34 | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2017SHIFTFLASHBACKFLORIDA TO GUATEMALA, 1970
Three Vietnam vets washing away war“It all started one day when we were sitting around in our base camp at Bien Hoa, Vietnam,” wrote Terry Carper in the August
1970 issue of Motorcyclist. He and his two buddies, Dexter Thompson and Leo Stortz, found a remote section on a map of
Mexico called Quintana Roo—on the eastern edge of the Yucatán Peninsula—and after nearly two years of Army service went
home and decided to go for it. “All we wanted to do was ‘get out’ and take an adventurous motorcycle trip somewhere just as
far away from Uncle and his little green jeeps as we could.”The friends aimed to do the trip on the cheap, and so they bought three Honda 305 scramblers from a dealer in Saigon and
shipped them home. Terry, Dexter, and Leo seized pistons, defl ated tires, wore out points, and shook bolts loose as they
climbed over foggy and cold peaks and rattled through remote, dusty slices of Mexico. They ate turtle steak and slept in their
own hammocks, exploring pyramids and volcanoes, along the ,000-mile journey to their departure fl ight from Guatemala
City. Terry’s only regret was that he “would have enjoyed it a lot more if we could have continued on down Central America
to Panama and South America.” —Zack CourtsTERRY C. CARPER/MOTORCYCLISTARCHIVESLeo, Dexter, and Terry pose proudly in front of the pyramid at Chichén Itzá on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula—a place they decided to explore from
an Army base in Vietnam more than a year before.MCY1017_FLASH.indd 34 7/20/17 3:35 PM