Reality check
Once on pavement it was time for the inevitable reality check.
Where are we, where are we going, and what time is it?
Yeah so during this map check I made the comment that at one point we would be crossing a main hwy and at that point we’d be 15 min from Ciudad Valles where there was a first class motel. I mentioned this, as a bail out option.
I don’t want to go to Valles was JT’s reply. I want to stick to the plan.
So the pavement to El Naranjo was full of wonderful twisties much of the time under trees with turquoise waters flowing along side the road.
I’m loving it but I’m 67 and I need to rest more than these young'uns I’m riding with.
I pull off to at a pop stand to have a
refresco.
“El Naranjo is just up ahead, we'll stop for gas there”, Rich says.
I know it is, I don’t want to wait. I’ll be right along.
(I like riding these twisties by myself anyway.)
So in El Naranjo the gang’s all waiting at the Pemex and Rich informs me that since I don’t want to ride anymore dirt --- “What? I didn’t say that.”
“Well Bob doesn’t have a headlight so you go with Bob on pavement to Aquismon so he can get there before dark. We’ll get there by dirt.“
My mind sees Hwy 85, aka the Pan American Hwy, between Valles and Aquismon as heavily congested and full of twisties.
Humph. Ok. One for the team.
Now I’ve been broke down in El Naranjo with a bad Harley transmission some years ago. I was stranded there for some 10 days before I could arrange transport back to Reynosa. I spent my time seeing everything in the vicinity so I knew all these roads pretty well. At least the paved ones.
So off we go, Bob & I, racing thru cane fields on two lane blacktop with an eye towards the golden sun lowering to the West.
Soon we are on Hwy 85. There have been many improvements since my last pass thru here, but it’s still congested.
Milton's little get-off
8:00 pm 10 km from the Aquismon cut-off it began to sprinkle, then rain. no glasses or goggles I'm holding my left hand to my face peering thru the fingers. And I'm thinking,.... one of Dan Rosen's group went down on this same stretch of treacherous hwy, under similar conditions "and here I am".
The bike slips right out from under me and as I go down I'm thinking "and here I go".
Up ahead the bike does the slo-mo sliding spin amid sparks and sickening Uuuughhh of metal scraping against concrete.
Just like in the videos my gloved hands rest on the pavement wait for the slide to end.
I check the road behind me, I’m lying on the pavement. The car behind has pulled off to the shoulder. Bob is up ahead dismounting.
None of my clothes are torn. The bike is intact! Nothing even bent. I get up, pat myself down and ride into Aquismon. Totally snakebit.
Rich and the rest of the group pull up behind us. So much for the dirt, I guess. Oh wait, I crashed.
We look over the hotel by the plaza. My seasoned eye is telling me “Dump”. The desk guy is a crippled night watchman type and I can’t communicate with him.
I’m feeling discomfort on my forearm like an abrasion.
Its night time, hot, sweaty and confusing. And I think shock is beginning to settle in.
I remove my jacket to see one heck is a hematoma on my forearm. It's huge. About the size of half a small watermelon. Sucks!
I bail on the hotel. Go down the street where the rooms are refrigerated.
Now its raining. This hotel doesn’t have covered parking.
The woman at the desk orders the boys hanging around to move my bike and cover it with plastic.
Then she drives me to the free clinic in town, that would be the
only clinic in town, where giggling nurses, one with a lollipop hanging from her mouth, put a hard splint on my arm.
As goofy as it looked my arm felt better supported like that. Besides, it gave me street creds.
Back to my room I take a much needed Vicodin and relax.
I’m instructed to return to the clinic in the morning, Bob shows up at my room bright and early with a
taxista that he has befriended but the lady who does the X-rays is on vacation, I must go to Valles. Well screw that. I'm having breakfast.