78302 - 78518

As Dan and I were pulling out of the apartment complex for the first time, he reminded me to reset my trip odometer. I noticed that I was exactly 6,000 miles from when I picked up the bike after the wreck. I don't feel like I did any substantial riding last year. I got the bike back at the beginning of August, took a weekend ride up to Aspen with a big loop around the northern side of the Black Canyon and Gunnison, and had a 5 day jaunt down around Ouray where I was frying a headlight bulb every time I hit a bug. I didn't get nearly as much riding in as I had hoped, since I was more focused on getting back to the campground before dark and fixing my electrical problem. Then came the wrist surgery, in the beginning of November, which made a very precise end to the riding season. Not sure how I wracked up the miles, but the important part is that I'm back on the road.

Dan needed to drop a package in the FedEx box at the post office across the street. On the way over, I noticed that my tire was scraping every time I hit a bump. When I had my rear tire changed last week, the mechanic said it scraped when he took it for a test ride. He had looked at it and noticed that the tire had worn a spot in the plastic taillight/license plate holder that extends from the bobtail fender. For some reason it didn't seem like a big deal. I didn't notice anything when I rode it home that day, probably because the wind was blowing so hard I was more concerned with keeping the bike upright.

We tried to bend the license plate up, but that did nothing. We went back to my garage to fix it. The idea was to use the Dremel tool to cut the plastic piece down to where it wouldn't scrape the tire. The Harley-Davidson general repair tool of choice is no longer a bigger hammer. It's the Dremel tool. We've used it for a few things. Dan started with one attachment, which ended up adding little caves to the mountains on my Colorado license plate. After the first attempt, I took it for a test ride, but it was still scraping. Another attachment did a quicker job of lopping off a bigger piece, and the test drive was successful. We were finally able to get out of there. While we were quite a bit later than planned getting out, I'm really glad that we figured it out before we were too far from home. I told Dan at the next red light that life is a lot better when you believe in God. Instead of being frustrated with the setback, it was easy to assume that there was some good reason for it, like not getting plowed over by a semi that got caught in a gust of wind.

The ride after that was uneventful. It was pretty good weather for February, but it cooled quickly when the sun went behind a cloud, and it was behind clouds more often than it was out. Things were looking a little grim until we headed south. We stopped for gas in Kit Carson, the one gas pump in a 50 mile radius. It did warm up quite a bit, to about 60, as sunset approached. Our shadows stretched out to the east, and there was a soothing glow. At that time, we were on a curving overpass, crossing the road we were about to merge with. A car carrier was on the low road, driving up to meet us in a quarter mile. While listening to Bob Seger sing "Like a Rock", I imagined what the leaning motorcycles on the overpass must have looked like in the color of the sunset. It was one of those moments where everything just feels good.

We made it to Lamar, where we looked around for a campground. We found a place that's a motel/RV park that has a sandy spot for tents. With a forecast of 20 degrees and high winds, we pulled a Dave Ramsey and got a really good deal on a room with log furniture and accented with corrugated and rusted tin framed by rough cut wood. There are also fake trees and fishing poles and fish and nets everywhere.

We're looking at about 540 miles tomorrow. With temps starting below freezing, it's probably going to be a long day. Good night!