Day 3 – Texan Blast Furnace

Not many pics today, it was just too dang hot and we had too far to go. It was rather uneventful and boring anyway. By 10:00 it was already in the high 90’s and only getting hotter. Every time we stopped I downed an entire large gatoraide and my eyes were just killing me. The best I can describe riding across west Texas is try putting on a jacket and ski pants with a hair dryer up each limb and one pointed at your face and turn on high. I’m thankful I had the foresight to pack a bottle of visine.

Cece somehow managed to burn her pants on the pipes already. I think she was standing on that side of the bike and came up to get her helmet off the seat and brushed her knee against them under the floorboard. Her pants dont look too bad but it left a knee print of melted plastic on the can, I need to find a way to clean that off. I think we can just do an iron on black denim patch on her pants when we get back.

When we got to the outskirts of DFW and hit the humidity it felt like the temperature dropped about 20 degrees, it felt great. Everyone had told us that we’d die in the humid areas, it turned out to be the reverse. In west Texas it was hot whether you were moving or not, when you were stopped theres the 107 degree air temp and the sun beating down on you, when you’re moving its like a blast furnace. When we got to the humid stretch it felt hotter when we stopped as you got drenched with sweat but as soon as you started moving again you had air moving over lightly moist clothing making you feel nice and cool, it was actually not bad (well as long as you kept moving).

When we got close I looked at my notes for Patrick’s recommended interstate directions, and just followed the signs. We passed 3 or 4 massive fires on the shoulder on the outskirts and inside Fort Worth. They were all just 1 to 3 miles apart, I wonder if they were all caused by the same car throwing sparks or cinders out the exhaust or if they were caused by idiots throwing their own cigarettes out the window right after getting stuck in bumper to bumper traffic next to a blazing grass fire. I never thought I’d see a forest fire in a city, but one of them had gotten into a big undeveloped section with lots of mesquite and had some 20 foot high flames right next to some apartment complexes.

I did not have directions to his house off the interstate or even remember what streets to turn on, I figured I’d know it when I saw it or just get close and call or find a coffee shop and break out the laptop and dig through some old emails. When we were about 5 miles away I remembered, oh yeah I need to turn on someones name and the first sign for it would not be far from the turn… Carl rd! thats it.

I’m proud that I made it all the way across Texas to find a house in the middle of a massive city that I’ve only been to once before with no directions and no clue what streets to turn on. The next day Wanda says she can always find any place shes been before even years afterwards too, maybe it runs in the family.

Patrick’s bike has quite a few more stickers since I last saw it. Hopefully he gets everything sorted out with it before he heads to Oregon on it.

Priority Mail? Thats just funny.

A lot of real estate left for more stickers. Thats one way to cover up any paint flaws and scratches.

The famous bobber, yes that really is another V Star 650. It has clip on handlebars, shortened forks which are put on backwards the speedo and odometer runs in reverse, hes had another Grateful Dead speedo cover printed numbered backwards to put on it. He put on R6 calipers and a floating disk on the front, I may do that on mine. Panhead covers and S&S air cleaner, custom ankleblower pipes, powdercoated tank, hard tailed with springer seat. I like the red rustoleum painted wheels. He says people will ask how long it took to restore it and oldtimers will swear its a combination of 40’s era bikes.

I’d like to build one but I dont know if I’d like getting constantly swarmed by onlookers and having to answer questions anywhere I stopped, its getting bad enough with mine. He says one guy even followed him all the way home to get a better look at it, thats a little crazy.

I was going to give it a try riding it but it decided right then to start misbehaving and wouldn’t run off of choke. Supposedly hes found some buyers for it to help cover closing costs on a new house hes trying to buy. Shame, everyone really loves this bike. Now I guess I’ll have to build my own jockey shift bike to learn now to ride one heh.

Some more of Patrick’s pics of the bobber

Of course all the animals love Cece. Thankfully none of us got bitten by any fleas, thanks for all the effort and weeks of battling them. He’d had a big storm before we got there and it had knocked out power to much of the downstairs. I had to bring in the lantern off the bike and burn that for light, it was like camping inside.