Transcendence My Iron Butt Rally August 11 – 22, 2003 You may have already read about the heat and the fires; the burning deserts and the burning bikes. What you may not have heard about are some of the most significant impressions I am left with all these months later. Those experiences are solely in the realm of the rides of isolation; those times when no one and nothing are around. It’s just the bike, the road, and me; chronologically dispersed but inherently one. It doesn’t seem to matter what the specifics are. There was the day where I was slogging southward from Missoula in temperatures exceeding 110°F; focused on the distance remaining in the current tank of gas, the water remaining in the 1-gallon jugs resting on each passenger foot peg, and the spontaneous alternate routes around burning tanker trucks that had the roads shut down for 25 miles in every direction. Or the time I was trying to beat the usual traffic jam across Hoover Dam by crossing at 2 or 3 am only to end up with no rest areas and having to stop frequently on a limited shoulder or gravel parking area to “walk it off” with no greater goal than to make it to Kingman for some sleep before pushing on the next day. Perhaps it was the when I was in Amarillo at 11 pm to take a photo of the Helium Monument only to find that my brand new Polaroid wouldn’t work if it needed to take a flash picture. Then again, there was the wrong turn that took me down I-49 instead of my planned route. When I realized what I’d done I was already in Alexandria and chalked it up to all the Crawfish Boils I’d attended in the past that were down I-49. New Orleans, Columbia, Roanoke, Erie, Madison, and Gillette all had a common thread; the perception of isolation and solitude. Don’t ask me to completely explain how this can be when places like New Orleans clearly aren’t secluded. Maybe it was that I was there in the middle of the night. I can’t say with certainty. But the perception of seclusion wasn’t bad; it was always a good thing. In spite of the fist that grabbed me between the shoulder blades and twisted, in spite of the fire in my knees or the cramp in my wrists, these times seemed to share a common thread. There was always some event that transcended the physical. If you’ve ridden in the desert at night then you may know. Being entertained by the celestial display of a grand meteor shower as the road slides past, without the glare of any town within a hundred miles, transcends. If you’ve rolled into a bonus site, knowing you’ve snagged a bonus (only to be dissuaded by equipment problems), you may know. The challenges, overcome by perseverance in the face of adversity, transcend. If you’ve ever found yourself changing plans on the fly and ended up with points you otherwise would have missed, you may know. Riding straight toward a Mars, larger than it has ever been in more than 60,000 years, transcends. Knowing that a “windowed” bonus is within your grasp, previously unobtainable, transcends. That hot, blonde, Nordic woman, working the check in desk at the hotel in the middle of the night in Gillette, transcends. Misty valleys that gradually fade under the mid-day twilight, with mist that turns to smoke, transcend. Finishing transcends! The thread of transcendence wound its way throughout my experiences in this years rally. As difficult as it is to document, perhaps this faltering effort can convey some small portion of the experience to the reader. I'm learning that the reason why most people don't write anything about their IBR experience is that it's just too difficult to explain even a fraction of the experience well enough to do it justice. ********************** (c) 2003 Mark Johnson