I reflect, the coldest that I have ever endured in my life was riding a bike. I was in the army at the time and I was stationed at fort Lewis Washington. I rode my Honda 750ccover to Portland Oregon to go to see my family. I had a extremely nice break.

The conditions was cozy and dry when I started the trip down to Portland. It remained very pleasant and warm every day of my leave except for the day I was to come back to the base.

I should have known, the final day of my leave the conditions turned freezing and drizzling. Truly my luck, I had to ride the 250-mile journey in return to Ft. Lewis in the chilly rain. To make matters worse the girl that I was seeing at the time determined to journey up along with me.

I put my motorcycle jacket and my motorcycle boots, rolled up my things and strapped them to the bike. We jumped right on and off we cruised. When we started the trip the rain was just a drizzle. However, by the time we crossed the Columbia River into Washington it was bucketing. I didn’t’ own any rain gear; all I had was a armed forces issue rain poncho. It really didn’t do a proficient job of keeping me dry.

My rider wasn’t doing well at keeping dry also. I don’t’ imagine she was equipped for a long motorcycle ride in the rain. She should have had a buffalo hide motorcycle jacket, women’s motorcycle chaps and Motorcycle boots, but all she had on was a pair of denims, sneakers and a little wintry weather undercoat, and not waterproof I might ad.

It wasn’t unpleasant enough that it was wet and cold, by the time we got to Longview Wa. the temperature had dropped to sub-zero and the drizzle turned from just cold, wet, chilling to the bone drizzle, to freezing rain. Brrrrrrr!

The road was dangrous to travel but I pressed on. By the time I had reached Chehalis Washington I had to discontinue. The cold plus the wind chill made it wretched.

I remember pulling into a roadside café barely out side of Chehalis, it was so chilly that even with gloves on, when I went to down shift the bike I could not lock my fingers to draw the clutch in. I had to coil the tips of my fingers around the clutch bar and jerk it in using my whole arm. I did get the Motorbike stopped though.

Getting off the bike was interesting to say the least. Because of the freezing rain a sheet of ice had fashioned on the front of my legs. The ice went from the cuff of my jeans to the top of my jeans pocket. While I stood up the ice broke and droped to the ground like someone striking a plate glass window with a hammer. I was so aching from the cold, trying to boost my leg up and over the seat made me think like I was 95 years older after hip replacement surgery.

We made it indoors and the heat was both a relief and a bother. The heat felt nice and comforting to my cramped and painful body. My hands on the other hand, pardon the pun, cried out in anguish. I am certain you have all been there. When you were a child playing out playing in the snow with out your gloves on. Think of going in the nice warm home and your little fingers sensitive from being so cold. Yeah you get the imagine. It was anguish… It took me a half hour before I could my cup of coffee to take a swallow.

After thawing out for hour or two I had to make a decision . My leave was up and I was supposed to be back on base at 5:00am in the morning. With nearly a hundred miles to go, should I continue on to my apartment in Lacy and be confident I would make my morning get-together, or should I acquire a room, stay dry and warm and wish the conditions improved.

Well as destiny would have it, just when I was all set to wimp out and get a room, the precipitation stopped. The funny thing is, that very soon after we stopped in Chehalis the temperature went up a few degrees. So the icy rain changed to merely rain and the roads were not icy.

I was dry, the road not dangerous and the rain stopped, unenthusiastically we got back on the motorcycle and cruised the rest of the way up to Lacy and the luxury of my apartment.

That was a long time ago and I have cruised many miles since then. Even to this date I can’t recollect ever being so frozen.