The Sunday before I was set to leave was the day I got the Buell running again. I spent probably close to 35 hours over the weekend putting her back together, fixing some things I had fucked up, and getting her running.
You may recall that I crashed back in September and have been riding her illegally ever since, so I had to get her legal before leaving on this trip. Well considering that I just got the damn thing running a few days before I left and it still wasn't fully 100%, that wasn't happening. At this point I just wanted to have a machine that wouldn't fall apart on the highway and I accepted the risk of ending up stranded in the middle of nowhere because my bike had been impounded (if only I would have known).
Anyway, throughout the week I buttoned up the loose ends with the bike and got her squared away... even getting the chance to put about 100 test miles on her (to and from work, random jaunts after work, etc).
Thursday night I got all my stuff together, packed in the saddle bags (sorta), and loaded everything into my truck. My dad (who just retired and was visiting for the month) and I went up the road in front of some plumbing supply place where they had a decent hill for motorcycle loading (back the truck up to the hill, roll the bike directly into the back of the truck). It worked, but it would have been a major biznatch to unload. So my old man said he'd spend the time I was gone looking for a better hill for unloading.
After some brief
, a bulletin on MySpace, and a few quick checks, I set the alarm on my phone for 2:30am and crashed out... around midnight.