Vegas, Baby!

My Mom and Grandma's birthday is around Labor Day, so this year I thought I'd ride out on the BMW and give them a nice birthday gift. It's a long trip and the weather was supposed to be great. However, before the trip began, the stars, the moon, and the planets aligned to plot against me. My route was Indy - Terre Haute, IN - St. Louis, MO - Denver, CO - Las Vegas, NV. Riding back it was in reverse order. In total, I rode 3990 miles on the trip.

Day 1 - Hot

The first leg was almost miserable. It was 95 degrees plus the Midwestern humidity. Ugh! I made it to the west side of St. Louis were I grabbed a room at a Best Western. Thank you for the piping hot shower.

Day 2 - The Long Haul

It was much cooler the next day; however, I road between the rain drops in Kansas. Two major storms were dumping rain to the north and south just west of Salina; however, I was able to stay dry. What's the tallest building in Kansas? Grain elevators. One cool thing though was riding by Fort Riley, KS - the home of the Big Red 1. Google it yourself.

Talk about the plains? Eastern Colorado is flat. Flat. Flat. You can ride for miles and not even see so much as a twig. Talk about boring.

Anyways, I made it my cousin's house in Westminster A-OK.

Day 3 - It's a dry heat!

You know you're in the middle of nowhere when you see this... Right about then I was thinking, "Maybe I should have brought some extra fuel just in case. Do I have enough water? I wonder if I can get cell service."

All of a sudden, BAM!! When I hit Goblin Valley, Utah, the slave cylinder on the BMW's clutch went out, so the longer I rode, and consequently the less I used the clutch, the clutch would lose pressure. Whenever I had to stop, I had to pump up the clutch about 30 times before I would engage safely. At least I could still operate the bike and burn on down the road. I arrived safely at 1930 just before it got dark.

Luckily, the only BMW Motorrad in Vegas is about five minutes from the house. BMW of Las Vegas was very accommodating to this out-of-towner. The morning after I arrived, I called them up and explained the situation. They told me to bring it over immediately, and they would get me back on the road. I asked them to change the oil too while they had it since I just put 2k slab miles on it. The next day, it was road-worthy again, and I was on my way.

Mission accomplished on surprising my Mom and Grandma. The smiling, happy faces were priceless.

On the way back, I decided to do what I afterward discovered to be an unofficial Iron-butt from Denver to Terre Haute. Let me tell you this - I won't do it again unless there is a damn good reason!

Google Maps put the distance at 1,011 miles. The odometer says it was [insert mileage]. I left Denver at 0600 EST and arrived in Terre Haute at 2351 EST. I wasn't so much physically tired as I was mentally tired. I was just plain tired, so I got a room and gave my Iron-butt a rest.

The next morning, I was home in about two hours. It was a beautiful day and a fitting end to an awesome adventure. I managed to eat up a set of new tires on the trip.