Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: Re: GPNDG
Supersedes: <92236.155423U11303@uicvm.uic.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Sunday, 23 Aug 1992 22:34:42 CDT
From: <U11303@uicvm.uic.edu>

In article <1992Aug17.040753.21141@serval.net.wsu.edu>,
johnsw@wsuvm1.csc.wsu.edu (William E. Johns) says:
>
>I am back from the GPNDG first.  I win.

 I am back from the GPNDG last.  What do I win?

The trip home started strangely enough.  From Mt. Rainier, where I had
my Apple in Paradise, we ended up in Vancouver, B.C.. But not before running
into Mike Baine (we terrorized the tourists on our way up to Mt. St.
Helens the day before) who was having a cappuccino in some little town.  We
continued on to Seatle from there together.

Vancouver is one pretty city.  We (Carol Piller, Ed  Dowtort, Jennifer Merritt,
me) had a great time. But don't go there to buy cigarettes or gas.

We started heading back Tuesday.  Right after leaving Seatle we received an
award from the Washington HP.  He was the uptight type just doing his job.
He got us from behind, pacing.  I can't see a damn thing in my mirrors so it
was quite a shock to all of a sudden see this great white mass with pretty
lights on the top right on my ass.  Wrote us up for 10 over.  I know that
we were going considerably faster at points down that first pass so it isn't
so bad.

The bad part was that he took good half hour to write us up, and time was
the reason we were going fast in the first place.  We had to get to Stephen's
house in Spokane and it was getting late.  We managed to get there, about
1 o'clock in the morning, and it wasn't fun.  I was singing and/or yelling
(not much of a singer) to myself the last hundred miles just to stay awake.

Stephen Hendricks was great about this.  He came out to where we were and
we followed him home.  In the morning he and his wife both left to work
before we left the house.  Thanks Steve. (love those cats).

The rest of the way was uneventful, except for scary looking clouds in Montana
and Wyoming.  It rained on us once, looked worse than it acutally was.  But
on the other hand, we saw a beautiful rainbow, a complete arch, two pots of
gold I guess.

The other eventful event was a bit of bike trouble.  I had a small oil leak
from the alternator shaft.  But guess what happenned after 4k miles?
It developed into one major spill.  I figured if I changed the oil it might
not be so bad.  So I pulled into an Amoco station bought five quarts of Mobil
1 and asked for an oil pan.  The guy at the station was great.  I pulled inside
and changed the oil.  The leak seemed smaller for a few hundred miles. But
than it started again.  It leaked onto the center stand and from there it
would spill on the rear tire.  The outer most inch of tire was just soaked
with it.  Finally I tied a couple of rags on the frame and the stand.  Worked
for a while to keep the tire clean.  But eventually I ended up just cleaning
the tire with gas at stops and prayed for absence of hard left turns (easy
enough a request on I-90 in Wisconsin).  At the end I had left turns counted
and when I pulled into my street I knew I made it.

Well, what can I say.  It came out to be about 5k miles in two weeks.  The
gather was great, and so were the people (too many to list).  A little trouble
with the bikes (didn't tell you about having no clutch at 10k feet in
Yellowstone), bad weather make great memories.  And I'll tell you one thing,
you can get hurt out there on those roads without a car being anywhere near
you, but what's life witout a little adrenalin rush.  8-)

Thanks Guys.

P.S. Do you spell Seatle with one or two t's?


--------
Mark Komosa       u11303@uicvm.uic.edu        DoD #0791        CB700SC