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Eastward Distraction Part 2 – Day Four

By Thom | June 19, 2008

Gulfport, FL to Atlanta, GA

This morning I woke up to a little “pitter patter” in my tent.  Almost like the sound of a small crab moving across the floor of a tent and that’s just what it was!! I had left the door to my tent open no more than two inches and this little guy decided to find a nice little home for himself. Well, needless to say, I wasn’t going back to sleep after that!

I made my way to a Flying J to check the weather of South Florida and see if I could contact Dave “Master of all things GL/Ford Mustangs” F. about stopping by his place as I made my way north.  The weather didn’t look promising for the next 5 days so I made the decision to cut my losses and head north. I was bummed, but chocked it up to the “zen” art of travel – just go with the flow!

Dave graciously (and I still can’t thank him enough) invited me up to take a look at my bike and stop for the night. So, I made my way up to “near Atlanta” with all of its fun traffic. On the way, I picked up the Boyhood Home of President Jimmy Carter NHP.

Dave (again graciously) met me at a gas station so I could follow him to his place, and what a place it was! He has quite a large two-story garage, called “the barn,” chocked full of parts to make old “Couchy” run like new again. He took a little test ride on my bike and then we started to make a list of things that needed to be done (hehe, it’s amazing what I lived with for so long). On our list we looked at:

My broken tach cable – would need to pull the radiator to fix the cable as some bone head (me) put the screw in upside down

Cleaned out my carbs – wow, scary job for me, but Dave had no problems at all – I think it may not of been his first time doing this….

Replaced my side stand – I had lost the piece that allowed me to put it down using my foot, a simple application of a pair of vice-grips had worked since Iowa (Dave got a chuckle out of it)

Took a look at my water problem – we submerged the bike in water, but it never had a problem, so hopefully it’s fixed!!! (Then what will my excuse be?)

Replaced my mirror – the bike took a tumble when I was about 10 feet away in a parking lot I had no idea how it happened as I hadn’t touched anything – nothing else was hurt except my pride and the mirror

Copious amounts of hardware that had vibrated lose over time – yeash, where did it all go?

Dave venting his frustrations on my new side stand

Well, it might be leaking from here, or here, or here..

Working and smiling

Through all of that wrenching I did think about selling my bike to Dave and trading it for one of his others -  I don’t know if he woud have bough mine though!

Thanks again Dave – I can’t thank you enough!! (He’s probably tired of hearing that by now.

Similar Posts:

• Eastward Distraction Part 2 – Day Six
• Eastward Distraction Part 2 – Day Five
• Eastward Distraction – Day Eight
• Eastward Distraction – Day Seven
• Eastward Distraction Part 2 – Day Two

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