From Nampa, Idaho... again. 2,056 miles from Lexington or seven riding days. Today I have been behind schedule all day long!

My family knows that on vacations I always say, "We are behind schedule," whether we are or not. It's just one of the things I like to do to drive the rest of the family crazy. But I am a bit of a nut about the schedule. Like when I am traveling, or going on a vacation. The only way to begin a day of traveling is to begin at 6 a.m. if the sun is up by then. Otherwise, I have to start about the same time as the sun comes up. It's a law... in Oregon, I think. It's hard for me to believe, but I have discovered that not everybody works on that same time frame. When my boys start a trip, they like to sleep late. Hey! It's vacation. Why get up early? Then they don't mind driving late into the night, or even until the next morning. If there is not a law against that, there ought to be!

So this morning, I was awake at 6:15, busy with all my chores, and all packed and almost ready to go as the sun rose at 7:05. It was cool at 42 degrees, so I reached for my wonderful electric jacket liner that I have been bragging about, and it was nowhere to be found!

Then I realized that I had left it hanging on the back of my chair at the Hamburger and Ice Cream place last night. And yes, I had both.

I decided to go look on the door of the Hamburger and Ice Cream place and see what time they opened. I went out. Sat on the bike. Hit the start button. And nothing. My battery was dead! Man! When it rains!

So I walked to the Hamburger and Ice Cream place and saw that it doesn't open until 11 a.m.  You just don't know what a tragedy that was.  I was supposed to be 150 miles down the road by 11 a.m. That's the schedule! That's a law!

But I guessed that would give me time to figure out something to do about the battery. Back at the bike, I tried again, and realized that I had left the bike in gear whereas I usually leave it in neutral. When it is in gear and the kick stand is down, it won't start. So I put it in neutral and BAM! It started! What a relief!

But now there was still nothing to do but wait. Do you think I am the kind of person who is very good at waiting? Sometimes like waiting with a church member at the hospital, Okay. But when traveling? No way. But there was nothing to do but make the best of it.

So I did some work on the motorcycle. Remember that problem of the oil leak by the valve covers? That one. Virginia had made an admirable suggestion about calling ahead to some town I would be going through in a few days. Talk to a Yamaha dealer there. Have them order the part, and it would be there when I got there. I liked that idea.

But then I had another idea. Somehow I remembered when my dad worked on old cars. I remembered, how I don't know, that there was such a thing as "Form-A-Gasket" that came in a tube. You smear that rubbery stuff on the part, let it set up a while, clamp them together and Voila! You have a gasket. Not a very good gasket, but one that will get you home to Kentucky.

So I went to the Auto Parts store and bought some PermaGasket. I took the valve cover off. Took out the flattened rubber gasket. Put a nice ring of PermaGasket in the slot. Then put the rubber gasket back in place. Sure enough, I could tell that the rubber gasket now peeked over the edge of the slot. I waited an hour. Put it on the bike. And at the end of the day today - no oil leak!

But I still had time to kill. So I adjusted the chain tension. Cleaned all the old oil leak off the bike. Fiddled and stewed. And finally, 10:30 came. I went to the Hamburger and Ice Cream place and met Jake who worked there. Soon the owner showed up and said, "Sure, we have the jacket."

And by 10:45 I was on my way.

Well, there is a problem with that. This trip has been a lot about time zones. Oregon is in Pacific Time Zone and Idaho is in Mountain Time Zone. That meant that I was not leaving at 10:45 according to my destination. I was leaving at 11:45! What is the world coming to when Mickey Anders leaves on a trip at almost NOON???  That's just wrong.

But finally I was underway. I knew I had over seven hours of driving ahead of me, and I worried that it would be dark by the time I got to Nampa. That's not really a disaster, but well... You know me! Arrive after dark? No way! That's just wrong.

So I was pushing that TW200 for all it was worth. Trying my best to do 60. The speed limit was 65, which meant that EVERYBODY was passing me anyway. This little bike LIKES to do 50. 52 to 55 is Okay. But when I push it toward 60, the little one-cylinder is screaming in complaint. Plus I didn't have the carburetor set for the elevation so I hardly had any power. Also PLUS... the wind was blowing in my face so hard it was making the sign posts twitter back and forth. And there were mountains. The wind was enough to slow me. The mountains made it worse.

All of that meant I was using gas from my little 1.8 gallon tank at an alarming rate. So I stopped where I saw this sign:

Now, what would you think when you saw a sign like that? That they had gas pumps? Wrong. No gas pumps. So I asked a guy who was sweeping the sidewalk if they had gas. He said, "Sure. In cans." Well, I only needed a gallon, so I said, "Fine." Directly another young man went to fetch the gas in a can. He came back smoking a cigarette with one hand and holding an open gas can in the other. Fortunately, he handed it off to me without an explosion, but that's enough to make you nervous!

Before I put the gas in I cautiously asked, "How much am I going to pay for this gallon of gas?" I thought it was a prudent question. He replied, "Whatever you think it is worth?" Wow! So I gave him $5 which should be almost double the regular rate. And soon I was on my way again.

But fifty or so miles down the road, barreling along at 58 mph, the engine died suddenly. Oh My! I remembered the last time that happened to me near Fayetteville, Tennessee. That's when the bike ran low on oil, and I blew a piston. Before I ever came to a stop, I knew that the bike had been leaking oil. My first guess was that I had failed to tighten the oil drain plug, and all the oil had leaked out.

But there was the other possibility. The reserve tank of gas. See, bikes like these actually have only one tank - 1.8 gallons. But there are two tubes into the bottom of the tank, one higher than the other. And there is a switch above the carburetor to select which tube draws the gasoline. I use the higher tube until it sticks above the gas level, and I run "out of gas." But I still have the "reserve tank," which is not really a reserve tank, but the rest of the 1.8 gallon tank that I have. I just use the other tube which really is in the bottom of the tank.

So I switched from one tube to the other, popped the clutch, hoping beyond hope. But nothing.

So I stopped on the side of the road and began thinking how in the world I was going to get this bike to civilization to have the engine reworked. I was still in the middle of the high desert. But there was traffic. Someone came by every 15 minutes or so. And there were a lot of pick-up trucks in this area. I figured I could get someone with a pick-up truck to take me to Nampa to a motorcycle shop.

I looked at the sight glass to see the bad news about the oil. At first I thought there was nothing, but I leaned the bike, and discovered that it was full of oil. I hadn't lost any!

So I got on the bike, hit the starter, and BAM! It started right up again. It was the gas problem. So I knew I had about .4 of a gallon to make it to the next gas station. Fortunately, there was one within that range. And soon all was well again. Well, after I adjusted the carburetor for the elevation.

And I decided that I had had enough of pushing the bike so hard. I would listen to the bike. The bike likes 52-54, I would settle for 52-54. And that's what I did for the rest of the day, and the bike ran perfectly.

Finally, I got out of the high desert, and got into the high desert mountains, which has some really beautiful scenes. Here are a few:

Before you knew it, I was having a big time again, enjoying all the scenery. And then I got out of the high mountains into the farming area. I finally realized what crops they were growing when I saw this barn:

Sure enough, I saw trucks loaded with onions. When I drove by the fields, I could smell the onions. The fields of onion looked like nothing I had ever seen. Here is a picture of what I saw:

I thought it was incredible to see the rows plowed and all those onions laying right on top.

The temperature had been so pleasant all day. Since I got a late start, the temperature was already 65  when I started and got up to the low 70s. Very pleasant.

So I ended the day with a wonderful, wonderful and beautiful drive through eastern Oregon and western Idaho.

And best of all, I arrived not long before dark.

Sorry for the long narrative, but it was an exciting full day for me. But a very good one in the end.

Thanks for your interest.