#16 (shoe tree), archival inkjet print, 15 x 11" (min. paper dimensions 19 x 16")
the journey back has begun. so i have started the 2nd half of the trip. it still kinda early but the winter
has been mild so i figure i can get across the mountains. i left eugene on saturday and headed for bend. great weather. clear roads. although
at some places the snow was still piled higher then me and fee on the sides.
things are going great and i hit the high desert. home free me thinks! i can
deal with cold, but cold+wet=unhappy camper. im happy to see the arid landscape and sage.
weekend, and things got a little ruff. it turns out holidays are bad luck for scooter
trips. large companys also show there true colors. so im about 15 miles outside of bend feeling pretty good about things when i hit a sobriety
check roadblock thing. no biggy i drink AFTER i scoot. only they have some scheme going that
closes off the road to bend and making people detour. fine if your a local or have a good map.
oh well i will just follow everyone else. well we get dumped on some road. traffic of course is awfull because of the added cars from
the detour. which means im hitting the shoulder alot to avoid becoming a pancake. well
during one of my little road hugging trips i picked up a nail in my rear tire. getting a flat on a two wheeler is not fun. it took me a bit to finaly stop because i
feared hiting the breaks might make me lose what control i did have.
the result was not only a flat but off the rim tire. well this isn't good. i don't have AAA(since they proved worthless last holiday weekend).
thanks to the detour i don't even know exactly where i am. i pull out my cell to call
someone with internet access to try to figure this out and cingular has cut off my roaming. well 6 miles or so down the road(past 2 shoping centers!), i find a payphone. after
a chat with my google master i know where i am and have a tow number. what i dont exactly know is how to tell the tow person where the scooter is.
i try "its past the electrical sub-station" they respond "but not past santas raindeer farm?"
this stumps me cause i do recall santas stash of sled power. i just dont know if i was
riding at the time or walking along cursing cingular. happily they just ask where im at
now and they will come and get me first. its about 7 oclock on st.pattys day. the place i called was somebody and sons. i got
grandpa. very nice guy. VERY old. we load up the scooter on the flat bed, he ties it
up, we get going, Fee falls over. we pull over she is unharmed(the saddlebag
cushioned the fall). i decide to just let her lay down. now when i said this guy was old i might have just given the impression that he
looked old or something. let me tell you the little story he told me. his wife just made him sell his honda goldwing(a big old motorcycle).
he wasnt happy about this. the reason he was made to sell it? he fell off it. not crashed it. not layed it down. he fell off, the motorcycle just kept on going. he picked himself up off the
pavement and the motorcycle is stoped still standing up! he just fell off! the guy is very nice and takes me to all the tire shops in redmond and the one
bike shop. all closed or wont work on bikes. he spent at least 2 hours driveing
me around finds me a cheap nice hotel, lets me and fee out and charges the min amount of 65.
you have to love running into nice people.
sunday everthing is closed. a very warm sunny day wasted! monday i try the bike shop in redmond dont get an answer or voicemail. i call a placein bend "toms world of wheels" he says get it to him by noon and he will have me on the road. so once again i call the tow people. out comes grandson...in the wrong truck. he heads
back to base and returns in the proper truck. we load fee, he straps it down different
then grandpa, we pull out of the parking lot and Fee falls over. i tell him to leave it
(i figure multiple drops are more likely to cause damage) he pulls out about fifty
bungee cords and spends about 45 mins tieing them to fee. we head about 8 mile down the
road find the shop unload fee and i get charged 95 bucks. i liked grandpa AloT more. tom it turns out is a real nice guy. his shop has thousands of matchboxs cars, some vintage
scooters, old motorcycles and dirtbikes. i feel real confident about them so i ask
them to change the oil and spark plug too. true to his word he has his mechanic stop what he is doing and work on my scoot asap.
once he hears the back wheel come off(thats when you know you found a good place.
he could tell a wheel came off from the front desk.) he ask if the tire was ok
before the nail. i admit it was a little bit worn(ive been calling it my racing
slick in my mind). he runs off to the back, returns with my tire and says its not
leaving his shop without a new tire. i feel the tire at the middle and can feel my
fingerprint through the rubber. he says he will find me a tire in town or have one
overnighted and he will put me up at his place for the night. he calls everyone in
town, no luck. he has a tire one size too large. we can try that or he can get one
overnighted. its another sunny warm day, im itching to hit the road i say go for it. it fits barely. when the center stand is down in gravel both wheels are down too. he warns that it might be slower on uphills but faster on downhills. it does go slower to begin with. but eventually (maybe Fees computer had to readjust)
im going about 3 mph faster on the flats and maybe 2 mph slower on the uphills and
about 5 mph faster on the downhills. although it is much slower starting up/getting to speed. i left bend around 1 and made it to burns. found a really cool and cheap hotel. crappy picture sry. so today started out kinda warm but got colder all day long. i managed to take a few
pictures(its hard to be motivated when cold) ill do better i promise. and this is a shoe tree. you can find these everywhere. even grow your own. what striked
me about this one was both the large crop of shoes and that it was 40 miles in both
directions to get nowhere! so thats it.im at the idaho border. i want to find a potato as large as my head
tommorrow. if i do i will post a pic for sure!