The Gang’s Almost All Here
This is our first real gathering since COVID. Twenty-three of us on a motorcycle ride in Southern Utah have come together for five nights in a classic Western Lodge set on a lazy river with Cottonwood trees and a large pasture in front with a small herd of American Bison. This lodge has fifteen rooms, a large three-story Great Room and a good-sized dining room with an old model railroad running around it like it was the room’s molding. This is our favorite spot, we know the owners like they were old friends and we always have a good time here with the red rock cliffs behind us and the green mountain in front of us. This gathering is a redo of our 25th Anniversary Ride planned for last year that we had to cancel on account of the Pandemic.
This motorcycle club, the A.F.M.C. (American Flyers) had at its founding moment, five of us who rode and one support crew member who was also a masseuse. Our route started in Park City, went up American Fork and down Soldier Summit to Price, Green River and Moab. From there we went to Blanding and Mexican Hat and back up across the Bicentennial Highway (Rt. 95), to Glenn Canyon, Hanksville and Torrey, which is very near where we are now. The last leg was up through Cedar Breaks and then back up to Provo Canyon and Park City. It was a comprehensive and thoughtful route that provided a survey of the area that has formed the basis of our quarter-century love affair with the canyons.
While the beautiful countryside hasn’t changed much, the restaurants, the lodgings, the equipment and the very membership roster has gone through plenty of change. The lodging and the eating have ratcheted up considerably. The bikes are smoother and faster. But alas, the roster has shrunk considerably. Of the original five riders, only I am still riding. Larry, who specialized in getting yelled at by his wife, veered off into a different career and marriage and has not been a regular over the years. Andy, who lives in Florida, had a stroke at the end of a trip to Croatia and has not been on a ride with us since. Arthur, who also lives in the Sunshine State, has aged out at 88 due to a combination of dizzy spells and COVID airport concerns. Frank, yet again a Floridian now, is here, but neither he nor his wife Barbara will be riding. He’s still out on the road, running at dawn, but he’s only riding familiar machinery on familiar roads. Frank and Barbara are just here for the camaraderie. It feels a bit lonely on this roster masthead, but we have 10 bikes with four pillion riders. Our masseuse has had to cancel this year and our #2 has subbed in. After 26 years, shit just falls apart, and A.F.M.C. is gradually crumbling as things do.
Yesterday we rode the world-famous Rt. 12 from Teasdale over the mountain to Boulder and then down the Escalante Staircase to Escalante and eventually Bryce Canyon. That’s about 120 miles of amazing winding toads that take you through alpine highlands and out on a red-rock ridge line that makes anyone with even a touch of vertigo go tilt. The trick is like avoiding seasickness on a stormy ocean, just keep your eyes out on the road closer to the horizon and whatever you do, don’t look down until you stop and get off the bike. Oh, and by the way, be careful when you look for a bush to privately pee on because one wrong slip on the loose gravel and you will find yourself 2,000 feet below in one of the ravines. Bryce looks unchanged by the Pandemic, but Bryce Canyon Lodge is still on federal high alert COVID protocol when it comes to serving lunch (take-out only). I guess it will take a few weeks for the new CDC guidelines to translate themselves through the layers of government consultants into a new protocol so we can spend less time standing on 6 foot apart spots on the floor. The amazing thing is that everyone knows what I mean when I write something like that.
After lunch (of a sort) at Bryce, we rode back up the Staircase to Boulder, where we ate an early dinner at the Hell’s Backbone Grill, purported to be the best restaurant in Southern Utah. It was started 22 years ago by a Lesbian couple that came to this remote corner of rural Utah that sits at the head of The Burr Trail down to Bullfrog Landing on Lake Powell. This is a real out of the way spot that was, according to the New York Times, the last area of the continental United States to get electrified. That, by definition, is remote. And as you can imagine this rural, largely Morman area is pretty darned conservative, so Lesbian entrepreneurship is not an easy thing to accept, but lo and behold, after a whole raft of jobs for locals who would otherwise have to drive miles to Escalante or Bryce for employment, they became part of the community establishment. In fact, with the burgeoning reputation of the restaurant, it’s safe to say that Hell’s Backbone Grill is now the backbone of Boulder.
And here’s the thing, at the entry to the restaurant’s patio dining area are an array of signs that lay out for the clientele, what can best be described as the practices and beliefs of the ownership. To begin with, all wait staff and the owners are fully and properly masked. Clients are asked to mask when not seated at their table, and yes, the establishment will supply county-issued masks with bulky plastic ties that certainly make them unpleasant to wear, if you do not have a mask. The owner briefs the crowd that only 40% of Utahans are vaccinated, which she believes is the likely limit since vaccinations are readily available in the state. And then there are even more social consciousness signs that make it clear where the owners stand on issues of Black Lives Matter, racial equality, a living wage, and all other manner of progressive thought. This is in the reddest part of the reddest state and I’m guessing it has and will gradually change local thinking, if not in this generation, then the next, where their employees generally sit.
You can ask why they bother and whether it hurts business. People already drive an extra eighty miles to get to this restaurant and back, so I think its safe to say that business is not impacted. I did see some people in line (mostly white, affluent males) grumbling about the masking rules and the signage, but they all politely put on their masks and no one walked away. Those of us who liked their politics and social stance applauded. Meanwhile the wait staff seemed courteous and enlightened. In other words, they bother because they are making a difference. That’s the most any of us can hope to do.
So, the A.F.M.C. rides on and as our biography declares in its title, The Ride is All. We have a few less members and a few less riders, but we soldier on and will only declare it over when it’s over. The Pandemic took a bite out of our agenda, but we’re back, we’re following CDC guidelines and funny thing, we don’t seem any worse for wear. Nothing is entirely the same post-COVID (how could it be?), but the gang is almost all here to talk about it.