Goodbye to an old friend.

The handoff of the Ural to Richard, the new owner, was successful.
Richard and Linda are a very nice couple that have Harleys and ride them all over the place. Linda’s bike has blue flames!
I brought the Ural over to their house on Wednesday night just after they arrived home from a Baja fishing trip. A storm was threatening and I wanted to get the bike inside as it has never spent any time out in the rain. They popped a bottle of good white wine and we polished it off while swapping life stories.
The next morning, after breakfast, I showed Richard the ins and outs of the Ural and he took it around the block, tried out the reverse, etc.
It’s a bit intimidating driving a hack for the first time but once you get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun.
I bade farewell to the old girl but I know she’s in a good home. Plus she’ll have a cool dog, Ivan, to ride in her.

I headed south, sort of aiming for a campground outside of Tulsa but I kept getting lost in Kansas. Well, not really lost but turned around.
My map isn’t detailed enough to show all the roads and I was wandering around a bunch of back roads. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was but I knew I was heading in the right direction. Then the sky got real dark and I couldn’t see the sun.
Living on the coast I always have good landmarks like the ocean and mountains to orient myself. But in a flat prairie with no sun to guide me, I was thinking it was a good thing I had extra food and water in the van.

One thing I’ve found about the back roads is there are no shoulders or rest stops where one can pull over. A few times I wanted to stop to examine the map but had a big semi pushing me so I was forced to drive until I hit the next town.
One trick I learned is to stop before intersections, if there’s a spot to do so, and use my binoculars to read the signs. That works well so I don’t get run over deciding which way I have to turn.
I guess I could get a better map, but this has become a game with me. I’d hate to have anyone think I would ask for directions. That would be unmanly.

So anyway, I ended up in Chelsea, Oklahoma for the night. I believe Keith and Okie Bill from the W650 group live around here.
The motel owner hails from Maryland originally and rides an old shovelhead. I was wearing a motorcycle T-shirt and we started talking about the good old days, when bikes sucked valves and electrical systems fried exactly at the moment when most needed.
I told him I was heading to pick up a Ural and he had never heard of them. After telling him about it, he was pretty intrigued and said he will go read about them on the web.

This area is getting a LOT of rain. So far it seems I’ve been traveling in the eye of the storm, just getting sprinkles. The wind was blowing real hard all the way down and my gas mileage dropped down to 15 mpg. Gas around here is $3.35 to $3.50. These days, that’s the low end of the scale.

I’ve been seeing some pretty depressed areas in my travels, mostly out in the rural areas.
There’s also an incredible amount of damage to trees from ice storms.
I went through one town (Coffeyville, Kansas) that looked like it might have been hit by a tornado a while back. Houses missing and businesses all closed up
Amazing, I’ve never seen anything like that.

I watched the news for the first time in a week and hear there are food riots in other countries and rationing of rice at some stores here in the states. Sounds scary.

I watched about a minute of “the candidates” doing their thing. Pah!
I just wish the politicians would dump their entourages, get in an old van and drive around the country incognito to see first-hand what they’re doing to our country.
I doubt there’s anyone in congress going hungry or worrying about filling up their limo.

…more follows…