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(posted to r.m.h. on June 15, 2002)
Rounds of intoxicating beverages on me. Wednesday before MITM found myself and Boonesfarm Bob meeting at my house at 6 pm. Pretty boring first evening we slabbed it from CR iowa to Topeka, Ks, about 400 miles ate dinner and crashed. Thursday morning we rode another 100 miles of slab and then jumped off on some real nice two lanes heading for Dodge City. Only reason being I wanted to tell Bob, Let's get the hell out of Dodge. Through piss poor navigation I totally missed Dodge City. As Bob and I are trying to figure out just where in Kansas we are, a lone truck with a plywood topper pulls into our rest area. We strike up a conversation with the guy and he turns out to be a gypsy Clown. Driving from event to event. Says he makes a 100 dollars a day and gets to watch the concerts for free. Turns out he is lost too. We all put our heads together figure out where we are. Turns out Bob and I are closer to Colorado than we thought and the Clown is gonna have to back track forty miles. Pretty neat never met a clown before. Not a whole hell of a lot of difference between western kansas and eastern colorado but the weather was beautiful and the road was smooth and uncrowded so the miles flew by. Pretty soon we were through Pueblo and into Canon City where we spent the night with a couple of old friends of mine and went down to check out ladies night at a Country Western bar. So ends the first day and a half. Friday found us tooling around the wet Mountains. Visited Bishops castle and rode up Hard Scrabble pass. Through Westcliffe where Bob pulled one of his vegeterian tricks on me and cheated me out of lunch. Bob if you are reading this yogurt covered almonds do not make a meal for us Carnivours. After what sort of passed for lunch we rode down Texas Creek road through the Arknsas River Canyon on Hwy 50, past Buena Vista and up to the MLazyC Ranch. One of the things I always love about MITM is the chance to renew old aquaintences and meet new friends. We dranks some beers told some lies and just had a hell of a time. Had a great dinner Saturday night. Watched Becky shave her pussy. Saw some Hummingbirds with hangovers. Watched the start of a major forest fire. All in all a great time. Amanda did an outstanding job, our hosts were gracious, the food was hot and the beer was cold. Bob and I had to be back to work Monday so we decided to take off Saturday night. TL Mitchell wasn't feeling to good so he decided to ride with us for a bit. Riding down the mountain and through Colorado Springs was good. When we hit the great barren empty though we were in for a surprise there was an extremley nasty crosswind. It was as bad as I have seen in 25 years of riding. The damnedest thing started happening I started sliding into the opposite lane. Then we encountered a dust storm, as I ducked behind the windshield my glasses slid right off my face. After 15 minutes of searching I am sure they were blown clear into Nebraska from Colorado. Made the ride even more fun to be wearing sunglasses at night. Along about the time we hit the interstate in Kansas TL and I had, had enough. Bob however needed to get back to his groupies so he took off by himself. TL and I stopped at every exit with a motel and finally found a room with an unmade bed at 6 am. All the while during this ride the sliding sensation kept getting worse and worse. Well TL and I rolled out our sleeping bags in a motel room in Russel Kansas and slept the sleep of the dead. The same morning I woke up around 11 am and felt the need to make some miles. I went down thinking about that sliding sensation and looked at my rear tire. There were patches worn through showing cords. Definatly not a good deal on Sunday in Kansas. Not knowing what else to do I pushed on another 70 miles to Salina. There is a big dealer right off the interstate. No he wasn't open but his tire pile was. I dug through it and found a Dunlap with a hell of a lot more tread than the one I had. Did I mention that by this time there was a stripe all the way around the circumferance of the tire showing cords? Went over to the Flying J and had a burger. I asked one of the maintenace guys if he knew anywhere to get a bike tire changed. He didn't, but as I was finishing lunch he came over to my table and said he had called all the motorcycle shops in town. All of them were closed except for one that had a busy signal. He gave me directions and off I went. They were closed to but the neighboring business that made counter tops was hard at work. I talked to the guy and explained the situation. He drove over to the owner of the indi shop's house talked to his wife and 15 minutes later the owner showed up in person. Kewl Beans. He sold me a new kendra tire and mounted it. As he broke down the bead it started oozing the nasiest stuff I had ever seen. All of a sudden it became clear to me. The sliding sensation and the rapid tire wear. I HAD BEEN SLIMED! Regardless of the cause this guy was a real gem, if you are passing through Salina and need some work done I highly recomend this guy. TPJ Cycle works 662 E North St. Salina, Ks. The used tire was returned to the Harley dealers tire pile and I was off. The rest of the trip was spent burning up the interstate and I won't bore you with the details. If you were at MITM thanks for the memories, if you wern't you missed a hell of a good time. Bartender another round!
Ironhorse HSB #96, SENS, BS#187 |