At 1am this morning I veered off I-10 East to I-20 East into Tejas. That will get me home if things go well.
No map to see which towns I'll roll by, but I need fuel.
Miles pass. (I know, done this trip before.)
More miles, but no towns or gas
stations. The TFT warns me I'm down to 19 gallons, and one bar of ten is left illuminated, making me nervous.
Bingo! Where the hell is Toyah?
It's right here. And there is a Valero gas
station!
But it's closed.
But the pumps are working!
Twelve minutes messing with my favorite keyless gas cap.
It worked last time, but not this time.
I tried both keys, in the antenna ring under the rear fender. I turned the bike on again, and off.
Nope. Start the beast again?
Maybe I didn't leave the engine on long enough, so I rode it around the empty, dark parking lot. Half a dozen big rigs were idling, good thing someone gets to sleep.
Back to the pump, shut the bike down once more.
Open, Sez A ME!
Damn, I ain't got time for this.
Out comes the toolkit, and a few bad words. Good the Torx to remove the section of the gas cap tank thing, allowing me to access the tank.
I fill it up with premium, and don't install that piece of the tank ring... the 2 bolts, trim piece, and the Torx go into a little cubbyhole in the top of the tank. The gas cap appears to have latched closed.
Then put Noraly's favorite tankbag back on.
No receipt prints!
Probably won't matter, I'm not making SS1K time with all these delays.
Oh, and it's starting to rain. I put the FroggToggs on almost an hour ago, but I'll probably want to add the heated jacket liner now. Done.
It was a lot of circling to find the Valero station, it wasn't a direct route of the interstate. So now, a few more wrong turns and I'm heading back to the onramp.
It's pitch black, raining, and lousy visibility. There's the onramp.
No, wait. It's that other street! I turned on the wrong one but that's OK, the GPS shows this is a frontage road, and looks like it gets me to the highway in less than 2 miles. We're riding parallel to the freeway.
Now this 2- lane road is getting kinda sketchy, think I'll slow down. The next moment, as I was still decelerating, we pop up over a small rise and it drops down into a flood area! It's dry enough, but there's about 30 yards of sand till the pavement is visible again.
Glad I slowed before hitting that, and we rolled through it to the other side -- where a barrier has been erected a quarter mile down the road. Pulling up to it, I can see this is the end of the road. I can see the interstate, less than 75 yards to my left.
I ride around the barricade, and return the way we came. Dang, I'm tired.
Slowing and looking for the sandy washout, there it is. Just slow and easy, then back to the highway.
The front tries to push through some deep sand, but the sand pushes back and dumps me off the left side.
Well, isn't that annoying.
Pitch black, and sprinkling. No way I can solo lift this with that load out back.
Undoing some 6 or 8 tiedowns, couple of RokStraps, and with the flashlight I see the just-now-filled fuel tank emptying its contents onto the sand. Great.
The tankbag isn't blocking the fuel from exiting, but it sure is getting soaked.
Removal is easy enough, with 4 quick-release buckles. Have I told you how sore my fingertips are from Mosko's quick-release buckles?
Stay tuned, I don't want to lose all I've typed.
Till then, someone took pictures of the event.
