MC Raven Trip Report 8

Trip Report 8

Wrap-up of the past 5-days.

I left my mom’s house Thursday around lunch time and headed to the SLAP (Squeal Like A Pig) Rally held here in Arkansas off Highway 23. I arrived around 4 pm. By 5 pm the rain and thunderstorms had come back. It rained all Thursday, most of Friday and Saturday morning. The other participants started arriving on Friday afternoon and more came in on Saturday. All total, only about a third of those registered actually made it – the weather kept them home.

When I arrived, the access road was a mixture of rocky and deep muddy. By Friday it was mostly muddy. By Saturday afternoon, when I took these pictures, it had dried out a little to the rocky/mud bog you see. I have a theory: The road’s a test. If you can get to the campsites through that mud/rocks, you deserve to be there with the other dual sport riders. I made it but, just barely.

That’s the bad. Here’s the good. This area of Arkansas is motorcycle heaven! Highway 23 (known locally as the Pig Trail) is a wonderful blend of winding mountainous stretches with the roadway following a river through a tunnel of overhanging trees. Then, you climb up 1000ft to the top of the mountain and find yourself in amongst morning fog and little farms with animals grazing then, dive back to the next valley to start the ride all over. Great! The dirt riding rally-ers told me the dirt roads/trails were even better.

The thunderstorms came back early Sunday morning as I was packing up to leave. I was sooooo ready to get to somewhere without rain and thunder! So, I headed down to I-40 and headed west towards Oklahoma. Just after I crossed into OK, the newest electronic gremlin attacked. My fuel gauge dropped out of action. Normally, when I have just under 1 gallon of fuel left, the dash shows a yellow triangle and starts flashing a little gas pump. Also, along the bottom of the screen numbers appear telling you how many miles you have left at this speed before you run out. This usually happens when I’m about 50-miles from empty. This time the switchover occurred at 186 miles to go. Then 140 miles to go… within about 4 miles I went to 0 miles to go even though I’d filled up the day before just as I finished my ride.

My first stop was at a McD’s to check the internet and see if others had had this happen to them. Sure enough, this is a common problem with BMW’s of mine’s vintage. Unfortunately, when this happens, the button that shows the odometers/trip logs gets locked out and you can’t see how many miles since your last fill up. (We all reset one of the trip logs to zero each time we fill up: mostly so it’s easier to calculate mpg.) Luckily for me, my 10-year old gps has a trip log function and I can keep track of when it’s time to get more fuel using that. That’s why there’s no daily/total mileage figures at the top of the page.

While I was in OK I talked to Jeremey and Kandi and they told me that BMW America had sent a Recall/Repair letter for my bike. I called the BMW dealer/repair shop in the Black Hills of South Dakota where I expect to be by the end of the month. They scheduled me for the recall repair as well as fixing the fuel gauge problem at the same time. (Apparently there’s a strip of some kind that goes inside the gas tank and senses the fuel level. That needs to be replaced.) While I’m there, I’ll explain the other electronic gremlins I’ve been experiencing.

I talked with J&K on Sunday. Now it’s Tuesday evening and I’ve ridden in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and am halfway through Nebraska. I’m trying to run away from the rain. Up until today, I’d managed to do that too! Yesterday was the first time I’d awakened to dry tent and sleeping bag since I arrived in Minnesota. Alas, even though it’s not raining right this minute, it has gotten colder. The temps went from upper 70’ low 80’s to upper 30’s! Isn’t this supposed to be the place where it’s hot and sultry? Isn’t this the place where all the women wear those little t-shirts and the sweat runs down between their bosoms? I spent way too much time thinking about that sweat. (Now, I just started thinking about it again!) I decided that today would be a great day to declare a motel day. I’m inside, warm and DRY! And, I've managed to avoid all those tornadoes rampaging across Oklahoma and Texas!

Here’s some pics from MC Raven’s Southern Adventure:

Motorcycle Heaven

More MC Heaven

Carlos from Bolivia

Rally riders

Byrds Adventure access road

Helping a turtle cross the road (I’m sure that as soon as I put him down and rode away, he spun around and sprinted right back across the road.) Saw turtles like this one every few miles in south Kansas.

Roadside Art

A water tower This Big! (Florence Kansas)

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My old sleeping bag on the left and my new bag on the right. New bag is down filled, weighs much less, takes up much less room and, is rated to the same temperature as the old bag. Pricy but worth it!

I made it to the Good Life!