‘It’s been a good ride’; Couple in their 70s sets off on final cross-country motorcycle trip

FARGO - Ralph and Darlene Jose still remember the close call they had on their first cross-country motorcycle trip.
“Somebody didn’t stop at a stop sign, and they came through - at Wolf Point, Mont. - and I was aware of enough that I would possibly have time enough to get around them,” Ralph Jose said. “When I went around the back of him, I could look to my side and I could see his back bumper. That’s how close it was.”
Fifty years, eight bikes and 500,000 miles later, the Fargo couple has thankfully never been, as Darlene Jose calls it, “on the ground.”
“What can I say, it’s been a good ride,” she said with a smile.
On Saturday morning, Darlene, 72, and Ralph, 76, began their final trip, a re-creation of their first ride in 1965. The 3,000-mile ride through Glacier National Park will take about two weeks, and when it’s over, they’re hanging up their helmets.
“It’s been a thrill for us, really,” said Ralph, a retired banker from Zap. “But the time has come. You have the feeling, you really do.”
“It’s not a hard decision,” added Darlene, a retired courtroom deputy from Manning. “We talked about it, and we both agree. It’s easy to let go.”
In recent years, Ralph and Darlene have used their yearly long rides to give back. They’ve raised $22,805 since 2012 for kids’ programs at the YMCA and expect to raise $20,000 more with this ride.
“We believe in giving,” said Ralph, who works part time at the Fercho YMCA branch. “I see the kids down there, and there’s a lot of families that cannot afford to send their kids to camp.”
Philanthropy is one of many changes the couple has made over the years.
In 1999, they switched from two-wheelers to three-wheelers, and they now drive a red 2008 Honda Gold Wing with the license plate “USAFUN.”
They also no longer wear the white leather jackets they sported in the ‘60s. At a time when the Hells Angels were gaining notoriety, “we wanted to portray a clean image,” Darlene said.
But much is the same for the couple who met at Bismarck Junior College more than 50 years ago.
Their daily schedule, for instance, is like clockwork.
On a long ride, they start early. An hour and a half in, they stop for breakfast. Sometimes they sightsee, but they always start looking for a motel at 3:30 in the afternoon.
Another constant: Ralph always drives.
“I could, but I don’t care to,” Darlene said.
The only time she has taken the wheel was in 2009 when they were coming back from a long trip and Ralph had a heart attack two blocks from home. They’re calm talking about that now, but their kids - Dawn, 53, and Rodd, 50 - worry. Darlene can see why.
“Even when I see other people going on long trips, I worry about them,” she said.
But Darlene and Ralph weren’t nervous earlier this week as they talked about the upcoming trip and reflected on rides through 50 states, every Canadian province and five European countries.
“It has been a tremendous adventure,” Ralph said. “Seriously.”