Chug chug…..sput.
Not exactly what you want to feel when you’re 2.5 miles away from the Southworth ferry dock about 20 minutes before the ferry you absolutely must make pulls away.
I pulled to the side of the steeply inclined 2-lane highway and waited for Colleen to circle back around. It felt like the KLR had run out of gas, but the tripmeter only showed 110 miles. I thought back to replacing the battery that morning and thought that perhaps something had Electrically Gone Wonky.
When she arrived, Colleen thought so too, so, being the taller of us, she mounted the KLR and tried bumpstarting it heading back down the hill. Nothing. I walked down to meet her as she pushed the bike into a nearby gravel driveway.
We quickly discussed our options. We had to make the 4:30 ferry, leaving in, oh, about 10 minutes, because people were going to start congregating at Colleen’s house for a party at 6pm. The ferry took 40 minutes (plus loading and unloading), and it was a few miles from the dock to her house.
While we ran through the timeline, a man in a pickup truck drove down the driveway we were blocking. Colleen ran up to him and explained our dilemma. “No problem,” said the man, “just push the bike behind that bush there and leave it overnight.” So we did.
It should make an impression just what time constraints we were under because neither of us has a single picture of this entire event.
I hopped on the back of Colleen’s KLR and we raced to the ferry. Once again, we were the very last vehicle on and the ramp pulled up as we were still climbing off the bike.
We thoroughly entertained an elderly man in a pickup parked next to the KLR as we re-mounted the bike at the end of the ferry ride. Two women on a dirty dualsport with a hot pink Barbie tailbag…which perhaps might have been sexy if the passenger weren’t hobbit-sized and utterly incapable of vaulting herself onto onto the tall pillion seat of the KLR without kicking the tailbag, the seat, the side of the bike, and the bike pilot.
Back at Colleen’s, we didn’t even have time to shower before the doorbell started ringing. Fortunately, Sport-Touring.net type folks are used to smelling us at our finest and no one complained.
The evening consisted of an excellent pot luck dinner (pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans and almond slivers, two kinds of cake, and enough beer to keep Carolyn happy for a very long time).
Colleen plays with pot roast as Brian (brianhe) roasts the almond slivers:
Party foul! Fritz (bizarro) spills pot roast onto the table.
After dinner, we watched The Big Lebowski, a personal favorite. I love me some Coen brothers. There was more beer and more bullshitting and more bike talk. I think we figured later that there were about 20 people at the party, mostly ST.N folk. Good times.
I finally gave up on the party and went to bed around midnight…way past my bedtime! 😀
Happy birthday, Chris!!
