Sorting Through the Pieces...

Sorting through notebooks this afternoon... trying to clean out clutter and junk... found one where I'd logged in the mileage the first couple of days when we'd started out.

Fort Collins to Denver... to Sand Dunes National Park... and on to the the mouth of the Columbia...

Those past four years tallied up something like 67,457 miles... so... nigh onto 17,000 miles a year. Add on to that... just a few miles on the Raider.

Now, I figure somewhere 'round 30% of that was bobtailing... so... that puts maybe another 47,000 or so on the fiver... figuring it had something like 45 or 50 thousand on it 'fore we pulled out...  that tallies to something at or over a hundred grand.

Now... if you, like me, believe that the engineers and builders who weave these outfits together do it with the PLAN that they're made to; Buy on Monday and park next to the garage until the weekend.

Then, for a year and a half you drag it up to the mountains, or out to the lake for the weekend and home again...

... then... it gets parked next to the garage for the next four years until you decide that you don't use it so you sell it... and the next "Owner" does the same dang thing... and after ten years the rig has 'Maybe'... 9756 miles on it... you understand that a fiver... with a hundred grand on it... is an oddball.

Yeah... it's a bit of a paradox... but they don't build 'em... to haul 'em...

Now... Make those miles... on the lousy roads that bust cars, and... ahem... 4WD roads that a cowboy with a bad attitude drags it over... and you grasp the fact that this Old Rig has "Seen the Bear"... and gone Waaaaayyyy past it's design parameters... :)

Considering the kinds of places I was in the habit of dragging a rig too big to be dragged in there... IN there... yeah... The old rig don't have to make excuses for it's dings and wrinkles.

...ALL of those miles went on the truck of course... so no surprise, both of are showing their age...

Not to mention the Raider... which is NOT a pristine show bike. She's wallowed through the Colorado mud. Splashed through the torrents of the Alaskan highway... in Alaska and the Yukon to get there...

She's roared across 95 degree Montana... at 95 mph... and cooked a ring... or a valve... not so sure which...

She's climbed some of those same 4wd roads to get me back to the broken rig. She's hauled Propane bottles to town! ... when the truck broke... yeah... my equipment gets used.

It was a ride... 

I look ahead and see a road running off into a murk I can't see into. I suppose I won't... until I get close enough to see where it leads... which is too late if it's right into some clever trap that damned Murphy who never ceases to torment has set...

That damned irish just might find he poked the badger one time too many...

Each day is just; pick up my left foot and stick it out in front of me... lean over a bit until I start to fall over... and when my foot hits the ground... Pick up the other and repeat. Keep doing that until the sun sets, the beer runs out... and it's time for a few hours in a bunk.

Spent the last two days finally emptying out that storage shed that I've paid 14 times the value of anything inside it... to keep that precious junk.

My good friend who owns the place we're squatting on gave me permission to use one end of one of the garages... to sort through that precious cargo...

The work on the bike proceeds slowly... mainly 'cause my heart ain't in it... and I keep hoping that Oprah will "find" my books and the accolades of her book club will stand me up in the ranks of celebrity!!!

... yeah... then they tell me that she done quit her TV gig... Kerrrrrap... It's just like that lotto thing... I kept wonderin' why ~ I ~ never win... and THEN they tell me; "Ya'll gotta buy a ticket!"

The sun rises... the sun sets... and you just keep on keepin' on.
Brian