Final Countdown

God damn, hard to believe I'm leaving in just two days. Thursday evening I'm heading over to Seattle to spend the night, then Friday morning we all meet up in North Bend and haul ass outta there. Unfortunately the main road through Hells Canyon in Oregon is still snowed in so we won't be going that way and instead have to detour around it. We've got a pretty good route planned out (which has changed yet again from my previous listing) and we'll be in Washington, UT to see my brother on Monday afternoon. We're only doing about 300 miles that day so we should show up early enough for him to cook us up a nice BBQ.

I have no idea what my internet connectivity will be like out on the road, but I know it will be limited at best. If I can get a chance to jump online and post up a blog and/or some pictures I will do so, but who knows if I'll actually be able to. I'll definitely post up a full report with a bajillion pictures when I'm home.

Got a new set of PIAA headlamps installed last night which are about twice as bright as the old ones. Hopefully we won't be doing much riding in the dark, but they should help out if we do. Especially since my visor is tinted. Try driving at night with your sunglasses on and you'll know what I mean. I'm still expecting to get a new pair of gloves either today or tomorrow.

My original integrated tail light (a one piece unit that displays the running/brake lights as well as both turn signals) had the left turn signal crap out on me so I sent it back to the company that manufactured it (Clear Alternatives) last week. I got a voice mail on my phone when I got home yesterday afternoon letting me know that the color I wanted (smoke) was currently out of stock, but that they did have red and yellow tint lenses available. Unfortunately it was 4:03pm and they had JUST closed for the day at 4, so I had to call them up this morning and let them know to ship me out a red one ASAP. I even ponied up a few bucks to have them ship it overnight so I'll have it on Wednesday with time enough to get it installed before I leave. Nothing quite like cutting it down to the wire for some last minute excitement.

Over the weekend I set aside all of the various tools, clothes and miscellany that I'll be bringing along with me on the trip and to my surprise it all fit in the tail bag with room to spare. This was actually very good news and allowed me to remove the saddlebags because those would just add too much weight and influence the handling of the bike more than I would like. So those came off and everything went into the tail bag and it's all ready to go. I'm sure I'll end up having to unpack some of the tools to get the damn new tail light installed, but that's fine.

Oh yeah, I also picked up some foil backed tape used for heating duct vents and lined the bottom of my seat pan with the stuff. It's pretty reflective and is supposed to be able to withstand some pretty high temperatures. I've been getting a LOT of heat coming up through the seat and making my butt quite uncomfortable, hopefully this will help at least somewhat.

I also spent some time wiring in the power cord for my GPS unit which also provides real time traffic updates which will be handy out in the middle of fucking nowhere Utah. I installed my heated grips finally as well, but I doubt I'll actually be using them. I still remember last year when I left Bend, Oregon at 6am and my hands were so cold I could barely operate my brake/clutch levers properly. I had to pull over and warm them up on the engine just to be safe. After that I vowed never to have something like that happen again, so I got the heated grips.