Weeeeelllll……

As I said, this leg has pictures. What I did not expect is that I would be so thoroughly wiped out afterwards to even consider dragging the camera out and downloading them.

Let me start by saying “I’m safe and sound, in a nice hotel room, after having a nice medium-long soak in a hot tub and a nice hot shower afterwards..”

Let me repeat.. I’m fine.

Now for the fun part. Bike now has a battle scar. Maybe I should rename it the BattleScar Galactica. Didn’t (I know, I know) take pictures while she was on her side, but I was too embarassed to think of the camera. I had just gotten out of New Mexico (and it’s absolute lack of cell phone coverage north of Las Cruces/west of Socorro) after having a nice fast run with seeral cars. I was tired, had pretty much only had dried fruit for lunch, and needing gas. I stopped at the first gas station I saw.. as did everyone else, apparently. I got impatient, decided to leave. First, I stalled the bike…. then got it restarted, and was heading to the curb. As I was pulling out into the street… a combination of fatigue, loose raingloves, impatience, hunger, and a fractured gutter… well, the bike didn’t go when I twisted a little, and it happend too fast to twist a lot, and when she stopped, she tipped, and all I could do was break her fall.

Fortunately, I did so without using any parts of my body… like bones… as a cushion. I love my bike, but not THAT much. A couple nice individuals helped by put the rubber back where it belonged, an I scootched on down (after thanking them profusely, of course) to the locla McD’s for a burger, a cup of coffee, some salty fries (yay, electrolytes!) and a few good shakes of “Man, you knew better, you coulda really screwed up!”

So, bike now has a scuff on the right handguard, and the highway peg got a bit out of whack, another ding on the Jesse bag, but nothing broken on it or me. Yay.

Rolling back, it was a mini-BMW convention at VLA…. met a few nice riders, it’s too bad I am so horrible with names. Good pictures taken, just can’t put forth the effort tonight.

The other motorcycle drama was a REALLY slushy clutch heading up into Cloudcroft. I stopped at 8600 feet… the crest… and started trying to figure out what went wrong. It -felt- like a bleed issue.. air in the line. After a thorough inspection, the set/adjust screw on the clutch lever had vibrated lose and therefore the clutch was never fully disengaging.

White Sands was cool, and there’s an interesting story there… I found the perfect place to pull over for a mountain picture. So I look down at the ground where I am putting the kickstand down… and there.. of all things… is a brand-new, plastic wrapped quick-release foot for a camera… I was NOT the first photographer to stop there. I laughed… smugly… and took the shot 🙂 No great shakes really, there was a lot of haze…

Cleanest bathroom I have ever seen… pump&gas in Artesia, NM.

Allright.. I’m wiped out, and heading to sleep after I find the weather report…

Belg