RANDOM INTERVIEW: Mike and Ruth Cooper: Harley Davidson Motorbike Couple, Loves Truck Stop, The Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, USA
By Kaf Blamire Tuesday 1 June, 2010 22:13
Highway 80 cuts straight through Wyoming into a seemingly endless landscape of dusty red dirt hills, rocky outcrops, broken billboards, dry grasses and sagging telephone wires. Two hours from Denver, the only respite for hungry truckers and people who want to go to the toilet without being bitten in the nether regions by a rattlesnake is Loves Truck Stop. It was there in the car park, in the beginnings of a sand storm, that I met Ruth and Mike Cooper.
Snipe: How far are you traveling and why?
Mike: We are traveling from Kansas, Missouri to Vancouver, Washington. It’s a four week trip. We’re going to visit our first grandniece..
Ruth: … to get acquainted with her. I have this rocking chair strapped on here, it belonged to my mother and her mother and now I am passing it down.
S: Does Mike always drive?
R: Yes, I like it that way .
M: Years ago she wouldn’t ride with me. She was afraid.
R: When the children were grown, I thought, Why not?
S: Have you been in any hair-raising situations while riding?
M: Three years ago we were going round a blind curve in Tennessee, with a river on one side and a mountain on the other and a truck came ‘round the corner completely on our side of the road. There was a small opening between him and the river and we crossed right in front of him. We were four or five inches away from a wipe out.
A dust cloud blows through. We head into a gift shop full of truckers, crystal dolphin trinkets and huge jars of beef jerky.
S: Are you a member of a group of some sort?
R: The Christian Motorcycle Association
S: It seems like you are exactly the same height…
M: Yep, more or less.
S: Were you looking for someone the same height?
M: No, not really, it’s just a coincidence. We met 39 years ago in Kansas City. We actually met in a car accident, and got married six and a half months later. She crashed into the back of my car on the Interstate.
S: How did you turn a car accident into a date?
M: I called her that night and these are my exact words “I know this is highly unusual, but can I take you out on Friday night?”
R: And I said yes. Then I got in real big trouble. My parents were not happy. They said “he might be an ex-convict or an escapee or married with four or five kids.” So we did not go out on Friday night. He got to the door and I said, “is it okay if we stay in instead?”
S: So you had to impress her parents?
M: Yep, but I took her out that Saturday night instead. We crashed on the previous Wednesday.
S: So you must have made a good impression… any tips for people wanting to impress parents?
M: Just be really polite and honest. It goes a long ways.
