Crappy day. Terrible aweful no good very bad day.
This was my view for most of the morning. The plan was for us to get on the bikes, and ride to Devils Tower. Unfortunately, even before we left the Buffalo Chip things started to go seriously wrong. The first thing was when RC was following me as we were leaving the campground wasn’t paying attention and ran into the back of my bike going at 5 km an hour. Didn’t seem like a very fast speed but the weight of his bike was enough to smash my turn signal on the back of my bike. Actually not just smash my turn signal but obliterated the whole light bar on the back or my bike. I guess the only good thing that could be said for the whole thing is that at least he hit the turn signal and the saddle bag as opposed to the bumper. As it was, it was still a stupid thing for him to do. That pretty much sealed my opinion of him as a ride companion for the rest of the trip. I was done.
Luckily one of our group had duct tape and we were able to tape the housing and the arm on so at least we could still ride and be legal. We made our way from the Buffalo Chip onto the highway, although it took the better part of 45 minutes. At that point my red light came on and stayed on – basically indicating I was having a charging issue. Because of the heat of the constant idling, the bike shut down and when it shut down it refused to start. We pushed it off to the side of the road, and that was the end of our ride for the day.
At this point the only thing that could be done was for us was to wait and see if the bike would start or to try and kick start the bike. We pulled the bike off the road onto a turnout and waited. Husband went into the Buffalo Chip and try to find a place to buy a battery. He later called and told us that there was a shipment of batteries that were coming in from Spearfish, but wasn’t sure when it was supposed to arrive. For all intensive purposes, they were supposed to arrive at 11 AM. The time at that point was 8. Sigh
Needless to say after sitting on the side of the road for 2 1/2 hours I was done. We pulled the bike off and we tried to pop – which did not work either. The only thing I remember about all of that was someone saying “well that’s something I’ve never seen before” as I pushed our friend R? Down the hill. I ask you – what’s wrong with seeing a guy on a Harley being pushed by a woman??? We pulled the bike off to the side of the road into the campground and parked it.
After a couple of hours, the batteries arrived, we were able to pop the new battery into the bike. And get it back to the campsite. In the process, I did a great job of slicing open my thumb in a tremendous fashion. ( Undrstand this – I don’t do stitches!!!!!!)
That was the end of it for me. I spent the rest of the day getting seriously drunk, enjoying the concerts, partying with the trailer next to our then crawling into the tent and sleeping soundly all night long.
Two Wheeled Life 