Getting Wet
by Titus Gee
Most of my travel companions think I’m kind of a lunatic, I think.
Usually they don’t say anything. They just give me this look, whenever we stop to rest. They stare out at the snowstorm, the beating sun or the dark of night; then they look at my grinning mug, and I see it — bewilderment and perhaps a hint of desperation; like they’ve just foreseen some grim fate they can’t quite grasp.
Last weekend, Big D wanted to go out riding. The last sprinkle of a late spring shower steamed off the pavement as he pulled up on his 700 Nighthawk, and the sun came out. I figured that was a good sign.
As we cruised down into the L.A. basin, though, clouds rolled over us and started dropping a steady mist. We set our jaws and headed up Foothill toward Big Tujunga Canyon Road — a broad set of well-banked curves that climbs to the Angles Forest Highway, which in turn dumps out onto the Angeles Crest. If it wasn’t raining at home, maybe it was sunny up there, too.
No such luck.
We rode for an hour under a seamless canopy of clouds, but the air was crisp as we powered up the slightly damp curves of Big Tujunga.
The wind hit us on Angeles Forest where the right-hand canyon wall falls away to deep forested crags. The Forest Highway curves a little tighter and the lanes grow thin as it gets closer to the Clear Creek station, at the junction with the Crest. I’ve never seen Clear Creek without a blanket of fog, and that day it was so cold we could see our breath, but still no sign of the look from Big D when we stopped to stretch a bit and use the vault toilets.
We set out, headed northeast on the Crest, one of the great drives of L.A. county, toward Newcomb’s Ranch – the one restaurant on more than 40 miles of windy mountain road. Most weekends bring the geezers out in hordes to try out their hotrods, choppers and sports cars. (I once saw a pack of 50 Ferraris — Fifty! — taking the curves in three tight packs.) On a clear day just the view can make my heart race.
It was not a clear day.
The temperature dropped as we climbed, with Big D in the lead pointing out the steel-grey clouds and patches of snow on the slopes a few hundred feet above us. The smooth new asphalt, installed last year after a rain storm washed the old road off the mountainside, gave way to a bleached and weathered surface.
Moments later we were in the cloud, picking our way through a white mass that cut off vision literally five feet from the front tire. The water didn’t rain on us so much as soak into us directly from the saturated air, bringing a deep chill with it. I moved into the front position, and Big D became a faint white blur of headlight in the rear-view. To the side, even the white line of the shoulder disappeared. In a few clear spots we could see little mounds of snow scattered on the slopes beside the road.
Half an hour of this, and I started doubting my memory of the distance to Newcomb’s, but at some point I figured going forward toward the promise of food and fireplace had to be better than hours trekking back to civilization.
There was one other bike parked outside when we finally creaked out of our saddles in the parking lot at the restaurant. The other bike stood huddled against a wall under the roof of the patio. We got a table near the fireplace and started to thaw, while we waited for the waiter to bring coffee.
I sat there, looking around at the warm, polished wood and stone of the dining room and thought about playing in the New York snow as a kid; staying out all day sledding, building snow forts and walking in the woods, then heading inside to stand by the woodstove with a cup of hot chocolate. I love that feeling of getting cold and wet, then warming up and drying out. Just makes me happy. There’s no other way to feel quite like that . . .
I looked at Big D, who was busy massaging the feeling back into his fingers and wishing he had bought some winter gloves.
I smiled.
“I have to admit,” I said, “there is something kind of charming about riding in rough weather.”
His eyes flicked to the wet, grey window beyond the bar, then back to me.
And there it was.
“What?” I said, but I knew.
Ah, well.
