Buildings In Distance Announce the Next Town.
"Heat is everywhere now. I can’t ignore it anymore. The air is like a furnace blast so hot that my eyes under the goggles feel cool compared to the rest of my face. My hands are cool but the gloves have big black spots from perspiration on the back surrounded by white streaks of dried salt. .. On the road ahead a crow tugs on some carrion and flies up slowly as we approach. It looks like a lizard on the road, dry and stuck to the tar. .. On the horizon appears an image of buildings, shimmering slightly. I look down at the map and it must be Bowman. I think about ice water and air conditioning.“
Bowman, ND. As my photos show, all of Rt12 from Mobridge, SD. to Miles City, MT, is now excellent highway. See caption three photos previous for more about the factual 9 July 1968 “record heat wave” the Narrator describes in the next 30 pages of ZMM.
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(Photo = 104-0441 ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 076`|f|' 2965ft)

Business District and Big J Restaurant
"On the street and sidewalks of Bowman we see almost no one, even though plenty of parked cars show they’re here. All inside. We swing the machines into an angled parking place with a tight turn that points them outward, for when we’re ready to go.“
Bowman, ND. Where people at the Big J Restaurant were very friendly and helpful with my ZMM Route research. If you visit this (and any) restaurant, mid-morning on, be sure to strike up a conversation with the retirees, who will welcome the chance to tell you local history and sights. Also be sure to tell any restaurant/hotel/store staff that you are following the ZMM route. Once the motels, restaurants, gas stations, stores along the ZMM Route see there is a steady flow of ZMM enthusiastic customers, they will start to assemble ZMM related local information. This may help in historical preservation and keep these (and other historic ZMM related buildings along the ZMM Route) for future generations!
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(Photo = 104-0443c ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 077`|u|' 2960ft)

A Lone Elderly Man with Broad-Brimmed Hat.
"A lone, elderly person wearing a broad-brimmed hat watches us put the cycles on their stands and remove helmets and goggles. .. "Hot enough for you?" he asks. His expression is blank. .. John shakes his head and says, "Gawd!" .. The expression, shaded by the hat, becomes almost a smile. .. "What is the temperature?" John asks… "Hundred and two," he says, "last I saw. Should go to hundred and four.".. He asks us how far we have come and we tell him and he nods with a kind of approval. "That’s a long way," he says. Then he asks about the machines. .. The beer and air conditioning are calling, but we don’t break away. We just stand there in the hundred-and-two sun talking to this person. He is a stockman, retired, says this is pretty much ranch country around here … “
Big J Restaurant, Bowman, ND. When I walk up to the Big J Restaurant, camera in hand, I encounter this Lone Elderly Man. This is by pure coincidence! This is almost too good to believe. Since he exactly fits the above passage I ask him to pause for this photo.
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(Photo = 104-0444c ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 077`|u|' 2960ft)

Good Food! Good Service! Cautious, But Ultimately Friendly, People.

"… and he used to own a cycle years ago. It pleases me that he should want to talk about his Henderson [1925 era motorcycle] in this hundred-and-two sun. We talk about it for a while, with growing impatience from John and Sylvia and Chris, and when we finally say good-bye he says he is glad to have met us and his expression is still blank but we sense that he really meant it. He walks away with a kind of slow dignity in the hundred-and-two sun.
… John and Sylvia look really out of it. … The waitress comes for the order and that snaps them out of it a little,
… An image of the elderly man outside in the wide-brimmed hat comes back to me. "Think what it was like around here before air conditioning," I say.“

Big J Restaurant, Bowman, ND. Here is where I explain my ZMM research and ask about the history of the Big J Restaurant. In response to my queries, and un-be-knownst to me, local resident Les Snavely was summoned. Mr Snavely (in photo /\ above /\), who is himself a ZMM enthusiast, said the “lone elderly person” in ZMM was likely Bowman resident, Mr. Claude White, who DID own a Henderson!
....Mr. Snavely should know! He is an Antique Motorcycle Enthusiast. He is known all over USA for his expert knowledge (and extensive collection) of old cycles.
…DATE-LINE: February 25, 2021. by Henry Gurr.
This Photo Caption for ~~17 years said Be sure to ask for Mr Snavely at The Big J !!
….However, this can no longer be. Big J Restaurant is under new management and has moved to another location.
…And sadly we must say => Mr Les R Snavely passed away Oct 15, 2020: His Obituary gives a full life sketch and a nice photo of him.

….To See A Panorama For ~10 miles West of Bowman, ND.
… After this Gallery Albums Page Comes Up, Click On The Small Photo, and AFTER this Small Photos Page Comes Up => Click on the Sixth narrow strip photo. :
& …. (Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and choose the first Gallery Picture)
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(Photo = 104-0446c ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 077`|u|' 2960ft)

Layers of Light Grey Volcanic Dust In
….The Bad Lands Southeastern North Dakota.

…."Miles later and the heat is just ferocious. Sunglasses and goggles are not enough for this glare. You need a welder’s mask. .. The High Plains break up into washed-out and gullied hills. It is all bright whitish tan. Not a blade of grass anywhere. Just scattered weed stalks and rocks and sand. The black of the highway is a relief to look at so I stare down at it and study how the blur whizzes by underfoot. Beside it I see the left exhaust pipe has picked up a bluer color than it has ever had before. I spit on my glove tips, touch it and can see the sizzle. Not good. .. It’s important now to just live with this and not fight it mentally—mind control.“ Photos for
Ten miles East of Marmarth, ND.

Click Here For More Views Of Badlands And How To Google For Links To Maps And Aerial Views Over This Area. ‘THEN AFTER this Gallery Albums Page Comes Up, Scroll Down To & Read Description Of => AFTER this Photo Comes Up, you will have to use the “Click&Drag” sliders at Bottom & Right to see the parts of photo off screen. :
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(Photo = Summer2006 0342 ...... ZMM Page = 068 ...... WayPt = 077i)

The Badlands of Southwestern North Dakota Seem To Be Caused By a Considerable Layer of Volcanic Ash.
"What has become an urgent necessity is a way of looking at the world that does violence to neither of these two kinds of understanding [Classical & Romantic] and unites them into one. Such an understanding will not reject sand-sorting or contemplation of unsorted sand for its own sake. Such an understanding will instead seek to direct attention to the endless landscape from which the sand is taken. … To understand what he [Phædrus] was trying to do it’s necessary to see that part of the landscape, inseparable from it, which must be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all. To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely.“
Ten miles East of Marmarth, ND. The Narrator discusses the dry lifeless processes of science and philosophical analysis.
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(Photo = ...... Summer2006 0349 ...... ZMM Page = 070 WayPt = 077m)

The Narrator Continues His Discussion of the Dry Lifeless Processes Of Science And Philosophical Analysis.
"There is a perennial classical question that asks which part of the motorcycle, which grain of sand in which pile, is the Buddha. Obviously to ask that question is to look in the wrong direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. But just as obviously to ask that question is to look in the right direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. About the Buddha that exists independently of any analytic thought much has been said...some would say too much, and would question any attempt to add to it. But about the Buddha that exists within analytic thought, and gives that analytic thought its direction, virtually nothing has been said, and there are historic reasons for this. But history keeps happening, and it seems no harm and maybe some positive good to add to our historical heritage with some talk in this area of discourse.“
Ten miles East of, Marmarth, ND.
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(Photo = Summer2006 0351 ...... ZMM Page = 070 ...... WayPt = 077n)

Death-Birth Continuity.

…" [By the time Mark Twain] had mastered the analytic knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts...something is always created too. And instead of just dwelling on what is killed it’s important also to see what’s created and to see the process as a kind of death-birth continuity that is neither good nor bad, but just is. .. We pass through a town called Marmarth but John doesn’t stop even for a rest and so we go on.“

Bad Lands around Marmarth, ND. In the above passage, the narrator dwells on death and killing, which (Metaphoric Bridge Connection), “fits” this surrounding very real harsh terrain.
…And here, ALSO notice how the town atmosphere, and town’s evident abandonment (MBC), fits the Narrators description of the surrounding harsh terrain and the “death-birth continuity” of above passage. … Even the name Marmarth poetically sounds (Metaphoric Bridge Connection), malicious, maladaptive, plus rhymes with harmful.

…Moreover, You Should Study How The Lived Road Experience Of The Narrator, Chris And The Sutherlands, reflects and poetically amplifies the painful telling of this terrible wrenching desolate portion of Phaedrus’ life, as follows =>
…At the end of these 7 pages, in this "heat is so ferocious. …. old, bad highway.“ we are told => " And a slip of paper from the probate court telling me that some person was committed as insane. Did they mean me? “

…The ZMM passage above is part of ~7 pages, where there are multiple Metaphoric Bridge Connections (MBC)s, that Author Robert Pirsig has placed for us. AND in the reader’s minds, let the awful landscape “stage set” the corresponding conditions in "the rational, analytical, classical world of Phædrus.“ AND also always implied is the reverse.
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(Photo = 104-0458c ...... ZMM Page = 071 After ...... WayPt = 079`|w|' ft)

North Dakota Montana Border Country.
"More furnace heat, into some badlands, and we cross the border into Montana. A sign by the road announces it. .. Sylvia waves her arms up and down and I beep the horn in response, but when I look at the sign my feelings are not jubilant at all. For me its information causes a sudden inward tension that can’t exist for them. They’ve no way of knowing we’re now in the country where he lived. .. All this talk so far about classic and romantic understanding must seem a strangely oblique way of describing him, but to get at Phædrus, this oblique route is the only one to take.“
4Mi W of Marmarth, ND. has more Scenery and Montana Cows. Some “Badlands” are seen in distance.
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(Photo = 104-0463c ...... ZMM Page = 071 ...... WayPt = 082`|w|' 3070ft)

Cows and In the Distance: Oil Tanks.
"I told Chris the other night that Phædrus spent his entire life pursuing a ghost. That was true. The ghost he pursued was the ghost that underlies all of technology, all of modern science, all of Western thought. It was the ghost of rationality itself. [In other words, this ghost is the basis of our civilization’s primary received knowledge.] I told Chris that he found the ghost and that when he found it he thrashed it good. I think in a figurative sense that is true. The things I hope to bring to light as we go along are some of the things he uncovered. Now the times are such that others may at last find them of value. No one then would see the ghost that Phædrus pursued, but I think now that more and more people see it, or get glimpses of it in bad moments, … "
Baker, MT. is seen in distance.
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(Photo = 104-0464c ...... ZMM Page = 071 ...... WayPt = 083`|f|' 3070ft)

Giant “S” Curve Carries Rt12 Over RR Tracks.
" … a ghost [of received knowledge] which calls itself rationality but whose appearance is that of incoherence and meaninglessness, which causes the most normal of everyday acts to seem slightly mad because of their irrelevance to anything else. This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says.“
Baker, MT. in distance. Railroad Train plus Light of Diesel Locomotive is seen. Our highway here makes great “S” curve away from its former roadbed, as it over-passes grass covered railway discernable at right.
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(Photo = 104-0465c ...... ZMM Page = 071 ...... WayPt = 084`|f|'3074 ft)

Lone Café-Bar and Old Style Wooden Frame Elevator.
"At Baker, where we stop, the thermometers are reading 108 degrees in the shade. When I take my gloves off, the metal of the gas tank is so hot I can’t touch it. The engine is making ominous knick-knicking sounds from overheating. Very bad. The rear tire has worn badly too, and I feel with my hand that it’s almost as hot as the gas tank. .. "We’re going to have to slow down," I say … "What?" .. "I don’t think we should go over fifty," I say. .. John looks at Sylvia and she looks at him. Something has already been said between them about my slowness. They both look as if they’ve about had it. .. "We just want to get there fast," John says, and they both walk toward a restaurant.“
Baker, MT., East side of street where, at a glance, this seemed to be the town's only Café. But on second close look, I see it has the words Bar on upper corner. Next photo shows the opposite, (West) side of the street. When the Sutherlands and the Narrator came this way they were grueled by the heat. I was similarly oppressed but by the cold stormy weather.
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(Photo = 104-0467c ...... ZMM Page = 072 ...... WayPt = 086`|u|' 3070ft)

Real Western Towns Have Six Bars in a Row.
"They may want to go ahead fast and wait for me in some town up ahead. I’d suggest it myself except that if they go much faster they won’t be waiting for me in some town. It’ll be by the side of the road. .. "I don’t know how the people here stand this," Sylvia says. .. “Well, it’s hard country," I say with a little irritation. "They know it’s hard before they come here and are ready for it." .. I add, "If one person complains he just makes it that much harder for the others. They’ve got stamina. They know how to keep on going.“
Baker, MT. business district where are found 6 bars, all in a row, two of which are between restaurants. Another Old Style Wooden Frame Elevator Complex finishes the business district. Evidently a new cold front is coming in causing the ever darker clouds to release copious rain. Life forms in this area, including people are, no doubt, very grateful! This is an enormous contrast with what the ZMM Narrator describes. The “traveler” participates in both extremes with “Mind Control”.
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(Photo = 104-0466rc ...... ZMM Page = 072 ...... WayPt = 085`|w|' 3070ft)

I stopped to photograph the Dry Baked-out Grass and Discover a Cactus

”Before we are out of town I am sweating again. The cool drying-off period doesn’t last even half a minute. .. The heat just slams into us.”
On the road after Baker MT This cactus, lower right of center, is another hot dry-land survivor. Look at the grass and vegetation. Clearly this is a harsh land.


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(Photo = 104-0473 ...... ZMM Page = 073...... Photo is actually at WayPt = 088w, 20 Mi W of Baker MT)

From This Obviously Harsh Land These Curious Horses Come Over to Investigate Me

”Even with dark sunglasses I have to squint my eyes into slits. There’s nothing but burning sand and pale sky so bright it’s hard to look anywhere. It’s just become white-hot everywhere. A real inferno.”
Somewhere after Baker MT Again study the grass and vegetation of this harsh land. A nearby group of horses, became curious, and as a group come over to investigate me. In this two photo composite, my camera was positioned exactly over the fence. This allows you to contrast the vegetation with (and without) the grazing pressure of the horses.

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(Photo = 104-0469sc ...... ZMM Page = 073...... Photo is actually at WayPt = 088w, 20 Mi W of Baker MT)

This "Posse" Sniffs at Me Expecting a Handout

”This is the ghost [received knowledge] of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the [received knowledge] ghost says.…”
Somewhere after Baker MT Despite their tough living conditions, these horses go on living any way, and seem both well fed and content. I did not find the sand mentioned in the above passage. I took too long talking to the horses, and missed my shot when all the horses had a good photogenic group positioning. Sorry.

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(Photo = 104-0471c ...... ZMM Page = 071...... Photo is actually at WayPt = 088w, 20 Mi W of Baker MT)

The Horses Lose Interest in Me and Move Off to the Southeast

“John up ahead is speeding faster and faster. I give up on him and slow it down to fifty-five. Unless you’re just looking for trouble in this heat you don’t run tires at eighty-five. A blowout on this stretch would really be it. .. I suppose they took what I said as a kind of rebuke but I didn’t have that in mind. I’m no more comfortable than they are in this heat but there’s no point in dwelling on it. All day while I’ve been thinking and talking about Phædrus they must have been thinking about how bad all this is. That’s what’s really wearing them down. The thought.”
Somewhere after Baker MT Here’s another opportunity to study the vegetation and think about “the will to survive” in this harsh land. Finding no sugar lump or other hand-out, these horses rapidly move away. They get this far, before my electronic camera is ready.
.... No doubt they are responding to Quality, and can do so neither too fast …. nor … too slow! I was going to say “by definition here”, but this is not allowed as we learn in ZMM.

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(Photo = 104-0472c ...... ZMM Page = 073...... Photo is actually at WayPt = 088w, 20 Mi W of Baker MT)

Spring Time In Montana!

"A photograph can show a physical image in which time is static, and a mirror can show a physical image in which time is dynamic, but I think what he [Phaedrus]saw on the mountain was another kind of image altogether which was not physical and did not exist in time at all. It was an image nevertheless and that is why he felt recognition. It comes to me vividly now because I saw it again last night as the visage of Phædrus himself. .. Like that timber wolf on the mountain he had a kind of animal courage.“

On US-12 => 21.0 Miles W of Plevna, MT, and 17.6 Miles E of Powder River, MT The rain stopped, the sky cleared, and the sun came through the clouds, so I stopped to get photos of the cows and (at left) the wooden cattle loading chute.
…. The /\ Above Photo Is Part Of A Larger Panorama. To View Complete Panorama For This Location, With Cattle Loading Chute =>
Click Here. After this Gallery Albums Page Comes Up, Scroll Down To & Read Description Of => “Album 360 Degree Panoramas for Book "Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" THEN Click On The Small Photo, and AFTER this Small Photos Page Comes Up => Click on the Seventh narrow strip photo. AFTER this Panorama Comes Up, you will have to use the “Click&Drag” sliders at Bottom & Right to see the parts of photo off screen. : …. (Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and choose the first Gallery Picture).

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(Photo = 104-0479c ...... ZMM Page = 075 ...... WayPt = 090`|x|' 2980ft)