It was July 2, 2001. We had left Tishomingo the day before with our friends Bob and Patti Highsmith and Tommy Adams and had spent the night at the Big Texan Restaurant and Motel in Amarillo, TX. We had almost run out of gas on I-40 and pulled into a station at San Jon, NM, just west of the Texas line. We wanted to go toward Red River, NM and after being assured by the attendant at the station that the little two lane north was a good road, we took off. It was late morning and nice and warm, with the sun shining. We were enjoying the lonely high desert short grass prairie country. State Highway 39 was only occasionally broken by a ranch driveway with a house visible in the distance.
To set the stage, I had been surfing the net some time back and had happened on the web site of a group called NANMA (North American Nude Motorcycle Riders Association). One could join with varying degrees of membership, but a full membership (called an Unbareable) required a nude ride wearing only boots and helmet for at least one mile. After riding through the NE NM ranch lands for 50 miles without seeing another vehicle I slowed down and told Catherine that if I was ever going to do my nude ride, this would be the place to do it! I pulled over at a driveway and told our fellow riders what I had in mind. I told them to go down the road at least a mile and find a good spot for me to pull over and put my clothes back on. Catherine stayed with me to get photographic evidence of my ride.
As I said….we hadn’t met another vehicle in about 50 miles. Well, while I was taking my clothes off 2 cars passed by and I was hunkering down behind my harley trying to look like I was fixing something. Once I got nekkid and my boots back on and Catherine took a couple of pictures, I took off like a bat out of you know where. No sooner than I got around the first curve than I met another vehicle. I wasn’t too worried because I didn’t think anyone meeting me going 70 mph would be able to tell I was nude. At the one mile marker I started looking for my “friends” who would find a suitable place for me to hide and get decent again.
One mile and no friends were visible. I kept riding. At about the 3 mile mark I rounded a curve in the road and a motor home was parked on one side of the road with a car on the other and about 10 people standing around talking. I twisted the throttle up to about 80 and leaned over the handlebars hoping they wouldn’t notice, or at least if they did notice laugh and not call the highway patrol. After meeting a couple other vehicles I rounded a curve and went down a little hill and saw my friends Bob, Patti, and Tommy waiting at the intersection of Hwy 39 and 120. They had big grins (my dad called those kind of grins “poop eating grins”......well, that's not exactly what Dad called them) on their faces. There was a little ranch road with a small cactus that I pulled up next to and quickly threw my clothes back on. I had ridden 9 miles on my initiation ride. I couldn’t believe we met so many people after the road being so deserted for so long.
To end the story, I have my membership card in NANMRA and the picture to prove it. NANMRA is now defunct, which is probably what this story should be. The next year Bob and I spent most of one night in the Mangy Moose bar in Riverside, WY and I got my “Moose Piss” card there, making me probably the only person in the world to hold a card in both of those clubs, but that’s another story.