16 days, I wish all systems were go

P-Rock is in da house.

I stopped by Blackie's house Sunday to check on his bike progress. It seems he's making good headway in getting his ride ready for our departure on 7/1. I on the other hand seem to be going backward. While I got my straps installed to hold the bag on the pillion, pretty much anything electronic has been turning to absolute poopage in my hands.


While testing out the GMRS radios, my COM system decided to take a big hairy dump and quit working entirely. I had music through the bike speakers, but I could get nothing to work through the helmet - so the GMRS test didn't come off, at least from my perspective. After some fiddling we figured out Blackie's system and had it working quite well. I hope he takes some pictures of the electronics pad he's built for his tank bag. It really looks slick and gives him pretty much everything at-hand. It's quite an engineering feat you can barely see here in this picture. His LT is the one on the left in the foreground.

We took off after some time working on the bikes to tear up the local roads - man was that fun. I do have to say that while this is an 850 lb motorcycle, it handles like a dream. On the way home from Blackies I scraped the center stand three times in left handers - who'd think you could do that on this big beast?

We are headed off with a big group of people to a Buffett concert this Thursday, should be a great time, as we are big Parrotheads. Many thanks to the on-crutches Mrs. Blackie for today's pictures. I am thinking that crutches are a must for photography - look how stable and clear those pictures are :) We all hope you are back on two good feet soon ma'am.

We had a short discussion on possibly trying to figure out some sort of way people could donate money that we would pass along to a charity as part of this ride. Nothing firm yet, but what a great way to raise awareness of a cause and rally people to action. We were thinking in terms of something like a half-cent per mile donation, which works out to about $50. If anyone following this has any ideas please post them as a comment, I think this would be a great way to make the ride even more worthwhile. We don't have any particular charity in mind, but between Blackie and I, I am sure we'll choose a good one if we decide to add this to the trip.

P-Rock, dying to get on the road.