Day 5

How to recount Day 5 of the Prefrontal Tour, dear reader, other than to relate the day's events to an experience you're all familiar with. You arrive at the airport, excited to be traveling on vacation. Your flight is delayed slightly, and then delayed again. After an indeterminate number of delays, your flight is finally cancelled, and you're left to your own devices on how to manage your possessions, lodging, dining, and hopefully an eventual arrival at your ultimate destination. And you're not allowed to know when "the machine" that is the airport might finally lurch back into motion and start moving people again. And so it was with the intrepid team today, as we received one missed deadline after another, and shuffled our possessions between the hotel and the dealer's waiting room. Our seeming high note came early when we walked next door to the Waffle House for a first-time breakfast (for Jim), and I told the waitress I'd have a combo with a couple pancakes. I don't recommend making that mistake. I visited the bike several times, and it was a veritable yard sale, having been torn apart not once but twice to remove the reverse mechanism (literally the least accessible component on the bike), and once again because the mechanic blew a fuse and didn't think to check for it... That put us back 4 hours! Everything was finally buttoned up at 6PM, and we reloaded all of our gear to hit the road for another sunset run westward to Louisville. Jim's nav unit headed us East, so I offered to get us back on track - at least we didn't do any dirt roads this time. Just to make sure reverse was well and truly fixed, I waited until we were 20 miles out of town and I pushed the shiznit out of that bu... Oh, hell no, I didn't. The collection of parts formerly known as "a reverse button" have been relabeled as "are verboten". But somewhere along the ride, Jim's forward shift lever liberated itself from the bike and went whistling past me into the ether... So, Louisville became our destination and we'll be waiting in the morning for the Harley store to open. At least I'll have some time to wash the bike. We ate for the first time (for me) at a White Castle just to round out the gustatory experience, and found a hotel for the night. After the universe delivered the karmic bitch-slap through my reverse mechanism, I'm in no position to complain about Jim's woes, but I do respect the message. If you don't have reverse, there's no sense in looking back. Well played universe, well played.








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