our worst day so far

yesterday daniel wiped out on his bike less than 100 yards into the trail. he bent his handlebars, broke his windshield and bent his ignition key. still rideable we headed into the mountains, it was starting to rain. when ever we got into the mountains the rain had made the dust into a slick mud that you couldn't even walk on. the mud became sticky and stuck to every thing on the bikes and collected there. i had about an inch and a half of mud stuck to the bottom of my boots.

i dropped my bike at least five times yesterday, it was harder than any thing i have ever done.

Yesterday Daniel's shifter broke again, right where the patch weld was. The guy back in Branson told us that he couldn't weld very well. We made it to the town of La Veta and found a real welder after only three stops, one at the forestry maintenance garage, two at a garage,and finally at the golf course maintenance building. He tacked it in place, checked it for fit, welded the bead, and then let it air cool instead of quenching it. It should last.

we made it to Salida before dark it was about 250 mile day through the mountains. My foot peg on the left side finally came of I patched it in western arkansas. it came off during a power slide turn and I lost it the bike fell over on the left side me underneath again. I managed to miss a barbed wire fence by a couple of feet, and was able to slide my foot out of my boot and pick the bike up.

After arriving in Salida we found it hard to find a place to stay all of the campgrounds were RV only, and the parks we found had signs forbidding camping. Daniel remembered seeing a hostel sign in town so we went back and stayed there for $18. The hostel was really cool, several fellow travelers, 6 total from Florida. We had river rafters and hikers as roommates it was a bunk house setting. we stayed up late telling travel stories.

We met a guy riding his bicycle from VA to San Francisco CA, and you thought we were crazy.

well we finally made it to colorado,we had problems in both western panhandle oklahoma and in eastern new mexico. i took a bad spill in a bad sandy area in oklahoma, the ruts were too deep to do any thing with it. i fell and my right leg was pinned under my right pannier and the bike and i were weighting it down so much that i was just pinned. i waited probably a good 10 minutes for daniel to come and help lift the bike off of my leg so that i could be freed and stand up. i have been wearing my motorcross boots for that very reason, i will have a pretty good bruise and will hobble about for a fell days but no broken bones. it took daniel a while to come back and help because he fell with his also just over the hill from where i was.

in new mexico later that evening daniel broke his shifter lever it has been cracked and finally gave way. he used my small vise grip pliers locked down on it to get him to branson co. i flaged down one of the locals for help finding a welder. he directed us to the house of a welder that was not home, that guys wife directed us to another welders home, he wasn't home so this ones wife called someone else who was there in under 5 minutes to help, he said that he wasn't much of a welder but would do what he could. we went over to the school and opened the door to the ag dept where the schools shop was located, we heard that the teacher was on vacation. what he did was not pretty but it held for the 35 miles of offroad riding to trinidad co. he wouldn't take payment for his services, daniel forced him to take 1o bucks for his time. we have met the best people this country of ours has to offer on this trip.

almost through oklahoma!

We stayed the night in a town called Beaver Oklahoma at the hillcrest motel. We have met a lot of really nice folks on the way out, and Melvin the owner here was no exception. We pulled in yesterday evening, got off our bikes and he was sitting on his front porch in a rocking chair,and told us to come sit in the shade. I bet we talked right there on his porch for 45 minutes before it ever came up about room rates and vacancy.

we came across a couple of bridges that were out in MS one we had to backtrack and find a new route, the other we went across after a little modifications and adding some lumber.

over due post

we couldn't leave TN without seeing the Davie Crockett monument in lawrenceburg. we stayed the night at the Davie Crockett SP. we stopped by a real general store and post ofice it was pretty cool and the prices were really good. only real mechanical issue so far was a flat tire on daniels bike. so we changed his tire and tube, under a shade tree.

we are in Oklahoma

We are now about 292 +or- miles in to the state of Oklahoma. It is 108*f, we went through an old cow town in south Kansas on the way. OK is not as ugly as I thought it would be will post pics soon

sorry for the lack of updates but we haven't had any wifi service

We rode our bikes from north Florida to Jellico Tennessee in a day; it was a hard ride and all Interstate 75. We took breaks about every 100 miles or so and at gas stations, we would fuel up the bikes and get something to eat and some more water. We made it almost to Jellico without rain, but 14 miles from our destination the bottom dropped out of the sky. We rode in it until it became too hard to see and were too dangerous to proceed. We took refuge under the overpass / viaduct along with another couple on a bike, just after we took our helmets off in ride a couple on a Harley-Davidson and the rider yells “ What’s the matter you sissies!” then parks his bike and laughing.

We stayed the night in Jellico at the Jellico motel, it was a nice relaxed place, they let us change tires and sprockets right there on the sidewalk in front of our room. We changed out or 16 tooth front sprockets to a 14 tooth for better off-road riding torque. After a good night sleep we rode over to the post office to pick up a package Daniel had forwarded. While he was inside I put my roll chart in its holder and walked down to the drugstore for a coca cola. Daniels roll chart holder did not arrive so I took the lead on our first leg of the Trans-America Trail. There was a bit of a learning curve with the roll charts but we only got lost once and missed out turn twice. I dropped my bike three times on the first day. The first time we had just filled up with fuel recently so I had about 30-36 pounds of fuel way above the bikes center of gravity. I led us up the wrong rode, so I went to turn around on a slope very slowly because we were in someone’s yard. I lost footing and dropped it and I went rolling head over feet down their lawn. Daniel was laughing and I saw fuel leaking out of the tank so I yelled that I was going to need help getting it up and he said hold on I’m trying to get my camera out. It was very hard to pick up since the top of the bike was on the down hillside, but we managed and were back on the road in no time. The second time that I dropped my bike we had just completed a long section of nonpaved road mostly gravel some mud and several washes. Daniel was waiting at the end for me to join him for a quick break. I pulled up along side and there it went. A couple of men were driving up in a county pickup truck; they stopped and asked if everybody was ok. I said yea, that it was a pretty tough trail and my bike was tired so she laid down for a rest. The third time dropping the bike came when I was trying to turn around on an embankment near a barbed wire fence. I thought my bike was in first gear but it was in second, we were still getting used to the new sprockets and gear ratios we changed, well that bogged the engine down and killed the engine I was on a slope so down I went. Only the first drop did I need assistance in picking the bike up, and I am getting better at finding a turn around point and I quit worrying about trying to stay off the grass and just concentrate on riding. We stayed the night at Rock Island state park