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I took delivery of my R1200GSA a few weeks before my now annual teaching Visual Storytelling at Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. I had about 1,500 miles on the bike when Mike Williams wanted to trade tires. I traded so I set out for Philmont on new tires. By that time I realized I was riding the best of my bikes, including the R80RT, R1100RT, K1200LT and R1200GS. Both actual features and intangibles were superior. For those who know me well, a highly desirable feature was the 7.9-gallon gas tank.

I usually stay in Emporia, Kansas on the way. Why? It’s out of Missouri and I like the way the name rolls off the tongue.

On the other hand, I have never had a high opinion of Kansas either. Most of my trips through Kansas have been marked by oppressive heat and humidity. Then there are the high winds. Southwestern Kansas is not so bad and the prairies literally define “open space.”

Somewhere is western Oklahoma some motion caught my peripheral vision. I turned my head to see a pronghorn antelope racing beside and parallel to me clipping along at highway speed. I have no idea how long it was racing me because shortly after I looked over, it broke off to the right. How could that animal keep up with me? Cabri, as the Native Americans call them, are second only to cheetahs for land speed and they can sustain speeds higher speeds longer than cheetahs. Pronghorns can run 35 mph for four miles and 55 mph for a half-mile. I would say they could run 70+ mph or so for short distances because that is what I experienced. They have hollow hair and light bones. If they had wings they could fly.

As I entered New Mexico, I stopped to put on rain gear. I thought that was the surest way to have it not rain. It didn’t work this time. Not only did it rain, but also a lightning bolt hit ground about 100 meters away. I looked around and realized I was just about the highest object around. Realizing some potential danger, I did what any BMW rider would do, increased my speed to get out of danger.

When I was a boy, my dad traveled to Philmont in the 1950s for adult training in Scouting leadership. He couldn’t stop talking about the place. In 1960, on my way to the National Jamboree in Colorado Springs, I did a three or four day trek in the Philmont mountains. I experienced first hand the excitement my dad experienced. When my son was 14, we did a full 14-day trek together. We stood atop the “Tooth of Time,” a distinctive outcropping of rock on the ridge above basecamp. The Santa Fe Trail runs right through Philmont. The “Tooth” was actually a time marker. When the wagon trail saw it, they knew they were about two weeks from reaching Santa Fe.

To say that a trek is rigorous may be an understatement. I lost 20 pounds on that trek. As an adult I went for training in public relations. The training center building surround Villa Philmonte, the ranch home of oilman Waite Phillips. Phillips donated the ranch amounting to 127,395 acres to the Boy Scouts of America in 1941.

You would be more familiar with the oil company set up by two of Phillips brothers. Their first productive oil well, near Bartlesville, Oklahoma, was on a Delaware Indian’s land allotment. Anna Davis in mentioned in my book, “Long Journey Home: Oral Histories of Contemporary Delaware Indians.” The oil company, as you might have guessed, was Phillips 66–now Conoco Phillips. Waite worked for his brothers for a while and eventually set up his own oil company. Buildings were built around Villa Philmonte and became the national training center for adult leadership in Boy Scouts in 1950.

Waite’s son Chope, another benefactor of Philmont, was an occasional visitor. I remember meeting him in the office after he had stayed for a few days. He asked for a bill for his room and board. The staff refused to give him one since he and his family had been so generous over the years to the Boy Scouts. He wouldn’t leave until they gave him a bill. Finally, the staff gave in and presented him with a bill for $45. He pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check. I witnessed the whole affair and I realized at the time I was seeing the very definition of generosity. Chope would not accept the slightest gift in return for his past support.

Our workshop at the Philmont Training Center was distinctive this year. It included Order of the Arrow youth for the first time in the history of the training center. I have always thought the future of visual storytelling in Scouting was in the youth. Young people learn quicker and implement what they learn better than adults. They were wonderful and brought new energy to the workshop.

A month or so later, I started out for Billings. The second night I stayed with a high school buddy Cory Foster and his wife Gretchen in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. We were on the Philmont and national jamboree expedition in 1960 together. I had not seen him since the end of my junior year in high school. We had connected on Facebook several years ago. We both have white beards. The joke is that when he posts a selfie on his Facebook page, Facebook wants to automatically identify him as me. We had a wonderful reunion, albeit too short.

My next stop was at the summer home of Merrill Ritter, MD, the orthopedic surgeon who heads Operation Walk Mooresville. Merrill had arranged to take me fly fishing on the Snake River, just south of Jackson, Wyoming. I hadn’t fly fished to any extent since 1960-61 when I was on staff at Camp Lewallen in southeast Missouri. The Saint Francis River ran through camp. I would do a scull stroke with my left hand to hold the canoe steady against the river current and fly fish with my right hand. The catch was bass and blue gill. But the Snake River had cutthroat trout. After a few minutes of lessons from our guide we began to fish with barbless hooks of course. I landed seven but the biggest one slipped the hook. The guide said, “You have your first long-distance release.” Since I grew up in the redneck way of fishing in which you try to catch the biggest fish, or the most fish, or whatever you can come up with to top the other guys, I kept announcing to Merrill each fish that I caught. “Merrill, my arms are sore from landing these fish,” I said. He replied, “If you don’t shut up Brown, you will pay for the trip.”

Merrill drove me around to various scenic spots including Mormon Row, a cluster of Mormon farms now part of Grand Teton National Park. One of the highlights was the John Moulton barn. Moulton took over 30 years to build the gable-with-shed barn. Park rangers and youth volunteers were working on preserving the barn and surrounding buildings.

I entered the south entrance to Yellowstone and found Old Faithful. Somehow my imagination though it would spurt much higher that it did. I left unimpressed.

A very short distance from Old Faithful I discovered the Black Sand Basin. The hot and mineral saturated springs there were beautiful. I spent some time there making pictures.

I found some elk near the west entrance to Yellowstone. I was the first to spot them. I hauled out my camera gear and braced the lens on my top case. Others saw me, parked and walked in front of me blocking my view. Polite, but firm, instructions to move were effective.

I camped that night at Lewis and Clark Caverns campground. I had reserved a campsite and it was a good thing too as the camp was full. I set up my Redverz in a 15-mile an hour wind. Some other folks were riding the BMW GS bikes around the campsite. They had trailered their bikes there and were headed to Billings.

Packing the tent up for travel was much less eventful than setting it up. I headed to Sandpoint, Idaho to visit my long-time friend Roger King. Roger is a brilliant engineer with multiple patents across many disciplines. He helped me design and build a luggage carrier with Rotopax hardware. Our final design allows a one-gallon Rotopax container to be mounted either in line or across a R1200GSA LC. You can buy a one-gallon container for most anything including Jack Daniels.

As we were adjusting measurements on Roger’s computer and drafting program, it began to rain ants–literally. Thousands of ants dropped on our bodies from a crack in the ceiling. It was a hot day. Our hypothesis is that it got too hot for the colony in the attic and they decided to move. Many ants were carrying eggs. As we looked to the floor, you really couldn’t see the floor for the ants. I had read about killer bees and I thought if these were killer ants, we were doomed. Roger got a shop vacuum and I began to vacuum the floor even as more ants were dropping on us. So as ants were vacuumed, more fell to the floor to replace them. Now I know how the Indians felt with the Europeans invaded their country.

Roger put some furnace tape over the crack in the ceiling and slowly but surely the crack was blocked. Then we noticed they were pouring out of the fluorescent light fixture. More tape and Wasp spray stopped the onslaught. I went to a birthday party for a 90+ year old man and his great grandson. Roger is of Irish heritage and just before the trip my DNA analysis showed I was 9-percent Irish. Roger engaged me with tales of faery forts and recommended a book on Irish folk tales. I have since read the book. The bottom line is you don’t want to mess with the Good People (faeries). While you may derive some positive benefit, more often you suffer some negative consequence–even death. Never cut down a Hawthorn tree that may be part of a faery fort and don’t build your house on top of a faery path.

On to Billings where one encounters a fair number of BMW riders. Apparently our club drinks less and likes to sleep more than some of the clubs camped around us. Some of us also found that in a crowd that big there are some tent stake thieves. FARKLES were purchased and installed. The daytime shade provided by the club tent made life, and FARKLE installation, bearable. There may be viruses on the surface of motorcycle accessories. It seems that if someone touches an accessory that someone else is about to install, then the person is infected and has to go buy and install the same thing. Alcohol that might have killed the virus seemed to go instead into the stomach where it actually made people more willing to buy things they didn’t really need.

I had ordered a Sargent seat from Mike Williams, who seems to be able to fix or sell anything. I waited about two days too long to order. My seat didn’t arrive until after I left. Barry Oyler knew that I had ordered the seat and couldn’t stand for me to have something he didn’t have so he bought a Sargent seat at the rally. Barry, Tom Koken and Barry’s Marine friend all went out for a steak one night. As we left the restaurant, Barry said, “Hey Jim do you want to borrow my new Sargent seat on the way back to camp.” I knew he was just jerking my chain but I borrowed it anyway.

One day I did a brief ride up to the Beartooth Highway above Red Lodge. There was a 30 degree drop in temperature from the valley to the top. I dipped into Wyoming and returned to Billings. As I came down to the valley, I saw other motorcyclists headed up wearing only T-shirts. The bikes had no luggage containers. My guess is that they didn’t go far before turning around. It was about 60 degrees with high winds at the top.

Barry and Tom wanted to ride back with me. I didn’t know if they could keep up but I said okay. It was going to be a 711-mile day to stop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The route took us by Little Bighorn, which they had not seen. While they were scoping out Little Bighorn, I was adding air to my rear tire. It had developed a slow leak.

As we approached Sturgis, we looped through the town. I wish we hadn’t there isn’t much there. Why it is a mecca is beyond me. I did learn that if you have a large and very shiny Harley, which draws the eye, and you have a number of rolls of fat around your midsection, it might be best if you didn’t wear a skin-tight blouse (this comment applies to either gender). On the other hand Michelin might be looking for a Michelin Woman. If so, I know there is at least one candidate.

Tom had never seen Mount Rushmore so we detoured. It is the opposite of “Leave no Trace” camping. For that reason, I don’t enjoy it and $11 for parking is too much. I did make a nice picture of a flower there. There is room for another president or two there on the mountain. Maybe it will be Trump. He has enough money to have it carved overnight. I can also imagine a wall surrounding the southern edge of the mountain.

The detours put us close to an 800-mile day. We stopped at rest stop with warning signs not to walk your dog, or yourself for that matter, on the lawn. You might encounter a poisonous snake. We didn’t have dogs with us but we didn’t stretch our legs on the lawn either.

When dark fell, we were a good three hours from the motel. Since I had the motel in my GPS, I took the lead. After some discussion, we decided to run 85 mph. My bike has cruse control, which I really enjoyed on this trip. Since it was dark, the Garmin Nav V was in night mode with the map background black. The speed numerals were red. Red on black is not that legible. Second, I didn’t have reading glasses on. The Garmin was just slightly out of focus. An out-of-focus 5 is either going to look like a 5 or a 6. However, an out-of-focus 9 can look very much like an 8. Thinking I had set the cruse control at 85, it was actually set at 95. Even so the youngsters did keep up.

We got to the motel at about midnight and were asleep about 1 a.m. The problem was that the air conditioner was set too cold. Tom was closest to it. Barry was on the floor on his camping cot. Every now and then I would wake up and think, “I wish Barry or Tom would turn that air conditioner down.” Every now and then Tom would wake up and think, “I wish Barry or Jim would turn the air conditioner down.” Barry didn’t wake up. His sleeping bag kept him warm. Meanwhile Tom and I were shivering all night. After this, before lights out, there will be a designated air conditioner control person.

We rode together until Des Moines where I split off to visit a friend in Canton, Missouri, the town were I grew up. Apparently I had not offered enough tobacco to the rain god. I had about half a day of rain. The last hour dumped an inch of rain. About seven miles north of Canton, the road was covered with water up to my foot pegs. I thought, “I have a GS–no problem.” While that is potentially a life-ending last thought, in fact it was no problem. Gary Glasgow and his wife Lois dryer me out and fed me well.

The next day it rained again around the Champaign-Urbana area. I was in heavy rain for about an hour but then rode out of it.

It was great to get home and see my new Sargent seat waiting for me.