Bitten and Robbed

Yellowstone Ntl. Park. Lake Lodge Cabin H4. 10 p.m.

Red and I had a long talk on the way down from the medicine wheel; it lasted nearly 50 miles as we passed for the third time through the desert prairie of northern Wyoming.

Wyoming between Bighorns and Cody

“Red, I talked to a lot of folks who say they only get serviced every 5,000 miles. How are you feeling? It’s been 3,000 . . .”

Red hummed.

“I know Fuzz told us he changes his oil every 1,000 miles, and I really like the feeling of 2,500, but we’re not anywhere near a dealership. Does your finger hurt? You sound a little rough.”

Red hummed.

“We’re headed into the Rocky Mountains this afternoon. I know you’re carrying a lot of weight. I know it’s hard. And I sense you’re not feeling so well, but can you make it? Tell me what you need.”

I turned the radio down and listened. Red hummed and this is what I heard: “I’ll do my best.” I couldn’t ask for more than that.

Somehow, about 40 miles east of Cody, while we were traveling at 70 miles an hour, a bee landed on my shoulder and stung me. I felt something hit me and then start to crawl around under the edge of my tank-top. How in the hell could a bee possibly make that kind of landing while we’re zipping down the highway and get a good enough grip to crawl inside my shirt? He must have been pretty traumatized, so no wonder he stung me.

It hurt, but I didn’t stop. Mom was able to get the stinger out, for which I was grateful, but I could feel the wound start to swell and the poison creep up the side of my neck. Just a few months ago I’d been bit by an assassin bug while in class at Diamond Mountain, which is a Buddhist university in the middle of the Arizona desert. One of the most important things we study at Diamond Mountain is how to survive in the desert with very few modern conveniences. And being Buddhists, we don’t kill—anything. So the javelina, the skunks, the mice (lots and lots of mice), and the bugs (lots and lots of bugs) live together with the human students quite happily, at least the animals seem happy about it. Trying to sit unmoving in meditation while a fly is crawling around your nose it quite challenging, but I’ve seen numerous people do it quite well, and I’ve become somewhat skilled at the art myself. The art of “putting up with it,” whatever “it” happens to be. It’s coming in handy on this trip.

I had been sitting quietly in class that night, listening to Geshe Michael and Lama Christie teach us the details of advanced yoga when all of the sudden my head started to buzz. I could feel my heart pounding as if it had jumped up into my head and swollen to twice its size. Being a veteran Diamond Mountain student, I fought the urge to panic and leave the room. I paid close attention to the teachings and what was happening in my body. Pulse increasing; blood tingling; breath erratic. Finally, I had to leave the room, something I have never done during a teaching in my 5 years of study there, because I thought I was dying of a heart attack.

My skin broke out in red lumps that covered my entire body including my eye lids and ears. A hive on your eyelid is a weird feeling thing, but that wasn’t the worst. The worst was a pain in my gut as if I was being stabbed, and I became delirious with pain, rolling on the flagstone sidewalk outside the temple praying to die. My intense reaction was over within an hour, but for two days I took Benadryl to fight the hives and scratched at myself like a monkey with fleas.

I remembered all this as I checked my odometer. Forty miles to Cody. We’ll stop there and see.

Just outside of Cody we stopped for gas and then went back to the corner of 12th and Sheridan for a rest from the road and sun; I wanted to be sitting still if I was going to have an allergic reaction to this bite. So we sat on the porch of Irma’s; I wrote while mom watched the characters—lots of bikers mixed in with miscellaneous tourists, and eventually a few gun fighters.

Mom with Gun Fighters in Cody

My neck swelled up and my shoulder ached, but fortunately there were no other signs of trouble. I did have Benadryl packed somewhere, but given the way Red was loaded, it would have taken an hour to find it. Besides, Benadryl knocks me out, and we were due in Yellowstone Park that night. No time for drugs.

After an hour, I was sure there was no danger of an allergic reaction, so mom and I loaded up again. My neck hurt; Red’s finger was still broken; it had been well over 3,000 miles since Red last had new oil and adjustments. I was plagued with worry. And I fought it again. None of these was disastrous, and if Red thought she could make it through the Rockies, who was I to question that?

So with extra effort to squelch my concerns, we headed west out of Cody.

While the Bighorn Mountains had leapt out of the desert with menacing abruptness, the Rockies welcomed us with open arms. It was a beautiful ride through Buffalo Bill National Forest.

On the road to Yellowstone

We rode through three tunnels carved into the rock and watched gorgeous rock formations fly by as we wound our way into this mountain range. Just after we entered Yellowstone National Park, I caught movement out of the corner of my right eye, which is quite difficult to do when you’re staring at a winding road and the world is flying by your peripheral vision at 60 miles an hour. If you’ve never ridden a motorcycle, you won’t understand what it’s like because it’s nothing like driving a car, but if you have . . . well, then, you know. You don’t get to see a lot of scenery while riding on twisty roads because you have to pay such close attention to the road. A few seconds spent gazing off to the side could mean a late turn, which could mean disaster. I often go back and look at the pictures mom took to see what I missed while Red and I were busy staying upright.

But you learn to have a sort of double vision where you’re always watching that line of blacktop ahead of you while also paying attention to things like road signs and, in this case, deer. I’m not sure how I saw her, but some slight movement caught my attention, and I immediately released the throttle, which was a good thing because in seconds this little doe was standing on the highway in front of me. We stopped too, and for a few seconds the two of us stared at each other. She was beautiful, and we were stopped. I was thanking God under my breath as I watched her look away and leap back into the forest.

As we rode through Yellowstone, a bit slower now, we were riding right into the setting sun, which wreaks havoc on vision, especially as the sun filters through the tall pines. There are a few seconds, as you bend around a turn where the road goes black from the shade, but your head is still in bright sun. It’s a moment of faith where you just have to trust your machine, your lean into the turn, and the road. I realized, though, that the sun was sinking; it was getting late. I didn’t want to be on this road in a nature preserve with deer, buffalo, elk, moose, and bears after dark. But I still tried not to hurry; it’s a waste of time to hurry through Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Lake

We stopped at a stream to examine wild flowers, and when we got to Yellowstone lake stopped to watch sulfer mist gurgle out of the ground. Nice, easy, sightseeing.

Yellowstone

But it was a struggle for me to do it. I wanted to worry and rush. I was uncomfortable from the bug bite; I was worried about Red; I was worried about dark. I watched these thoughts rise in my mind, and like a cloud blot out the clarity of my experience. But like I’ve been trained to do in meditation, I just watched them come . . . and go. No clinging to worry or fear. And because of that, they had no lasting effect. But they tried.

I was headed to Canyon Lodge because that’s where the reservations woman told me to go. Before we got there, we stopped at store to buy supplies for dinner. Another 20 pounds of weight on the bike, which was starting to feel very heavy again as I grew tired.

After that stop I surrendered to worry and started racing against the cold that began to settle around us and the setting sun. The ride was still beautiful, but now I was in a hurry to get to our next place of rest.

When we arrived at Canyon Lodge, mom and I both got off and went inside. It had already been a long day; we were weary. At the check-in desk the girl informed me that we weren’t staying at Canyon Lodge as I’d thought, but at Lake Lodge, which was 45 minutes back the way we’d already come. I could feel the anger and tension rising in my mind. I stomped out of the office, taking deep breaths, telling myself not to worry or get upset. Mom was still inside. I went back in to complain to her that it was getting dark. We need to go.

“Some guy just stole forty dollars from me!” Mom said.

“What? How? Where is he?” I said, still fighting my own anger and now taking on mom’s as well.

“He already left. I dropped the money out of my pack, and he grabbed it and took off.”

I asked for a description and went out to look, but the place was swamped with tourists, all trying to find their room for the night, and I had no idea who I was looking for. The guy and mom’s forty bucks were gone.

We had just spent five days camped in the middle of thousands of bikers; I never locked my bike; I never worried about a thing. Now here we are in the midst of a sea of suburban tourists and within the first five minutes we’ve been robbed. My mood worsened.

“Well, we either stay here and try to find him, or we get the hell back on the road right now. Mom, it’s getting dark; we have a long way to go. What do you want to do?”

She hesitated for just a moment, which in my current condition seemed like hours. My tension was growing. Mom looked around again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the thief, but it was hopeless. “We might as well go,” she said finally.

I fought an angry mind the entire hour we rode back down toward Yellowstone Lake. The tourists cars clogged the roads, adding to my irritation as they slowed down to gawk through their windshields at the scenery and wildlife that had become irrelevant to me; the sky blackened; the air turned cold. My hands were freezing and cramped. I was shivering. And I was pissed off about mom’s stolen money.

When we finally got to our cabin, I said to mom, “I’m sorry I’m so pissy. Let’s try not to be angry anymore. What’s done is done.” She agreed, but we were both in a sour mood. Remember, I told myself, I had talked to God earlier today. Yeah, but that didn’t help much when then 6th SUV pulled in front of us and braked at every pull out, but didn’t pull over.

In our room I cooked dinner on our camp stove, a can of beef stew; it tasted crappy, but it’s the only thing I ate today besides half a cold baked potato. To clean my palette and mind, I had a sip of Roger’s whisky, which warmed me up a little. I just wanted to sleep, and was thinking about turning south and running straight home. Why go to the coast? What’s there? Why not go home? Here we have no internet or cell service. I’m a bit relieved to have the silence and peace, but I feel cut off from my support team. I miss things, the comfort of familiar surroundings, the warmth of the desert sun. I miss people. Riding alone feels lonely now in a way it didn’t before. I want this trip to be over. I wonder, yet again what the hell I’m doing out here and fight the urge to turn and run home as fast as Red can take us. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.