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I learned something today about Mike. It is apparent
that he had something very traumatic happen to him when he was a child as he was wearing a rain suit. Maybe his Mom made him
wear a raincoat and those little yellow boots that went with them to school when it wasn’t raining, and the other kids
picked him on too many times. I don’t know for sure but I do know one thing. He will go to great lengths to get around
wearing a rain suit now!
As we were getting ready to leave this morning,
I asked him if we should gear up for rain, as it looked pretty gloomy. He said that there was not enough of a chance of rain
to warrant suiting up. He was watching the weather and I (as if I have not already learned from past experiences) trusted
him. We made it maybe 10 miles and there it was, just waiting for us. Rain. And lots of it too. I pulled over as soon as I
could to put on my suit and hoped that he would not and get soaked but he decided the right thing to do was to make the change.
We should have left the hotel with rain gear on. A lesson that I will not forget.
Riding in the rain is not a real problem with our
bikes and actually, it is kind of fun as long as you can stay dry of course. I have given up on blaming Steve on the rain
but Mike still has not forgiven him for the jinx that he has seemingly brought our way. Others from around the globe seem
to agree with Mike as we have heard from them through our site asking to send Steve to other places to help end drought!
We were on our way to Monroe North Carolina and
pay a visit with the Heafner's and crew at Iron Horse Motorcycles. It is a real shame that the rain came down so hard as the
dealership had made some great plans for us. It was still very nice to see the folks at Iron Horse, another Honda dealer that
really goes the extra mile to help their customers.
We came to the dealership and Mike Heafner had Filet
Minion made up for Mike Steve and I! “Now that’s a little bit of heaven” Mike said, and he was right. Mr.
Heafner cooked up the food and it was great!
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| Filet Minion for us at Iron Horse prepared to perfection |
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| Mr. Heafner cooking it up |
I had to go around the corner to get some batteries
out of my tank bag and as I came around the corner Mike said to me “You’re not gonna believe this” and I
said “now what?”
I looked and saw something that took me for quite
a surprise, a cake was baked for us with a map of our trip made in frosting! It was very nice and undoubtedly a lot of work
to prepare! We hunted down the artist for this cake and found out that Linda from the dealership made this for us. Mike and
I cut the cake and passed it out to everyone there.
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| This really took the cake. A detailed map of our journey |
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| Posing by the cake was tough. It looked too good to eat! |
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| All credit goes to Linda for this artwork |
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| Mike Heafner (right) with a group of us before cutting the cake |
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| Mike couldn't wait (he's always eating!) to cut the cake |
Iron Horse has a great selection of vintage motorcycles
on display dating back to the 1800’s.
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| A great display of vintage motorcycles can be found at Iron Horse |
They even have a 1913 Indian that is a runner and
we had a chance to saddle up on the bike to feel what it was like to ride one of these. One of the techs at the store, said
that he finds it hard to believe that after this bike was developed that anyone would even want to keep on making motorcycles!
It is extremely complex in operation but very cool for sure!
There are no cables on this bike but instead, solid
linkages to work the throttle!
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| NOw this is a cool bike! Built in 1913 and runs great to this day! |
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| No cables, just complex linkages to make things work! |
District Service Manager Mark Jennings was kind
enough to make over to the dealership and said “Hi” in between taking care of business with folks at the dealership.
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| Mark Jennings made the effort to stop by and say "Hi". |
We chatted with Dennis and Susan from the dealership
and also met with Lloyd Blythe Sr. and Jr. who brought a couple of very clean Honda’s for display. The CBX and CB400F
were in excellent condition and I suggested that Lloyd Sr. bring one of them to the Hoot to ride in the Cycle World Concours
next Saturday.
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| Dennis talking to Mike about some of the fine points of the 1913 Indian |
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| Susan is a joy to work with |
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| Lloyd Sr. and Jr. next to some nice rides |
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| A pristine 1979 CBX and.. |
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| ..a '77 CB400F |
Mike and I signed some posters and hats for folks
before we cleaned our bikes to get ready for the rest of our ride today. Matt Campbell for the Service Department let us intrude
on his wash bay and clean our bikes before we started to get ready to leave as the weather seemed to have moved out of the
area.
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| Mike and Ed getting cramps signing their names |
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| Future MX Star Matt Campbell? One never knows. Good Luck out there Matt! |
We traveled a bit and stopped at a Fairfield Inn
and Chris Thomason signed us into our rooms. He was amazed that we have ridden our bikes such a distance and thought that
we were living many people’s dreams and that we were nuts at the same time. Well, we have heard that from scores of
folks reading the web site and sending us messages stating that exact statement. “You guys are my hero’s”
he said.
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| Chris Thomason from Fairfield Inn |
We
had a very nice conversation about the bikes with Chris and he just kept on shaking his head and could not believe that we
have done this with no support vehicle. That is one of the most common questions we run into. “Where is your support
truck?” we hear all the time. Well, our support consists of each other and a bunch of parts and tools in our saddlebags,
none of which, by the way have been needed since the start of our trip!
Tomorrow we end our ride in Knoxville Tennessee
at the Honda HOOT where we will meet with Charlie Keller and the rest of the HRCA gang.
We will be involved with various activities at the
Hoot and will report on them at the end of the week.
Today our ride completed at 123 miles and this takes
us to a total of 4,207 miles.
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