Uncle Bill
writes:
575 miles in 9.5 hours. What a day!
We got a late start due to the work that needed to get done on the
bikes in the morning. The guys in the Barnett Harley shop were great.
They put the three bikes (Greg with the broken throttle cable, Moe
with the ruptured pipes and Chris with, well, .electrical problems)
in at the head of the line first thing in the morning. We got on
the road at 1:30 pm. Sounds like a long time but, considering the
amount of work done, it was terrific.
The rest of the day was all about riding. The weather was clear
and bright. A perfect day for a ride. The headwinds in New Mexico
were pretty rough and our gas mileage went way down. We had to stop
and re-fuel 5 times. We did lunch on the NM/AZ border and climbed
up into the high Arizona desert. It's beautiful there this time
of year. Still lots of green, but you can tell it won't last long.
Two incidents today. The first was me. I dropped my bike. It was
in a gas station and I had just come to a stop. I let the bike lean
over a little bit too much to the right and she started to go over.
The bike weighs over 800 pounds. I tried to hold it but couldn't.
My foot started slipping on the cement. I yelled to Moe for help
(he was closest) but he didn't make it in time. Down she went. The
only damage was a tiny scratch on the roll bar. Another lesson in
humility. All too easy to foul up when you don't pay attention.
The other thing happened on I-10 just north of Tucson. Pat and Wayne
took off ahead of us. They wanted to wring it out, as it were. We
didn't see them again till we got to the hotel...over 200 miles
later. Seems that they went about 1o miles too far on I-10. They
had missed the cutoff for I-8. They came back and took off out I-8.
They were still ahead of us and beat us by at least a half hour
to Yuma. We got in around 11 pm.
Dinner was at an IHOP (Yuma is not exactly a booming metropolis).
But it was a nice end to a good day. John (Bells) told an amazing
story about his trials and tribulations with Greyhound Bus Lines
and trying to get from Toronto to Kentucky last Christmas. If you
meet him you should get him to tell it.
That's all for now. I need to get some sleep.
Oh, by the way. For all of you who thought I would make it to Day
5.
Pftttttttttttttt (or however that raspberry sound is spelled)
Long Beach tomorrow afternoon!
Later,
Bill
