Motorcycle Diary

This weekend I decided to ride the motorcycle down to Norfolk, where Beth and the kids are visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Crabtree. The "bike" gets 50 miles to the gallon, leaves when I want to leave, and (ideally) gets there in 6 hours, so it beat out the bus and train options by around $40-70 and 3-4 hours each way.
I got rained on a bit on the way down but the first 5 hours were cool. Hour six? My butt was killing me. This bike is a single cylinder 650, which means it vibrates quite a bit, and not a big comfy cruising bike in any case.
On the way back I decided to take a slightly different route. It was more "direct" but off the interstate. And it was raining again but about 15 degrees colder.
An hour and a half into my trip the bike started to "stutter" and backfire. Uh-oh.
"Please just let me get to a gas station."
Nope. It got bad enough that I pulled over and turned it off and tried to look the bike over.
Two small pieces of info:
1. I'm not mechanical. I tried reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" one time and I thought the writer was jerk.
2. Beth and I are sharing a cell-phone right now and it was her turn.

So, I'm broken down on the side of the road, in intermittent rain, in approximately the middle of nowhere, without a phone. So I pray, "Okay God, let's see how you're going to work this one out."

You know what? People don't stop anymore. I'm sure part of it is the whole "biker" thing, but there's something else. Since "everyone" has a cell phone, a person on the side of the road is probably just waiting for their.... whatever they called for.

I decided that the best case scenario was someone in a truck or pulling an empty trailer who would be willing to take me and my bike to the nearest bike shop, where I would sit all day (and hopefully not into the next day) until they got me fixed up and going.
I wanted to maintain my dignity though so my strategy became sitting sideways on my bike facing the road (12 inches from my boots) and waving casually whenever a likely truck drove by.
After about 30-40 minutes of this, a truck turned around and pulled in behind me and a young guy about 21 years old leaned out and asked if he could give me a ride somewhere.

I told him my situation and he offered to drive me up to the nearest gas station, which was better than the side of the road so...
It turned out he had a friend who worked at a cycle shop and he got his friend on the phone. The shop was closed but his friend said he'd drive out and take a look at the bike saying "We can't just leave you stranded."

After running a a quick errand with my new friend we met back at the bike. His friend was there, fiddled around with it, tightened one screw and it was fixed. I offered to buy them lunch but they turned me down casually, smiled at my gratitude and drove away.

Thanks Luke and Paul!

"For I was a stranger" and you cared for me.