A Long Ride

I played leapfrog all day with a group of Germans riding rented Harleys, from Escalante, Utah all the way to Las Vegas. I saw them leave a little after dawn, and again when I stopped at a restaurant about an hour down the road. It was a tiny little place, totally packed, with three women working including the cook. I told the waitress, "I'm by myself - is it going to be a long time to get breakfast?" She told me that she would put my order at the top since I was alone, and sat me at a table - great! While waiting in line for coffee (at a tiny one pot machine, being refilled and then emptied every minute), an angry German told me, "vee haf been vaiting for haf an hour, vis nossing to drink, nossing to eat!" Well, next time make sure your tour guide calls ahead! When my food was brought out a minute or two later, I just avoided eye contact... and left a large tip on the way out. Advantage: lone wolf.

I spoke to a few of them at a couple of stops, and they were actually very nice people, if a little too caught up in the Easy Rider mythology. Most of them weren't wearing helmets and several of them were wearing leather jackets with American flags and "U.S.A." stenciled in huge letters on the back. I passed them at their stops and they passed me when I stopped. They must have forgiven me for cutting in the breakfast line, because by the end of the day, when I passed them on the interstate going toward Las Vegas, I got a wave, thumbs up and a honk from almost every one of them.