Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [92]
Approaching the New Mexico–Arizona state line, I crossed the continental divide, the line that splits where America’s rivers flow – either to the Pacific or to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Then I spent a night at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, where stars from Hollywood’s golden age like John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy stayed while making cowboy movies in the nearby mountains.
Moving on the next morning, a sign caught my eye. ‘Indian Ruins’, it said. Hmm, I thought, that might be interesting. But, as so often on Route 66, the sign promised much more than the place delivered. Pulling in, I discovered the ruins had long since gone. Flooded or possibly blown away, only a few markings remained in the dirt. There was a trinket shop, but it had nothing different from all of the other Indian gift shops along this stretch of the road. So I got back on the trike and resumed the relentless journey west, hoping to reach Holbrook, Arizona, before too long.
Winona – which, like Gallup, is name-checked in the song – lay just beyond Holbrook and everything seemed to be going well. Then, all of a sudden, we ran out of Route 66. In itself, this was nothing new: Route 66 had stopped or disappeared plenty of times before. One moment there would be tarmac; then there would be gravel and scree, or a dead end. The crew and I would consult our maps, fire up the satnav, have a wee discussion, then go in search of Route 66. Usually this entailed doing a U-turn, retracing our steps for a few miles and then taking a different road. It happened a lot.
But this time it was different.
Carefully edging the bike around – avoiding the side of the road, which disappeared into nothingness – the revs suddenly shot up and the bike went crazy. My hand was stuck. The throttle wouldn’t respond. I tried to calm the engine, but everything was moving too fast. Even now, I don’t know exactly what happened.
Fighting the jammed throttle, I spun out of control. The bike wheeled around, somersaulted, then bounced off me. The big rear wheels went right over the top of me and something slammed into my ribs. My knee thumped hard into the road – a crunch of bone and flesh on tarmac. Then I was lying on my back, staring at the sky. As I lay there, I wondered just how much damage I’d done to myself.
Desperate to stand up and just get on with it – because, of course, I’m a man of steel, a real hero – I was immediately told not to move, to stay absolutely still. Mike, the director, insisted that I must continue to lie down. He wouldn’t even loosen my bloody helmet, the bastard.
While I waited for an ambulance to arrive, the crew looked after me brilliantly. Then the paramedics arrived. If there’s one thing at which Americans excel, it’s being the good guys in a time of crisis. Three of the four ambulance crew were motorcyclists themselves, and they knew exactly what to do – and not just in terms of medical attention. They instinctively knew that they could do whatever they wanted with my T-shirt – cut it to ribbons, for all I cared – but they had to tread very carefully with my jacket. Working with painstaking precision, they sliced the jacket along the seams, cutting up the sides and around the back, and removed it in one big flappy – but easily repaired – piece.
Slipping some metal plates underneath me, they eventually lifted me on to a weird folding stretcher, then carried me off to a helicopter for one of the worst flights of my life. Clear-air turbulence and chest straps were not a pleasant combination for sore, badly bruised ribs. I was absolutely stiff and couldn’t move,