Published 2011 HOG Magizine

                                                 CONTINENTAL TDC

This is my only published work where I received payment, $100 dollars to be spent at the local Harley Dealer. I don't recall what I bought with that money.

Published in 012 Issue of HOG Magazine, 2011

Howdy.

Here’s my stab at $100 Dollar Rides.

I count 747 words. Whew.

I am:

Jeffrey B. Smith

610 W Skyline Pkwy

Duluth MN 55806

PH# 612-840-7278

smithasota@aol.com

Thank you.

 

Bottom Line follows at conclusion

 

                                                                           Continental TDC

              

               Someone, probably me, once said, “There’s no place finer to be - on a nice day - than Duluth.”

               Duluth, the farthest inland seaport in the world, sits nearly TDC in the continent and could hardly be farther from the seas.  Yet, thanks to the St Lawrence Seaway, ocean ships from around the world call on this port routinely.

               The spirit of the greatest of lakes, Superior, is ever present in this city. Rarely benign, often malevolent, on an excellent day the light she gathers in her crystal blue depths and returns through the incandescent air makes it seem like you’re viewing the world through champagne, or at least through the first glass.

               I woke up this morning with 2 goals: Ride this city and spend a hundred bucks. I did it. And now I lean against my bike and look down on Duluth knowing that today there was no finer place to be. My bike pings a comfortable assent.

               I bought this bike, a 2009 Nightster, for this town.  Its power to weight ratio is perfect for these hard streets. Duluth: think San Francisco only with chuckholes and glaciers. Some of the stoplights I wait at, with some moron in a monster truck revving inches behind me, are at such an acute gradient that my toes cling to the earth, clutch, brake, shifter; nearly every organ is focused on not rolling backwards. You practically need a prehensile tail to adjust your shades here. But this bike, with its torque, and relative aplomb, shines.

               Today I have thundered under the massive ore docks in rusty West Duluth and snarled past the stately mansions of Gilded Age robber barons.

               Under the high bridge to Superior Wisconsin I chugged through the frenzied, teeming boat ramps. I recalled my uncle Maynard once saying, “You’re more likely to get in a fist fight at a boat launch than in a tavern.” A volatile mixture: testosterone, time off and trailer boats.

               I pounded down main street, Superior Street, essentially Highway 61. Yes that one, Bob Dylan, born in this city, put it to music. The “Blues Highway,” 61 arcs from the tip of Northeast Minnesota along the famed Northshore Drive through Duluth and down to New Orleans via Memphis.

               I n the shadow of the lift bridge, I postured through the touristy Canal Park to my first destination, The Saratoga, Duluth’s venerable gentleman’s club.

               My wife, Kristi, dances there. Well, actually, on Saturday afternoons we dance there. They give the ladies a few hours off and terrific jazz takes the stage, soloists dodging the shiny pole.  With no cover charge, and the fact that my bike doesn’t burn that much gas around town, I needed to spend money. I bought a pitcher for the table.

               We strolled across Canal Park, past the shops and clubs and hotels, to see our daughter Mesa at Belisio’s, the superb restaurant where she serves. Dinner, family, warm conversation, an excellent bottle of wine, and outstanding fare followed. Tonight it was fennel roasted pork and asparagus shrimp risotto.

               After bidding the girls farewell I buzzed over the grates of the lift bridge, now aglow overhead. A ship, bound downlake, had passed under this structure while we dined. Out on the inky blackness to my left I saw its lonesome lights.

               I rolled out to the tip of the longest fresh water sand bar on the planet, Minnesota Point, a place of generous beaches and barbecues. I returned with the city glittering against the dark hills and the now luminous lift bridge a vertical exclamation point in the foreground.

               I thundered up those hills. Wailing through a couple of empty intersections, I thought of McQueen’s Bullit, a twist of the wrist and I could imagine myself airborne.

               Back on earth, I rumbled sedately along Duluth’s legendary Skyline Drive, the lights of the Twin Ports scattered beneath me like rhinestones on black leather.

               After one final flourish of throttle, I wistfully twisted the key on my Harley. Below me was the city, the harbor, and in it a ship with a probing, blinding spotlight, threading towards the lift bridge and the cold expanse beyond. A ripe moon was on the rise over the Wisconsin shore, wrestling with the stubborn darkness of the greedy lake. That downlake-bound ship’s lights were still clearly discernable against the infinite horizon, and others, far distant, testified to the commerce that built this unlikely seaport.

               It was a fine day to ride Duluth Minnesota.

 

               THE BOTTOM LINE

              

FUEL                                                   $5

PITCHER AT THE ‘STOGA               $10

DINNER                                             $82

 

TRIP TOTAL                                       $97