Everyone—at least most of us ‘muricans— knows Tombstone, Arizona.

Maybe you saw the Kurt Russel/Val Kilmer movie back in the day when you went to see Jurassic Park and it was sold out.

Maybe you visited the town as a kid during a “Great American RV Trip” with your parents, and you still have a souvenir sheriff badge in a drawer somewhere.

Or maybe you just know it as the Wild West silver-mining boomtown, home of the legendary Marshal Wyatt Earp, and site of the famous “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”

Well, this here ride report is about a different kind of showdown…but not between rogue cowboys and lawmen.

It was between me, my built-in humanoid meat filter (otherwise known as my kidney), and a 4.5 mm calcium asteroid (otherwise known as a kidney stone) hellbent on my spiritual destruction.

Here it is, actual size (well, almost).

Did it kill me? Not quite.

Did it suck? Existentially.

Did it ruin an obsessively-planned, four-day, off-road motorcycle adventure that was two flights, two time zones, and 2,400 miles from home?

Well, partially. But only partially.

And is it fair to call the journey of a stone not exactly “rolling” from one’s kidney, down one’s ureter, and into one’s bladder…a showdown?

You be the judge, sheriff.

Now on with the show (down).

If you’ve ever perused any posts here on Longitude&Gratitude, you’ll know they’re a collection of my two-wheeled exploits, often undertaken in the company of my old college pal and roomie, the singular Jonah Houston—aka “the Brotherman.”

He’s a Californian. I’m a Connecticut nutmegger/part-time New Yorker. Neither would qualify as cowboys in any way, shape, or form, except perhaps that we both ride modern mechanical “horses” of sorts.

Every few years, we pick a destination, wrassle-up some motorbikes, and set off on an a new adventure.

And over the years, we’ve ridden single-track in Baja, Mexico. Two-track in Southern Utah. Forest roads in Wyoming and the Colorado Front Range. Fire roads in Vermont and New Hampshire. And trails throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts.

But we’d never really tackled the desert of the American southwest.

So when we learned about the 2024 Desert Adventure Rally in Bisbee, Arizona, it had us hook, line, and filter.

(That’s a kidney joke).

The DAR promised four days of joyful moto-hooliganism in southeastern Arizona, hosted by legendary BDR (Backcountry Discovery Route) cinematographer and YouTuber Sterling Noren, along with his high-energy partner, Eva Rupert.

I mean, how could we not go for it?

So we spent several months planning, reserving, booking, arranging fly-and-ride rentals via Colorado Motorcycle Adventures (we’d used them previously), sorting our riding kits, re-activating our Garmin InReaches (little satellite emergency devices to summon help in the unlikely event of a gravel landing), and even doing some modest training.

FWIW, and despite my wife Emily’s assessment that motorcycling is “just a lot of sitting,” off-road riding is vigorous and demanding, and if you’re not in shape, things tend to go sideways or break (and not just on the bike).

Like this little souvenir from Utah a few years ago (my ankle still periodically aches).

Anyway, the Desert Adventure Rally would be based in Bisbee, around 100 miles south of Tucson, and a mere 12 miles north of the Mexican border. Jonah would fly in from San Jose, and I was making the two-flight trek from New York.

As is the case with most of our trips, the days leading up to this one were filled with Scarecitedness^TM — my trademark blend of anticipatory terror and joy. As in:

“Shit I HATE riding in sand. It’s the desert. I wonder if there’s a lot of sand?”

And “God, please don’t let me crash again and smash my fibula into fibuleens.”

And “Holy FUCK we get to ride in the DESERT for FOUR days with nothing to do but RIDE and drink beer for FOUR DAYS and eat TACOS and ride motorbikes for FOUR days GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Thus, I had all these emotions neatly packed and ready to go the Sunday before departure.

And since I had two connecting flights and didn’t want to get separated from my riding gear, I planned on checking my “non-essentials” while wearing my boots and jacket and carrying my helmet, along with the rest of my moto-kit.

Here then is where the best laid plans had their first tête-à-tête with late-middle-aged human biology, and the real adventure (hostilities?) began…

On Sunday night, about 36 hours before departing, I had dinner with my lovely wife Emily, went to bed at a civilized time, and woke up around midnight feeling nauseated, and with an awkward pain in my side.

I wondered:

Did I do something stupid on the rowing machine earlier (trying to get “fit” for the ride)?

Or: was that Moroccan chicken Emily made fully cooked?

And if not: am I going to kill her now, or in the morning?

(Uncharitable thoughts—since retracted—about my awesome wife and her unimpeachable culinary skill).

Whatever the source of the nausea and discomfort, I slid out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom. with an overwhelming urge to both vomit and pee.

But despite my best effort, nothing would come out.

And the pain—which started as a dull ache in my left side—was spooling up and starting to feel like a sharp knife twisting into my lower back.

I lay down on the bathroom floor (it’s heated) to try to find some relief or position of comfort. But the pain kept getting worse, so much so that I was soon sweating—and soon after, vomiting—for several hours.

By the time 4 AM rolled around, emptied of everything (including every last bit of perfectly-cooked Moroccan chicken), I crawled back to bed, and told my wife that I thought I needed to go to the ER.

Mr. Anatomical Know-Nothing here thought he might be having an appendicitis, but wasn’t aware that one’s appendix is located on the lower right quadrant of your abdomen in the front, while this pain was emanating from my middle left and back.

So kind and caring Emily helped me into the car and sped me to the ER, where I was quickly admitted, seen by an excellent doctor (thank you Dr. McCarthy), sent for a CT scan, and minutes later informed that I had a 4.5 mm kidney stone wedged in my left ureter.

At this point, not only had I never had a kidney stone before; I didn’t even know what a kidney stone was, much less anyone else who’d had one.

As if to punish this insolent ignorance, My New Kidney Stone had me writhing and groaning in uretal agony, as close to tears from pain as I’ve ever been. “Suffer trembling human! YOU SHALL KNOW MY NAME!”

As per protocol, I was given a cocktail of IV fluids, Toredol (a powerful NSAID) and some morphine. It took another 20 minutes for God to remove the hunting knife from my side (despite my blasphemies against him), and only then—after my pain-labor—was I actually able to have a non-gasping conversation with the doctor.

DOCTOR: “I get these too. Bane of my existence. Your stone is 4.5 mm. I passed a 9 the other month. It’s hell.”

We grumbled in mutual sympathy, and then I mentioned that I was supposed to get on a plane tomorrow to ride dirt bikes in the desert.

DOCTOR (laughing): “You’re not going anywhere. I’ll write you a note. Get a refund. And follow up with your primary care doc.”

Shortly after, he sent me on my way with 12 Percocets, a vial of Flomax (to keep the pee-flow maxin’) and the as-yet-unexpressed-to-my-wife intention of flying to Bisbee in 24 hours.

This, I’m afraid, is how the male motor-mind works.

By mid-morning on Monday, several hours after the ER, I was already starting to feel normal-ish (this is apparently how it goes with kidney stones—waves of soul-crushing agony punctuated by periods of medicated calm). So to indemnify myself against doing something critically stupid (and being blamed for it), I called my doctor.

I told him about my kidney stone episode, and how I was planning to leave for a motorbike trip in less than 24 hours. What were his thoughts?

“Well, you could pass the stone today…or this week, or in a month. No way to tell. So I’m not going to tell you not to go, but personally, I wouldn’t want to fly with a kidney stone or be stuck somewhere a thousand miles from home while I was passing one. You just can’t predict.”

“Great!” I thought. “I predict I’m going!” And so this here paragon of judgement and medical overconfidence thanked his doctor, hung up the phone, and finished packing.

The remainder of Monday was uneventful, as was Monday night. When my alarm went off on Tuesday at 4 AM I still felt fine, so I roused Emily. But rather than serving as my ambulance to the ER, she assumed personal Uber driver service and drove me to JFK.

I sent her this selfie from the Delta Lounge as proof that this was still a good idea.

I can’t say the boots I was wearing were ideal footwear for flying, but at least I looked like I was going somewhere fun.

My first flight was to Atlanta, where I had a tight connection for Tucson. I boarded, got settled in my exit row seat, and was feeling good.

It was about midway through the flight—just around the time we’d finished scarfing our smoked almonds and Biscoff cookies—when lightning struck. And not my ureter.

There was a loud bang and flash (actually, an explosion) on the outside of the aircraft. Then the lights went out, and the plane started descending with a high-pitched whine, just like in the movies. Most disturbingly, there wasn’t a peep from the cockpit.

A sense of panic set in, with passengers frantically texting their loved ones (weirdly, the wifi was still working). I wondered which would hurt more: dying in a plane crash or from a kidney stone. So I texted my wife:

(The bag reference was to a surprise set of luggage I ordered from Paravel. It’s good to get your spouse a gift when you’re on a moto-trip. Even better if you wind up dying in a plane crash…it makes you look that much more thoughtful).

Since you’re reading this, we obviously made it. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think we might not. Here’s how the New York Post covered it.

It was only as we landed in Atlanta that we were informed by the Captain that the plane had indeed been struck by lightning, and that we’d be surrounded by fire trucks and emergency vehicles “out of an abundance of caution, and to make sure there was no damage to the plane.”

We were also asked to remain seated after we reached the gate, as a medical team would be boarding to assist a passenger who was apparently traumatized by the experience (I’m hoping for their sake it was a panic attack, not a heart attack).

When we finally deplaned, I had about nine minutes to make my connection to Tucson which, given the sprawling nature of ATL, was about 6 mile away. So I raced through the airport in motocross boots and riding jacket, helmet bouncing off my side. Several huffing miles and a sweaty tram-ride later, I was the last one to board my flight to Arizona before they closed the doors.

And this, my friends, is when lightning decided to strike twice.

As the doors shut behind me, I begged the stewardess to let me use the bathroom before taking my seat. Taking pity on the glistening lump of moto-clad middle-aged ridiculousness huffing before her, she agreed.

But again, despite the urge and urgency, all I was able to muster was a pathetic dribble.

And then it returned.

I could feel the knife starting to reenter my side, and twist. I thought: “oh fuck. Not here. Not now.”

“All passengers MUST take their seats before we push back from the gate.”

I gimped down the aisle, stowed my gear, and gingerly buckled in, to commence what was—and from now on forever will be—The Worst Flight of My Life. Quite possibly even the worst four hours of my 59 years on this planet.

It made getting struck by lightning seem like a non-event.

Discomfort became pain. Pain became agony. Agony became writhing and whimpering, accompanied by a fierce diaphoretic storm.

I took one Percocet which tempered the maelstrom for maybe 30 minutes. But it came back with a vengeance, and I was rocking in my seat, a moaning and glistening mass of desperation. I was sweating so profusely that my pants and seat cushion were soaked, and could feel rivulets of perspiration running down my calves and into my boots.

The passengers around me couldn’t ignore this, and one summoned a flight attendant.

When she arrived, I gasped that I was passing a kidney stone, and begged to see if there was a doctor on board. They made the obligatory page (the one where you think, “I wonder if someone is having a baby or a heart attack?”

I was having a baby glacier.

Moments later, a middle-aged physician approached my seat. She introduced herself as Dr. Soandso, a cardiologist from Tucson. In between the pain stabs, I shared my medical history from the past 48 hours, and asked if it was safe to take another Percocet (it was) and which hospital to go to if this lasted to Tucson (it did).

Somehow, between the Percocets, a handful of Advil from a kind fellow passenger, and the grace of a God I’m not sure I believe in, I managed to grind through the four most miserable hours of my flying life without vomiting, sobbing, or jumping out of the airplane.

So to make a long misery story shorter:

We landed in Tuscon around the same time as Jonah, and reconnoitered at baggage claim. Jonah called an Uber for us, and I rode down to Bisbee in an oxycodone/agony haze.

But by the time we got to Bisbee an hour and half later, somewhat miraculously, the pain storm finally seemed to be passing again…and I was beginning to feel human.

This was the weirdest aspect of my whole kidney stone experience: when the pain started to spool up, it would go all the way to 11. But when it backed down (from time or Percocet or Toradol or that little stone fucker tiring of its intra-uretal terrorism), I’d be back to feeling shockingly (and deceptively) normal.

Still, I laid low that first night in Arizona. Jonah walked up to the Jonquil Motel to check us both in and grab our bikes (it was a 2-minute ride to our place). He even brought me a small plate of food (although with the kidney stone, I all but lost my appetite for a week). I had a decent night’s sleep, and by the morning awoke still feeling pretty normal.

So having schlepped all the way to Bisbee (through not one but two lightning strikes), I felt like the only reasonable thing to do was to give a stiff middle finger to my renal tormentor, and ride.

Yours truly in his partial riding kit, with that little inner terrorist sleeping soundly (for the moment).

Outside our lodging, the gathering of the rides…

We rode up to the Jonquil to grab some breakfast and plan a route for the day.

We had the chance to chat a bit with Sterling Noren, our DAR host, and ask for some guidance on a milder route for Day 1. Over his years riding the surrounding desert, Sterling has collected dozens of routes, many of which were pre-loaded into the GPS units for Rally-goers.

He recommended we ride down to “the Bordercoaster,” an undulating dirt and gravel road that runs along the US-side of the Mexican border. So we headed for that.

Here’s the Brotherman in his KTM-matching Mosko Moto jacket (he’s Team Orange through and through), ready to roll.

But because we had trouble getting the GPS tracks to load and point us in the right direction (south), we first wound up riding 25 miles north, passing through none-other-than Tombstone, Arizona.

And while it might have been poetic for my internal gunfight to resume here, it was (thankfully) a peaceable—if mildly deflating—side trip.

Tombstone, predictably, has become a perfect little tourist diorama, Disney-fied with ersatz Old West saloons and cowboy shoppes, and topped off with an hourly costumed reenactment of T.G.F.A.O.K.C.

(We missed the last one by 30 minutes. Shoot.)

The whole thing felt like a Southwest version of Times Square, with no actual local people or businesses, just a three-dimensional tourist theater manufactured for tourist commerce, and filled with cosplay actors, desert versions of the dress-up characters you see prowling Broadway, hustling out-of-towners for “tips.”

But thankfully, even though these cowboy characters had guns, no one was shaking us down for taking their picture.

I wondered if Edward Schieffelin, the prospecting father of Tombstone, ever dreamed that dress-up cowboys would be walking his streets to entertain dress-up ADV-riders on hiatus from kidney stone suffering.

At least our costumes serve something of a purpose.

After some brief cow-poking around, we saddled up and left Tombstone in the dust, this time heading correctly south. To be fair, everything in the desert is left in the dust, and any movement leaves a contrail of it, like the one covering me as I followed Jonah on this cut-through to reach the Mexican border.

(Sound off if you don’t want to be covered with wind noise).

The “Bordercoaster” itself was incredibly fun, but it was also kind of strange to realize you were enjoying yourself along a highly politicized boundary that’s fraught with very real human drama and international friction. This particular part of the border is marked by barbed wire and “Normandy barriers,” cross-shaped steel structures meant to prevent the passage of vehicles.

It also does a good job of keeping some of the US Grade A locals from illegal border crossings.

Obligatory peg-standing ADV-poseur shot. (In my defense, I was trying to shake the kidney stone further down the pipe.)

For a while—in fact, for all of the day’s riding—this actually seemed to be working. I didn’t have a hint of pain. I was hydrating like crazy too, although the stream that was coming out the other end was definitely not equal to my intake.

And then a few hours later, I went from this…

To this.

We’d gotten back from our epic Day 1 of riding, and had settled into our AirBnB to look through the videos and pictures of the day. Jonah was talking about heading up to the Jonquil for some tacos…and that’s when the knife-wielding desperado showed up again.

The pain began again (as it does) with an uncomfortable ache, which quickly became sharper, and then re-erupted into a full-flank knife-fight. Within a couple of hours, it became obvious I’d have to get to an ER, and the closest one was the Copper Queen Community Hospital, about 5 miles away.

The only problem was that our only transport was a pair of motorbikes. And I was in no shape to ride.

First we tried calling an Uber (note: there are no Ubers in Bisbee, Arizona.) Then we tried looking up a taxi (note: there are no taxis in Bisbee, Arizona.) Then we tried messaging the ride organizers, whom we hoped had a four-wheel vehicle (note: ride organizers are sleeping at 11 pm after a long day in the desert).

So we finally pulled the very literal alarm, and summoned the Bisbee Fire Department, which sped me to the ER in the back of their ambulance.

At the hospital, I was given a bag of fluid with life-giving, pain-relieving Toradol, and then rolled over to radiology for another CT scan (just as they’d done in Norwalk Hospital 48 hours earlier).

The excellent doctor on call (who seemed ex-military—there are several Army and Air Force bases in the area) informed me that my kidney stone had indeed moved, and was close to turning the corner from my ureter into my bladder. He even surmised that all the riding, rattling and shaking may have helped move it along.

But until then, it would still be a bumpy internal ride.

Jonah had followed the ambulance to the hospital on his KTM, and spent most of the night dozing in the waiting area. When 3:30 AM rolled around and the Toradol had finally kicked in, the only way home was on the back of Jonah’s bike with no helmet or riding gear.

Just a tee shirt, jeans, and thick coat of denialist stupidity separating me from the cold desert night air.

Back at the AirBnB, shivering and depleted, I got into bed and decided to take the second rally day off entirely. After some fitful sleep, I got up and puttered around, trying to get my body to pee, and deliberating whether it would be worthwhile or fruitless to let my wife know what was going on (predictably, I opted not to share). Jonah wisely took a break from his second career as an ER nurse, and went riding for the day.

And while my first Bisbee ER visit had staved off a final showdown at the O.K.idney Corral, the day’s relative respite was more like a temporary cease-fire before inner violence would resume, which it did (in keeping with form) around sundown.

I spent most of this third night in Bisbee parrying the pain with Percocet. And by the time morning rolled around (Jonah was already off and riding), I decided I’d have to self-ambulance myself to the ER on my motorbike for Round 3. This time, at least I had a helmet.

So here’s Prince Charming re-visiting his Copper Queen, grateful to be a second bag of fluids and Toradol into salvation.

On this second stint in the ER (third since Sunday) I had to wait a few hours for radiology to free up for a third CT scan. By now my abdomen was glowing.

Around midday (high noon?) the attending physician strode into my room smiling and waving a radiology report. He announced triumphantly that I’d “finally passed my kidney stone!” Which meant that it was now out of my ureter, and jiggling around in my bladder. At which point he also shared that the O.K.idney Corral showdown doesn’t really conclude until after you pee that little asteroid out.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

This was (as per the doc) an allegedly pain-free affair, occasionally accompanied “by a little blood”.

So there was that to still look forward to.

Still, the knife was out, my helmet was on, and I’d be bidding this ER a final adieu.

Farewell, my Copper Queen! FU, kidney stone!

I celebrated by hydrating with a smoothie from a local Bisbee shop just dow the street from our AirBnB…

And spent the rest of the afternoon chilling, drinking Gatorade, and filtering my pee (they gave me a little “urine strainer” when I left Copper Queen) to see if I could catch and imprison my little stone tormentor in a Ziploc bag.

But nothing emerged (yet), so I just gathered my strength for the fourth and final day of the 2024 Desert Adventure Rally.

And that evening, I slept like a rock.

With two days in the ER and just one day riding, I was determined to even the score. And I did (and then some) on Saturday.

We decided to ride out to an area called Council Rock to continue the “stone” theme. Council Rock is located in Arizona’s Coronado National Forest, west of the Dragoon Mountains, and famous as the site of the end of the Apache Wars in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It was here in this boulder-strewn canyon that the legendary Apache Indian Chief and leader, Cochise (along with his translator, Geronimo) signed a peace treaty with the US Army, led by General Oliver O. Howard.

A peace treaty involving rocks. I could get with that. Here’s part of the 50-or-so mile ride out.

It was great to be back in the saddle. It was, however, not great to be riding deep sand, which is my off-road nemesis. The trick is all in the technique, which Jonah seemed to have mastered: weight all the way back over the rear tire, float the front like it’s the skis on a snowmobile, and throttle your way through.

It’s very unnerving to have your front tire “surfing” so loosely through soft sand, but the grip comes from the rear tire, and it actually works.

No ADV ride would be complete without a “water crossing.” Weak sauce this one, but it’s always a minor thrill leaving land for water—even if it’s only a virtual puddle, two inches deep.

The “passing of the stone” seemed to have uncorked my pee stream, and it was an actual pleasure to pull over, stop, and pee. And take the piss out of Jonah.

Dismounted for the formal signing of the Treaty of Renal Cholic.

Reminders of pain everywhere.

Our official Termination of All Hostilities, etched in (kidney) stone.

So much to reflect on!

We rode around the area some more, succeeded in not crashing, and headed back to Bisbee for the final evening and official closing of the 2024 Desert Adventure Rally.

Other than my Showdown at the O.K.idney Corral, two days in the ER, and a tattered tail bag (it slipped off the back of Jonah’s KTM and was turned into Swiss cheese by the knobby rear tire), some great riding, and a very different kind of “adventure.”

Hosts Sterling and Eva treated us to a desert taco fiesta…

…accompanied by the dulcet tones of local favorites, the Whiskey Lickers.

We turned in out KTMs, shared our thanks and farewells, and headed down the hill to turn in for the night.

On the way home, the sky was darkened further by a cloud of bats and turkey vultures, on patrol for insects and carrion.

Having survived my ordeal, it felt good to not be carrion.

On Sunday morning, we re-Ubered back up to Tucson, said our goodbyes, checked in for flights, and headed home, another adventure in the books, another experience under (above?) my belt, and feeling only slightly worse for the wear (it took another week for my kidney function to get back to normal.)

Still, I am happy to report that neither flight feature lightning of the real or renal type.