Iron Butt
by: goon73

3:00 A.M. and the alarm begins its obnoxious sounding and I am awakened to the day of days. This is the morning I have chosen to finally complete my Iron Butt run. Everything has been prepped, the Bike has fresh oil, I have spare money in the bank for gas, I have the time off work scheduled, and I have checked the weather and I have a perfectly clear window. Now all I have to do is get motivated to get out of bed this early in the morning. I drag out of bed and stretch to reach the alarm, my hand slaps the snooze button and back in bed I fall.

Nine minutes later I repeat the same ritual and fall in for another nine minutes of sleep. At 3:20 I finally decide to get out of bed. I stumble through the shower, and throw on the clothes I had laying out. I grab my flip face helmet and ear plugs and head out to my bike. The morning is a little cool so I am wearing thermal underwear top and bottoms, jeans, a t-shirt, and of course my vest and colors. Due to the favorable weather conditions I have opted to travel light, no rain gear or spare clothes. My witness form had been filled out the evening before, and I was ready to hit the road. I smoke a quick cigarette and then head out to the pre-scouted gas station two miles away on the I-10 access road. When I get to the station I do a last minute gear check, make sure my ear plugs are comfortable, helmet is secured comfortably, and fill out my starting mileage on my log sheet. Then I slide my credit card in and top off the tank. As the receipt prints out I am not so thrilled to see that the time is almost 15 minutes slow so instead of the 4 AM starting time I had planned the receipt showed 3:45. I figure I should just roll with the punches and that it wouldn’t matter since I planned to finish at the same station. And on the road I go.

I am not a morning person and the thought of getting up at 3 something on a vacation day really was not that appealing to me, but the early morning start was necessary to avoid the morning traffic in Houston. The early start worked beautifully and as I cruised though Houston with not so much as a tap on the brakes I began to settle in for a long ride. As Houston made its way to my rear view mirrors and the urban sprawl dwindled down to empty fields I noticed an unplanned hurtle…. Fog. The Fog began to set in almost as soon as I had passed through Katy and had soon become a thick, wet soup in which I was surrounded. The visibility was somewhere between not so good and flat out bad as I began to second guess my obsession with completing an Iron butt ride. My jeans were quickly becoming soaked and by my first gas stop the only thing keeping me from being completely soaked was my thermals. As I filled up I tried to justify my decision to keep going in my head, and finally decided that the fog would eventually burn off. I was cold, wet, and not loving this ride so far.

When I finally got to San Antonio and my second gas stop the fog had finally began to lift and I was more or less feeling good about the ride. My timing through San Antonio could have been worse and I only hit minor morning traffic. As I put San Antonio behind me and the weather was finally cooperating with me, I realized an interesting tid bit about this ride. Usually my bike is a cheap form of therapy and I spend the time on trips mulling over the parts of my life that need some attention. This trip was different, I was just in the ride, in the zone, my mind was completely free of any distractions and I was almost in a Zen like state and the miles rolled past. This ride was completely and totally just about the ride. As I watched the terrain change I began to marvel at how I had started out on the coast just east of Houston and was now in the Hill country. This thought would come up several more times as the terrain changed to mountain and then to desert on this day.

The trip had become a steady cycle of 100 miles and a quick gas stop. My stops had become routine, with a quick fill up, Rest room break, and finally a cigarette before hitting the road again. In Ozona as I pulled in to the gas station I noticed a silver van that resembled the ones my company uses for our technicians. I work for the company that runs the lottery in Texas (and quite a few other states) as a supervisor for field services. We split the state in two halves and the northern supervisor is in charge of that part of the state. Since we back each other up when one is out on vacation testing their motorcycle endurance and such both of us supervisors are familiar with the technicians throughout the state. As I walked inside the store to make my rest room and hydration stop I noticed I was getting a funny look from the person behind the counter at the lottery machine. It took a moment to register, but the funny look was coming for one of our employees. A quick conversation ensued as I tried to explain why I would be 400 some odd miles away from home on a work day just to go for a ride. I would find out later that this technician blew up the phone lines as soon as I walked off to warn all the other technicians that I was out doing follow-ups.

As the miles kept adding up as I headed to El Paso My thoughts drifted to the scavenger hunt my club is currently having, one of the high point objectives is to get a picture on your bike outside the United States. I had planned this ride to qualify as a Texas SaddleSore and BunBurner with all the miles traveled remaining inside the Great state of Texas. I planned the gas stop and turn around point in El Paso to be a couple miles before downtown so that I could go off the route a bit and cross the border for a picture. As I passed the gas station I planned on filling-up at I knew it was only a couple miles past to the border. What I had not figured on was the traffic waiting to get in to Mexico. As I neared the border I realized the bulk of the traffic was avoiding the left hand lane so I worked my way over to it. The left lane turned out to be a U Turn lane that basically avoided the trip across the Mexican customs checkpoint. Score! I lucked out and made the U turn to discover there was no breakdown lane on the bridge. As I neared the plaque that marked the boundary line between the U.S. and Mexico I made a quick decision to go for the picture anyway. I pulled to the left of the lane and stopped with my bike half in the U.S. and half in Mexico. I waited for traffic to clear a bit and readied my camera, as I ran across two lanes of traffic to get the angle for the picture I decided I was insane. A quick picture and it was a sprint back to the bike before traffic caught up to me. The U.S. Border checkpoint was cursory and I passed through quickly.

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