...it was a cooooold dark night.

couple asked where i got the black and white header photo above, so heres the story.
it was the second week of june of 2010. i met nick in terre haute indiana on the side of the highway at some truck stop. i left indianapolis the same time he left bloomington. being that the midwest is flat and most of the roads lead straight to no where, this one was a different story. this one lead us straight to the front range burried deep into the state of colorado. we had a few set back fairly early on considering i was looking at 3000 miles and nick, 5000 miles. around the arch in st louis, nicke bike sprung a smoke leak and, at the time, who knew what was causing it. nick said press on as he watched his oil temp guage. later, 45 miles shy of kansas city, at a gas stop, he tore into the motor and replaced some stuff in the top end. we pulled into kc late and crashed for the evening in a friends down town loft. later the next day, we found a willing shop that pulled their customers bike off the lift so nick could get busy with properly fixing his. golden. another nite in kc and we packed out early in the morning with a long ride in front of us to boulder colorado. i lost my helmet as soon as we crossed the border but the bikes ran fine as we crossed the 418 miles that is the state of kansas. night fell quickly and denver looked fine but we were still 30-40 minutes shy of a warm shower and some much anticipated food. we had a week off while we waited for pretty ricky to show up, he was working an extra week back in indy to make this trip happen. 5 or 6 days later ricks cruising in to town, frozen solid from the cold cold nights and we're pretty stoked. a new addition to the crew headed for sunny southern california. we pack up the next morning and head out to meet up with another roving band of gypsies. jerimiah from chicago, warren jr, and the haints from the great state of alabama. problem is, theyre a little bit a head of us and on the move... and fast. we take 25 south out of denver thru castlerock, colorado springs and into pueblo where we turn west once again and head in to the sangre de cristo mountains. at this point, we are a few hours shy of the crew we are catching up to, but we are also headed into the mountains, so theres not 100 miles an hour to catch up quick. we're stuck in 3rd and 4th gears maintaining the same distance from them the rest of the day. we're on hwy 50 which goes from coast to coast and was used heavily before the mega freeway systems were in place. we passed thru penrose, cotopaxi, pancho springs and a few other towns that dot the map along the period correct highway until we got to montrose where we cut south to head thru the san juan mountains. ive spent a little bit of time in montrse(lunch on a road trip with jane a few years back) but i remembered the area pretty damn well. its really not that hard when theres only a few roads in and a few roads out. i really wanted to take these guys thru ouray and silverton, but night was approaching fast at this point and that crew we were catching up to wasnt slowing down. just north of ouray colorado, and after nick about rear ended a full man sized cow, we turned west again and headed up and into the uncomhagre forest/san juan mountains. at this point, it must have been around 9 pm or so. it was completely dark and close to the longest day of the year. with no maps, we jumped straight into the void of phone service, and were relying on my fading memory of roads id only been on once or twice and in the day time. so using the black and white landmarks i might remember wasnt our best option. but we had a gap to fill... as we rose in elevation, mountain pass after mountain pass, it got cold. it got real cold. more than once we were around the snow line or atleast someone dumped a lot of snow up there. luckily, with high pipes, i can keep my hands warm on the exhaust notes that burst out of them. the other guys who were behind me at this point werent as lucky. we stopped in the middle of the road in the middle of no where at one point to discuss what we were going to do. next gas station, anything and everything to get warm and fuel up the bikes. well.... everything in and aorund rico colorado closes probably at 4pm so at the next gas station. the only thing available to us that looked warm were bundles of wood stacked enatly on the side of the service station. and no one was around to stop us from not only takng a few, but also making a fire pit in the grass next to the store. at this point, its maybe 12 or 1am im guessing and all we all wanted was to be warmer than the next guy. so the fire was lit and one of us had the great idea to put our gloves on the rocks that made the fire pit so we could put them back on to keep our hands warm while we fell asleep. id guess it was about 40 degrees that night and there really looked like there was no sleep coming anytime soon. i forgot to mention. none of us had tents, sleeping bags of blankets. rick had a rain suit and nick was out of murrays hair grease (which we figured was what shielded him from the lightning earlier in the trip. before we all acted like we were sleeping, rick mentioned that whoever quits acting first and wakes up...has to take a photo of the other two sleeping for the sole purpose of having a few rad photos... well,nick gave up on the sleep game first and snapped the photos in the post. so theres the long winded story of it all. lesson learned, dont try and sleep above 10,000 feet with out first taking acting classes. in the middle of it all, its the worst, looking back, i wouldnt have changed a damn thing. the best stories are sometimes of the worst of times. thanks for the photos nick.