Waiting for the bike

 Well I am feeling relieved the FD is here.  But wouldn't a new bike be better?  Loaded now and going to do an evening ride for 5 hrs.  93 now mid 80's after 8:00

Departure day has come and gone and we are still here!

Oswald waits patiently as the bike is away at the dealer getting a new Final Drive.  So we wait!

The part comes in at 10:30 am and takes 1 hour to mount.  It is possible that I am out of there by 12:30pm then back here to load up!

John and his no good very bad day!!

How quickly things change.  I was merrily loading the motorcycle when I bent down to pick up a bag and bam!

What you see here is a drip of oil from the final drive "FD" of a BMW motorcycle.  The weak link of the motorcycle.  Sometimes they last 150,000 miles but this one only lasted 30,000!  To make matters worse it failed a month ago and I had it fixed.  Then earlier this week it was leaking again and I took it back in to the independent repair shop.  So I picked up the phone and called the dealer and ordered a brand spanking new BMW Final Drive assembly! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  To add insult to injury I was cooking a fairly simple dinner using Trader Joe's frozen brown rice and in the middle of trying to get the bike fixed............boom it blows up all over the microwave!
Not 10 minutes before the chaos started I finished booking all the hotels along the way up and around the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia. A word of warning....rooms are all booked up at Ingonish Beach! But I got one..  So now I have to juggle, something I have had to do during my working life.  I have had to cancel the Dinner in Youngstown, OH.  The bike will be repaired on Friday with a special order FD.  Now I am faced with what I didn't want to do.....the Northeast I-95 blast to Portland ME!  The ferry reservation is for Tuesday next week so I have to hustle.  It won't be the fun ride I was hoping for through the countryside of the NE.  It also means that I have to move the Ohio dinner to the other end of the trip and the date I will get there is a little dicy.  Probably early September, assuming everything holds together, me included!  I think I like this blogging thing.  I am feeling a bit more relaxed just sharing with whoever out there reads this stuff.  So now I have an additional day for GPS routing and maybe a better plan.  Let's face it, if Pattie had gotten to Halifax and I showed up to pick her up in a Uhaul, things could be worse!  I don't think either one of us would have enjoyed the Cabot Trail in a Uhaul!

The Packing is almost done for the trip to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Ohio?

We are getting ready for our next adventure.  Packing gets easier when you do it frequently!  Oswald is overseeing the packing of the gear.  Like 2 years ago, Pattie is flying into Halifax, Nova Scotia and I am the mule carrying most of her gear.  We will spend 4 nights touring the Cabot Trail then catch the ferry out of North Sydney to Newfoundland and spend 3 nights with our friends Paul and Meghan in St. John's.  My trip will take me to Ohio to have dinner with Thaddeus and Kiesha that we met on the same cruise.  They were all part of out dinner table group.  So the trip begins tomorrow!

Pattie will fly out of St. John's back home and I will take Oswald across Newfoundland and catch a ferry to the northern tip of Quebec and go north into Labrador.  Let's hope this adventure starts better than the broken foot one in May.  If I can't get across the Trans-Lab Trail, 275 miles of dirt narrow rough road with no gas stations, people, lodging or food, then I may have to double back and catch a ferry down the coast of Quebec a week later.  Not a good choice but the only way out if I can't get across.  If I do get across then I will flyfish for a few days then come back into Quebec to pavement and come back through Quebec City, Montreal then into the US.  I will try to keep this up to date.