I decided to include this day in the story, even though I didn't ride a single mile on my motorcycle. It was still a part of the journey, and besides, I'd kind of left you hanging at the end of day six.
I didn't sleep a whole lot during the night. It was after 1 AM when I finally crawled in bed. The uncertainty of the next day weighed heavily on my mind. I think I used the bathroom at least once an hour. A little before 6 AM I woke up to stay. My brain would no longer stay calm enough to let me rest, so I got up.
I did some calculating. The motorcycle dealership website said they didn't open until 9 AM. It was over 400 miles from Cedar Rapids to Ortonville, which meant that if I were still going to try and make it to the show on time, I had to be on the road no later than 10 AM. Even leaving at 10 would allow no time for any rest stops. I started calling the dealership every 15 minutes starting at 7 AM hoping someone would be there early and pick up the phone.
I knew even if they did answer the phone that early in the morning, it was a long shot that they could have my tire repaired by 10 AM. Still, I had no other options but to try.
I went downstairs and had a little bit of breakfast with my aunt and uncle. Shortly after 8 AM my phone rang and it was someone in the service department from the motorcycle dealership. He asked me what I wanted them to do with the motorcycle. Ummm… the motorcycle has a rear tire that is no longer round. I need you to make it round again.
I explained my predicament to the guy on the phone. I was hoping they could quickly just plug my existing tire so I could get back on the road ASAP. The guy on the phone didn't know if plugging a tire was an option, so he said he would call me back in a few minutes.
By the way, plugging a tire is an option. For future motorcycle trips you can bet I'm going to be purchasing a plug kit and a portable inflator. Had I had one with me this whole expensive 23 hour endeavor would probably have been an hour of inconvenience. And now back to the story…
Around 9 AM I still hadn't heard back from the motorcycle dealer. I was starting to accept the reality that the motorcycle wasn't leaving Cedar Rapids today, and my next best option was to try and find a rental car.
Because they still hadn't called me back, my uncle and I took his car and drove over to the motorcycle dealership. I walked into the service area and found the guy I had spoken with earlier, and who didn't call me back like he said he would. He told me they cannot accept liability for patching my existing tire, meaning they were going to require me to purchase a new replacement.
Unfortunately they did not have any tires of the necessary size in stock, so it would be a week for them to order the correct tire. That confirmed that my motorcycle would not be available for the trip to Ortonville. Plus, a new tire with mounting would probably cost more than $500. Yay.
Well, that wasn't the news I wanted to hear, but at least it took one variable out of the equation: I knew for certain I wouldn't be riding a motorcycle on this day.
So finding a rental car was the next step in the process. My uncle drove me around to different rental car agencies, only to repeatedly be told they had no cars available. There was a double-whammy going on with it being the 4th of July weekend, plus some sort of problem that had grounded thousands of flights across the country. Between those two events rental car availability was sparse.
As we were driving around, my uncle was trying to figure out how he and my aunt could rearrange things to allow me to take one of their cars for a few days. I appreciated the gracious offer, but was hoping I wouldn't need to take him up on it.
My uncle is a very generous person. 35 years prior in 1988 I was in a predicament vehicle-wise, and he gave me his old 1977 Saab 99 that he was no longer using. I drove that car for nearly a year, and it helped me through a rough time shortly after I moved out of my parent's house and was trying to get myself on my feet financially. Without that free car that rocky patch of my life would have had a lot more boulders in it. Well, technically it wasn't "free." He sold it to me for $1 to save me the taxes.
Finally at 9:50 AM we found a rental place that had a car available. That was the good news. The bad news was it was only allowed as a round-trip rental, which meant I needed to return the car to the same place where I rented it. Also, it would cost about $700. Yet again I had no good options available to me, so I handed them my credit card. My quick mental math estimated that the little screw or nail in the road was going to cost me around $2,000 once it was all said and done. Ouch.
I filled out the paperwork and received the keys. They gave me a brand new Nissan Sentra that actually looked pretty sporty. I liked the color as well. Although truth be told, at this point I would have accepted their shop truck as long as it would get me to Ortonville to play the show.
I said goodbye to my uncle, and by the grace of God I was traveling down the road in a shiny new rental car. It was shortly after 10 AM. Not 10 on the nose like I had hoped, but close enough that I wasn't going to complain one little bit.
Now that I was rolling down the interstate, I started to relax a little bit. It appeared that, although it would be expensive, everything was going to work out OK. It was 420 miles to Ortonville, and I had seven hours to get there. Frankly, it would have been a challenge to ride that far of distance on a motorcycle in that short of an amount of time. The motorcycle would have required more stops for gas, plus stops for rest breaks. In the car I could just sit back and put miles behind me in relative comfort. After nearly a week traveling on a motorcycle, even a Nissan Sentra felt luxurious.
Not long after I left Cedar Rapids, it started raining steadily. Had I been on the motorcycle that would have slowed me down even more as I would have had to pull over and put on rain gear, plus I naturally ride slower in the rain. Then later on that morning after the rain stopped I would have had to pull over again to take the rain gear off.
Instead, the biggest problem the rain caused me was trying to figure out how the windshield wipers worked in the rental car.
While I was driving, I called my wife and talked to her for about an hour to give her a recap of everything that had happened in the last. Other than a couple short texts, she hadn't heard from me in the 15 hours since I called her to let her know I had a flat tire. She didn't know the complete story of how the flat tire, tow, overnight stay, motorcycle dealership and rental car situations had all played out.
She hadn't yet told the Tundra Boy anything about what had gone on, and about me possibly missing the Ortonville show. She justified this decision because she wasn't sure what exactly was happening on my end, and whether or not I was going to be able to make it to Ortonville. Telling him without knowing details or the outcome would have just caused him stress about things he couldn't control. After our phone call was done she told him what had happened.
To this day the Tundra Boy probably doesn't fully realize the angst I went through to honor my commitment and play the show in Ortonville. But that's OK. I'm sure I didn't realize many of the angst my parents went through on my behalf. I think that's the nature of the parent/child relationship.
As I approached Mason City, IA I was needing the bathroom. I knew there was a Kwik Trip at one of the exits just off I-35. I was also kind of hungry as it was now lunch time, so I figured at a Kwik Trip I could kill two birds with one stone. Plus I had decided to treat myself to a large fully-caffeinated coffee. It was going to be a late night, and I had very little sleep.
Unfortunately, somehow I missed the exit in Mason City. Rats. I'm still not sure how I did that as it was right there in plain sight. I guess I would have to find another place to pee. Hopefully they would also have food.
I soon discovered that once you get north of Mason City on I-35, the bathroom opportunities get very sparse. Exits were rare, and when I did see one there weren't any services available. My need for the restroom grew very, very urgent. Between the pressure of my bladder, and the lament for missing the exit, I was in a bad state.
I'm not sure why I needed the bathroom so bad. I had used the restroom at the rental car place before I left Cedar Rapids, about two hours prior. I hadn't drunk a whole lot of fluid over the previous 24 hours. Regardless, I was now starting to wonder what kind of cleaning fee they would assess if I accidentally peed my pants in the rental car.
I finally came across an exit that said gas was available. Score! Gas availability means bathroom availability, right? When I got to the end of the exit ramp a sign said the gas station was three miles down the road. Not what I wanted to hear, but there was no deliberating. I turned and headed west down the highway.
Three long miles later, I came across the gas station. Well, I came across the gas pumps. There were literally pumps sitting out in a field with no building anywhere around. I nearly cried.
I had reached the end of my ability to hold it. Pee was going to come out in a matter of minutes whether I wanted it to or not. I pulled off on the side of the road and walked down into the ditch.
I'm sure I looked like a vagabond to the vehicles going by, but I no longer cared. I stood there for a surprisingly long time watering the corn.
I drove the three miles back to the interstate and headed north on I-35 once again. With one need now met, my attention turned to food. The next good option for grabbing some lunch was in Albert Lea, MN. My intention was to grab something to go and then eat in the car. I didn't have any room in my schedule for long stops.
Another advantage to traveling via car was I had the option to eat while I drove. It's very difficult to do that on a motorcycle. I would have either needed to take time to stop and eat, or just go hungry.
I took an exit that had signs for both a Kwik Trip and a Casey's. I decided to stop at whichever of these two franchises were closest to the interstate. I secretly hoped the Kwik Trip was closer, as I was craving their chicken tenders.
Well, as it turned out neither of them were very close to the interstate, but the one I came across first was a Caseys. I went in, used the bathroom again for good measure, and then bought two slices of pizza, a large coffee and a scotcheroo. I didn't really need the scotcheroo, but the one I bought the previous night got eaten under duress and I wasn't able to enjoy it properly. I wanted a no-distraction scotcheroo experience.
By the way, if you're not from the midwest and are wondering, "what is this scotcheroo thing you keep talking about?" It's a dessert bar. Think of a dense Rice Krispie bar with peanut butter and butterscotch mixed in with the cereal, and then topped with chocolate. It's a decadent treat, and one of my favorites. For the sake of my waistline, I try not to eat them too often.
On the northwest side of Albert Lea, I left the interstate and started taking back roads and quiet highways as I cut diagonally through the state. I traveled on a lot of roads I'd never been on previously, so I was trusting Google to not take me in some odd direction.
Somewhere between New Ulm and Redwood Falls, MN, my phone lost GPS signal and Google Maps stopped updating. This was concerning, as I had no good idea where in Minnesota I was and what roads I should take to get me to Ortonville. I didn't have a paper map available as a backup.
I thought maybe it was a momentary glitch and the phone would soon reestablish connection with the satellites. After about ten minutes, it still had no GPS signal. Not sure what else to do, I rebooted my phone. After the phone restarted it found the GPS signal again and I was able to resume navigation. Whew! I'm not sure what caused that problem, and thankfully it didn't happen again.
I made a stop for gas in New Ulm. I probably could have pushed it and made it all the way to Ortonville on a single tank of gas, but not knowing the car and how accurate the "miles to empty" calculation is, I decided not to risk it. Plus I needed the restroom again after drinking that huge coffee.
Seven hours after I left Cedar Rapids, I pulled into Ortonville, MN at about 5:15 PM. I made it! Of course by this point I was pretty well spent, both mentally and physically. I hoped that between the giant coffee and adrenaline that I would have enough figurative gas in the tank to make it through the show.
When I arrived they were still setting up the stage. The stage consisted of two flatbed trailers parked in parallel in the corner of a parking lot. As far as stages go, I've certainly played on worse. The Tundra Boy had brought all my bass gear with him, so I retrieved it all from the truck and arranged my spot just to his right.
There were some challenges that needed to be overcome, the most notable one being the "snake" (the cable that runs from the stage all the way out to the sound board) did not get packed in the trailer. A few phone calls found it located next to the stage of the bar where the PA was last used the previous weekend. Unfortunately, that bar was two and a half hours away. A makeshift solution had to be improvised requiring the sound board to be placed behind the stage. That's not ideal at all, and doesn't make for a happy sound man. Plus he had to look at my butt all evening, which never makes for a good time.
Once everything was set up, we did a sound check and some final preparations. I changed into "stage clothes". We took some social media photos, because that's what bands have to do these days. Yes, I know my shirt is bright. I didn't want to accidentally get hit by a car while we were playing.
The show was scheduled to start at 8 PM and it was now 7:30. All the band and crew members got a meal comped by the venue, so I went inside and ordered a hamburger and fries.
We started playing promptly at 8:00 PM. As I had hoped, the adrenaline and caffeine carried me and I had very little feeling of fatigue during the first two sets. By the third set, however, I noticed my energy petering out a bit. All things considered, though, I thought I played pretty well.
After the sun went down the bugs came out. This being Minnesota, near a very large lake (Big Stone), and the fact that the stage had the brightest lights in the area meant that we were covered in bugs. And I do mean covered. We looked like a Far Side cartoon. I could feel them crawling under my shirt as I played.
Someone threw a can of bug spray up onto the stage, and between songs we doused ourselves with the stuff. It helped somewhat with the bugs, but I made a terrible discovery: bug spray melts nitrocellulose lacquer finish. I had wet bug spray on my arm. I rested my arm on my bass, and about halfway through the next song I realized my arm was glued to the instrument. After peeling my arm away, I could see lacquer finish on the bass had been melted by the bug spray. That was disappointing. My beautifully shiny bass guitar was no longer beautifully shiny.
By the end of the show the crowd was really into the music. When we finished they wanted an encore. The others in the band didn't really want to do an encore, but I told them, "There are going to be a finite number of times in your life where people ask for an encore. I think we should give them one." My speech must have worked. We played an encore.
We finished playing around midnight. By the time we packed up the equipment, PA and lights and then loaded it all into the trailer, it was 2 AM.
Outside of the Tundra Boy, I don't think anyone else in the band or crew knew what I had gone through to get myself to Ortonville. I guess that's a good thing, as it meant that I successfully prevented my dilemma from affecting any of them.
The venue provided five rooms for lodging. Four of the rooms were in a fancy cabin on the lake, and the fifth room was at a motel not too far from the venue where we played. I was the one voted off the island and given the motel room.
The sound guy invited me over to the cabin for a while to play foosball, but by this point I don't think I had any fuel left in the tank. The social side of my brain wanted to accept his challenge. About a month prior the sound guy and I had an air hockey contest that ended in a draw, and this could have been a tie-breaker. But the rest of my brain and body didn't have anything left in the tank, so I politely said we would have to do it another time.
I wished everyone a good night and headed to the motel.
The hotel room wasn't bad at all. It was remodeled in a rustic style, but was clean and in good condition. I took a shower to remove all the sweat, grunge and insects I had accumulated during the evening, and then crashed around 3 AM. It was four hours past my normal bedtime.
Hotel check-out was at 11 AM. I slept until about 9:30 which is very late for me. After I woke up I was still feeling the effects of the previous couple of days. It was almost like a hangover, but I hadn't had a drop to drink. I was completely empty of energy. I laid around the hotel room until checkout time, not really doing anything. I didn't even turn the TV on. I just sat there.
The hotel maid kept looking in the window. I think she was trying to determine whether or not I was dead.
At 11 AM I got in the rental car. I made a quick stop at a Caseys near the motel to grab a slice of pizza, and then drove the two and a half hours back to Sioux Falls.
I got home at about 1:30 PM. True to my word, the first thing I did after unpacking was run to Menards and buy a new GFCI outlet for the bathroom, then came back home and installed it.
Continue on to day 8, which happened a week later...
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This page last updated on 08/28/2023