I suppose, the coldest that I have ever been in my life was riding a Honda. I was in the army at the time and I was stationed at fort Lewis Washington. I rode my motorcycledown to Portland Oregon to drop in on my family. I had a exceptionally nice break.

The weather conditions was hot and dry when I started the journey down to Portland. It stayed very nice and warm each day of my leave except for the day I was to come back to the base.

I should have known, the very last day of my leave the conditions turned cold and raining. Clearly my good luck, I had to travel the 250-mile journey back to Ft. Lewis in the cold rain. To make matters worse the girl that I was seeing at the time determined to ride up with me.

I put my motorcycle jacket and my motorcycle boots, rolled up my gear and strapped them to the motorbike. We jumped right on and off we road. When we started the trip the rain was just a drizzle. But, by the time we crossed the Columbia River into Washington it was hammering. I didn’t’ have any rain gear; all I had was a military supply rain poncho. It really didn’t do a satisfactory job of keeping me dry.

My passenger wasn’t doing well at keeping dry also. I don’t’ think she was geared up for a long motorbike 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 short wintry weather undercoat, moreover not water-resistant I might ad.

It wasn’t terrible enough that it was drizzling and bitter, by the time we got to Longview Wa. the temperature had dropped to freezing and the rain turned from just cold, wet, chilling to the bone light rain, to freezing rain. Brrrrrrr!

The thoroughfare was dangrous to ride but I pushed on. By the time I reached Chehalis Washington I had to discontinue. The cold plus the wind chill made it wretched.

I bring to mind pulling into a roadside café right out side of Chehalis, it was so frozen that even with gloves on, when I went to shift gears the motorbike I could not close my fingers to draw the clutch in. I had to curl the tips of my fingers around the clutch bar and draw it in using my whole arm. I did get the motorcycle stopped nevertheless.

Getting off the bike was different to say the least. Because of the freezing rain a layer of ice had formed on the front of my legs. The ice started from the cuff of my pant leg to the top of my jeans pocket. While I stood up the ice cracked and fell to the ground like someone hitting 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 feel like I was 80 years older after hip replacement surgery.

We made it indoors and the warmth was both a relief and a bother. The warmness felt nice and comforting to my cramped and aching body. My hands on the other hand, pardon the pun, cried out in pain. I am sure you have all been there. When you were a kid playing out side in the snow with out your gloves on. Think of going in the nice temperate farmhouse and your little fingers throbbing from being so cold. Yeah you get the imagine. It was pain… It took me a whole half hour before I could my cup of coffee to take a sip.

After thawing out for hour or two I had to make a choice. My time off was up and I was supposed to be back on base at 6:00am in the morning. With around a hundred miles to go, should I continue on to my residence in Lacy and be confident I would make my morning get-together, or should I acquire a room, wait dry and warm and trust the conditions improved.

Well as fortune would have it, just when I was prepared to wimp out and find a room, the precipitation stopped. The unusual thing is, that very soon after we stopped in Chehalis the temperature went up a few degrees. So the sub-zero rain changed to just rain and the roads were not icy.

I was dry, the road safe and the rain stopped, grudgingly we got back on the motorbike and cruised the rest of the way up to Lacy and the luxury of my apartment.

That was long ago and I have ridden lots of miles ever since then. Even to this time I can’t recollect ever being so cold.