lets get on with it

Wonderful. That is usually what i have to say when i get good news. Great news in fact. I just found out that I did in fact buy a battery with a warranty!!! Wonderful. NAPA auto parts was more than accommodating when I called them and let them know that the battery that I bought from them less than 4 months ago was dying. They told me that the battery had a 12 month warranty, and even though I didn't have my receipt, they would be happy to give me a new battery on warranty. So in the same breath I must thank our wonderful Couchsurfer friend Katie from Galveston TX for letting me borrow her car to go and drop off the old battery and pick up the new one. Thanks Katie!!!!



In addition Jen and I decided that we would go ahead with the purchase of the battery tender. We decided on the Deltran Waterproof 800 battery tender. The idea is that whenever we have stopped at a city and are working on the bike, or on financing our trip, we can keep the bike's battery plugged in and keep it charged, but not overcharged. I have the new battery plugged in right now in Conroe TX.



That brings me to the final note of this post. We are in Connecticut right now. Jen's family brought us up here for the holidays! While we are here we are having our boots resoled with Vibram soles. This will give our cowboy boots the traction we need to get through the Andes, and the Amazon. While still looking good enough to attend dinner parties and work banquets, biker rallies, and paint the inside of a house. Like this interior we completed at our friend Jet's house. It is a western themed room with this great Blaze Folley picture hanging on the wall.

So let the reminiscing begin. We will be in Connecticut for 3 weeks. almost as long as we were on the road from Seattle to New Orleans. Have we told you about that trip yet???


Benjamin

Might Go Back Down To Texas

I'd like to stay but I might have to go to start over again
Might go back down to Texas, might go to somewhere that I've never been
And get up in the mornin' and go out at night
and I won't have to go home
Get used to bein' alone
Change the words to this song
Start singin' again

-Blaze Foley

So Ben and I are finally getting our act together and starting to write a blog about our motorcycle journey. We have a lot of anecdotes to relate already--it doesn't seem worth it to record what you're doing until at least a baker's dozen worth of folks tell you that you should be writing down your experiences (and taking notes for your 'expose-all memoir' to appear at a later date).

Right now we're in Galveston, and we've been working a lot of miscellaneous jobs to make a bit of cash before we hit the road again. We're for all intents and purposes broke, but with pretty fabulous credit for youngins' (22 and 26, respectively). So like all good Americans, we hold true to the founding tenets of the American dream and spirit: We believe we live in the land of the brave (which explains why we're foolhardy enough to try to make it down to Tierra del Fuego, the southern most tip of South America) and we live in the home of the free (credit).

For those interested, we're riding a 1976 Yamaha XS500. To me, what that means is that it is very small, brown, and old. We stick out like a sore thumb at the Galveston Motorcycle Rally, where we've been working for the past two days at a food booth. We are the oldest bike I have seen thus far, and I think the only Yamaha (although I've seen the guys with the Yamaha leathers on, so presumably they are not flaunting Yamaha gear in a sea of Harley aficionados just because they want to get the shit beaten out of them. I presume this is what motorcyclists do in their spare time, because that is what the television has taught me.)

What is really great about having our cute, sweetheart of a vintage motorcycle (her name is unofficially Bonnie), is that we meet a lot of really great people in really odd ways. Folks love to see us riding a 1976 motorcycle because most of the old guys and gals remember riding them and loving them. And as for the young guys and gals, well, they think we're crazy! for riding such a old beast. We meet a lot of good people who wish us well and we tend to have a lot of good karmic interference. This will probably be a major theme of our trip, as everything tends to land into place in really great ways. Without wanting to jinx it--while setting up a thematic element for this blog--the universe conspires to help us. And by universe, I mean lots of really good folks.

Ok. That is the end of the first entry. The rest of it will be easier than this. And hopefully we will catch up with all our reminiscences from our starting point in Seattle/Southern Oregon, down to New Orleans and out to Galveston. We've already been on the road since August. What a long, strange trip this will probably end up being. Maybe.

Love,
Jen