Rush Hour Rambling

Weather: Rather obvious, isn’t it?

The view from my room at the Guesthouse; Watertown, South Dakota.
That’s Dempsey’s Brewery & Restaurant, with the warm light shining through the window.

It was raining hard in Huron when Frogwing and I hit the road towards Watertown. It was the kind of rain that overloads the storm sewers, and floods the streets. Visibility was about 200 yards, and we could only make fifty miles per hour with any kind of safety margin, even on the long, straight roads.

The rain didn’t stop the hay trucks from hauling the harvest in from the fields. They too, were doing about fifty mph, in the opposite direction. In their wakes, a solid wave of wind and water almost blew us off the road, the first time we encountered them. After that, the technique was to pull over as far right as possible, wait until the cab of the truck passed, and then duck down and turn into the wave as it broke over us.

We endured this about a dozen times between Huron and Watertown, a ride just short of 100 miles. By the time we arrived, we were both pretty drenched. My old pair of “waterproof” boots finally failed me, but the Aerostich gear kept me warm and dry, except for the little bit of water that leaked down my neck and got past the collar, eventually soaking the front of my shirt. As I said, it was raining hard! Thank you, Aerostich, for building this excellent Darien suit.

We pulled up in front of the Guesthouse, a motel right across the parking lot from my favorite restaurant in all of South Dakota; Dempsey’s. I’ve visited this brewery & restaurant several times over the years, and it just gets better every time. But this was my first stay at the Guesthouse.

Built in 1964, the building has that funky post-modern architecture full of sharp angles and straight lines, kind of an anti-art-deco effect. The clerk, who sat smoking behind the desk, looked like she may have been there since it opened. In fact, the entire place seemed like it was suspended in time, right down to the fixtures in my room. More on this later…

After changing into some dry clothes and shoes, I ran across the puddled parking lot to Dempsey’s for dinner. I had heard wonderful things about their pizza, but had never tried one. I ordered the house special, the one with everything on it. As you can see in the photo below, it was magnificent!

This photo is dedicated to Arizona Lucky, the original moto-pizza connoisseur.

The dough for the delicious crust is made with Longship Lager, brewed on-site. Normally just a transport for toppings, this distinctive crust is an equal component in a culinary masterpiece. The sauce is sublime, with juicy chunks of tomato and a blend of garlic and spices which yield a delightful tart-sweet flavor. As you can see in the photo, they don’t skimp on toppings. This pizza is loaded with cheese, meat, and veggies to the point where a 12-inch pie yielded two full meals.

After that wonderful dinner, my batteries began to wear down, and I was feeling like a nap might be in order. This time, I walked through the light rain across the parking lot, steering around the puddles instead of leaping them as I had earlier. A bellyful of pizza and beer will do that to you…

The perfect illumination for a Philip Marlowe mystery.

Back in my room, I looked around for a moment and drank in the funky ambience. There was a compilation of Raymond Chandler’s “Philip Marlowe” mysteries in my flight bag, along with the sweat suit that sometimes serves as pajamas in my travels. Changing quickly, I turned on the low-wattage lamp by the bedside, and turned off all other lights in the room. Then I sat there on the bed and just listened to the rain falling softly outside the window.

Oh, this was going to be good… The perfect setting in which to enjoy some classic pulp fiction by the master of detective noir. Stacking the pillows just so, I laid back, opened the book, and disappeared into the murky underworld of 1950s Los Angeles.

I can’t tell you where my reading ended and my dreams began, but I slept uninterrupted through that long rainy night.

Weather: Partly cloudy and windy.

Harold and Hal at the Sinclair Station, Conde, South Dakota.
Where’s Harvey?

Roger was a happy fellow. We were sitting together at the bar in Minerva’s, the restaurant at the Ramkota Hotel in Aberdeen, and he was telling me his story. I was eating my dinner, and Roger was enjoying the good life, retirement style.

In his working life, he had been Superintendent of Schools in the district I was about to ride through the next day. This is the place I have named “Agriculture Alley”, and it consists of all the little towns along Highway 37 between Aberdeen and Huron. Much of what he told me I cannot mention here, but suffice to say it had been an interesting career.

Before he left me, he told me about two fellows who run the Sinclair station in Conde, South Dakota. Their names were Harvey and Harold, and he described them as a couple of old curmudgeons, waiting patiently in their lair on the prairie for travellers to harrass. He had known them for years, and always found them cantankerous, if amusing to deal with. So I decided to look them up.

Thursday dawned with clouds threatening rain. The skies cleared some throughout the day, and by the time my business was done, the sun was peeking through and warming the fields below. The wind was blowing fiercely, however, as it usually does when I ride these prairies.

My timing was awful. I finished the quality audit at our Aberdeen plant early enough that I would be riding to Huron on work time. That meant no stops, except for gas. Luckily, Harvey and Harold work at a gas station…

Despite the wind, it is always a pleasant ride down SD Highway 37. This is America’s Breadbasket, with “amber waves of grain” as far as the eye can see. It puts a traveller’s soul at ease, seeing that we have such agricultural abundance in this country.

Rolling into Conde, I spotted the Sinclair station right away. I have always liked the Sinclair brand, because they are the closest thing we have to the service stations of my youth. The attendants don’t pump your gas, check your oil, and wash your windshield anymore, but somehow they still have the right look about them. It must be the service bays, which is where I found the two fellows in the photo at the top of the page.

I was a little apprehensive, dismounting Frogwing in the relentless 40 mph winds. I figured I might endure some abuse from Harvey and Harold, just for the sake of this blog. Imagine my disappointment at finding Harold and Hal to be some of the nicest gentlemen I’ve met since I started taking these trips into America’s Heartland.

Yes, that’s right, Harold and Hal. Apparently, this was Harvey’s day off. I wonder if these guys are brothers. Some parents do resort to alliteration when naming multiple children. I’ll have to ask, next time Frogwing and I are passing through.

We spoke briefly, and they got a kick out of Roger’s description of them. Then they posed for my photo, and bid me farewell. If I hadn’t been on company time, I would have hung around for awhile.

The rest of our trip to Huron was uneventful. We arrived to levels of traffic I have never seen in this little city. The South Dakota State Fair was in town, and the streets were filled with pickup trucks. I checked in at the plant, got some info on the Fair, and then rolled across town to check in at the motel.

After a prime rib dinner at the Tailgate, I didn’t feel like battling crowds for stuff-on-a-stick. Frogwing carried me back to the Holiday Inn Express, where I settled into bed with my large book of Phillip Marlowe mysteries. One more audit to go, and then Frogwing and I would be free to ramble the weekend away. Or so I thought….

Weather: Sunshine and 40 mph winds.

He was an old gray squirrel, urban variety, and now I knew how he got that way.

Head held low in humility, and tail held high for visibility, he crept slowly and carefully across the main street of Fergus Falls. Traffic on both sides of the road stopped to let him pass.

Had he been one of those speedy young hotrod squirrels, dashing and darting across the pavement, he never would have stood a chance. But this elderly furball knew his stuff, and soon he was perched on a limb overlooking Fergus Falls’ rush hour, such as it was.

Good for him.

Frogwing and I were leaving, headed out of town, into the teeth of a 40 mile-an-hour wind. These are common out here on the northern prairies, but I don’t think I will ever get used to them.

When you ride across these winds, you have to lean about twenty degrees to maintain a straight course. Riding into them, you can count on a twenty percent drop in gas mileage. There is a mathematical symmetry to that which you just can’t argue with.

We crossed the border into North Dakota, and headed southwest on county roads and state highways until we reached the town of Havana.

Liquor, Guns, and Ammo…

Frogwing, in front of the M&J Inn, Havana, North Dakota.

The only business in town that seemed to be receptive to travellers was the M&J Inn. This building used to be the local bank, as evidenced by it’s solid brick construction and the faded lettering on the facade. I parked Frogwing outside, and walked through a time-warp disguised as an ornate, hardwood door.

Inside, there was an, um, experienced lady reading a newspaper behind the bar. She looked up at me as though I had interrupted something terribly important. Her expression changed to total contempt when I ordered a Coke. But she went and got it for me, while I looked behind the bar at some things I thought I would never see together in one place…

Right over the rail where the hard liquor is kept, there was a sign advertising various firearms and ammunition for sale. We’re not talking strictly hunting stuff here. They have SKS and AR-15 assault rifles along with various Baretta models I am not familiar with. Then they had listed all the ammo needed for these weapons. Apparently, all the ordnance is kept in the old bank vault. What a nice set-up!

When I asked her about how accurate the SKS was, she said, “You’ll have to ask my husband. He handles all the gun stuff.”

When I asked if her husband was around, she said, “Nope. He drives truck.”

That was as far as our communication evolved on that hot, windy afternoon. Frogwing and I rode away from there with a strange sense of foreboding…

If I ever decide to lead the revolution to retake this country from Walmart and Exxon, I think I know where I’m going to set up my headquarters.