The Campfire Chronicles: A Life on the Road

By Carl Fisher

Through thirty-five years and one mans stories from a life on the road, The Campfire Chronicles takes you into the world of a dedicated long-distance rider with all the perils, predicaments, humor, and revelations of a life lived out under the skyon two wheels.

Come out and ride the long roads toward new places and new people, and experience that revealing moment when you first understand that there is much more to the story than the images coming at your windshield. The real tale is what is going on behind your eyes and how you are transformed by the experiencewhen you finally understand that whatever objective you may reach, the road itself is still the reason you came. No matter where you thought you were going or when you started, this was always your destination. Your course was always set toward this moment in time. The road calls out to youand you answer.

Looking through the eyes of one mans adventures during a lifetime on the road, youll discover that you are also riding to a special place withina place of magic that you didnt even know existed, where time goes away, and the road ahead becomes your only destination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491784150

Carl Fisher

Carl Fisher worked as a professional forester, conservationist, and land-use consultant in Southern California, and he has been riding motorcycles for over fifty years. Carl, “The Drifter” lives with his wife in Southern Utah and he can still be found out under the sky rolling on his Goldwing Motor Trike, Big Red IV.

Book preview

Journey North: A Father's Diary

I t was the last week of June, in the summer of 1979, and I was planning to ride my Yamaha XS-Eleven north to Canada from Southern California. I didn't know what the final destination would be, and it didn't really matter. Just to be out on the road again would be enough.

My daughter, Leslie, was going to be sixteen in a few weeks, and I, half-joking, asked her if she wanted to go along on this adventure. I was mildly surprised when she enthusiastically said yes and even more so when her mother agreed. I shouldn't have even wondered about the answer because at that point L. had been riding with me for several years on short poker runs and longer Grand Tour--style (one-thousand-mile) events. You have to take your victories where you can, and down through the years, I haven't won too many, so the plan was set. We now had a destination. We would ride north to the Seattle area to visit old family friends from Simi. Leslie would then fly home, and I would motor on to wherever the summer winds might lead.

The distance that naturally develops between a father and his kids over time is something that can really creep up on you if you're not watching. All families face this situation when dads are putting a lot of their effort into advancing in their professions, and almost overnight, children turn into young adults. You have to make an effort occasionally to do something together that's completely different and a little out there to break the routine.

A road trip is a way to escape from the rest of the world. If you go alone, the conversation is sort of one sided, but if you go with someone you care about, it's a completely different experience. You put yourselves out under the sky, and there's a feeling of freedom that allows you to talk about anything and everything. I needed to get to know myself a little better too, and riding far from home on a motorcycle is the way that works for me.

I spent the next few days getting my bike (Big Red) ready for the road. Every true biker has a pet name for his bike, whether he admits it or not. It was sort of a unique touring bike in that it was an early-day power cruiser that was equipped with drop-back bars and a four-and-a-half-gallon fuel tank. Yamaha designed the XS-Eleven Special to make a beautiful statement in carmine candy red and to be ridden, bare bones, but mine, being mine, was just a little different. It had a full matching red fairing, windshield, and tail trunk with a custom touring seat, Samsonite saddlebags, trick air forks, and Italian horns. Although it made for some exciting moments when crossing the wide open spaces of the West, the only thing that I never changed was the little four-gallon fuel tank.

July 9

Mom came out in her bathrobe and slippers to see us off in the early morning hours. We rolled out the driveway and down our street, and we were on the road. We were riding toward San Jose and our first stop at the house of my friend, Jack.

It was a beautiful summer day as we rode up the Coast Highway, with the mountains on one side and the Pacific on the other. In those days, before bikes had intercoms, there was a lot of shouting and finger pointing required if you wanted to communicate with the co-rider. Usually, for the first miles of a long ride, we didn't say much. Leslie was riding quietly and asking few questions. I jostled her occasionally, when I thought we were passing something that she didn't see. It was just an assumption on my part. She might have seen everything but was just reacting with more cool than the old man. For me, the freedom of riding a motorcycle out on the open road has always been such a joyous experience that I am tuned in to everything out there as though I am seeing it for the first time.

It seems like such a paradox that we are given eyes to see, but just when we learn to really observe, our vision starts fading away. It's a shame in a way, but it probably is just the simple justice of passing time and lost opportunities.

We passed Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo and veered inland with 101 around the coastal mountains toward King City and Salinas. We stopped in the tiny town of San Ardo for a late three o'clock lunch. It looked like the town was closed, but we found one small cantina (the only one) that was open and decided to test our luck. The place was not too busy, but it was obviously the town gathering place, with local ranchers and migrant farm workers from a settlement down the road. L. acted apprehensively all through the meal. She was being stared at rather intently by three Chicano kids on the other side of the room. A beautiful girl, but, at sixteen, she just didn't know how to handle being the center of that much attention. The boys stared and talked in Spanish, but I recognized a few words. They were quite impressed with Leslie but just couldn't figure out why she was with such an old man.

Usually bean soup and a jalapeño cheeseburger will cheer me right up but right then, I was getting really depressed. The boys finally left with a few slippery sideways looks. Instinctively, I kept an eye on our bike parked on the gravel in front, but they passed it without looking back. Larceny was definitely not what they had on their minds. It didn't hit me until we were getting ready to roll out. I had misinterpreted everything. It was me that should have felt complimented. I didn't look old enough to be Leslie's father. It was all a matter of viewpoint, and when we rolled by the three boys, about a block from the cantina, I was smiling again. Soledad finally supplied some heat, and it lasted all the way to San Jose.

We found Jack's house after all the usual wrong turns and driving two blocks past the place. Jack and his boys were drying apricots when we arrived. He had a sulphur smoker, made from a large cardboard box, going in the back yard. The roof of the house was covered with canvas tarps, and thousands of apricots were drying in the sun. We spent the rest of the afternoon repairing old bicycles, talking over old times, drinking beer, and telling all the old stories that no one remembers the next day.

Bad Bob didn't visit us this time, but I kept saying that he would and got the kids half believing that he was going to walk in at any moment. Bob Neff, if he was still alive, was a very entertaining resident of skid row. I don't have any idea how he met Jack, but he visited occasionally to drink some free wine and bum some cigarettes. Hey, man, can you spare a pack?

Bob had a machine-gun mouth and could talk a thousand rounds a minute about anything in existence and everything that isn't. He was a true poet of the streets. After a few hours, you were worn down, and he started to make sense. It could be a scary experience.

I had met Bob on a trip to the area, once before, and it took me a week to recover from Bad Bob's broken bottle philosophy. On this trip, though, he didn't show, and I found that I was disappointed. One of the things that I liked about going to Jack's house was that you just never quite knew what was going to happen.

We played pool at the next-door neighbor's house until one in the morning. Of course, the neighbor, being on vacation at the time, wasn't exactly aware of his own hospitality, but Jack was housesitting and had the key. I was tired after our first day on the road.

As usual, I'd left some of the packing and tune-up items on the bike until the last minute. The last minute was always the early hours of the morning. My head hit the pillow on the living room couch and I remembered nothing until the smell of eggs frying the next morning.

July 10

After breakfast, Leslie and I said good-bye to our friends and rolled out into a clear, warm, blue-sky day. We found gas for Big Red at Terrible Herbst. The terrible part came when I found out that I couldn't use my plastic money and had to pay cash. There was a created gas shortage going on that summer, and I took having to pay cash up-front as a sign that we might be in store for some of those exiting moments, which always seemed to lurk just around the corner when I ventured forth behind the four-gallon fuel tank on Big Red.

Halfway to San Francisco, our big, clear, blue day turned progressively foggy, cold, and gray. Even though we had started late, an especially unfriendly gust of cold wind convinced me to stop, put on a warmer jacket, and then look around. We cruised around town for a while just checking the place out. Narrow streets, and structures and vehicles tumbling around on a wave graph of hills by the shore of a beautiful bay made for some great riding. When we got tired of swooping up and down some of the biggest hills, we homed in on Fisherman's Wharf and some lunch.

The Wharf is an all-out tourist trap and proud of it, all the way. If you go with the moment and just let it happen, it's a great way to spend a couple of hours. None of the public parking lots allowed bikes to park for any amount of money, so we had to find an illegal space on the sidewalk by one of the restaurants, and then everyone was happy.

We were just getting off the bike when a couple of kindred spirits pulled in on a full-dress Gold Wing. Bill and Gloria were from Bellflower, California, and on their way to a tour of the Mother Lode. We told them about our ride and that we were headed on up to Seattle. I think we were all happy just to find some other bikers to talk to in this foreign land.

We all walked over to a small place on the wharf and had crab cocktails and incredible fresh sourdough bread. Usually, at a stop, I get the camera out and go crazy, but after just a few pictures, I was ready to go. Leslie probably would have been happy to stay all day, but I had already had enough city, no matter how beautiful. I was anxious to point Big Red's handlebars toward the roads of the north coast. We said good-bye to our newfound friends and headed toward the Gate.

I never have liked the way people drive in San Francisco, but when we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, I finally figured out why. They don't drive; they aim. They'll cut you off in a West Coast minute, and if you show any hesitation or reluctance to join in the battle, they can smell the fear just like a shark smells blood. It amounts to one honking, crowding, jamming, screeching mess. Of course, the final insult is that they want you to pay a toll for the privilege of risking your neck.

Everyone's a predator in this jungle of asphalt and steel vines, and the appropriate twisted laws apply. Here it's even possible for a rabbit to gobble up a cougar and arrive ten seconds ahead on the other side of the Golden Gate or the Pearly Gates, depending on your luck. Fortunately, that day, no one wanted to make a meal of our Yamaha, and we made it to the other side.

I couldn't afford to spend much time sightseeing on the way across, but we stopped at the tourist hive on the Sausalito side, and after clearing our way through the swarm, the view was something to remember. Tugs were churning past Alcatraz to meet a large freighter clearing through the Gate, and small cumulus clouds had started to play bumper cars out across the bay. The wind had scraped the fog away again, and we got our Kodachrome day back. Apart from the reality of riding through it on a motorcycle, it was nice to know that there was one city, along the way, that didn't have to use trick photography to make postcards.

We rode on up 101, past Santa Rosa, and into a different world of rivers and narrow roads winding through huge trees and places with names such as Geyserville, Ukiah, and Benbow. Passing loaded logging trucks, going the other way, at a closing speed of 120 miles per hour, produced a few moments of tension for the pilot, but Leslie and Big Red flew on, undisturbed, and we rolled into Meyer's Flat at sundown.

We found a room, and after stashing our gear and locking our rocket to a railing, we made our way to the fancier of two restaurants in town. They must have had a rebate for locals because the place, although expensive, was crowded with loggers and residents in addition to the tourist crowd, like us. The food was very good, but when I got the check, I realized three things: loggers must make a lot of money; local people don't always have good sense, and the greasy spoon is a national treasure. It was only two days to Seattle, and I wasn't hungry anyway. I had slept a little at J. D.'s, but this place had real beds.

Consciousness exploded; Boom! No survivors, no dreams.

July 11

Morning showed up, cold, gray, and threatening. Wake up, kiddo! It looks like rain. We rolled out at seven thirty with no breakfast; thinking that we would stop later, when we rode away from the storm. I'd fallen asleep before the weather came on, or I would have known. There was no rush. We were going to be riding into the storm, not out of it.

As we sailed through the groves, redwood towers lined both sides of the road. Fingers of mist pointed from between the trees and worked them like teeth in a giant zipper. They opened the sky directly over us only to close it immediately as we passed, and then retreated into the shoulders of the road. Highway 101 wheeled us right down to the beach after a stop in Eureka for gas. I used the stop to buy some film so we could take pictures inland, where we still thought it would be clear.

Eureka in those days was a pungent mix, with pulp mills, commercial fishing, and lots of diesel trucks. That was the pungent part. The mix was the loggers, college students, and town folks who roamed the streets and rendered the essential character of the place. Southern California legend held that everyone up there chewed tobacco and carried a gun or a chain saw in their truck. Even baby buggies were supposed to have lug tires and four-wheel drive. As we walked around, though, I came to the realization that the only one chewing tobacco (Skoal) was me. It sure was a letdown to know that the natives wouldn't even put out the effort to live up to their own legend.

We never did have breakfast, but we finally stopped for lunch at a small roadside deli-store just before Crescent City. There, we were met by a biker of a slightly different stripe who stroked in on a fifteen-speed-touring bicycle. His name was Jim, and while we were discussing the relative merits of being out in the boonies on two wheels, he casually asked where we were headed. A soon to be self-recognized fool replied proudly, All the way to Seattle and British Columbia, fourteen hundred miles from Simi Valley, way off in Southern California. Jim seemed properly impressed, so I shut up, and he told us part of his life story.

After a six-year enlistment, he would have been happy to stay in the army, but they jacked him around on the travel deal that he was supposed to get as an inducement to re-up. So he was freshly out of the service, and since he had some time on his hands, he was fulfilling a