{"id":63,"date":"2008-12-13T19:30:01","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T03:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/?p=63"},"modified":"2008-12-26T21:58:13","modified_gmt":"2008-12-27T05:58:13","slug":"the-trip-down-from-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/13\/the-trip-down-from-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"The trip down from Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I left Michigan the morning of Dec. 4th.\u00a0 The weather was so bad and the roads so icy that I had to rent a trailer and ask my friend Carol to drive me south, pulling the trailer with my KLR onboard, about an hours drive until the roads looked safe for two-wheel travel.\u00a0\u00a0 I gassed up and continued south on two-lane towards Indianapolis with the temps in the 20&#8217;s.\u00a0 The KLR ran way too cold.\u00a0 I was way too cold, too.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/s-amer-takeoff-002.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-80\" title=\"s-amer-takeoff-002\" src=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/s-amer-takeoff-002-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"s-amer-takeoff-002\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/s-amer-takeoff-006.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-79\" title=\"s-amer-takeoff-006\" src=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/s-amer-takeoff-006-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"s-amer-takeoff-006\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/s-amer-takeoff-005.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-78\" title=\"s-amer-takeoff-005\" src=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/s-amer-takeoff-005-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"s-amer-takeoff-005\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>First day was a disaster;\u00a0 I barely made 200 miles.\u00a0 I stopped for the night in Anderson, IN, and managed to drop the bike in the road when trying to maneuver to get to a motel.\u00a0 I was tired and just too cold and stiff.\u00a0 I had help getting the bike up again, and the only damage was a broken mirror isolator.\u00a0 Friday morning, it was so cold that the KLR did NOT want to start.\u00a0 Had to use ether.\u00a0 The bike ran cold and got bad mileage.\u00a0 I got off of I-65 onto the Kentucky parkway system to go south-west.\u00a0 Very glad I did.\u00a0 Good road and little traffic.\u00a0 Finally got so cold I had to stop at Benton, Kentucky.\u00a0 Another very low-mileage day. On day three, Saturday, I woke to &#8216;mild&#8217; temps &#8211; a whole 35\u00b0 F.\u00a0 Bike started like it should.\u00a0 An easy morning&#8217;s ride to Memphis.\u00a0 Got confused and lost time in the construction mess after crossing the bridge into Arkansas, but burned across the state to Texarkana, AR.\u00a0 I was beat and cold, and dropped the bike again!\u00a0 Again volunteers came to help lift the mule;\u00a0 this time I shattered the left hand-guard.\u00a0 I found a sleazy sleep-cheap and crashed.<\/p>\n<p>After an early stop at the local wal-mart for duct tape to temp-up the hand-guard, it was off into Texas.\u00a0 Weather improved, and so did my spirits.\u00a0 I shed the Toggs and balaclava, and felt MUCH better.\u00a0 Through the Dallas-FW mess, and on from I-30 to I-20.\u00a0 Finally warm enough to ride late,\u00a0 and I got past Abilene before stopping.\u00a0 Oil country.\u00a0 Monday, day 5, got an early start.\u00a0 A quick &#8216;screw-you&#8217; to George and Laura as I blew past the ugliness of Midland\/Odessa, then lunch in the nearly-ghost town of Monahans.\u00a0 Lucky timing in getting to gas and shelter in Van Horn before a huge wind-rain storm blew through. Then 200 miles of fighting 45 MPH head winds to reach El Paso by 4:30.\u00a0 The ride on I-10 through the Rio Bravo valley was impressive.\u00a0 An easy (but cold) ride got me to Silver City, NM by 7:30.<\/p>\n<p>So, after 5 difficult days, I arrived at our rendezvous point.\u00a0 Here I have been holed-up and waiting for Levi to arrive.\u00a0 I have been staying with my good friends Joseph and Deborah Kelly, who have been so very gracious in allowing me to stay and complete the work on the bike here.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_47\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/dscn3051.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-47\" title=\"dscn3051\" src=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/dscn3051-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"first morning in Silver City\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/dscn3051-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/dscn3051-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/dscn3051.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-47\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">first morning in Silver City<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I left Michigan the morning of Dec. 4th.\u00a0 The weather was so bad and the roads so icy that I had to rent a trailer and ask my friend Carol to drive me south, pulling the trailer with my KLR onboard, about an hours drive until the roads looked safe for two-wheel travel.\u00a0\u00a0 I gassed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}