Ooopsie goes the bike!

*** continued from previous post  ***


I won't go into the details, but I found room for almost everything. The bird book fit very snugly into the inside pocket of my mesh jacket, so thank Jeebus no staples. The last piece of the puzzle was to put the bag, and my collapsible cane, on the trunk and secure it with bungee cords. Bungee cords. The bane of my existence. I don't know how much you've worked with bungee cords, but they should rename them, 'Hey! Look at what I put my eye out with!' cords. Although, that would probably be fairly difficult to market. The minutes ticked by, and after several failed attempts, plus a couple of very unattractive welts on my forehead, I managed to secure the 'whole kit-and-caboodle' to the rack on the Vision's trunk.

I stepped back to survey my work.

Well, I had seen worse, but not from anything other than first-graders making flower pots out of clay for Mother's Day. The sleek lines of the Vision were destroyed, and it looked like we were trying to use, and quite unsuccessfully, the nylon bag as an inverted rudder. The bag didn't so much rest on the trunk as it squatted there. The bungee cords sunk and bit viciously into the nylon, making it look like we weren't so much carrying a bag as trying to keep it from escaping. You think I'm kidding but I'm not. I swear, it looked as if a family of Gypsies were using the bike to caravan across the nation. Stealing babies. Tiny ones, to be sure because there was no room, but stealing babies none-the-less. (I'm taking old 16th century Gypsies here, not the new modern Gypsies with shiny trucks and lawyers and small weapons.) I cared not how the damned thing looked. The dead caterpillar was on there securely and that was my intent. Fashion be damned! For we were on vacation, and about to embark on a 7-day journey into paradise, and couldn't be troubled with petty things like style, and balance, and gas millage, and visibility, and aerodynamics.

I climbed on the bike to test the load balance. I pulled her into an upright position and immediately noticed that the right side of the bike seemed to weigh approximately 6000 pounds more than the left side as I arced over and dropped the bike on the ground with a stomach-churning 'screeeeeeeeeeccchhhh'. Which, as any experienced biker will tell you, is, and this is a fairly technical term - is really 'bad'.

Luckily the engineers who dreamt and built the Vision suspected that the owners might be grossly incompetent and designed 'tip-over protection' into the body styling so that, heaven forbid, you ever DID drop the bike it would land on the front and rear tip-overs ensuring no damage to the machine itself. Not even a scratch. You have no idea how wonderful that is. I've seen some expensive bikes fall over in a parking lot and suffer thousands of dollars worth of damage.
That doesn't seem right, does it? I mean, you can drop a baby and do less damage than you would to most motorcycles. Not that I would know that. (If you're feeling your head for dents stop it right now!)

Anyway, I righted the bike using the 'butt-lean-push' method and got her back on the kickstand without too much trouble. Amazing how a little bit of leverage will allow you to pick up something currently weighing more than a great Blue Whale. I stood back and considered my options. Unless I wanted to spend the entire trip leaning heavily to the left to compensate for the balance, I was going to have to do some rearranging.


*** the journey continues tomorrow

Careful planning is always a plus!

*** continued from previous post  ***

Thus, we found ourselves two days before blastoff scurrying about like a late-arriving band of Orthodox Druids at the summer Solstice.  I was nailing down the route with the aid of Google Maps, playing with the balance of travel times versus scenic routes.  Where we would stay was taken care of and crossed off the check list.  Weeks before I had booked us some fine looking lodging in Carnack, Alberta, breathtakingly close to the true wilderness of the Canadian Rockies.  


I could see it now - us in a postcard like setting, the wind flowing on our faces, the sun shining benevolently on our helmet-clad noggins as we wound our way through paradise.  (I hadn't told your Mom, but If I could find a boat, and a Mountie Uniform, your Mom could look forward to a serenade of "When I'm calling you-ew-ew-ew  ew-ew ew. . . ."  Because really, isn't' that what Canada is all about?  If old movies were any clue, it certainly is, and they haven't let me down thus far.)  


Now I will admit that I may have been a tad optimistic in the distance we were to cover each day, but I knew that the three of us - me, your Mom, and the luxury that is the Victory Vision - could knock down the miles like a two-year old knocks down a canned pea display at the end of a supermarket aisle - that being stupidly fast followed by a lot of tears and possibly a tantrum.  What made it even better when I realized that we weren't talking about miles, we were talking kilometers!  That fact sealed our schedule!  True, my memory of the metric system was a bit hazy, but I was sure that it was something like 80 kilometers to the mile.  Shoot, this was going to be an easy-peesey piece of cake!  And a beautiful, seven-tiered butter-cream frosted Canadian cake at that!  Oh!  And since it's Canada a beer.  Mmmmm. . . cake and warm beer.  The thought makes my teeth itch.

 Your Mom, whilst I was virtually navigating, was gathering the items deemed necessary for our adventure.  I don't have to tell you that this had been going on for days. There was a pile of crap - I mean necessities - in the living room large enough that it threatened to touch the ceiling.  Seriously, we had to split the pile in two in order to make a path to the door.


  I refrained from pointing out the reality that we had VERY limited space on the bike between the saddlebags and the trunk, because. . . well, there was no reason to put a damper on the party this early in the show.  Plenty of time to play the spoiler later.  Besides, while she was busy adding to the pile, it left me time to . . . to . . . well, I have no idea.  Something.  But she was occupied and for now it was enough.  


I know people think I exaggerate but you know I speak gospel when it comes to this particular quirk in your Mom's personality.  Do you remember those car trips we took when you were a wee child where the trunk of the car would be so close to bursting that I would have to sit both you and your sister - sometimes the dog as well - on the lid and push down HARD to get the latch closed?  And the back seat was piled with so many pillows and snack bags and games and sweaters and books and inflatable rafts that at times, not only could you not see out the windows, but for brief periods the entire contents of the backseat would shift, and we would become convinced we had left one of you at a rest stop, pull a U-turn at 80 miles an hour on the freeway, and rush back to your last known location only to hear you whimper quietly from underneath the complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica?  Yeah.  Good times, good times.  So when I speak of your Mom's preparations you know exactly what I'm describing. 

*** the journey continues tomorrow