Thats exactly how its supposed to go. "Its always an adventure" is what my uncle GoGo told me for many years before he took me out on my first haul. He broke me in w/ 3000 mi.! Honestly I coulda turned around and did again no problem. GoGo spent 1.5 hrs at 7:30 in the morning drilling and tapping my inspection plate where I snapped a hex head bolt that morning. I had just done my fluids like 2 days before and thought i was AOK but came out that morning and seen a little dribbled ,, Snap! Bike was running w/ the bags on it! Turns out the inspection plate was bent a little thats why I had been haveing to torque them down so tight every service. He was able to straighten it and get us on the slab pretty quickly though. So that was by 10 AM.

First stop was in Indiana. I pull up to the pump ,, jump off and see oil splatter soaked ALLLLLL the way down the right side of my bike! Looked like the case cracked or something. At first glance it looked like was done. GoGo looks at it and determines that I smashed the rubber gasket on my oil cooler when I was tightening my oil filter. Held up puttin around for 2 days but not on the slab! So I'm trippin out! He played it real cool and knew exactly where a dealer was. "we're just gonna take it down there and have them take this cooler off." So thats what we did,, dealer was cool. Service guy knew exactly what i did before I finished explaining . See's it all the time w/ the older style HD cooler. So much that he was out of the gasket so he did indeed just remove the cooler. They cleaned up my parts bagged them and put them in my saddle bag. Than they pretty much detailed my bike out ,,, $65.00. But we were there for a little over 4 hrs!!!!!!! Needless to say i bought ALL the beers that night. Matter of fact i felt so bad I paid for dinner the first 2 nights also.

That was day 1 !!!!!!!!!

Had a semi hauling a house pass us. We were doing 80 I **** you not. Gets about 30' in front of us and POW! You ever heard a tire blow? Sounds like somebody just stuck a 45 in yer ear and pulled the trigger. I seen it ,, than i heard it plaster my bike bfore i could even process it. It all happened that fast. I'm glad,, cause i didnt have time to swerve and lay it down or something. But it took a chunk out of my chest and broke a bolt on my tail light bar. Bill had a bungee so i strapped it up until me got to a room that night than I took his bike down to a little HW store and fixed it in the hotel parking lot. That was like day 5?

Had big *** bird like about 10 lbs ,, come right out of a tree swoop down and crash smack into my frickin head light assembly. I saw it ,, though to myself noway he didnt hit. Than right about that second here he comes like right under my shield, hits my gas tank and blows right in my lap! Dead as a doornail of course! So i literally picked him up by his leg and tossed him. This was at 80 mph to of course. I swear that bird was on a suicide mission. I was like WTF?

Some good times out on the road man. Good Good Good times.

If your lost,, broke down ,, tired what not. Its still better than being at home w/ work tomorrow! No that i have done it a few times,,, I try to remember that while I am "on my adventure".

I could write pages .... I know exactly how i would spend every single breathing second of my life if I ever won the lottery.

Anyhow man the moral of my story is,,, you sound pretty good at it. It would be crazy if you never done it again.


P.S. Like everybody else said ,, dont take so much stuff. I fill 1 saddlebag and I have 1 tour bag that goes on my luggage rack... and thats it! Still like 5- 6 days of clothes?

 

Dang, dude! Were you moving to Florida?

 

+1......bike looked like a small "U-Haul"!!

 

WOW! Thats a loaded bike!
May I suggest that next time you may want to concider shipping some of your bagage?
Glad all went well and that you had a safe journey.

 

Yes, UPS can be tour friend both ways on a long trip, especially 2-up.

You can also take some of your old thread bare clothing on a one way trip. I try to take this approach with my wife, telling her she has to jettison something to make room for new purchases. She usually wind up with a souvenir and I with something missing.

 

Is that a porta-potty on the left side ?

 

Must have been one heck of a ride.
I'm 27 and don't think I could handle riding 15hrs in one day.

 

Wow!

How many times did Leo pull you over and give you a ticket for exceeding the load limit on half the bridges you crossed? Man that look dangerous. Glad you made it home in one piece.

 

you needed to read some posts on "what to pack "... A SUITCASE ? lol
You should've hooked up a trailer with all that cargo !!

 

Well it looks like you don't believe the old saying
"You can't take it with you."