I was prepping Yagi to go out later to meet them near the highway and I discovered that I was missing both my green boonie hat (small loss) but also the repair kit I'd assembled for Yagi, my Yamaha TW200 Dualsport!
This wasn't a small loss I was willing to recreate from scratch as the box that had fallen out of the unsecured top box had:
Support arm tubes for raising the rear wheel for oiling the chain operations and changing out the rear or front wheel, spare master clips for the drive chain, a few links of drive chain, rubber patch repair kit, chain breaking tool, fuses and some misc things.
Dammit. So I geared up hastily and took off to retrace my route, in reverse, from yesterday. I had five hours before the Machidas were due so no problem there I hoped.
I rode the route to the abandoned buildings I wrote about in the last post thinking surely that was where I last used the camera and thereby the tripod that was in the top box. Nope, but did find my boonie hat there where I left it on a window sill!
I know, careless!
So after some re-canvassing of the area east of the buildings as there had been some cross-country riding on my part to avoid deep sand, I then turned west to continue moving towards the rocky mound I'd posed Yagi at in yesterday's post.
Circled the rocky mount, checked the picture sites, nada.
I continued north to the power line dirt road and perhaps a couple of miles further north I found the box laying on the road!
There's the tool box containing the repair items.
The motorcycling gods were truly smiling upon me today. I've got to be more conscientious of securing the lid on that dang top box! I plan on putting my phone number on a piece of tape inside the box for future mishaps.
Less than a mile later, I posed Yagi after clearing a cattle guard and closing the gate that someone had left open. Not sure why there's a gate, as the cattle guard would surely keep cattle from crossing? Still, the sign was there so I closed the gate.
I kept riding north, towards the crossing point of the old viaduct that leads to cotton fields. Before I crossed over, I posed Yagi with Newman Peak in the background again.
I got past the gate with no incidents and then making my way to the town of Picacho. I decided to do a detour to the nearby time of Eloy, AZ as they had a NAPA Auto Parts store there. They didn't have the muffler sealant I wanted but did have the rocker switch I'd been looking for to replace the faulty one used for the water pump in the URRV.
At this point I checked in with the Machidas and was asked if there was camping nearby as they had decided not to press on all the way to Benson, AZ from Needles, CA where they'd started this morning.
I checked it at the KOA in Picacho, $50 for a site with full hookups. The state park also had spots available when I rode there but they wanted $30 a night. This would also have put them 15 miles from my campsite and I did want to socialize with them a little bit.
So I fueled up Yagi (tank went to reserve at 65 miles this time) and I rode back to the BLM site and saw that the big site next to mine was open! I called the Machidas, sent pics and they agreed to try this site.
They got there shortly after 4PM I believe and it was a tight fit for Mando but RichardM made it work.
Spent the evening chatting with Bridget and RichardM about varied subjects. They kindly invited me for dinner and a fun time was had by all.
Bridget shot tonight's sunset which hadn't looked too promising but turned out good:
picture courtesy of BridgetM
By 7PM, it was time to mosey on back to the URRV. We'll be meeting again in the morning to say our goodbyes, them to head to Benson, AZ and myself to head towards Gila Bend to try out a Military Campground now that Vets with service-connected disabilities as determined by the Veterans Administration can use such facilities.
3 comments:
As always, it was great to visit again!
Have fun on the way to Texas! We'll see where you guys are when I get back in March.
Good time had by all! Enjoy Gila Bend.
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