The very long trip continues..
As sad as it was to leave the MO SpyderLovers, we were not sad to be leaving MO and coming into Oklahoma at long last. Of course, who know that the longest stretch of road in the entire world was route 69 between Big Cabin OK and Checotah, OK. It was pure misery to ride, a myriad of small towns and traffic just added to our pain as we are in the last hour of a 19 1/2 hour day. Brian almost feel asleep riding he said, and it didn't help that it was just pitch black out. As we finally are nearing our destination, we decided to get fuel first as everyone else had already checked in at the camp ground where I had reservations. We figured, they were all fueled up and ready to go and just waiting on us. After answering so many questions again and wolfing down and ice cream, (no dinner) we were off for the final 7 miles of the night. Just as we exited from the highway and on to a very dark deserted road, a blinding light came tooling up. It was Repops (Harvey) on his very well lit and slightly misaimed headlights coming to find us. And it is a good thing too. I don't know if we would have found this place in the dark. I made these reservations from the internet with no other knowledge what so ever. When we arrived, I now know why it was only $37.50 for a cabin that sleeps six. This was not the Taj Mahal by any stretch. Lamont and Ron were already tucked in and sleeping and Harvey told us Lamont wanted to leave by 4:00 am. Wonderful, who needs more than 3 hours of sleep anyway. No really, that is what time I wanted to leave as well. We had just completed our first Iron Butt, (we didn't do the paperwork to make it official but we know) and if we were going to get very far the next day, we had to leave early. We decided that maybe instead of doing back to back Iron Butt rides, we would stop earlier in the night and get some sleep and then cross the desert at night. That made a lot of sense to everyone. Harvey and Forrest already had reservations in Gallup, New Mexico anyway, what the heck, we would all stop there.
This day, took on a life of it's very own. At one point we all thought Forrest was having a spyder problem as he zoomed past everyone at a high rate of speed and then pulled to the side of the expressway. We all pulled off and I got off my bike to find out what was wrong. As it turns out, nothing, he got a call from Docdoru and had to call him back...hmmm. What could possibly happen next you may ask? Oh yeah, for all those people that said don't worry about the extra fuel to take along. Forrest ran out of gas. We were only about 3 miles from the next gas stop and his spyder just quit. He coasted off the road and put some of his reserve in the tank and met the rest of us at the gas station. We wouldn't have even know if a motorcycle hadn't followed us to the gas station to tell us one of our friends pulled of to the side. The lady was very nice, she told me she is sorry, she doesn't speak English very well, they are from Germany and did her best to tell me what was wrong. I kind of figured that is what happened, as I had just checked with him how many bars he had and he told me zero. I think he went through fuel faster than the rest of us due to the size of his trailer but I am not really sure.
We had one more official banner stop to make and that was in Albuquerque, NM. Tom in NM from SpyderLovers and Repops from Arkansas (he was with us and still hadn't signed the banner) Were our last two official banner signers for this trip. Now it was time to finally give back full custody of the banner to Lamont. Brian said he was starting to feel like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings. Just too much pressure being in charge of something as powerful as this SpyderLovers banner. It is now with it's rightful owner until he sends if off with someone else.
And I am sure many of you are wondering about Lamont's posted video and the infamous trailer break in. Well, somewhere along the way, as Brian went to open the trailer to put his coat inside, he said he couldn't get it open. I went over there and I noticed that the lock was turning too far. I told him, it isn't supposed to even be able to go that far. So here we were with 3 or 4 working keys between us and no way to get into our own trailer. Both Lamont and Brian tried shaking and jimming the top but didn't want to bust it. We decided, we will just wait until we stop in Gallup and call Andrew from Bushtec and get some ideas.
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men and SpyderLovers. At our final fuel stop before Gallup, Ron and Lamont and Brian and I decided, we can keep going. We'll go a little further, one more stop and then get a place to stay and get a good night's sleep. An hour and half later as we are topping off our tanks it hits us, we are less than 2 hours to Flagstaff and about 100 miles away from our back to back Iron Butt rides. After a sit down in Subway, the 4 of us decide, we can do this. And we're off!! Once again 19 hours was winding down as we are looking for any cheap motel. Brian's GPS of course took us into some very dark quite street in a residential area. We circled around, made one last gas stop and headed for the Motel 8, this time we used Lamont's GPS. 2 minutes later we were checking in.
They were very nice there, they let us park our spyders and my trailer right on the bricks at the front door so the desk people could keep an eye on them. But now the fun begins. I still can not get into my trailer. All my stuff is in my trailer. So I pose this question to you all. How may SpyderLovers does it take to break into a Bushtec Trailer? Three, 2 to tear it apart and one to video tape and narrate. For those of you that have been concerned. Please don't be, we can fix the hole with a fiberglass repair kit and a locksmith would not have been able to help. It turns out a pin inside that holds the lock had gotten knocked out of place and the latch could not be moved to unlock the trailer.
With my stuff in my hands, I headed to the room, checked a few messages and laid my head on my pillow and then I think I was just plain out.
I will post tomorrow with the last leg of this very long journey coming into the KOA in Pomona. I have some photos and videos that I will load for your enjoyment as well.
Photo of group getting ready to leave Checotah, OK at about 4:30am
One of the times we pulled over on the side of the road.
New Mexico Banner photos
Tom in NM signing the banner
Repops (Harvey) signing the banner
The group in NM
Video of giving the banner back to Lamont