Date: 03/08
City: Modesto, California
Miles ridden: 10
Cumulative miles: 9444

We went shopping yesterday and bought some flowers for Tracy, my doctor – without her we would have needed to return home way too early. And maybe we’ll need a bribe…. So we managed to store the flowers in the top box on the bike and we were hoping they would be in similar shape when we arrive at the doctor’s as when we left.  To our surprise, it turns out they were! To keep it short: The doc gave me the all clear and I was over the moon! When we left we took a last picture of the building and the entrance, I couldn’t wait to get back onto the bike.

So we rode straight to the work shop to pick up my bike but…. Unfortunately the new clutch leaver hadn’t arrived yet. Bummer! While we were there I realized that I forgot to mention to Chris  (the mechanic) that all our panniers had the same key. The new ones he ordered had a different key. Sigrid had the great idea that we could swap the cylinders around. So we did – all of them. One of them does not lock properly, but we will get that fixed later. Chris offered to try to sell the boxes plus luggage rack for us on eBay, which is great as we had no idea what to do with the boxes – sending them home would probably be too expensive. After taking some pictures and sharing some stories we went back to the hotel to organize a small farewell party for Saturday.

Back in or room I started to plan our way up to Canada, finally after two month we are going to be back on the road! Well on Monday, anyway. At night, we sat outside our hotel room and watched the sunset. 🙂

The next morning I picked up my bike – it was like Christmas again! Chris had replaced the clutch lever and the bike was ready to go.

We went to the next shopping centre to buy some beverages and some nibbles for the farewell party. While packing everything into the panniers I realized that the size of the side pannier must have originally been determined by an 18 can Budweiser pack. It’s a snug fit! Great thinking Hepco and Becker 😉.

Our plan was to meet at Doc’s BBQ to have dinner and later on to have some nibbles and beer in the breakfast area of our motel. Back in the motel we got a telephone call from Jane and she offered to have our farewell party at her house – the hobbit house – which we happily accepted. Before dinner we went to another pub to meet with Keith – Pats husband. He and Pat wouldn’t be able to see us that night; Pat (the ambulance driver who got us in contact with Tony) had to work.

Ok, so we went to the pub, had a couple of beers, talked about bikes, the US, Germany, Australia and at the end of the night Keith handed me a tyre pressure gauge – with a stern reminder to check it every morning…
For Sigrid he had an Indian flute that he had made. He manufactures those, they are works of Art. Sigrid really loved the flute. Leaving from O’Brian’s Tavern it was just the right time to go and have some spare ribs. So we went to Doc’s BBQ where Tony was playing. We had dinner and Tony was playing blues on the harmonica.

Sigrid thought she might have found another source of income, hmmm, maybe not J

After the meal we went to Jane and Dirks house -the hobbit house. I like the atmosphere of the house. There is plenty of art around and they have a happy room, which is just a room with very bright colours. Well there is the washing machine and a dryer in the room as well, but I don’t think that is the reason that it is called the happy room. We were greeted by Jane and Nancy, Jane’s sister. When we all had a drink in hand Nancy presented us with a little notebook we could take on our trip. They had put their well wishes in it for us and suggested that people along the way could do the same. Jane gave us a door mantra, a small metal plaque with Buddhist inscription; this is meant to live on a doorframe providing good luck for everyone who enters. A bit later, Charles and Rita arrived. They added some quotes to our notebook. The weather was great and we sat outside enjoying the whole evening/night.

The next day I noticed that my new mirrors on the bike were moving around a bit. I tried to tighten them but none of my sockets would fit onto the nut, since the nut was sitting in a pipe and the diameter of the socket was too thick. This meant that we had to wait until Tuesday to go back to the workshop to get it fixed, darn! At night we invited Tony and Deb to a Mexican restaurant to talk about Mexico and to say thank you for all the help. Both of them are accomplished riders and there is a good chance that they will be joining us for our travel through Mexico in October. That would be fun and would have the added bonus to make our first crossing into Spanish speaking country less daunting. By the end of the evening Tony presented us with two side stand plates he’d fashinioned – right out of his ‘Tony Westlakes Motorcycle Products ‘ selection. What a great idea to remeber them by! Thank you so much!

So the next day we started to pack. Man we had accumulated soo much more stuff! We got rid of unnecessary items by throwing stuff out and send some home. Pack again, try to fit it onto the bike, repack, try to fit it again…… Did somebody hear some swearing? It’s amazing how much you accumulate when you are in a hotel room. Anyway, we did send a small parcel with some jumpers, Sigrid old helmet and a couple of other things, booked the accommodation for tomorrow, cleaned the bikes…  Did I mention we tried to fit our gear onto the bikes? So I guess we are ready. Tomorrow morning we are going to the workshop to get the mirrors fixed and then driving off. Canada we are coming!  😀