Home from the Ohio Carnival, but "Lost" a Member (literally)!

[V7Goose]

Well, I got home last night around midnight - most of the trip back was great, but certainly not without incident. Ponch, BoomerCPO, Gunboat and I all left Don's fairgrounds together Sunday morning around 0930, intending on taking the back roads to enjoy the ride instead of beating ourselves to death on the slab for another 1,200 miles. The day started out great, with really nice temperatures and some truly wonderful roads, including one that seemed like the Ohio cousin to the famed Dragon's Tail - just a bit more classy wither fewer scars around the edges. But when we tried to escape Ohio by crossing the river at Maysville, either Kentucky boarder guards or aliens must of snuck up behind us and nabbed one of our members!

 

Gunboat had been hanging way back for a couple of hours, but kept telling us on the radio that all was fine and not to wait for him. He was catching up at each stop sign when we had the chance to wait for him, and when we got to the light at the Maysville bridge, he did get up to us just as the light turned green and we headed across the river. Unfortunately, he didn't make it through the light! I told him on the radio we would wait for him on the other side, but before we got across, he said the light had changed again and he was rolling. So at this point, he wasn't any further behind than he had been staying so far. We told him on the radio what route we were following, and he even repeated the route numbers back, so everything seemed fine.

 

But then the aliens swooped in and grabbed up both him and his daughter! His radio responses stopped, and several miles down the road we turned around and went back looking for them - but they seemed to have simply vanished into the hot and humid air of early afternoon. And to make matters worse, Gunboat had lost his cell phone that weekend, so not only did we not have any way to call him, but he probably didn't have any of our phone numbers available either. After about an hour of looking, waiting and calling on the radio, we finally figured we had to start moving again before we melted into big grease spots on the hot asphalt. We still haven't heard from him about what happened and just what orifices the aliens probed, but hopefully he'll fill us in soon. (Just for the record Don, we did stay on the same route we told ya, all the way down to Glasgow! Well, mostly, anyway - when 62/68 split, we stayed with US 68. We couldn't imagine how you might have gotten ahead of us, but I looked for your bike at every gas station and restaurant we passed.)

 

The rest of Sunday went reasonably well, except for the constant discussion and puzzlement about Gunboat. We really felt bad about leaving him lost somewhere in northern Kentucky, but couldn't see what other options we had. We hit some great roads and finally packed it in around Glasgow, Kentucky, 444 miles for the day - not all that many, but typical for back road riding.

 

Monday morning the forecast was for hot and nasty, and it was already withering to just step outside at 0700. We decided the back roads and small towns just wouldn't be all that much fun any more in those conditions and the best option was to just hit the slab and try to get the heck outa Dodge as fast as we could. We had an uneventful ride over to Memphis, where Boomer peeled off to get lost in the Louisiana swamps while Ponch and I kept on to Texarkana.

 

Everything seems fine right up to the point where we stopped for the final gas in Texarkana, after which Ponch was gonna spin off towards Houston and I would continue into Fort Worth. But as I walked out of the store with a full mug of water to get on the bike, I thought the back tire just might be a tad low - didn't really look like it, but always better to check those things out, ya know? Closer inspection found a 2" screw in the tire, right at the edge of the tread, and angled such that you could feel a bulge where the screw was pressing on the inside of the sidewall! And this on a brand new E3 I just mounted the day before leaving for Ohio. Not surprisingly, as soon as I pulled out the screw, the tire deflated instantly. And here I was still about 200 miles from home, at the end of the day, and with a tire that almost certainly could not be safely repaired. What to do, what to do . . .

 

Just for the heck of it, I stuck a plug in the tire and it held air fine, but there was a noticeable bulge along the sidewall where the screw had damaged the belts and inner surface, allowing some air to get trapped under the outer layer of rubber. The bulge wasn't very big, but that didn't change the fact that the tire was severely damaged and it's safety compromised. After a few spins and donuts around the parking lot where it handled fine, the tire didn't show any signs of the bulge growing. Ponch offered to follow me to the next stop down the highway, so I decided to see how it would take a few miles of low speed running. After a couple of stops to keep checking the tire and seeing no changes, we decided to shoot for a town about 30 miles down the road. We made it there without incident, and the tire still wasn't looking any worse, so my confidence grew enough I decided to just try and make it home while the temperature was cooler and there wasn't much traffic on the road. I put my wife on notice that I might have to call her to bring the truck to rescue me and the bike, bid farewell and tremendous thanks to Ponch and is lovely and long-suffering wife for sticking with me while I chanced that first scary leg on the questionable tire, and gingerly rolled on down the highway. Took me a few extra hours to finish that last stretch because of the slower speeds and constant stops to inspect the tire, but made it without any further problems. About 700 miles yesterday, and I think I pinched off a few pieces of my seat during that last 200 miles! What a trip!

 

Had a great time at the carnival, changed some tires there, adjusted some valves, and tuned a lot of bikes. Met some new wonderful folks, as well as lots of old friends, and added some new experiences that I'll not forget. Thanks to all for a great maintenance "day"!

Goose

Edited June 22, 2010 by V7Goose

[BoomerCPO]

If anyone hears from Gunboat please post it here ASAP. Like Goose and Ponch I feel bad for having lost him and going on without knowing what happened to him and his daughter.

I have never left anyone on the road like this before and it really bothers me that no one has heard from him or that he has posted here to let us all know he is ok.....

Boomer.....who firmly believes in "No Man Left Behind".

ps: Goose I'm glad ya made it home safe! It was a pleasure riding with you,Ponch,and his charming wife.

[V7Goose]

Not much of an update, but it is all I know so far - it looks like he did actually make it home, since he was on the site here last night around 1830. Or maybe the aliens got his logon info from him and are practicing for their planned invasion?

 

Anyway, I sent him a PM, but I'm sure he hasn't seen it yet. We'll get y'all updated if we ever get the rest of the pieces to this puzzle.

Goose

[mini-muffin]

Well I know Muffinman picked up a blackberry that was laying on the ground. Evidently cupcake said he knew who's phone it was. Was it Gunboats? If so cupcake might still have it.

 

Margaret

[dingy]

Well I know Muffinman picked up a blackberry that was laying on the ground. Evidently cupcake said he knew who's phone it was. Was it Gunboats? If so cupcake might still have it.

 

Margaret

 

 

It was mine.

 

Gary

[BoomerCPO]

Gunboat lost his cell phone while he was on a roller coaster ride at some Amusement Park I believe.

There is a lesson here for all of us....EXCHANGE CELL PHONE NUMBERS BEFORE THE RIDE STARTS. It is NOT a good feeling to lose someone and have no way to contact them!!

Boomer.....who can find nothing amusing about this whole situation.

[Kregerdoodle]

I got a response from Don yesterday, he was in Tenn. some place...

[Venturous Randy]

 

There is a lesson here for all of us....EXCHANGE CELL PHONE NUMBERS BEFORE THE RIDE STARTS. It is NOT a good feeling to lose someone and have no way to contact them!!

 

Boomer.....who can find nothing amusing about this whole situation.

 

One of the things that I put together for both Asheville rallies is an ICE list. An In Case of Emergency list that contains the attending members name and cell number, where they are staying and expected time of arrival and someone to contact at home. On a couple of occasions we were able to call members for information and it did help to have the ICE list if a family member back home had to be contacted, but fortunately that was not required. I also gave a copy of this list to all members that attended. I put this list together thru my e-mail or PM's and asked it to be done in a simple format so all I had to do was cut and paste the information. I put this together in the week or so before the rally.

RandyA

[Monty]

One of the things that I put together for both Asheville rallies is an ICE list. An In Case of Emergency list that contains the attending members name and cell number, where they are staying and expected time of arrival and someone to contact at home. On a couple of occasions we were able to call members for information and it did help to have the ICE list if a family member back home had to be contacted, but fortunately that was not required. I also gave a copy of this list to all members that attended. I put this list together thru my e-mail or PM's and asked it to be done in a simple format so all I had to do was cut and paste the information. I put this together in the week or so before the rally.

RandyA

 

 

Ditto! We did the same thing as well, before taking off for MD.

[Naugh-T]

Ya swifty you shouldnt leave no man or woman behind

 

Naugh-T

[Jus Monkeyin Around]

GunBoat is home he just left the house here in Conroe going to his he said the aliens didn't like him he would'nt cook for em' lol

[Evan]

Some lessons here, but good to hear in the end that Gunboat made it home. Also, sorry to hear you have to replace your new back tire Goose, but glad to hear you made it home safely. I also want to thank you so much for helping me with my rear tire change at MD. Very much appreciated!

[Sleeperhawks Mechanic]

At least Sleeperhawk came back and got me! I don't feel so bad now!

[gunboat]

hi all

thanks to everyone, i jaged left when i should have jaged right. sorry to have put everyone on the out & out. sarah & i made it home last eneving with out any proublems. we missed our friends coming across that bridge. saw them turn left and could not locate them again after that. but all ended up well. dam hot ride across kentucky ( east to west) i saw one sigh that showed 107. we stayed at dryersburg,tenn, had a very poor inter-net connection at the hotel. was just able to say congrats to kbay on being a new g-paw, before giving up on the inter-net connection for the night. again thanks to all who were ready to send out the hounds to help find us.

best reguards

don c.