Day01-Shake Down Day! Mon, Nov 29, 2010

Every moto adventure starts with a twist of the throttle!

Start & Stop: Orange County, CA homes to Gilbert, Arizona

Miles: 384 (618 km)

Route: 91 through Riverside, 60 to Banning and the 10 all the way to Phoenix AZ.

Weather:  Unusually cold with occasional wind gusts.

Lodging:  A warm family home in Gilbert AZ

Fuel:  $3.10/gal

Lisa: Well, it was an interesting day for sure.  I woke up at 1 am with still way too much to do.  Alan was really helpful and the two of us used every moment before leaving to get things together.  Anyone who has left home for more than a day or two will tell you that something always goes wrong and today was no different.  When I tried to fire the V-Strom, the battery was gone.  Rather than mess with it I decided to start with a new battery and Dean agreed he would do the same.

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE:

Mike called this morning and confirmed the worst – he was bailing….sigh….well, such is life but we’re still heading out.

I left home at 10 am after lots of hugs and lots of emotion.  I’m not gonna kid you – it was hard to say goodbye.  When I got to Dean’s the garage was ready for me and I pulled in.  We took off the seat and the battery, setting the new one into place.  Oops!  Dean bought 2 vstrom batteries, for DL1000s and sadly, that wasn’t the size I needed for my wee.  You have to laugh. Instead of returning the battery to the store, blah blah, we just muscled it in.  It’s not optimal but whatever.

I LOVE HIGDON!

Ok, so Bob sent me a killer text that said – “See you in Texas sista!!”  I love it!!  The 3 muskateers (or the 3 stooges) are making it happen!!

At 11:30 we finally merged onto the freeway, at the same place we met to head to Huntsville for the 2001 Iron Butt Rally so it had some good memories.  It was cold cold cold but we just kept going.  Our goal for the night was only Phoenix, the home of my nephew and his wonderful family.  And we were not disappointed … we arrived, parked in the garage, were handed a beer and a glass of wine respectively, and settled down to a delicious pizza dinner.  Awesome way to start the trip.  My precious grandnephew Gavin wanted to sit on the bikes, bless his heart.

Tomorrow we’re headed east and south, not sure how far we’ll get.

Bob: Maybe the last perfect packing for a trip was by Roald Amundsen for his assault on the South Pole in 1911.  One hundred years later I’m still not in his league.  Few are.  But you pack what you think you’ll need and you hope that you won’t need what you haven’t packed.  There is no pure solution to it unless you’re a Norwegian with exceptional vision.  For example, what sorts of tools should you carry?   I’ve seen guys take off with equipment sufficient to rebuild a bike on the side of the road from the crankshaft up.  Others take the machine’s stock tool kit, if that, and for them fixing a flat will be a challenge one day.  I pack enough stuff so that I can do a roadside repair of trivial proportions.  Beyond that, the bike’s going on a truck.

I owe Shane Smith a Major League Attaboy for the work he’s done on the Nighthawk in the last few days: replacing front wheel bearings, jamming on new tires, and stuffing loose ends under the seat, behind side panels, and in out of the way places with what seemed like 250 zip ties and a roll of duct tape.  The object is to weigh down the bike, not the saddlebags.  I’m plagued by the memory of a saddlebag rack cracking apart on the second day of the trip across Siberia.  We spent half an afternoon at a welder’s shop having that repaired.  If anything comes unglued on this ride, it won’t be Shane’s fault.

Our merry foursome is a threesome tonight.  Mike Kneebone today was forced to withdraw, citing some disastrous business pressures from the Iron Butt Association.  What am I going to tell our followers, I asked.  ”Tell them,” he said, “that the Iron Butt giveth and the Iron Butt taketh away. Today it’s taking.”  This, for me, is not simply the loss of a rider. It’s the loss of my mechanic, my psychiatrist, and my friend.  Mike has been supporting me on every large ride I’ve ever taken.  It will not be the same without him.  Even now I don’t believe he won’t be waiting for me in McAllen in a couple of days.

Until a few hours ago, even my continuing on the ride was uncertain.  I have had an irritation in my right eye for the last couple of weeks.  I thought it was errant eyelashes that had been curling down toward the surface of the eyeball instead of sweeping out and away like most normal eyelashes do.  I even yanked a few of the suspicious looking ones out with tweezers, a magnifying mirror, and an LED flashlight.  That provided occasional, temporary relief.  But it always came back, and reminded me of its presence every time I blinked.

When I got to the Smiths last Wednesday evening, I asked them to see if they could discover anything that might be going on under the eyelid.  Karen’s face said it all: It was the look that mothers get when their beloved toddler shows up with brain matter squeezing out of his ear.  I hit a Doc-in-the-Box on Saturday morning.  They gave me a prescription for a laughably expensive antibiotic (Vigamox, at about $2.00/drop) and arranged an appointment with an ophthalmologist this afternoon.  I thought I might be looking at some sort of surgical intervention, but apparently the granuloma (or whatever it was) had receded.  The eye doc yanked out yet another vicious eyelash and sent me to Wal-Mart to pick up some over-the-counter eye salve.

Bullet dodged, I leave for Houston tomorrow morning where I have a final shopping run at REI.

Bob Higdon

http://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=22aa4cd2ad59583c9

Dean: Well, nothing fell off.  No weird sounds.  It was a 384 mile day.  Departed North Tustin, CA at 11:30 AM and arrived in Gilbert, AZ at 6:35 PM.