It is just a few easy miles from the old Jack Wade No. 1 Dredge to the actual Jack Wade mining camp.  Although the real camp stopped working before I was born (!), there are working mines all over this area, and I doubt if they want fuzzy faced amateur bike riders showing them a thing or two.  I did not take any more detours, the sights just from stopping in the road told me enough.

Mining is mining.
It is not easy or pretty, and I think the impact on the ecology is way too drastic.

I had to say that; even though I was once a part owner in the "Blue Dick Gold Mine" [I am NOT kidding] located on the border of California and Nevada.  I won't tell you exactly where, but you start off from the Jolly Dolly Dude ranch and proceed to -- oops, I said I wouldn't tell.  Too bad I'm sober.  Too bad you can't change that.

Now, accommodate the old guy.  Please, just for a minute or two, you navigate and I'll try to steer.  I'm a trained professional, and even I never try this at home.  You are now on the back of a jolty old Sportster, with no Big Hog factory installed features like Trojan Rubber engine mounts and a wide-butt highway seat with anatomically ass-conformal gel filling and other obscene Democratic amenities.  But, just sit there, do not lean at all, and hang on to whatever you can stand to grab.  Relax, I'm not going over the side of this sheer drop-off, um, probably.  Excuse the wideness of what you have to look around.  But, your job is to look at the map and look at the signs.  They do not add up.  So, without starting any nasty verbal exchanges, just tell me where Chicken IS!  You read signs and holler in my ear:  Hey Mikey!

You say, first:  "expect 'Downtown Chicken' if you turn off in 34.69 miles."  We drive about one mile, slowly.  Then, you tell me in the same ear: "See the Genuine Town of Chicken, ahead 38.69 miles"  with some more comments which sound like local politics, which I tune out.  The two mileage instructions do not agree, even if our back tire is sliding around on the gravely road, we can't be that far off.  Are you telling me, my long suffering travel companion, that there are TWO of them?  Is this nuts?  I mean, even the wildest argumentative claims are on the order of:

 and so on and so forth.  We are getting closer to something, and we don't want to get lost in a vast metropolis.  After all, I'm thirsty.

It doesn't stop.  As we listen to the Harley music, we need to evaluate the fine difference between an Emporium and a Mercantile and a Genuine - Accept no Substitute Goldpannier goddam Chicken .  You have to realize, Judy did NOT allow me to purchase a hand held GPS locator to follow the latitude and longitude arguments in the fine print on these signs.  She is a cruel dominatrix.

Now, how did I make my decision?  I know you are giving me my most logical advice; there you still are in the back.  But, this is frontier country, where a mistake of this magnitude could have horrible consequences.  I am Ulysses.  I am confused.

I make a deliberative, near Socratic decision on these grounds:

• How Was Chicken Named?                 Because these dorks could not spell Ptarmigan.
• How can I apply this principle now?     Evaluate the dorkiest surviving signage.
• How many spelling errors do I see?      Easy, everywhere - just slow down and do not crash.

Are you still on the back?  I admit I did forget about you for a moment or two.  What can I do?  Well, let's get to whatever I found for the likes of Chicken, Alaska.

As apolitical as I am, I just took the crappiest signs, the dumbest directions, and I am sure in my little mind that I got there.  The only evidence I have of that plausible fact is:

1. Somehow I got further that this geographical locus on the sphere.
2. Two {of about seventy (don't tell Judy)} of my pictures did actually develop.
3. After more than a year, as of this writing, no Bail Bondsman or Dirt World Kostner Enforcer has come to collect.

It's hot.  It's as dusty as an old frontier adventure movie.  But, now I'm sure, it is most probably real.

I put my jacket on the second table and belly up to the bar.

The archtypical tender comes over and I say:  "Beck's Dark and a shot of tequila"  -- which evokes absolutely no response.
But, as he slowly turns away, this gravelly roar from down the way shakes the air, and also the dust off my boots.  It takes me a moment to translate, but finally it registers as:  "Give that UGLY motherfucker a shot, and another round down here!"

The bartender slowly turns back, looks at me and says:  "Tequila."  I say:  "yup" but I think it came out sort of croaky.

He ups a thick-walled glass, heavy, with room for a four-finger shot but he only gets in about three and a half.  It is truly cheap and evil, a cross between gasoline and pepper spray, but it drops normally and I put it down empty.  I am diligently uncrossing my eyes and ordering my lungs to begin an intake stroke and end the backfiring behind the throttled larynx.  It reminds me of Jerry's old XLCH when you forget to retard the spark, kick it and it decides to kick back.  Who thinks of the left grip anyway, and why would anybody have to remember to twist it?  His would throw you up in the air and make your knee swell up.  After a while, the air comes in to the old venturi, and maybe a tear to my eye.  I say, "Beck's Dark, first, and a shot of teq... " and be damned, the roar comes up again, louder:   "Give that UGLY motherfucker a shot, and another round down here!"

The earlier task of uncrossing my eyes done, I start to focus.  Yes, don't remind me, but I did manage to reorder before I could see.  I had carefully considered and decided that the beer coming first would be a good idea, even before sight, because I thought it could help that breathing problem... .  But, now the keen focus reveals the 'tender is already pouring again, and no beer to be seen, anyway.  Damn.  Nebulous thoughts of trouble arise but are dismissed, the glass is full this time.  I do it.

Now, my old '66, if you kicked it twice cold with the choke on, it would spit and cack and snap your leg to boot.  As I was thinking over who could tune bikes better, Jerry or me, the heartbeat that I had owed myself came, but it sounded kinda loud in my chest, and I figured I am really getting old and ought to slow down.  After a while, the next heartbeat was closer to normal and I quit worrying.  I decide to take a more civilized initiative and turn and make my best imitation of looking down the bar to where all the noise had originated.  So I can't see yet.  He doesn't know.

I said:  "You ordered a couple of rounds, and the bartender'z been down here, so I'll wait on my beer, go ahead."  There was some answering noise, but I couldn't make it out.  I was paying attention pretty close, but what distracted me was my eyes suddenly started working.  A round little head, wrinkly faced grin with about a many teeth as I had tequila.  Noise some more, but that grin and twinkle in his eye took more attention.

Next thing I know, a bop on the bar signaled the arrival of a cold beer.  As I pick it up, the four fingers are filled again in the heavy glass.  I now decide to do some serious slow-down, about like when the moose was across half the damn road.  Serious.

A few of the spoken words get through, and, only having done about seven actual steps so far in this bar, I walk down a couple of stools to get closer.  We start off as old friends, and before long he knows about as much of my head as you do.  He won't let me buy a round to pay him back, every time I try, we get the drinks but the barkeep won't take my money.

A minor commotion, a pickup truck and a bus show up at the same time.  This is truly amazing and dominates the conversation for quite a while.  Correctly predicted:  the pickup guy comes in and buys a round.  The tourists look in, leave, and go buy trinkets at the Commodium next door.  That reminds me, I have not eaten and the bike needs gas.  I try to settle up, but they say no, just do it and come back, there is something they want to talk to me about.  I leave all my junk, jacket, rain suit, camera, and half a beer right there and walk out.  Never even look at it.   I gas up, have a truly delicious and very rich sandwich combination next door.  Come back.

Before I continue, I have to explain what was posed to me as a very dangerous and deadly tradition in this bar.  Never, unless you are prepared to follow through, do you ever cause any noise to emanate from the 'Bell.'   I listen humbly, and ask innocently, "Where is this, um, Bell?"  and with great ceremony old nuts/five teeth shows me.  They have a hunk of ratty old nylon ski rope, and hanging from the ceiling is a crooked scrap of cast iron pipe, about 15 inches long and maybe four wide at the raggedy part.  I cannot tell if it was cut, crushed, or filled with explosive and blown, but there it is.  A hunk of pipe.  I said "What's it there for?" and he looks around the bar slowly and deliberately, and dings it, just once.  The bartender serves a round.  You see how this could go.

He says, though, that much blood has been shed over that bell.  Take the time, he says, when the bar was full, and this crazy tourist rang it and couldn't pay for the tab.  Big fight, and when he left, he was never heard of again!  I made a mental note to make sure there was no bus tour when and if I decided to ding it.

Now, don't be dismayed, but this poor image is the only one I can offer you.  Although only two actually developed when the best chemists at Kodak tried their utmost, the other one came out ugly.

Let me give you a tour. 

I hope my little SSA card is still hanging up, next to Leo Donald's Modern Machine Shop and Complete Harley Machine Shop Service.  Call him at (403) 667-4123 if your crank is bent.  I signed my business card '1200 Sporty' but I really can't remember if I hung up a dollar.

They took me through the history of the place, the litany of heroes and failures, the one guy with a bike exactly like mine who paid a huge compliment to some woman by riding it down the little aisle you see to where she was sitting, and then the one about the guy who announced his arrival by blowing a 12 gauge load through the front door without even checking on who might be behind it.  Well, hell, he did shoot low and nobody got hurt...  The hole is still there, patched long ago for the winter draft, but the cheap ass camera was not taking pictures so well by then.

My glass was finally empty, and my notebook came out of the plastic envelope by my one empty hand.  In it, we find the thing they really wanted me to come back and listen and consider.

Remember earlier when I said mining is mining?
Well, this is a miner's bar that the tourists just happened to find.
They planned to shut it down to the public the very next day, no exceptions.
Then, with no warning, I had the rare honor of being invited to the miner's 4th of July party.

I had been bitching about their famous Salmon Bake being shut down about an hour before, and was unceremoniously told to shut up, they had problems.  Much later they chose to explain more about it, why I cannot guess.  The problem was the party preparations.  Take another look at this bar.  How many people did they expect for the party?  They insist, this is for locals and miners only.  I mentally include the seats in the cafe, and guess forty to sixty, and was called several names unprintable here.  They have great fun giving me a hint.  "The first hundred and fifty get in free"  and proceeded to take me outside and show me a trench, dug by a road maintenance cat.  It was a long trench.  First you put snow and ice in the bottom, then goes in the salmon, bear, moose, deer, and of course the ptarmigan/chickens!!!  I guess I was too slow for them, but I got another clue, "The next hundred and fifty get in for HALF PRICE"   and then you throw the beer KEGS in on the snow at one end and cover with more snow and back fill the trench.  I ask, dumb as I can practice to be, "Half price on what?"  well partner, I know how to deliver a straight line.  "HaHaHa, you dumb shit, half price on NOTHING!"  Ha ha,  ... oh well, you had to be there.

We went back inside and I deftly rang the bell.

I have had such parties before, and in the middle of a trip like this, I do not need to be taking chances with the only vehicle I have with me.  You know it will get stupid, with the sun being up all night and the way the...  I just cannot explain, maybe I'm really getting old, I guess, but no excuses.  They finally understood, and with hearty farewells I go over to the bike and pack up.

Don't break bad on me, I knew exactly what I was doing.  I learned long ago that the engineering of a well mannered bike makes it more stable on its own than a drunk walking.  Statically unstable, but dynamically it stays up unless you get goofy with it.

No traffic.  No mooses.  I drove, slowly, exactly ten minutes and safely pulled off to an absolutely gorgeous place and slept for many hours.  The trucks and heavy equipment were arriving, I could hear them.  I kept going.