Trapped in New York

Thursday, September 06, 2001
Statue of Liberty, Long Island & Nick Nasty

welcome to  New York	Henry Hudson Expy on Manhattan Island	World Trade Center	Holland Tunnel to NJ	Statue of Liberty
Dan's ramps	Misty posing by a ramp	Triksie getting what she wants	my bedroom	my bathroom	my workstation

...been kinda busy the last coupl'a days. Got going outta Olyphant around noon and made good time over toward NYC but then found out I should'a looked at the map a little closer before I took off and ended up about an hour north of where I should'a been by the time I decided something was wrong and looked. If I'd'a done it back at the Welcome to NY stop I'd'a been to the Statue by 2p or so! Oh well, it was a nice ride on down after I got gas and stopped for some food and *talked* to some people! One guy just came up to talk about trikes and the guy at the gas station shop wondered where I was from, expecting to have a sandwich already made up (in true NY form; I was told later that was a sign of affection?).

Finally made it down to Manhattan Island and felt really proud'a Triksie, bringing me all the way to NYC, cruising through Manhattan! Who'd'a thunk! Cruised all around trying to find a good picture but just couldn't get close enough with Triksie + the sun was going down and so the Green Lady looked gray, not green. Decided what I really needed to do was get across the Hudson and take a pic from NJ and ended up in the Holland Tunnel under the river. Lots of tunnels around here and must'a gone through half of them - more than once! Got to the NJ side and pointed the general direction of the Statue and got frustrated for it was getting late so asked a couple of power company guys where the f--- it was and they started giving me directions but decided it would be more fun to just take me there and since they were 'authorized' they took me to where only authorized vehicles could go and took the pic! I think they had something mixed in with their gatorade, having way too much fun to just be hanging out on Labor Day in a company truck!

Started getting cold so I called my friend Dan and hooked him up with the Jerseyites on the best way to get to his place (told me he didn't authorize me to go to NJ!) and ended up sending me back through the city. Of course, I got lost and ended up in another tunnel and found myself in Brooklyn and decided it'd be easier to just turn around and go back to Manhatten and take the turn I should'a. Getting kinda rummy by this time and did an illegal u-turn and almost got runover and some guy yelling at me (in true NYC form) until I went back into the tunnel. Glad he wasn't going that way too! Then I missed the turn for the next tunnel and had to turn around and go right through the center of town again but finally made it to Long Island. The directions said exit 53 off 495 and I was at about exit 9 and hoping they skipped numbers but it wasn't so and ended up running the tank out and on reserve and lost in a residential neighborhood under a streetlight and all the neighborhood kids were coming by on their bikes checking me out. Pretty funny, at least they *talked* to me! Turned out I was only a few minutes from Dan and Denise's place and he came and led me on in. Glad I hadn't looked at a map to realize how far out he was for I'd'a missed the rest of this story!

Got into the garage and he had ramps built for me to get in and out of the house. Good lord, I'm not worthy! Had some fun with his girls and got some whiskey and stayed up with him till almost 2a and finally we cashed it in. Tuesday morning and decided I was not gonna make it back to OH on the oil I'd brought with me and so better find more while I was here and called all over the place to find the kind I use but not to be found anywhere. One place sounded pretty friendly so decided to go there and get the brand they carried and figured it'd be better to mix brands than running way low. I also hoped there'd be someone who could listen to the engine noise that's been bugging me since Kansas and that's when I met Nick Nasty. He was getting ready to take another one out on a test ride and checking Triksie out while it was warming up and so he said he'd take her next. Taking off in traffic ain't the best way to learn to shift Triksie but he made out OK and ended up signing me up for an hour's work to check out her timing and carb adjustments. Bought myself and Dan some t-shirts and some other stuff for Triksie while he was working and when he got back from the next test ride he said maybe I should bring her over to his place after he got off for it was gonna take some work and don't tell the boss. Cool, don't get an offer like that every day!

Waiting for him to get done and a guy came up and started *talking* to me about trikes and ended up spewing Christian missionary bait at me, trying to get me to go to his church! Glad when Nick finally came out and led me to his house, even stopped along the way where the liquor store was in case I needed to get some whiskey! Told him if I drank all I had with me I'd be sleeping at his place so on we went. Got there and he found his garage flooded for his girlfriend had left the hose dripping all night and no evaporation in this humidity. Told me I was in good hands and not to worry, we'd figure it out and that was good for Triksie was running lots worse after he worked on her than when I brought her in! Said he felt bad for that but knew he could figure the problem out. Fed me meatloaf and mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner (!) then some friends of his unexpectedly showed up and we had a party going, working on Triksie! Nick and friends were Greek, felt good hanging with them. Did a compression check and cylinders were fine (whew!) but we went back and forth till midnight trying to figure out how changing the timing would affect valve train noise. Nick said he knew that's what it was but I was unconvinced until I got lost trying to make my way back over to Dan's (surprise!) and ride her around for awhile with a different ear and decided maybe he was right.

First day of 1st grade for Dan's oldest girl this morning and first time on a bus so it was quite a lot of neighborhood excitement till that was over then we took Triksie back over to the shop, me ready to just pay to have Nick prove his theory but they said they'd not be able to get to it for a couple'a days and that made it easy for me to decide to just do it myself. Back to the house and done my duty then out to tear Triksie apart and the bus came but no Emma and so more excitement while they figured out which bus she *was* on. That worked out fine and got Triksie torn apart and the cam sure wasn't no virgin as Nick had surmised. Got all the parts cleaned up and Dan took off to NC for a meeting and his mom and dad came by and his dad drove me and my bag of troubles over to Nick's and the verdict was at least new cam bearings to get back to CA but wrong cam in her anyway so gonna give her what she's been wanting for years and I just didn't know how to do it! Probably the cause of the bearing failure in the first place (although it's been 3 years at least since I've been anywhere near that side of the engine to do anything so it did last a good while). Tomorrow I continue prep for reassembly while the parts come in and Thu I can start to put her back together? What a trip! I like Long Island.

The room pics are by popular demand; the only one I cold get to pose for a picture was the dog, Misty. She likes me...

...just a quick one I forgot to mention: the people here make it a point to introduce themselves and remember your name. When I was hanging out in Nick's garage it was almost a ritual when some new joined the group that everyone introduced themselves and when someone left everyone said goodbye. Everyone is worthy; this is good practice for me...

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
leaving LI - finally?

Nick Nasty cylinders	Nick garage	Nick's Nitrous Shovelhead
Dan in bed with 4 women	Nick & Captain America	Triksie smiling

 ...so, the parts came in on Friday and went to pick them up and read the fine print that came with the new cam we ordered and saw that it was for low compression engines (what you do to a Harley to make it able to run on just about anything that burns!) and could cause pinging problems in high compression engines. (Shit, that was the original symptom of the problem I'm fixing to start with!) Nick decided it was best to call Andrews (the manufacturer) and they said not to even waste time trying it and really should use an 'A' grind for this application so now what? For a nominal service charge they could have the one I needed tomorrow so decided to go for that and came back and spent the rest of the evening doing more prep work. Got a pic of Jan and Rich who really made me feel like part of the family and went the extra mile to make sure things got done.

On the way back Dan told me that ,as legend has it, the Indians told Richard Smith that he could have as much land as he could ride a bull around in one day and that is Smithtown. Maybe that's a clue as to where the New Yorkers get their sense of humor. He also told me stories about high school pranks that involved painting certian parts of the bull's anatomy and other things I won't bother to mention here. I'm glad the kids these days aren't as bad as we were.

Nick had loaned me the tools I was gonna need to get the old bearing out and so I did that and found that the thing was frozen! Thank God for good oil or Triksie would'a seized long ago! I could see where the bearing had gotten hot enough to discolor the race, sure glad the origin of the strange engine noise had been discovered. Also figured out the reason I could affect the sound of a valve train problem by changing the ignition timing was that the cam was rattling around in the bearings enough to affect the valve timing and changing the ignition timing was compensating for that. Took the old bearing over to Nick's later in the evening to show him how bad it really was and got some good pics. His friend Kenny was there just to wrench on something to "keep his hands wet".

Back over Saturday and picked up the cam and got another pic of Nick posing with a friend's Captain America chopper for sale in the shop (only $18K and it's got a real panhead, not a Sears panhead). Took till after 10p to get her back together and she started right up and boy what a different engine sound: not nearly so loud in the exhaust as she was and idled right off a cold start - something the other cam could never do. Still gotta wait to take a test ride, though, for low and behold the front exhaust stud decided to strip out it's already helicoiled threads in order that I should stay for at least another day while trying to figure out how to re-helicoil the trashed stud hole. Last time that took a hike on me was in Utah on the "Wild West Tour" with my brother Tim and his new wife Leighann on their honeymoon!

Another pic of Nick at the shop, turns out he's pretty photogenic; asked me to send some pics to his friend Hammer at Iron Horse Mag.

Farted around till 5p or so on Sunday going out to get more supplies and fix the exhaust stud and called up Nick to see if he was gonna be there to check her out and he said to meet him at the marina where he was just walking out the door to go fishing. New cam sure felt different, motor sounds like a freaking Evo for chrissake! Couldn't really tell whether it was 'better' or not, need to ride it for awhile to see. Bad news was that the same old funny noise was still there. Pretty depressing. To add insult to injury it started making a terrible valve train noise as I followed Nick to his house. Pretty depressing.

Monday spent figuring out what the valve train noise was and turned out to be another case of knucklehead working on a shovelhead: didn't tighten the pushrods right and they were slowly unwinding themselves. Shit. What a dork. Got that straightened out and she really ran a lot better but still the same old funny noise. Called Nick and he said a Sportster just came in with the same weird noise: ain't the cam, I can tell ya!

Couldn't resist the pic of Dan in bed with 4 women; careful what you ask for!

Somewhere along the line, Triksie started smiling on her cam side. It appeared to be the same time similar smiles appeared on Dan's daughter Sarah's leg; I'll take that as a good omen and continue my journey with the strange noise as a partner...

Wednesday, September 11, 2001
dumbfounded

Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Re: dumbfounded>>>Dennis Update !
All: Dennis is very much alive and well and currently in Staten Island NYC. He was delayed for a day because all roads through NYC were closed all day Tuesday and part of Wednesday.

He left Long Island Wednesday afternoon. He did get a distant view of the NYC war zone while passing through Brooklyn but had some engine trouble shortly there after. He seems to have been helped out by a number of people including a tow truck driver, but the actual repair shop was closed by then. He is currently in a hotel (one of those that charges by the hour) and is optimistic that Thursday when the local motorcycle shop opens, he will get his problem rectified. I am sending this because the luxury hotel he is staying in does not offer outgoing phone service, so he can not get online.

His plan is to cross the Delaware river at Trenton NJ just as George Washington did, and continue well into Pennsylvania by Thursday night, in route to Ohio. I am certain he will have an update (and a couple of more stories) for us by then.

Your pal, Dan

Saturday, September 15, 2001
on the road again
...gotta go to bed now but just wanted to give a blast to say I'm outta NY (finally!) and gotta go to bed and only got a 19.2kbps connection here. Plenty of stories to tell, wil get to them when more time. Thanks to Dan for keeping the thread alive while I was incommunicado...

Sunday, September 16, 2001
part II: Staten Island, Escape from NY and Crossing the Delaware

Victory Motor Inn proprietor	Victory Motor Inn room	Victory Motor Inn bathroom	Triksie's ancestor on Staten Island	Super Cycle on Staten Island
Triksie waiting on bored cylinders.	Walt posing by Triksie cleaning station	scored piston from CA	Hawkeye and Mark reassembling	$39.95 Motel in Monmouth NJ

South Brunswick Manor workstation	Retreat and Counterattack	Island where the boats were hid	Washington's Crossing	Washington Crossing bridge to PA

...what a long strange trip it's been. Decided it's time to start a new thread since I was dumbfounded. Sorry for not replying to the concerned queries but my on-line time is limited so I usually just hook up and let it run then do my replies off-line.

Took off from Dan's place on Long Island on Monday, about 40 mi east of NYC where everything was calm. I was out in the garage burning a cig and drinking some coffee that morning and he ran out and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center! I figured there'd be plenty of replays so no hurry to run in and watch and when I finally did come in we saw the second plane in real time. Holy Shit! Then they had kid stuff to attend to and left and the towers started crumbling while they were out. Dumbfounded. Paying the price for throwing all those bombs around in other countries finally? No doubt.

I pretty well decided to try to take off anyway but had to stop by Easyriders to drop off Nick's tools and change a wrong spark plug that he had accidentally put in when I first brought it in and noticed when I had it out while doing the cam job. Bummer that it happened to be in the front cylinder as that one was not feeling right since before I left CA and decided to just run with it and not take it out till I got back. Well, the steel sleeve that screws into the aluminum head came out with the spark plug this time. Shit. Just so happened that I had everything I needed with me to get it back in from the job I had to do on the front exhaust pipe stud when I was putting that back together on Sunday, including the miracle thread restoring epoxy I had bought. Got the sleeve back in after cleaning up the threads as best I could and let it set then put the spark plug back in and it didn't feel 100% but felt god enough to run.

Some bikers there and they told me about so much anger over the attack that people were talking about going around and sacking all the 711 stores in retaliation (mostly they are run by Middle Easterners in these parts). What bothered me most was that they didn't even know the difference between a Pakistani and a Palestinian. Scary.

Nick invited me over to his place and I decided to bag the idea of getting off the island since everyone I talked to said there was no way since all routes had to go back through NYC and were just plain closed. Hung out with him and his friend Scotty till they took off to go brave the closures and pick up Nick's girlfirend, Joanne, who works in Manhatten and had walked over to Queens.

Back over to Dan's for one more night (?) after that. Dumbfounded.

Finally took off outta there around 2p Wednesday and took the route furthest from the devastion through the south end of Brooklyn but I could get glimpses of the City when I went on overpasses and there was still a huge plume of smoke rising from the middle of the shortened skyline. I kinda wanted to take a pic but there was no good way to do it and I was more hell-bent on getting outta the battle zone. Made it over to Staten Island and the traffic was backed up for miles the other direction, trying to get onto Long Island (because of the check point set up for vehicles heading anywhere near NYC). No way to get back to where I'd come from. Then Triksie decided she didn't like the job I'd done on the front spark plug and blew the sucker clean out, took the spark plug wire and all. Shit. Coasted off the highway (440 if you wanna look at a map, just past the Verizano Bridge, South Ave exit) and found a couple of garbage trucks parked there and the drivers were yakking at each other. Went up and told them what happened and they pointed me to a biker club just across the highway and so I limped Triksie over there on one cylinder and no one around and limped further to an athletic field where some people were. They told me of a Harley dealer about 5 mi away and so I headed there, clueless as to what to do but time was of the essence if I was gonna find some place to help me out this waning day. Got about halfway there and Triksie was spitting gas out her open cylinder and overheating and could only go for short distances, especially since there was bumper to bumper traffic. Pulled over and decided to call the place and they said they were booked up for 3 weeks (and plus, they were a dealer and don't know how to work on these old motors anyway) and recommended a place called 'Supercycles' which was actually closer! Cell phone has been really spotty for all the voice traffic in these parts(!) and had to call from a pay phone and the guys there were really helpful, even to the point of thinking they might have to come get me with a trailer if I couldn't limp the way there! (That was before they knew it was more than *just* a shovelhead!) They gave me directions and I got all turned around and ended up on Richmond Ave instead of Richmond Rd and Triksie really complaining and pulled into a gas station and parked her and a tow truck driver/biker came up and started talking to me! He called in a flat bed to take Triksie to the shop and I got hold of them and let them know the story and they made arrangements for her to park in the garage of the shop next door. Turns out this is a pretty small island and everybody knows everybody and the driver of the flatbed (Freddie) knew the guys in the garage! He took *exceptionally* good care of me, especially considering he was ready to get off work when they called him and we got Triksie situated for the night and he took me to the "cheap" motel on the island (the Victory Motor Inn, "Staten Island's Newest Luxury Motor Inn") and for only $75 I got a room in a motel where you can rent by the hour! Freddie gave them my story and they took good care of me, even came out to open the back door for me when I went to the deli down the street to get more cash (nobody around here takes credit cards!) and some supplies for tomorrow. Got a pic of the proprietor in his cage (reminded me of the one back in Olyphant!), really nice guy, looking out for me; made me feel like I was at home! Room was plenty nicer than a lot of other places I've stayed but still had to take the hinge off the bottom of the bathroom door to get the wheelchair through!

Dunno about your parts of the country but there sure are lots of flags flying around here.

A local story about the asbestos worries was from Dan's dad who worked on the World Trade Centers as they were being built. He said they had a guy there taping over the asbestos warnings on the bags of insulation. Turned out nobody else could use asbestos but the government. Go figure.

THU13SEP01

Back at the Victory Motor Inn, Walt (owner of the Super Cycle shop) drove me past the Staten Island Motor Inn in hopes I could get a room with a phone there but it was full. Thanks to Dan for being able to keep the info flow going from your reporter on the scene!

Watching the local news and people are in Union Square singing "Give Peace a Chance". Amen.

When I was watching the news this morning they said there was a red Trans Am that ran the bridge check point and they lost it after pursuit onto Staten Island and all the bridges were closed and no way out. What a trip! Talked to the desk guy at the motel tonight for awhile and he said a guy that works here (I actually saw them this morning talking outside when I left) has a red Trans Am with a FL license plate that he got stopped in at Home Depot and frisked and searched and searched and searched and the cops told him better to just leave it sit there than try to drive it and have to go through the routine again.

Another story from the island I heard over at the motorcycle shop today was that somebody was driving around with an Arab flag and got pulled out of his car and killed. Don't know if that was on the national news and haven't seen anything else about it locally and I hope it isn't true, but these guys here are pretty well connected. And then a guy came in who had been at ground zero and said it smells really bad. We had wondered when I was back on Long Island at Dan's what the hell kind of pile of rubble two 110 story buildings would make and he said there wasn't much left - it had all disintegrated and spread itself as dust wherever the wind blew it. There was a 1/4" of dust on another guy's truck over in Brooklyn. The scene is more one of a pile of twisted steel than chunks of concrete.

Spent the day there and turned out we had to pull the head off the front cylinder to fix the spark plug and decided while Triksie was that far torn apart I might as well see if I could find the cause of the strange noise and pulled the cylinder off as well. Piston was pretty torn up, consensus was that it would definitely have been making some noise. Decided to go ahead and take the back cylinder down as well and same story there. Tried just honing the cylinders to see if we could get by without a bore job but the scars were too deep and so tried to get them bored and back together but it just wasn't happening this afternoon. Also gave me the chance to check out my worst fear that the crankshaft was going out on me but all that felt solid - whew! That'd mean taking the whole engine apart. Got all the other parts we need to get her back on the road but just stock pistons instead of the higher compression ones she's been running for the last 30K mi so some of the performance will be lost but should be enough to get me back to CA just fine. Gotta give those pistons some credit, though, as when I was doing the break-in for them I ended up screwing up and overheating them not once but twice. Gonna have to do the break-in of the new cylinders and pistons on the way back to OH and Walt (the owner, been there for 28 years as Supercycle, same piece of property his dad opened the Ship's Ahoy gargage after WWII) gave me a couple of stops I could make where there was a place to change the oil. The guy doing the work is nicknamed Hawkeye, a 29 year old biker who was born out here and lived with his (hippie?) parents in Northern California for several years when he as a kid in a station wagon, down a dirt road with a mailbox they used as an address. He got cleaned up for school in the morning by being thrown into a cold river! Walt told me he now lives in an old school bus converted to a camper. Another story was when the family spent 3 days climbing up one of the mountains around Mt Shasta. Grateful Dead sticker on the gas tank of his chopper. Good guy. Struck me that he said maybe the reason Triksie blew her spark plug was because she knew he was here. I had been trying to pay close attention to the coincidences to get a clue as to my course of action and understood that the front cylinder was one and now maybe I finally can give her what she needs to make it back to CA.

I feel fortunate to have been able to spend this time in at least a couple of NYC burroughs. Staten Island is like the outback, where NYC used to dump its' garbage. Not like the time I spent with Nick and his Greek buddies where everybody introduces themselves and remembers your name but quite warm and friendly. Maybe this is my 'curse' for dis-ing NY? I've spent more money here, by far, than I've spent on the rest of the trip so far. My donation to the cause maybe.

A couple of pics from over at the shop, one of an ancestor of Triksie, one of the shop and one of Triksie, waiting outside for her cylinders to get bored. When I came in this morning Hawkeye already had her pretty well taken apart in the shop off to the right. Funny on the Triksie waiting pic that I didn't notice when I took it that next to her sat the same model Honda that was my very first motorcycle! I'll take that as another good omen.

(FRI14SEP01)

Back to the shop around noon (late night last night writing all that up!) and no bored cylinders as there was supposed to be and Walt was there as he was not supposed to be so I got a pic of him (I think he's a ham!) and Triksie waiting on cylinders. Decided I might as well get the prep work done and started in on cleaning up the parts for reassembly. Finally got the cylinders back from Walt's old friend Frank who flaked on us yesterday afternoon. One of the guys hanging out in the shop yelled Osama bin Laden was coming and it was Frank! Pretty funny, he really does look like him!

Finally down to reassembly and got a pic of Hawkeye and Mark, a friend of Walt from way back through his brother Butch who was checking out Triksie yesterday and gave me some interesting new latches for the passenger seat/wheelchair holder-in-er the he got off an old transit bus. Butch took the pic for I couldn't get a good angle for all the bikes in the way. It was dark by the time we finally got her started and Hawkeye and Mark hung right in there and even gave me a free t-shirt and oil change and spark plugs and wires!

Sounded beautiful on the start but then I heard the weird noise and sure enough it was still there, bigger than ever! Shit. Why didn't we just take the heads apart to check the valves and rockers while we had them off! Pretty obvious where the noise was coming from now that all the other things that were trashed were quiet! Maybe not such a good idea to take off on a cross country trip on a shovelhead that hadn't been apart for 30K mi? Gotta love it.

Hawkeye was ready to pull the freaking heads back off but it was late and I really didn't wanna spend a Friday night at the Victory Motor Inn (rate goes up to $96 on Friday nights) so decided just to cross my fingers and ride it toward OH while breaking in the new cylinders. Packed up enough oil for a change after the first 100 mi and all my other stuff, made a stop at the liquor store to get more whiskey and took off. People talking to each other more now, had a conversation with the liquor store guy about giving peace a chance and another guy outside who had lost some friends about the wisdom of the actions being taken rather than throwing more bombs. Too many people running around flying off the handle, all we ones who know better can do is to try to explain the wisdom to them and hope it filters on out from there.

It was quite a trip on the island while I was taking the long way over to the bridge (to start the break-in easy) for all the people out holding candles and waving flags and people driving by honking at them. Of course Triksie wasn't shy about joining in.

Wrong Way Dennis got all turned around getting off the island and headed toward Trenton but I swear, the guys in NJ who put up road signs don't read maps! Ended up about 20 mi outside of Trenton after a 30 mi detour around 11p or so. I hit the skids (as in real skid marks) when I saw the $39.95 motel sign and then found out that was the rate for a "short stay" (as in the "short stay" at the Victory Motor Inn). The Friday and Saturday rate was $60. Oh well, I was stopped and they had phones. Another bathroom door hinge job and I was at home. Ended up in a room set up for 2 queen beds that had only one so plenty of space to set up my workstation with power cord stretched from one side and phone cord from the other! So many e-mails backed up to download it was too late to transmit this update for I was pretty beat. Didn't get to bed till 2a.

Dragged my ass outta bed around 8a and only got one cup of coffee for my emergency brewing supply was out and this place didn't support the morning habit. Made it outta the room around noon (thank goodness they weren't so anal about 11a checkout like the Victory!) and on the road around 1230p after figuring out where to stash everything while carrying an extra oil change around. Made my way down 1 toward Trenton and more map vs. sign problems but I followed intuition (and the position of the sun) and ended up on the exact perfect rpoute that wasn't even on the map to get to the George Washington Crossing! Lots of interesting stuff around there, hope I caught the gist of it. I really wanted to get a pic of coming across the bridge with a flag flying framed by the bridge on the PA side but too late. Ended up following a bicycle route through to New Hope for thinking it would be a good thing for Triksie's engine and it was till I got in a traffic jam and she started getting a little too hot for comfort. Stopped not long after and decided it was time for the first oil change and saw a car wash/detailing/oil change place right next to a grocery store and drug store (where I needed to stop for supplies!) and decided it had her name on it. Rode around to the oil change side and asked if they had something I could drain her oil into and no problem. I had planned on just leaving the oil filter on but the kid there just happened to be the manager and rode a Sportster and happy to help me out and gave me a new oil filter for a car that fit the same as the one I had! Hell, he even took the old one off and put the new one on and gave me rags and bought me another Coke since I had drank my last one while sitting there! Dan; good guy; wish now I had got his pic and e-mail address! Went over and got more supplies and some food and a cop came by and asked if I was broke down! Turned out he was from Marin (CA) and so knew exactly where I lived and didn't tell him that I was only one misstep away from being broke down but he volunteered two flares anyway and showed me how to use them. (Industrial strength cop flares!) Took off outta there and ended up finding Rte 30 across PA (not like the map showed it!) and rode till I got all cold and tired and stopped to get some coffee and put more clothes on in a little place that isn't even on the map I've got (AAA PA & NJ) but got a warm reception there (kid taking a smoke break told me his brother was on the 67th floor of tower 2 when it got hit; girls later offered me an egg roll but I was already suited up and ready too roll) and found I was pretty close to Lancaster so decided to go there and find a room for being kinda beat(!). Got to Lancaster a lot faster than I thought I would and still felt plenty energetic after warming up (and passed through Paradise, PA on the way: what a photo op that would'a been: stayed in Paradise for a night!) and decided to go on to the next area of civilization which ends up being York, PA - home of a major HD assembly plant! Got into town and had already spotted a Red Roof Inn that looked inviting at $54 (for REAL) and another Harley snaked his way through traffic at a light and told me my taillights were acting up and followed me into the parking lot all ready to fix the lights! Told him my story and he offered his phone number to call for a pick-up truck ride the rest of the way back to OH if Triksie decided to give it up before we made it back! Tim Kidd, responded to Triksie morse code from her taillights! Back in GW country.

Went to get a room and a young black kid asked me what I thought of all this and he had just re-signed for the draft. Asked him what did he expect after we had thrown all those bombs around and he didn't know we had (news wasn't so good about showing what's going on back in his memory). Good dude, but a friend of his had a little too much and was also signed up for the draft and wanted to kill 'em all. Hopefully, little by little, wisdom can filter out. Remember Father Mychel's prayer.

Finally got to check in and got the last room and a call came in 30 seconds later looking for a room and she told them it was sold out! Whew! Coincidence says I'm on the right path.

I love you all and am glad you're taking this trip with me...

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