I ended up, as I think I mentioned, staying in a cabin in Yellowstone because all the campgrounds were full. The cabin wasn't bad although it didn't muffle much in the way of noise.

What I found surprising about Yellowstone was the level of amenities. There are these "villages" in the park with complete services. Gas stations, stores, restaurants, bars, hotels, cabins, campgrounds. I wandered over to the lounge for an after ride drink and met two swiss tourists who had driven down from Seatle.

"I would never ride a motorcycle. It's too dangerous.", the one said. "You must be very brave to do a trip like this.". That's another common reaction I get.

Since Gesa died, risk has been a frequent topic in my mental wanderings. Shortly after she was killed, a dump truck swerved out into my lane and nearly took me out of the picture back then. Yesterdays narrowly avoided head on collision has me thinking once again about risk.

Clearly, riding a motorcycle has obvious conscious risks associated with it that driving car does not. Mostly these risks amount to:

• the risk of falling down.
• the risk of injury or death from collisions that are survivable in a car.
• contact patch risk (relative to a car)
  

There are probably other risk unique to a motorcycle. Heat exhaustion and dehydration come to mind.

I called the last risk "contact patch" risk reflecting the fact that the amount of tire rubber making contact with the road is so much less than on a car. As a result, a motorcycle can not corner as quickly as a comparable car nor can it stop as quickly, all other things being equal.

However, these risks are mitigated by behavior. On a motorcycle, if you are conscious and rational, there is no way to escape the sense of vulnerability. You see the tractor trailer. You feel the wind it pushes as it comes towards you. You feel, viscerally, deep down inside in that place where you fear is felt, that you cannot win.

As a result, you change your behavior. You know how bad hitting a piece of retread is. How badly hitting a deer could go. So you ride being hyper vigilant.

How often do you, driving a car, scan the sides of the road for wildlife? Do you notice where the driver next to you is looking before you attempt to pass him, especially at a stop light? When you come upon a hill that you cannot see over, do you slow down? Do you look through corners?

When you ride a motorcycle long enough, that sense of vulnerability transfer to any vehicle you drive. Regardless of airbags, antilock brakes or crumple zones, if you hit a large enough deer in a car, you'll be injured or killed.

So there are unconcious risks associated with driving cars that are not present on a motorcycle.

• the risk of "herd mentality" (everyone does it so it must be no big deal)
• the risk of safety illusion.
• the risk of mass.
• the distraction risk.
  

Because driving a car is such a common every day thing I've heard countless drivers go through their days with the attitude "its no big deal, what could go wrong?". Because the experience of driving a car is often much like watching television there's less of a sense of speed, less of a sense of vulnerability, and they drive accordingly. That in my opinion is very dangerous.

There has been an interesting trend in auto fatalities. As safety features on cars have gotten more advanced, fatalities have not plummeted. It turns out that all these features, from anti-lock brakes, skid control, crumple zones, air bags, auto-braking and swerving systems, just further the illusion of invulnerability, so drivers take greater unconscious risks.

I have always been against the kind of driver assist safety features. My thinking is that it isolates the driver too much from what's going on thereby never enabling that driver to really understand the car, to learn to take driving it seriously and take responsibility for it. Nothing beats a competent human. Racers using standard brakes can still outbrake a comparable car with antilock brakes.

I sometimes think every person should be required to go through a performance driving course.

There is also the risk of greater mass. Cars are amazingly heavy things. That rolling mass can do a tremendous amount of damage versus a motorcycle at the same velocity.

Most importantly, I think, cars suffer from distraction risk. How many times have you seen a soccer mom yelling into the cellphone with a troops worth of screaming kids in the mini-van run through a red light? On route 1 this seems to be a daily occurrance.

In my humble opinion, unconscious, unexamined risks are more dangerous than conscious risks. Conscious risks you accept, you prepare for and you address cautiously.

Unconscious risks surprise you when you are least prepared for them.

On a motorcycle, because I feel so vulnerable, I take a number of precautions and I take them seriously.

• education
• safety gear
• vigilance
• maintenance

I have been riding a motorcycle for 35 years now, as long as I've been programming computers. I've logged hundreds of thousands of miles in that time. I started out in the dirt, obviously. Riding in the dirt gives you incredible insights into how a motorcycle behaves when it loses traction (contact patch risk). In dirt riding you are always slip sliding around. You get comfortable with how the motorcycle moves and behaves, as a result when the same thing happens on the street when you hit a patch of oil or some gravel, it does not feel all that foreign and you're better prepared to handle it This is one of the reasons that every kid I have taught to drive a car, has at the very least driven a car on wet grass, if not snow, and practiced four wheel skids.

I also pay attention, despite my years of experience, to anything anyone can teach me. This is one of the reasons why my "dangerous" trips down to Deal's Gap are so valuable. It is an education in motorcycle control. It forces you to become a better rider. There are countless races and educators down there you can talk to and learn from.

I also take rider courses. With Duncan I recently completed the Total Control Advanced Rider Clinic. This is not about riding fast. It's about applying racing techniques and insights to increase your options on the road when things go bad.

How many advanced car driving clinics have you taken? (I haven't taken one either, but now that I think through it more carefully I think I will. I have a friend who's been talking about it. I think we should go.) You're probably thinking "why would I do that? I drive a minivan". A friend of mine flipped her minivan with her three children in it because she did not know how to effectively manage a loss of traction. Luckily, she and her kids were alright. This happened around the same time Gesa died.

In addition to education, I pay very careful attention to safety gear. There is a possibility of serious injury even at slow speed. This is mostly due to head trauma. As a result you will NOT see me or a passenger on my bike without a good snell rated helment. In addition, I have top quality gear. I ride with a jacket that has armor in the shoulders, elbows and covering the back. The pants I wear are armored at the hips and knees.

However, this armor does not provide you the same kind of feeling of invulnerability that airbags in a car do. You're still out there. You will won't win in a head on collision. But airbags would not have saved me yesterday. They did not save my sister.

When riding a motorcycle seriously, you are so much more aware of road hazards. You constantly scan for that eventual deer. You look for the retread. You fear each and every car that you pass or that's passing you. You are awake.

Finally, when riding a motorcycle seriously you are much more aware of maintenance. I'm often asked why I spend nearly $700 to put a set of tires on my bike when they still have good tread left. It's addressing contact patch risk. I run sticky street tires and if they age more than three years, they get replaced. Actually, I put a fresh set of rubber on my bike each year. How involved are you in the selection of tires for you car? Do you spend the extra money to get stickier tires that don't last nearly as long as those cheap ones? Have you ever practiced hard cornering to the point of skidding?

Riding a motorcycle is more dangerous than a car. Especially out here in the West, I see countless organ donors exercising their "freedom" by riding in teeshirts and jeans or less. I see them hardly able to control their bikes and riding as if nothing can go wrong.

So I think a better question to ask than "are motorcycles more dangerous than cars" may be "are the consequences of unconscious risks higher on a motorcycle than in a car". Clearly the answer would be yes. Sans helmet, gear, maintenancem, education and vigilance you can hurt yourself seriously at much slower speeds, much more easily and in a wider range of circumstances.

However, if you take it seriously. If you practice. If you are aware, it is not clear to me how much more dangerous riding a bike is than driving a car. I might go so far as to say, because of the increased vigilance of a serious motorcyclist, their survival rates across the board might be higher. It would be a study I would like to see.

Yesterday scared the living shit out of me, and of course for a little bit I found myself questioning the wisdom of this trip.

However, as I said, no airbags, crumple zones or other safety features would have saved me given the 80mph+ speed that car was traveling at. I also don't think I could have swerved out in time in a car, definitely not a truck.

So maybe I am alive right now because I ride a motorcycle and take it seriously.

To cap it off I often tell the story of when I hit a deer on a motorcycle, a CB450 Nighthawk. Great bike. All the girls liked it. I think I was 17. I had a passenger on the back of the bike.

I came around a corner and there was Mama Deer and Bambi. Both jumped to the ledge as I came around the corner. Bambi jumps back into the road. I smacked Bambi dead center. The rear wheel and passenger went up. I guess I was probably only doing 25mph at this time. Bambi broke and fell off to the side. The passenger landed back on the bike and we wobbled onto the shoulder where I brought the bike to stop.

Bambi was dead. I was shaken. I went home, hung up my helmet and jacket and said I would never ride again. Laying there in bed, I thought to myself "motorcycles are dangerous, I'll just drive a car.". I got up to watch the news. The first story on local news was about a fatal car crash. All passengers died. "Shit, cars are too dangerous, I'll just take public transportation.". The next story was about, I forget, it was either a bus or train crash where everyone died. "Shit, that's too dangerous as well, I'll walk everywhere." You guessed it, a story a little while later was about some old guy who had careened into some pedestrians. "I'll just stay home in bed". Then there was that story Guiness Book of World Records story about the woman who got hit by a meteor in her house.

I got up, grabbed my helmet and jacket and went for a ride.

If I bite it out here I'm sure they will say "he died because motorcycles are dangerous". If I die in a car, or a train, or by cancer or a heart attack, what will they say then? Life is risk. Concious and Unconscious. We take risks every single day. Probably the most dangerous thing I do is getting up in the morning.

Enough rambling. These were the thoughts that preoccupied me yesterday.

I had some connectivity at the cabin yesterday but it took /forever/ to do anything so I packed up my gear and rolled over to the cafeteria for some breakfast. As I sat there I watched these little critters that I had seen before. During the '92 cross country trip we called the "Kamikazi's" because as we approached they would run out in front of the bike trying to commit suicide. We did our best to avoid them, but some of them achieved their warriors dream.

These things were running around all over the place chasing each other, looking suspiciously and otherwise being very entertaining to watch. Some kids showed up and started chasing them. One kid was quite the critter charmer. (He didn't have any food.)

This was just hilarious to watch. The critter would scamper up. Stand up and then scurry away. This process repeated itself for some time.

Unbeknownst to me another critter was stalking me. Eventually I noticed it eyeing me maliciously.

Realizing I had failed to take "critter risk" into account, I cautiously got me gear and left for a tour of Yellowstone. As I walked out the door I noticed the sign.

Hmm. "Wyomin' risk", I thought. The day before sitting at a gas station I saw an angry looking guy with some kind of Glock (firearm) in a holster. You see a man with a gun and you find yourself wondering why you didn't apply for that concealed weapons permit after all.

I was on fumes. I had ridden at least 30 miles with the reserve light on. Strangely, it's supposed to be a 4.2 gallon tank but it took 4.3 gallons. To bad Bruce wasn't there. ;)

A woman rolled up. Now this is what I call "family vacation".

(Yes, there are two kids on that bike. At least their wearing helmets.) She had this extended rack on the back on which all their gear was stowed. That bike must have been amazingly rear-heavy.

So I rode around, and of course saw countless breathtaking. Pointlessly I continued my efforts to capture what I saw.

As I rode through the park, I noticed seemingly endless expanses of dead trees. I had meant to look up what was causing such a massive tree die off. Interestingly, there was a whole new layer of fast growing trees sprouting up in the midst of the death and destruction.

More vistas that cannot be captured. Included here in an act of hopeless desperation. You just have to see it.

There is so much to see. The landscape in Yellowstone seems to young, so changing. Unlike the feeling you get in the Rockies, which feel like they have been there forever, Yellowstone feels like it appeared yesterday in a massive upheaval.

I came upon an impressive formation and actually hung out well over the street. The photo doesn't do it justice.

A couple pointed out a pair of nesting Ospreys in the distance.

They offered to take a picture of this strange creature they were carefully observing. Here is proof positive that aliens do exist and they are amongst us.

I rode on and at one point saw dozens of cars stopped by the side of the road everyone getting out to gawk at something. Normally, I avoid stopping and gawking, but this was too cool. An Elk.

I have never seen an Elk before. Mythical creature.

I would stop from time to time as I rode around trying to capture the feel of the place. There is so much beauty around it's almost too much. It becomes hard to appreciate the beauty of any given place because there's so much of it. You cannot appreciate beauty if you never see anything butt ugly. So formuch needed contrast I would occasionally glance at a mirror.

Obligatory flower photo.

In the distance I saw what I thought was a mining operation. It was this huge white scar on the land not unlike what you see in a strip mine. It was, instead, a huge calcite formation formed through the action of some hotsprings. And when I say huge, I mean hundreds of feet high and probably most of a mile across. I made the mistake of hiking up. There was a boarded walking trail. I pulled the things I really didn't want stolen out of the tank bag, grabbed my helmet and schlepped myself up epic steps. It was hot. In full leathers it was even hotter. I walked and walked and walked and then happened upon the parking lot at the top, next to which was what I wanted to see.

This was extremely cool. The coloration apparently comes from bacteria that thrive in this soup.

Thoroughly overheated I continued on to the next hot springs where they were steam vents and some geysers. Again, it was just too hot and the air was filled with the smell of rotten eggs, which I guess is hydrogen sulfide.

My thoughts roamed to Mordor about which Boromir said "The very air you breathe is a toxic fume.". As I walked around this landscape understanding, thanks to the History Channel Mega Disasters show, that below here is a huge magma chamber that is slowly building up pressure. Eventually this 45 mile wide caldera will explode producing what will probably be an extinction level event.

It was as if all this harsh wilderness, all this incredible beauty was just masking death itself. When this place goes it's going to be bad. 50,000 years ago a similar eruption nearly wiped out humanity. I figure humanity will probably survive in some form or another, but I suspect civization itself will be less fortunate.

A small geyser.

One thing that is very apparent at Yellowstone is how tenacious life is. Notice the trees in the foreground. Life will not be denied. There is life here everywhere, even in the acidic hot springs. Recently, it has been discovered that some micro organisms can withstand the harshness of space. Seeing this place you can viscerally believe it. All these lifeforms all over the place in such varieties.

I found myself wondering about a time when this planet is no more. What happens to the life here? Will it just extinguish? Some of the moons around our neighboring planets sluff off atmosphere constantly. I wonder how many micro organisms living in our upper atmosphere get sluffed off into space. I wonder if any of them can survive? Interesting questions.

There were more critters to be seen.

I saw only a small fraction of what Yellowstone had to offer. I think the thing to do is rent a cabin for a few days, leave all the gear there and ride out to see the various sites in some detail. It would be easy to store helmets and jackets on the bike if the bags are empty. All the rides are short and stunningly beautiful.

The next time I come out here I don't think I'll do it alone.

Overheated and exhausted I left the park and headed towards Farragut State Park in Idaho where I'm supposed to meet Ian. I crossed over into Montana.

I was making time, not stopping to take many pictures. "it's all the same anyway, one ridiculously beautiful vista after another. I'm sure they're bored with those photos by now". Nevertheless, this is sort of what route 287 through Montana looks like. Lucscious green fields like some kind of grass shag carpet interrupted by mountains.

And more vistas ...

I made my way onto I90 west. The speed limit was 75mph. At one point coming down the pass towards Butte, Montana, I thought "now this is a first. I'm struggling to do the speed limit", as I wound my way around these really sharp bumpy turns that wound their way down the mountain. No one else was doing the speed limit.

I thought about camping, but once again I opted to stay at a hotel in Butte, Montana. This is a strange depressed little town filled with casinos. Even the gasstations have casinos in them. There was a pretty good restaurant nearby, which also had a casino, of course. The food was excellent. One thing I really dislike about restaurants in the West is the lack of fresh vegetable, salads or fruits. No wonder there is such a ridiculous obesity problem out here.

I was sitting at the bar, eating a spinach salad and a salmon (yum!), when a giant of a man sat down at the bar. He was 6'9" and had the voice of someone who has that, what's it called? Giantism. An impossibly deep voice that was difficult to comprehend at first, as if the guy was hollow inside and what you were hearing was the distant echo from some cavern.

We got to talking and he started trying to sell me on the virtues of the Internet. (laugh) I listened for a while. He apparently did some kind of affiliate marketing online. In Montana, of all places. He was familiar with the lower rung of affiliate/network marketing following Kiyosaki and Trump. (Seriously, if you want to understand affiliate marketing follow what Amazon does.)

Like other marketers I've talked to he wanted to be able to syndicate a single set of content through multiple disparate channels. (facebook, twitter, youtube, myspace, live journal, etc). It's something I've thought about building as it would be relatively straight forward. I just haven't figured out a good way to make money off of it.

I went back to the hotel, processed photos and completely out of character owing to how exhausted I was, promptly fell asleep. I actually saw 7AM this morning.

I've got some software to test, then I have to pack up, get some breakfast and head out to meet Ian. Of course, since it's camping with Ian, it's currently drizzling and cold outside. I'm sure there'll be hail, wind and sleet. I still have nightmares about the last time I camped with him. Damn that was cold.

I keep thinking I would like to stop for a couple of days and implement the anonymous comments feature that I really need, so that if you want to post a comment to an article here you don't have to be a member of YML.COM or follow me on facebook. Maybe Ian and Tanya will let me hang out for a couple of days to knock that out. I'm thinking some people I meet on the road would probably want to leave comments.

On to test some software ...