5-20-2010

The weather in Miles had been darn cold, windy and a little wet at times. The first nice weekend Joe invited me for a ride and ended up in Billings and ate at a sidewalk restaurant that I think makes its own beer as well as good grub. I had our cute little waitress stand next to Joe but as you can see, he was NOT amused. She was nice, even if Joe wasn’t.

It is always nice to go to Bob’s place and I finally got to see his new red BMW as well as the little Miata nestled into the Motorcycle shop….

The Beemer was very sweet with a new rebuilt motor and everything else freshened up.

Yeah, it still is a bike shop but won’t be if he gets more fancy cars.

Bob had worked on Joes bike several years ago and was not pleased at that time with the way it was running. Bob doesn’t work on this model bike for his business but has been worried about how the bike was running every time Bob and I talked about Joe and his bike. He has had many theories about what might be wrong with that bike and when we showed up in the yard, he was just itching to get it on the rack and test out those theories. This didn’t start out to be a bike fix it trip, but one where I was trading a seat for a bike with Bob. After about an hour the faulty part was found and replaced as well as another part that was ‘fixed’ until he could get a new one. It just ran so smooth and sweet after the adjustment but it still whinnnned like they all do…..I put my earplugs in when they start up those whiners. 

Bob had a customers K75 in the shop and he said it was going to be sold as soon as someone came up with the money. It was a really nice one with lots of extras included. As it happened a new friend was telling me that he was looking for one. I pointed him to Bob and Jackson went over and bought it. I saw Jackson at the Glendive motorcycle show and was pleased to see it all polished up and in the show. Nice bike…… even if it does whine.

I ended up having a friend order me a little HP mini note book computer for my travels. I am actually writing this dog log in the Billings airport on it now. It has the windows XP operating system and a 160 GB hard drive. It is smoking fast compared to my old computers and I just love the little size. The keyboard is regular size but a little tight for my fat fingers. So far so good but I am sure I will get better as it use it more.

Bill Shockley came from Wisconsin and stayed with me for several days while the weather was so shitty. Bill had his KTM with him that he had ridden around the world on. Two years ago he came by on his way to seattle where he shipped his bike to Korea, ferry to Russia and rode across eastern Russia and Mongolia all the way to Europe.

Bob’s friend Robert had been wanting Little Red and he finally got the money together and came over on the buss and I picked him up in the evening. He brought his 1934 National Standard Steel guitar and played a few numbers.

That nickled steel box could really blast out the tunes.

when he was done he wiped it down with a little piece of elk leather.

As it happened my friend Charlie Gephart was over for supper and he really liked the guitar playing. Robert gave him a couple of lessons for Charlie to practice.

Mark Weeding was there too so it was a live music party. I had made some what I call flop overs as well as a pizza for supper using some mystry meat that Brad Sauer had left with me. They are good friends and don’t compain about the food even if it is somewhat unusual looking.

Robert was very pleased to get Little Red and to tell the truth I was a little sad to see it go but I know it will now be driven and should give him as much fun as I had driving it.

I have been packed and ready to go to Europe for two weeks.

Charlie took me over to Billings and Bob met us there. Bob and I ran around town doing a few chores and had a nicer Mexican lunch. Bob took me up to the Airport and I will soon be on my way. I fly down to Denver first and catch a 777 airbus to London. From London I catch a plane to Zurich where I will meet a friend of Shockley’s named JayJay who is a German. JayJay found a friend that has a R80ST BMW for me to ride this summer.