh, no, no, no. Like a grizzly. That's grizzly territory, right? Or was it a black bear?

Tim: No, it was a black bear. Okay. It was a black bear that I saw. And he was small. He was a juvenile, but he was less than two miles from where that campground was.

Travis: You could have taken him, Tim.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: I mean, a black bear is a whiskey situation. If you got enough whiskey in your system, it's like, okay, I got to find a black bear. But a grizzly bear, even with enough whiskey, it's like I need to drink enough whiskey to get eaten by this grizzly.

Tim: Yeah. So at the hotel that I doubled back to, because it was still a good 10 or 15 miles of dirt before I got back to the nearest town, I ended up running into a couple guys that were making an Alaska run. And they were actually heading to a new section that was opened. It wasn't the Dempster Highway. Or, no, it was the Dempster Highway, but the Dempster Highway was now extended up to the Arctic Ocean. And I can't remember what the name of the town is. The abbreviation, everyone just calls it Tuck.

Travis: Saskatchewan.

Tim: You know, it's got this huge long name, Tuck, Tuck, Tuck, something or other. Tucktonucktonuck or something.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: So it was fun chatting with them. They're like, are you coming back? What's the roads like? I'm like, no, I didn't go. I didn't go. So it was pretty entertaining. There were a couple of guys on KLRs and just loaded up with, you know, here I was with all this fancy luggage. And they just had a couple dry bags strapped to the back seat and a couple garbage bags. It's just, it was KLR traveling. So next photo you're going to see here is my bike covered in mud after ducking off to multiple logging roads.

Robin: I can still read your license plate, Tim CC.

Travis: Yeah. I just had looked up that city. It looks like there is a road that goes to it. Yeah. It's up on the Arctic Sea, but that I don't know what that peninsula is up there. But it's just like riddled with lakes, like how they built, like, you know, you zoom in on Google Maps and it just looks like it's mostly water with like bits of land in between. So how they built the road is beyond me. But it is Tuck Toyuck Tuck.

Robin: Tuck Toyuck Tuck.

Travis: Yes.

Robin: That is the most indigy name I've ever heard in my life. If we had Isaiah Walker on here right now, who is indigenous, he'd be like, oh yeah, Tuck Toyuck Tuck. Like, okay.

Travis: So it's definitely Inuit. Tuck Toyuck Tuck. Tuck Toyuck Tuck.

Robin: Yeah. That's the thing.

Tim: So it's Inuit or whatever they are up there. I won't even pretend to be savvy on that. But this was, this time when I was stopped to clean my chain was the time when I started to realize how bad the chain was stretching. And I'm beating this bike up because it's constantly rain, mud, highway, you know, or dust and dirt and.

Travis: So you're getting it all gunked up and then putting high speed miles on it. Right.

Tim: Yeah. As bad a treatment of a chain as you can possibly do. Dude. You know, so this, at this stop, I spun the adjusters almost a full turn, which is kind of a lot.

Travis: That's huge.

Tim: That's a big move.

Travis: Yeah. That is a. That's taking like an inch of slack out of the.

Tim: That's like a quarter inch of lateral movement or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's when you consider that that's a whole lot of little wear surfaces wearing down and it's, it's just, and most of this was, you know, it's not bad mud. I mean, you can tell it's not really caking up that bad. It's just the stuff that sprays up.

Travis: Yeah. Well too, it's like all like volcanic grit. That's really hard material and kind of, kind of course.

Robin: Yeah. And take that and mix it, mix it with your garden variety bullshit than any road picks up, which is like slurry of man-made bullshit.

Tim: Oh yeah. And I was on log truck roads when, let me tell you, don't screw around with them. They don't, they don't veer anything off course. They won't run you down and they are moving and they are taking up the whole damn road.

Robin: I'll let Travis field that. We saw some loggers and I mean, just American loggers in Virginia.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: They ride better than we do.

Tim: There were a couple of times, you know, yeah, there were a couple of times I had to jump off onto the shoulder to get out of their way.

Robin: Like it's their territory.

Tim: Yep. Yep. It's your road. You do it. And you know, I'm, I know they're talking to each other on radio. I see their signs saying what channel, whiskey.

Travis: All right. All right. We're back. Might makes right style of driving.

Tim: Yeah. So I, I know, you know, I'm not on their radio channels. I'm not warning anyone. I'm hoping that they're radioing back to each other saying, Hey, there's an idiot on a motorcycle coming down the road. Watch out for him. Like, I don't know what the hell you're doing out here.

Travis: A hundred points.

Tim: If you hit them, I mean, like there's a perfectly good highway paralleling this road. What are you doing here? Because it seems to me like 90% of the industry in the area is logging.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: And then 5% is tourism.

Travis: Oh yeah.

Tim: Little town, 5% whatever they can do to get by.

Travis: It's basically Twin Peaks is what you're saying. Probably. Yeah. Probably, probably that. There's like some alien abductions or some crazy, uh, you know, sci-fi call sort of stuff going on.

Tim: And so the next photo I'm showing you here is your typical roadside stop in British Columbia. It's this beautiful untouched river, no pines and lichens and mosses and some deciduous in there and just beautiful. Yeah.

Travis: Kind of looks like the UP.

Tim: A little bit. And it was just nonstop gorgeous places. And this was the rare one that I actually saw graffiti. So the next photo I've got a picture of a little bit of that. But yeah, most of the time I was, you know, getting drizzled on, rained on or some combination of both. Never ran into any snow, but every once in a while the sun would peek out and usually I'd stop and take a picture of it because I was so excited. It was actually going to be warm for a little while because I spent most of the time with the heated gear on, the grips on.

Robin: This was the warm season for all of us. What was the temp like there?

Tim: This was 45 to 55. Okay.

Robin: Drizzle. I'm in that now. So yeah, I dig.

Tim: Yeah. By contrast, we've just had another snowfall that it's just a dusting and I think it's going to stick around. I don't know if we're, we might get a little rain later in the week, but.

Robin: What are you talking about up there in Wisconsin right now?

Tim: Right now. Yeah. Hey Tim, this just in.

Robin: Robin doesn't care. Okay.

Tim: No, I moved my motorcycle today across the garage.

Robin: We were supposed to go for a ride today and then we didn't because the rain kind of caught up, but we're going to be going. It's going to be 70 here on Friday and Saturday. So we're going for a day trip on Friday and Saturday, Friday and Saturday. We're going to be riding 70 degrees back to you. Nice. All right.

Travis: So shortly after this. I was going to say 70 degrees. I rode out to Jeff's, uh, what was it last week? It was like 28 on my way back.

Robin: 28.

Travis: That's balmy.

Robin: Are you guys okay? Did you get a sunburn?

Tim: Nice. Nice. What was he doing? I can't remember what he was doing with his bike.

Travis: He's got his, so he's got two Dak cars and one went south on them. Some weird electrical thing. Maybe probably we're trying to figure out. You can't really nail it down. Like it's not getting like it's the computer's not turning on the spark and the fuel or maybe there's something also maybe wrong with the fueling system. Um, and then he's got his other Dak car. And then we were also just trying to get his garage to like not be so cold. It's basically a barn. So it's yeah.

Robin: Burn it down. Let's see if we can make that hot. Sorry.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: You were saying?

Tim: So this road here that I've got this little patch of sun in the distance hitting the trees and a little bit of blue sky. And not so long after this, I saw a couple firsts for my trip in terms of wildlife. I saw a mama bear with three cubs and I saw my first moose. And the moose was actually not far from where I took this picture and he was maybe 75 feet off the road. So I got a good look at him, but he didn't want anything to do with me. Nice. And he took off before I could get the camera out.

Travis: He didn't think the Africa twin was a pretty lady moose.

Tim: No, no. I'm pretty happy about that, but I didn't really think about that. I'm like, it's a big cow. Check it out. It's a cow with horns. Yeah. And this next photo is my camping spot for the night. And it's one of the awesome things that I found out is that in British Columbia, there are a ton of free campgrounds. Nice. I think there's a website out there. If you just search free British Columbia camping or something like that, you'll find them. And they're everywhere.

Travis: So it's pretty. I mean, it's like campground is like there's a picnic table and a fire ring and that's it.

Tim: Yeah, exactly. Yep. And that was plenty enough to make me happy. And this is within four hours or so of getting to Banff or Jasper. Yeah, Jasper before Banff. So, and it's just this beautiful little campsite up against a pond, just pristine and quiet. And of course I wake up and it's pouring down rain. And so most of the time in Canada, I'm packing up a wet tent.

Robin: Your perseverance is bar none some of the strongest I've ever seen. Like, okay, well, I guess that's part of what this is. Let's keep going. I've had days where we were just like, okay, well, we're not doing anything today, you know?

Tim: Well, it kind of wasn't really an option. I didn't, I didn't carry much food with me at any time or water. So it's like, I gotta go, I gotta, I gotta go and eat somewhere.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: You know, so, and I kind of developed my system of how to pack up the wet tent and keeping everything inside dry as I'm doing it. So really the tent flies and the ground cloth are really the only things that are significantly wet. And the bags that I've got, you can actually kind of see it here in this photo of my bike where there's a flap kind of hanging off that secures everything. And I can just tuck my rain fly right in that.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: So, I mean, it doesn't dry out, but it doesn't get everything else wet either.

Travis: Here goes Tim talking about tucking his fly in the flap again.

Tim: Yeah. You gotta watch out. Especially if there's a zipper involved. Yeah.

Travis: Did you zip your fly? It buckles there.

Robin: Like, yeah.

Travis: Make sure that flaps real tight.

Tim: And then look for blood. I am also not too far outside of a pretty major cold that, you know, I've had, I had a cough that lingered for three, three weeks or so.

Robin: Yeah. Sounds like both of you got that going on. I'm sorry to hear it. Down here in Texas.

Tim: It's been going abouts. Yeah. So I, I, I tried to stop and take pictures whenever I could. So a lot of these photos are just like, Oh, look, mountain river. Hey, another, um, I don't know. Then this photo I included. I'm not quite sure why there's a couple of cars at a turnout and big, this is the main river that I'm following that this whole, there's basically a train line and a highway. And it's really the only roadway from Prince George to the coast. There's really not a lot of options. There's not much diversion. So you are on this highway.

Robin: That's it. I mean, that is like your story of Canada is like you are going this way. Have period.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's kind of a adjustment from Wisconsin where it's like there's a zigzag mess and you really can't find a straight line to anything. So yeah, it was, it was an interesting change where some of the roads were just epic, but most of them are, they've got beautiful scenery. But the road itself is not all that spectacular. And I mean, that's part of why I get bored and I jump off and I hit the little logging roads that parallel the highway, you know, where a lot of people would say, this is miserable. Why are you doing this? You know, you're just getting wet and muddy and dirty and getting grit everywhere, but I'm loving this entertainment.

Robin: I'm loving this pull behind that you're showing in this next photo.

Tim: Classic. Oh yeah.

Travis: This is beautiful.

Robin: Yeah. You too can travel the world.

Tim: And yeah. And breathe in black mold. I don't know if you can see this too. It's got a name. The name of the camper is Phyllis.

Travis: Hey, Phyllis. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's named after a Phyllis streptococcus, the, uh, mold bacteria that lives.

Tim: Yeah. So this is as I'm finally into Jasper and during the whole time down Jasper, Jasper, I was running right ahead of a spot of sun that kind of chased me down. So I would run ahead and I'd get into the rain. I'd find somewhere to stop and I'd watch the clouds peel back away from the mountains. And it was just beautiful. And I think it got some really good dramatic photos. So in here you're seeing some gray clouds. You're seeing a little bit of blue sky, a mountain ridge in the background and some, some color, but it's fairly subdued in the background in the trees. And the focal point is really Phyllis. Yeah. Yeah, because I thought that was cool. But they were all, a couple that was towing Phyllis was staying pretty close to the camper. So I felt a little bit creepy taking pictures of their camper. Hello.

Travis: I've got all the survivalists here. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here to meet Phyllis. It was a Tinder thing.

Tim: I don't know. I thought it was weird. She swiped right. I don't know what the hell to say. I thought we were good. Yeah. So yeah, so I've just loved going through Jasper. Everything was just so, I mean, it was, it was beautiful.

Travis: It was like wicked mountains. Like where, like you would, you'd have to be like a, like the Mount, the type of mountains. Yeah. Like you can't, you have to be a mountain climber, like scaling with ropes and snow and peaks. And yeah.

Tim: Yeah. There's, there's no easy trail that like your mom would hike up.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Let's go on. Let's go on an exercise walk. No, this is, this is some big.

Travis: That's like a two week expedition where you cover, you know, 200 yards a day. Yeah. Vertically.

Tim: And for the most part, I kept myself to the smaller turnouts where they weren't that crowded because I did stop at this one waterfall and it was just packed with people. And so I enjoyed this photo here. It's kind of like a little, it reminded me of the little Escher prints with the zigzagging walkways. Yeah. That don't quite make sense. Yeah. No one seems to be looking exactly the same place, which is pretty entertaining to me.

Robin: Yeah. Every face in this photo is looking in an ambiently different direction.

Tim: Yeah. And the truth is like this walkway zigzags above this gorge and you're looking over this waterfall. So in this next photo, you see a little bit of the, what they're looking at. And it was beautiful, but I don't feel comfortable being around that many people. I don't like leaving the bike in the parking lot full of people. You know, I just, I don't know. Maybe if I had locking luggage, I'd feel a little different about that. But yeah, my preference is to stay away from people whenever I can when I'm traveling here. So, and then here, I've got another photo of beautiful mountains in the background, this glacier melt river with a little island in the middle of the river and just this expanse of pine forest between me and the river or me and the mountains. It's crazy. And again, the clouds peeling back away from the mountains.

Robin: That right there might have to be our profile shot for this particular episode. That's beautiful.

Tim: Yeah. I like this photo a lot. And all the water has got this aquamarine tint. It's this cloudy, milky stuff that it gets from glacier melt, where this is what they call glacier flour. It's just little bits of rock that has been ground up by the glaciers melting and floating away with it. So all these glacier rivers have a very unique look to them. And every once in a while, I'd stop and, you know, I'd let the sun catch up to me. And I'd been leapfrogging with a couple riders and chatted with them at some of the turnouts. And they were local. They lived about two or three hours northwest of the park. So they were just out for a day trip.

Robin: That photo. That was one of the photos that was on your Facebook updates. And I thought, what? OK, we're doing a couple episodes about this.

Tim: Mm hmm. So it was it was always one of those things you kept. I looked into my mirror and went and said, oh, my God, I got to pull over right now and take this picture. And then the guys I'd been chatting with, they rode by. So I've got this picture of my bike and the two guys riding by. Have you sent it to them? I didn't get their contact info.

Robin: So such is the tale that happens all the time, man.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. And you can see, like, I made friends with them. Here's the guy who's giving me a thumbs up as he's riding by. Did he give you?

Robin: Is he doing that? Yeah. Nice. That's freaking brilliant.

Tim: You can't quite tell. He's smiling.

Robin: Yeah. Front rider, right?

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: Uh, no. Back rider. That's the KLR.

Robin: That's totally what I said. The back rider. I can I can. Yeah. I'm going to walk away now.

Tim: Yeah. So, again, it's just if you if you ever get a chance to go to Jasper, it's just incredibly beautiful. Yeah, I thought it was lovely. And I was starting to get into the area away from most of the main tourist turnout. So I got a couple of my lonely road photos where you stand out in the middle of the highway and take a picture down the road. And then here's another one of these dramatic mountains where the trees in the foreground are just shadow. And there's this just cloud drifting in front of the mountain and a little bit of glow from the sky.

Robin: Good grief. That's like that just looks like Shutterstock.

Tim: Yeah. So I big part of, you know, when everything went to hell and I decided this was going to be kind of my own personal photo safari. So this was one of those ones that I was really happy with.

Robin: And you are selling these. This is good. You're selling these on Smugbug, right?

Tim: Yep. Yeah. I've got the links to smug them to buy to sell them. Yeah. Right now, I think I've got them set to like one percent profit. So most of it, if you buy something from there, it's going to go, you know, to the site.

Robin: For our listeners and for Tim's wallet, the URL is timclark.smugmug.com. And that's Tim Clark with an E on the end because Frenchy. Tim. Yep. Tim Clark. C-L-A-R-K-E.smugmug.com, which if you don't know Smugmug, don't even bother listening to this podcast. But Smugmug.com is a photo outlet for amateurs and professionals to sell their circumstantially best photos. This one is good. Yeah.

Tim: I actually got a chance to meet the guy who started both Adventure Rider and Smugmug this summer.

Robin: Geez, dude.

Tim: What?

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: Go on. He was, he was, he, he came by the Central Adventure Rider Rally. Oh, okay. And he was kind of coming out to check it out. It was neat to, because we, he started it after a trip that he took and kind of just to, to share what he'd done. And it ended, the Adventure Rider website and communities just exploded. And it's kind of become in, at least in Midwest here. I mean, we're just a big, weird family. So I've, I've known so many of these people over the years. I've been going to the rally for eight years and it's becoming like a family reunion for me where I, I spend most of the time just like trying to catch up with everybody. What are you doing? What's been going on? How's your year? So it was really neat for, um, this guy, he is, he goes by the nickname Baldi because during that trip, he kind of had his own little personal freak out and says, I'm taking a trip to Mexico. Got on the bike and took off South, you know, ended up meeting his family in Cancun or something like that.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: And during the trip, he shaved his head and his kids were making fun of him. So the nickname stuck. Baldi. Yeah, he was a nice guy. He was, and I think he was really surprised that something that he started became so important to so many people.

Robin: That's a, that's a big up in anybody person's, uh, take on life really.

Tim: Yeah. I can't even imagine it to be like, there are people that have gotten married, you know, because they met through the community or through the website itself. Through the ADV hang. Just, just, yeah, just by going and saying, you know, here's people excited about things I'm excited about. Yeah. And for me it was, you know, doing trips, things like this. And I didn't do a full, like a ride report for this trip. So this is kind of my ride report. Of course. Doing the podcast here. Yeah. So, but it's a lot of like, this is where I went. This is what I saw. These are who the people I talked to. And it's pretty entertaining because a lot of us are introverts. Oh yeah. Having, having the website is a way to interact with a little bit of distance that gives you a little more comfort in sharing. Sure. I can already.

Travis: So you're telling me that the type of people who get on a motorcycle by themselves and go out into the wilderness and camp with no support are introverts?

Tim: No. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's surprising revelation there, but yeah.

Robin: It, I mean, that's part of what makes you a good fit for this podcast is that you're a third ingredient. There's, I'm always up on top of the beat and assertively, socially assertive. Travis has a certain on the line indifference and then you lay back and that's, that's the rhythm so long as it gels. So it's like, I mean, at the same time, it's really cool that you get to use this as an outlet. Um, and if any point you listen back to these things and think like, Oh, I missed something. You just do the right up. Fuck it. Do the right up. You're helping, you're helping your fellow introverts by being a pseudo extrovert on this, in this platform.

Tim: Yeah. And yeah, I got nothing else to say to that. It's a good thing. Yep. So getting back, this is, you know, I really hope that the people listening to it get a chance to like crack open the photos just to, because I'm not always great at like explaining what you're looking at.

Travis: I'll tell you what, I'll make this some, I will link some unnamed waterfall that's better than any state park in the Midwest.

Robin: It's just another, another absolutely bomb ass gorgeous picture.

Tim: So this is a picture I took with my phone and this was like, I was just riding down the road. This was not a marked turnout. This is me seeing something on the side of the road, pulling over and hiking back because, oh my God, it's amazing. And it's this stair-stepped waterfall. It's got, I don't know, three distinct levels that you can see here.

Robin: Insanity.

Tim: Four.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: With multiple different rock band colors. It's, you know, pine forest clinging to the very edge of it. And this was just off the side of the road. This is not a, you know, it wasn't exciting enough for them to like build a tourist turnout for, which it says something rather spectacular for the park itself.

Robin: Yeah. Like isolation. Look at the rainbow. I see there's a rainbow in this shit.

Tim: Yeah. And I don't know if you've ever tried to take a picture of a rainbow. They don't turn out very well.

Robin: Well, you know, you say that, but I'm going to send a photo into our chat here and I want you to see something just as a, it's a diversion, but keep talking.

Tim: What does it mean? What does it mean? Yeah. So this is just after coming out of the ice fields area where it was beautiful. You know, you're up around the glaciers and actually can see the glacier itself and there are tours that will take you out on the glacier. And I, I'm, I'm wet and I'm really cold at this point. I think it was 40 degrees and falling. And I'm like, nope, we're going to keep going until we get a little lower. So this is another one of those spots. The sun came out. And in person, this rainbow was so bright.

Robin: Freaking gorgeous.

Tim: Yeah. And it, I just really happy with, really happy with the photos I took here.

Travis: Getting it to turn out on camera is that, is like, that must have been, yeah, like this piercingly bright in the, in real life.

Tim: Yeah. Yep. So yeah, even in this photo you just shared Robin, it's like, I'm sure that that in person, that was just like blazing bright.

Robin: That was about it. But the, the, the clouds versus the, the sky versus the farm versus it was like a giant intersection between cold and, and warm with a rainbow to like try to calm them all down.

Tim: That is a nice picture.

Robin: Not bad.

Travis: This makes me think of that Primus concert we went to. The tale of the Saturating Seven.

Robin: Yes. In fact, that'll be the title of our next episode, which will be a standard format podcast for fuck's sake, but go on. We'll call it the Primus Return.

Tim: Yep. So yeah, so I've got, just got, you know, unending, like just gorgeous. Gotta stop and take a picture of this. You know, sun's out hitting something at just a little different angle.

Robin: Yeah. Yours covers the entire length of the mountain. So that's heavy.

Tim: Yeah. So I'm pretty heavy.

Travis: Yeah. And what's always funny, it's like, you can see these trees in the foreground and they're, you know, probably 50, 60 feet. Then you look down the valley and you can make up, you can make out individual trees and they're so tiny.

Robin: Are those, are those bushes? No. No. Those are freaking big ass trees.

Tim: Huge trees. Yeah. It's just the size of the mountains out there and it just, it's immense.

Travis: It's like those rocks on the slope are boulders the size of your house, you know?

Tim: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, and sometimes you'd get a little vertigo just by having your head up looking around you. Oh yeah. So this, not a, not a beautiful photo here, but this is after I got out of Jasper and was heading towards Banff, like it was getting dark and I was realizing that I was out the day before Canada Day and Canada Day, the provincial parks were free. Nice. So everybody from Calgary comes up to Jasper and Banff. So every campground was full. I went, I stopped at, I think six different campgrounds, all full before I found this one that would let me in. This one was actually a manned one where it's like, I'm like, please, you got to have a place for me to put the tent up. And by this time it's dark, it's raining, it's 40 degrees. I'm exhausted. And they're like, yeah, we got an overflow. Just put your tent up in this ditch. So I found a little berm next to the ditch that I've got my tent set up on. And I went over to put my food in the bear box in the pavilion. That's kind of off behind the campers here. And there were a couple of guys out chatting. They weren't speaking English. I'm just kind of like keeping to my business, taking my toiletries and throwing them in a steel box, you know, don't come and invite me. No, they were actually a Farsi. I think is what they were speaking. One of the guys actually spoke fairly good English. And I joined a conversation with them a little while. They were all refugees. Two of the guys were from Iraq and one was from Syria. And they were all related by marriage or direct family. And then they were really generous. They shared some hot tea with me.

Robin: Nice. Did you sort of just mix, hodgepodge your language?

Tim: Did you just Google translate at all? Oh, no, no. I just, you know, we just tried. And I'm like, what are you doing? And I explained my trip and you were crazy.

Robin: You show them the map.

Tim: Why are you doing this?

Robin: You show them the map at all?

Tim: No, no, I didn't. I gave them an explanation of where I was going. And oh, wait, wait, wait, did they speak English? One of the guys spoke pretty good English and he was translating. Yeah. So, I mean, it was not the most, it was not the easiest conversation. Please hold. But they were really nice. And yeah, they were really nice. They were sharing what they had with me. It was awesome. So, yeah. And then in the morning, they shared coffee with me and I chatted with them. And then their kids came over. And at one point I had five kids climbing on the bike at once. Did you get a photo? No, I didn't. I was actually too busy holding the bike up and keeping it from falling.

Robin: Like, stop it, stop it. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Tim: Like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't stand on the fender. You can't stand on that.

Travis: Yeah. You should have got something made out of American iron.

Tim: Like Travis's beer is brewed iron. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even the solid steel Harley fenders are not built for, you know, eight-year-olds jumping up and down on it. Let alone the little plastic one from Honda.

Robin: You should have explained to them in technical terms. The polymers on that particular profile of fender don't equate to the amount of mass that you're distributing in that particular angle. The leverage you're...

Tim: I was actually happy that I got my helmet back. Because one of the kids was like, I want to show my mom. I'm like, okay, man. And he just like runs off with my helmet. It's like, I need that. Oh, that might have been a bad idea. And they did eventually get bored. And, you know, I ended up taking off more than an hour after I'd intended to leave the campground. But, you know, even though it was on kind of a crampy spot, this is the view in the morning. It's this big beast of a granite mountain peeking up over the tree ridges and poking into the sun.

Robin: That's insane. So how deep in... Okay, whoa, you got more chain action going on there?

Travis: Yeah, yeah. Is that when you run out of adjustments?

Robin: So he was stretching his train and then how much... Oh, you were... No, you got marks left.

Travis: Okay, so...

Robin: Red marks.

Tim: Yeah, this is me on the... Yeah, so if you can imagine the adjuster, it's like you got this silver spot, silver area where like if your alignment mark lines in it, you're like, you're totally good. Your chain is now a bow and arrow. You're still okay. Then you've got... This is the adjuster mark right on the line between green and red saying you got a problem, you need to deal with this. And the thing is like this is another three-quarter turnout from where it was two days previous. So in two days, almost another full turn. So this is where I'm like, I'm sending this photo out to my friends. I'm like, um, how worried do I need to be here? You know, because this is... I've always, you know, most of the things that I'd heard, I haven't gone through a lot of because I've been like ADD with bikes. I buy them, I hang on to them for a year or two and then sell them.

Robin: Like the CB500X, which you rode your asses off.

Tim: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like you buy it in the summer, you put in, you know, 12,000 miles and you sell it the next fall. So, you know, here I am with this, but I'd always heard that like normally you get a new chain, it's going to stretch a little bit initially, kind of like just straight up, you know, bedding in for the first use. Then it's going to basically do nothing for a long time. But once the seals start to degrade and you start getting corrosion on the rollers, it's going to start moving.

Robin: Is that an X-ring chain or is that a O-ring?

Tim: I think this is the factory O-ring chain.

Robin: Ooh, the factory chain, that speaks volumes.

Tim: Yep, yep. So this is a factory chain. Yeah, yep. You're just adding up all these little, you know, you're shaving a half of a thousandth of an inch off the diameter of every pin, you know, as it rusts and flakes away.

Robin: It's microcosmically small, but yet it has such a big effect.

Tim: Yeah, it adds up over, you know, 140 link chain or something like that. The twin has got a very long chain. So that may be part of why it's so damn dramatic when it starts to move. But I never had it move that, you know, that far, that fast. It was just crazy. So after finally getting out of the rain, I'm actually like, everything I've got is soaked. So I've got a picture of like, I'm in the sun. I've basically found a way to string up a clothesline from my handlebar to the back of my passenger grab rails.

Robin: So I've got my pants and I've got my towel thing I've ever fucking seen.

Tim: I've got my block lava hanging from a blinker. Yep. So, you know, I stopped and I'm just sitting there just luxuriating in the sun and feeling warm for the first time in days. Yes. And I end up, you know, I'm like right next to the McDonald's drive-thru too. So it's just a little ridiculous.

Robin: Is this when you use the beacon? Just use the beacon at the McDonald's for your safety?

Tim: No, no beacons. You sure? Help. Oh no, they got, what is, what did that be? Like a, um, an eighth of a kilo?

Robin: You about to shoot a resource in the backseat of your fucking sedan?

Tim: So this is the spot where I sit down and I talk to the locals and I tell them where I'm planning on going. I'm like, it's Canada Day. I'm trying to get out of the crowds. You know, I'm on the far side of, uh, like I'm in the town of Banff here.

Robin: And the fact that it's a fucking McDonald's, man, it's just killing me. I love it.

Tim: Oh yeah, yeah. I absolutely love it.

Robin: Like McDonald's is a remote experience.

Tim: Yeah, I'm loving it. Yeah. So the, the reason I took this picture here is that, uh, well, what you're seeing actually is a pipeline and that's what, um, the local I ended up chatting with was saying, you know, I show him the map. I show him where I wanted to go, what I thought was a good route. And he's like, Oh, you know where you need to go? You see that pipeline? The oil road? Follow the, follow the road there.

Robin: Hell yeah.

Tim: Keep going. And it turned out to be just like, I am so happy that I talked to that guy. It was just epic. Gorgeous. Um, so the, goodness, the, some of the winter Olympics were held at the ski resort that is right next to this pipeline. It's kind of behind this trees, lamps, post, whatever.

Robin: We can, we can see your cursor.

Tim: Yes. So there's a ski resort. Yeah. Clearly there's a ski resort right there.

Robin: Sorry. Right there.

Tim: Yeah. Got it. Um, but that's, uh, I think where the Calgary winter Olympics, some of the events were held there might be totally wrong, but it doesn't, doesn't matter. Yeah.

Robin: Yes. Our first guest, our first guest host is yes. What's the word is, uh, is, uh, auditing an episode recording in a manner of speaking.

Tim: Oh, good, good. Keep us on track.

Robin: This guy's going to be a better host than all three of us put together.

Tim: Yeah. So you're going to see some of the, the area that his recommendation took me to.

Robin: That's that's where, what the, look at that. You can see the waves of lava in the side of the cliff.

Tim: Isn't that wild. It was just so, it's such a complicated pattern of swirls in this giant cliff face. That's nuts. You know, we're looking at a, uh, probably a thousand foot cliff face. It's a super volcano. Yeah. It's just monstrously huge. And, and then this, there's this photo, the photo that doesn't even look real. It doesn't look real.

Robin: It's so good. It looks like it dropped a green screen down or like, or like it looks fake as hell. And it's so gorgeous.

Tim: That's the funniest one. It's like, yeah, the sun's hitting the mountains and the trees in the background and it's blue sky with wispy clouds. It's just gorgeous. And it's framed by some tall pine trees. So yeah, it looks like someone just strung up a big screen.

Robin: Yeah. And painted something up there. Honda owes you money. They owe you money.

Tim: And if I had taken this one with a nice camera, that would have been, you know, something I could blow up to poster size. But yeah, this is a phone camera photo.

Robin: I think you should blow up one of your photos that are actually real.

Tim: Yeah, this one is almost perfect. This is on the real camera. Yeah. This is the nice camera. Problem is the, the bike is just a little out of focus.

Robin: Paramount.

Tim: But I love this one. This one is, yeah, yeah. Now do you have, you don't have the African... Yeah. So yeah, this is the bike in, parked in front of a shark tooth pyramid mountain. That's the name of it? On a gravel corner. I can't, I looked up the name of this mountain and I've completely forgotten it. This is the spray lakes. Yeah. This is the spray lakes provincial park. I believe is what this one is.

Robin: It has a ring to it.

Tim: Yeah. So it's just, I love this photo. It's yeah. It's, it's really got some, you know, dramatic mountain and clouds and rich pine forest everywhere. And here's, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I could point it out, but it's not that big a deal right now.

Robin: If anybody listening, hold on. If anybody listening to this podcast is wondering why we keep saying the word, the fucking word mountain, you gotta see the picture. Picture after picture. It's ridiculous. And they're, none of them are the same. It's like every one of them is like, Ooh, ah, like, Ooh, ah, Ooh, ah, Ooh, ah. The only thing you think is like mountain. Yeah. It's beautiful.

Tim: Yeah. So in between these next to this photo, the, the amazing photo with the twin in it and the next one, I saw a grizzly. He was just on the side of the road and he just stuck his head up and watched me go by. And I said, thank you for not going anywhere.

Robin: Fuck. Yeah. No, you scared a black bear at one point. Yeah. And you got lucky. They ran off, but the grizzly with the girl on the back.

Tim: Yep. Yeah. So I, I had, I, I, the only thing that I wished I had seen that I didn't, I did not see any wolves and I was in wolf, wolf, wolf country. I can't, why am I feeling like that word is coming out weird. Tim, Tim, Tim. Whiskey. Understand. You must be the one. Yes. And wolves. Okay. I have not had that much whiskey, but that's word just doesn't feel right. Dude. I'm going to keep moving on like wild dogs, indigenous dogs.

Robin: Maybe. Or you can just say the source of all dog. Oh, that's it.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. But this amazing road that the random dude in the McDonald's parking lot pointed me to hit like four provincial parks in a row. It was pretty fucking epic.

Robin: Yeah, man.

Tim: Yeah. And then I parked in the middle of nowhere. I was totally off the grid. People were actually worried about me because I, they were trying to get me to respond. And I was totally like, totally off nowhere.

Robin: There's even, there's even a, what look at all. That's me. I remember this. Well, he posted this to, uh, he posted this to the, the writing obsession, Instagram account. I just remember that there's a documentary about an imbalanced person, which you were not. I mean, we'll buy normal standards where a guy and his girlfriend went up documenting bears pretending to become one with them. And then they got, they got fricking eaten. It was an HBO special.

Tim: And I don't think I heard about that.

Robin: You know what I'm talking about?

Tim: Yep.

Robin: Yeah. I mean, that's messed up. He was apparently a gentle person, but which you are, but you're, you're like more level headed and understanding that. Yeah. This is fricking dangerous whiskey on me too.

Tim: You got to respect to the animal.

Robin: Two questions for you real quick. Short answer. Did you bring a log splitter? No.

Tim: Okay. There was actually a camp post at this one.

Robin: Okay. That works. Question two. Did you, uh, bring any kind of self-defense? Did you bring anti bear spray?

Tim: Oh no.

Robin: Oh, thank goodness. Very good. Just making sure.

Tim: Oh no.

Robin: Why would I do that? It would crush your skull like an egg.

Tim: Right? No. Yeah.

Robin: Okay.

Tim: Yeah. The camp post like pulled up to me and like making the last run. You want camp? You want some wood for fire? Yes, I do. So I, I didn't, I don't do a lot of campfires when I'm traveling on the bike. I tend to run really late. You know, I'm, I'm usually out on the bike longer than I should. Yeah. I hate a later than I should set up sucks. Oh, I've set up that tent in the dark so many times.

Robin: It sucks. Doesn't even matter. It sucks.

Tim: I could do that thing blind.

Robin: I guess you could, but it's just, I don't, I don't, I would rather set up in light just before Sunday with a fire.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, this was one of those rare events where I actually sat down and I did a fun, you know, start a fire. Um, everything was wet. The wood he sold me was wet. I had no kindling, but I had gasoline and that solved my problems. You're in the right company right now. I'm like, I was a boy scout and I, I know how to start a fire in the wet, but you know what it is? It's a pain in the ass. And I had, this was the first time I actually cracked open the, uh, the little one liter MSR bottles of fuel that I brought with me. Oh, Sylvia bought the jiffy pop. Um, smart woman were back, um, in the Redwoods, you know, of California. So I had that jiffy pop with me for 2000 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I burned the shit out of it. I totally burned it. I, I made such a mess of that stuff. Turns out it's really hard to cook on a campfire. So she's just throwing like awkward back at a jiffy pop. Oh yeah.

Robin: You know, I bet you, she knew it. I bet she was laughing her butt off. She's military, right?

Tim: No, no.

Robin: Oh, okay. Sorry, my bad. No, I always got the feeling she was like, she's tough is all I'm saying.

Tim: Yeah, she is.

Robin: Tough gal.

Tim: But yeah, it was funny. I, so yeah, I had to take a picture of the jiffy pop and send it to her.

Robin: Oh, she sent you away with that?

Tim: That's even better. Well, we bought it like on, what is it? Our second night on the road.

Robin: We never got to bake it up together. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. I mean, we were, we were intending to eat it together, but we just never did. So I ended up just like, I've still got this in it. And I'm, you know, I'm like throwing it up in trees or bear boxes everywhere I'm going. Yeah. So it's not like I just like, you know, it wasn't just stuffed in a bag and forgotten. I've got to deal with this thing every damn day. I've got this jiffy box. I finally busted it out and tried to cook it. And I just made a mess of it. I ate a couple kernels and threw the rest in the fire. Such is life, you know? Yeah. I at least thought ahead and like had some like meat and cheese combo, you know, beef jerky.

Robin: What do you mean? A Wisconsin salad?

Tim: Cheese combo sticks. Yeah. Sounds like a Wisconsin salad. Right. Yeah. And I, so yeah, and I'm next morning, you know, like trying to get through this mountain pass and it actually snowed a little bit, rained a lot. And you know, I'm starting to get pretty damn close to the snow line on those mountains too. But I never did get to the point where I was riding in the snow or, you know, on snow. And again, you know, just I'm stopping as many times as I can. I'm trying to get off the bike, walk around, see what's there is to see. And I found this really cool little small creek going over a, this tilted rock shelf that I thought was pretty. Yeah. It's like a weir. Yep. It looks like something manmade, but it's a pure natural rock shelf. You know, it's tilted over at like 15 degrees off of horizontal.

Travis: It's a, it's a natural slip and slide. Yep. Except the water's 30 degrees. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. Yep. So I, that road, it turned into like 20 some miles of slime and rain and cold. And I was so damn muddy and cold.

Travis: And you're on dual sport tires and probably just scaling.

Tim: Oh, I was, yeah, I was not going fast. I was going like 20 miles an hour at most.

Robin: Whatever that is, it looks fricking delicious.

Tim: Oh man. So I had to stop.

Robin: Mind you, I haven't had dinner right now.

Tim: This looks good. Oh, it was amazing. I had to stop at a gas, um, like a gas station, um, carwash, you know, the one where you, you hose it down yourself and had to, I was like scrubbing my pants and my boots down with the windshield washer, trying to get clean enough that I could actually go inside and eat somewhere because I needed some hot, I wanted some hot food so bad. So I finally got in and I found this little, little cafe and this lady had on the menu baked lasagna with.

Robin: We were just, I'm sorry, we were just noticing some, some Canadian high heels to the top left there in the form of flip flops.

Tim: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure like most of the time I look so damn strange because I'm geared up so heavy.

Robin: Well, considering that that lady is probably the local elegance, I'm sure he didn't look that straight.

Tim: Right. And you know, you know, it's just when you're on a bike and it's 50 degrees and raining, that's cold. Yes. I mean, if you're on the bike all day, you are freezing your ass off. Dude. Even with the heated gear going. Yes. And people look at you like it's 50 degrees. I barely need a light coat, but yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Hey, don't you know?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. So I, so that, that was me. That was kind of the road that dumped me out onto the main highway and I was getting ready to go back to the US.

Robin: Good Lord. I'm looking at this and I'm realizing your episode is going to be a part three.

Tim: Your shit's a trilogy, Tim. Yeah, I don't, I don't keep on. It was, it's kind of hard to keep it short because it's like, there's so much that happens in a day.

Robin: Where's this?

Tim: This is Glacier National Park. This is, this is the going to the sun road. So I went in, you know, I overshot the main entrance to the US and went into the kind of the back door one where not very many people go in. That's on the East side of Glacier.

Robin: And look at that. I mean, that's what, that's the point of my gag. Is it like, I mean, it's gorgeous, dude. It's unbelievable. You can't just, you can't, you can't breeze by images like you can't do it. There's no reason.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. So you're looking at a darker mountain on the left-hand side that just kind of climbs up out of sight and in the background hit by some sun is just kind of a lower bench. Mountains for miles. Bright green. And yeah, there's nothing but mountains.

Robin: Wow.

Tim: You know, clouds and rain. And this is looking the other direction. There's another cliff with the dusting of snow on top.

Robin: Again, Glacier. I mean, it's, these images are available through the SmugMug we mentioned before. And this particular image is just yet another majestic bit of natural perfection as it stands. It's the reason why it's almost, it's almost too much.

Tim: Yeah. These are the ones that like all those hours on a highway where your butt's it's all sweaty and sick of sitting on the seat and you're aching and you can't get comfortable. And then you find yourself somewhere like this.

Robin: Is that, was that the case for you? Were you, was it getting to this area? Was it stiff?

Tim: It definitely, definitely was. Once I got out of the mountains and into the plains before cutting back south into the border crossing, it was, you know, crosswinds at 30 miles an hour plus, traffic, misery, just kind of can't wait to get back into the mountain roads.

Robin: Riding with Travitron to Dinosaur National Monument. I watched him ride on a 650 single cylinder at 45 degree angle to the right into a headwind behind a truck for two hours in the dark.

Tim: You know, anytime, every time like another car comes by and blocks the wind for a second. It's so nice. You get that gap where you've got to adjust for that. And then the wind slams into you again. You got to adjust again.

Robin: Yeah, that actually.

Tim: It's just tiring, tiring stuff.

Robin: Yeah. You make a point. It's like, oh, that was nope. Like it's something you have to react, respond to. Ooh, are those goats? That's a, it's a non, that's not an omnivore. That's an herbivore.

Tim: Yeah, that's an herbivore. Those, that's a mama mountain goat and her baby. Fuck off. Wow.

Robin: What's up National Geographic?

Tim: Why do you? Fucking cute. Super fucking cute. You know, and it's like mama looks like she's still got her heavy shag winter coat on. Yeah. So yeah.

Robin: She's walking her, she's walking the bear. Just so cool.

Tim: Yeah. And they just like walk right up straight up this cliff. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So this is finally getting down in the valley. Deadwood. Just a cool, cool old gnarled wood tree. And I think this is Lake Louise, which is from what I understand is famed for bright blue waters. But it didn't really show up that way in my pictures. So, but yeah, whatever. Do what you can do, you know? And again, everything around Glacier is booked solid, except for some of these private places. And I just stuck my nose in and say, hey man, you got a place for me to put a tent? It's like, oh yeah. Heck, I might even have a shelter for you. So yeah, and it's like, it looks like a little woodshed. I've got my tent in there. Which is pretty novel to me.

Travis: Three-sided building or a jack bed with a tin roof and like gaps. Keeps the rain off your tent. Yep. But I got a chance to do laundry.

Robin: We used to, at like a summer camp, I went to a real summer camp, a nice deep North Carolina, middle of nowhere summer camp where they had outposts that were a couple hours hike away. And it was kind of like that. We just, you know, you're an outpost 35, as it says here.

Tim: Yes.

Robin: It's just, yeah.

Tim: And it did rain and it kept the rain off of my gear. My tent went back in the bag dry, which was pretty damn rare.

Robin: You can see the line around the front awning that it's like, that's your dry zone. Yep. Yep.

Tim: And I got to do laundry, got a shower, which man, most of this trip, I was stinky.

Robin: Tim, here's what I want to do. What's up? Okay. Hello, Kat. What's up, LJ? This is LJ. This is my favorite in the room. Tim, I'm challenging now. How long have we been recording?

Tim: Well, I'm over an hour.

Robin: We're over an hour and I'm challenging you now to take the next five to 10 minutes to slowly wind down to a conclusion. You're going to have a fucking part three. Awesome. Beautiful, beautiful scenes. All right. So 2040, I'm not military. Hold on. Our co-host, our guest host for the next episode is already trying to have some input on this shit. He's just telling me that he says, well, point is that see if you can wind it down. We're going to do a third episode in between episode two and three. We're going to have a regular format, standard issue podcast, which we together will work on because we care about it. Right, guys? Yeah. All right. It's your show, Tim. Nice five to 10 minute kick ass. Do your thing. All right.

Tim: Where are you going? All right. So one of the big running issues is the chain issue. Once I got out of the wilderness and back into cell phone reception, I started calling ahead, trying to find a place that had chain and sprockets for me.

Robin: Travis, any words on this matter?

Travis: Yeah. Really? So I'm... I'm what? On chain and sprockets?

Robin: I had to do the same thing. You remember this? Yeah, I know.

Tim: So yeah, so it's trying to find a chain for a bike like this. This is a 525 chain, which is a little bit bigger than your standard. Most bikes are running a 520 chain. I think some of the sport bikes, the real high torque, high power ones are running 530s. But most shops are not going to have either of those sizes on the shelf waiting for you in case you've got a problem. And good luck finding a sprocket. It seems to be the general consensus these days.

Robin: You should probably carry on you?

Tim: No, no. Just change them before the trip. If you're looking at it and going, oh, I might need that new one when I get back, go ahead and do it. Change it out first. Especially if you're doing 8,000 miles. That's a lot of wear, a long days, day after day kind of thing. Do your maintenance ahead of time. Even if you think, oh, I got plenty of life on that. It's kind of my take on this.

Travis: If you want to make fun of me, I'll make fun of you.

Robin: Thanks, Trav.

Tim: Good hang. Go on. But yeah, it was so nice. So when I had sent the other guys the photo of my chain adjusters there, one of my buddies, the guy who loaned me his bike for 140 mile test drive up in northern Wisconsin, he actually posts back on Facebook exactly the specs of the chain, sprocket, tooth count, chain link count, all that, torque values on all the bolts. Yeah, I'm skipping. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's a good friend. Yeah, so I know exactly what to ask for when I'm calling these people up. And found a company in Missoula then.

Robin: Missoula, Montana?

Tim: Yep.

Robin: Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Travis, where were we on the chain replacement?

Travis: Oh, no, you got your chain replaced in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Dang, that's close though. You know, we went through Missoula. You needed it in Missoula, but we didn't do it until Aberdeen.

Robin: Yeah. And we did go through Missoula. So that's tight. Wow. That's, go on.

Tim: So I found these guys and I talked to them. They thought that they could order it and get it overnighted. And so I made my way down to Missoula, which is a little off my planned route. But you know, you got to be flexible. You can get it done if you need to get it done. Yeah, spend the extra scratch. Yeah. Let me tell you, overnighting chain and sprockets, that was, I was looking at over $300. That was a deep scratch. For that.

Travis: Yeah. What would you pay for yours, Robin, like four?

Robin: After all was said and done, it was about 275 bucks. Yeah, yep.

Tim: So yeah, I mean, it's, it's.

Robin: I'll look it up right now.

Tim: I find most, I found most, most of those places that you call them up, they're going to work with a traveler. Now I've, I've had people, you call them up and be like, I'm going to be in your town tomorrow. Can you hook me up? Can you get me in? You know, I got a problem that needs to be resolved most of the time. They're like, yeah, I can get you in.

Travis: Yeah. They'll push something or they'll still wait or they'll, well too, they'll take their, they'll take their head tech who spends most of his day on the computer, you know, managing stuff and managing the other guys. And he'll get his hands dirty for an hour because it takes him half the time that it takes one of their grunts to do it.

Tim: So I've always had really good luck with travelers with the one exception of the Harley dealer that would not even touch a bike that was not a Harley. Even if it was to like change a tire, they won't even do it. I thought that was absolutely ridiculous because I'd always heard that they were so good to travelers, but apparently if only if you're on a Harley. Yeah, well. But I don't know. I mean, that was my own personal disappointment.

Travis: Yeah. I feel like there's probably two, like if you get a guy, you know, a lot of those guys who work at the heart, sometimes you get the, you know, the places where they're diehards and you get the places where it's like, there's just a tech who he's worked here and there. And he works at the Harley dealership right now and he can, he'll totally do your Honda.

Tim: But yeah, I was kind of getting the company line from this one place I stopped and it was kind of, it was sounding like it was like, no, we can't do it for liability reasons or some crazy thing like that. Or it was, it was a corporate level decision. Oh yeah.

Robin: So I'm seeing that I got, so I got my, my chain was replaced in Wilmar. So that's, I don't know. It's one of the Dakotas. I think it might be. Oh, it's in Minnesota.

Travis: Was it in Minnesota? Was it over the border? I thought it was in Aberdeen.

Robin: Well, it's, it was LaMonda Wilmar. The tale of a petrified wallet is the title.

Travis: Yeah. So we stopped it. Yeah. Cause yeah. So we, we stayed in lemon.

Robin: Yeah. Sorry.

Travis: And then we went through, went through the rez. We stopped in Aberdeen and as, and the guy opened up his shop on a weekend and like was charged us by the hour and not, it says, yeah, it was Aberdeen. Yeah. And then not like, you know, making a hustle out of it. Like not, not hurrying.

Robin: But I don't see the, I don't see the price tag on there. I think we kept it. Hush. Hush.

Travis: I think, yeah, I think it was, it was more than was expected for sure. It was painful. Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: Probably around 350.

Tim: Yeah. Go on. Sorry, Tim. But yeah, no, that's fine. This is all about diversions. Excuse me a second.

Robin: I will cough at Tim's armor. Honor?

Travis: Oh no. Yeah. I was going to say, it's like, it's all about diversions as we're staring at a photograph of like the, the twin on a single track. Well, not single track, but like one car with dirt trail on a ridge overlooking a valley that extends to infinity. Yes. Yeah.

Tim: So this is, yeah. When I got to the shop, the chain of sprockets hadn't shown up yet, but it wasn't quite close to business yet. So there was still an outside chance that they might show up. And, you know, I talked to him, I hung out in the shop for a while and they say, you had lunch yet? Nope. So why don't you go get lunch and come back and maybe it'll be here. And, you know, I, I totally assured him. I'm like, you know, if it comes in, I can do all the work myself. I'm probably just going to leave this, you know, the junk parts in your parking lot. But, and it was like, are you sure you can do that? Like, Oh dude, you have no idea what the, I've got so much crap on this bike. I could do almost a full teardown on this bike. Yeah. So I was totally ready to do that in the parking lot, you know, full stripped down, which I was a little worried because I don't, now that I'm realizing, I don't think I had the right tool for pulling the front sprocket off.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: But the front sprocket wasn't cooked. So yeah, do what you gotta do to get home kind of thing.

Robin: That's one of those things you can come back to.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: So they said, you know, or you could get down the road and borrow a tool at a shop and say, you know, you got a 30 millimeter socket, something like that. This is usually something like that. It's a big ass socket holding that one sprocket on. Look at that scene. Look at that picture. So, so I, I'm, they send me off and I get a recommendation from them. I'm going down to the next town. South is called Lolo. And there was a little boop up there, sat down.

Travis: Yo, do you see this?

Tim: Do you see this? Had myself a beer and a sandwich and yeah, and I call them up and they still don't have it, but it's not quite close to business yet. So I'm looking at the map, seeing what's close and there's this mountain nearby called Mormon Peak. And I see these roads snaking up into it. I'm like, I got to get up there. I got to get up there. So I, I, and, but it had been all fenced off. They were doing something up there. Like I tried four different access points and they were all gated off. So, but this one access point that I took this photo on, it was one of the few ones that I, at least I got a good ride going up there. It had about four miles of this, you know, one car width, you know, it kind of devolved down to a two track after a while. And I got a, got a chance to go get a nice lookout over, over the valley. And so here, this next photo is one of the little snaking corners of this two track. Switch back. Yeah. And it was, there'd been a forest fire maybe a year or two previous. So you've got a lot of these burned out old pine trees with black, black trunks and orange dead pine needles on top. And then some fresh growth and some little wild flowers in the foreground here. And yeah, yeah, it was just, it was pretty. And again, it rained on me. So you can see in this one, the mist and rain coming up over the ridge on top of me. And there's the gate. You can go no farther.

Robin: And with, okay, so let's make that, let's make that our pause point before level three. Look at that.

Tim: That's crazy. Shortly. This is right before I punched a hole in the dry bag.

Robin: Okay. So can you, can you make a note of this particular photo? Yeah. Explicitly. So we can come right back to it. You're about to punch a hole in a frigging dry bag and that's where we'll pick up. In the middle of wilderness in the Dakota, Dakota.

Tim: Montana.

Robin: Montana. That's what I said. That's what I said.

Tim: Yep.

Robin: You heard it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just, Yep.

Tim: Yep. Just south of Lolo.

Robin: And with that, with that, we have a podcast. We have a, we'll, we're going to do. Okay. So we've been breaking these up. Tim's big 8,000K adventure has been a hell of a discussion. Let's continue on with it. One episode after the next, as we did previously. Only we'll have a couple more episodes pretty quick. I'm pretty sure. And Tim, thank you for these gorgeous shots. Again, that's timclark.smugmug.com. Clark with an E on the end of it. That's timclark.smugmug.com. And if you want these specific shots, it's forward slash T R O. As in the writing obsession. Thanks for that, Tim. That was kind. And you'll, you'll see it in there, man. It's there's beautiful shots of them.

Travis: So Travis, you want to take us out? So for the writing obsession.com, I'm Travis Burleson. I'm Robert Dean. And I'm Tim Clark. Safe travels, everyone. Ha ha ha.

Robin: Done. And theme music.