1.3.04

Day 5: June 26

Day 5: June 26th 29,980 on the odometer
It takes me about an hour to alter the saddlebags on Ceci’s bike. While they do a good job of looking like leather, they are quite poor at acting like leather. As the heat softens up the plastic, it sags closer to the pipes and more heat – a viscous cycle. I drill some new holes in the bags with my Leatherman and succeed in raising them up about an inch. I think that’ll be enough to end the cycle. (As it turns out, I think wrong.)
I still have the first page of the itinerary, and am working on recreating the pages that blew out. The maintenance causes us to get a late start, but we are still way ahead of schedule on our way to Mesa Verde on hwy 550. Until we stop for gas in Bloomfield. I am considering using our extra time to visit some ruins not on our original itinerary when I notice a hole in the frame of Ceci’s bike. One of the bolts holding the frame pieces together has fallen out and disappeared. This can’t be good. Aztec and Salmon Ruins will have to wait for another trip. We check the Garmin for any nearby motorcycle shops without much luck. It does give us the number to a local member of the Christian Motorcyclists Association. He sends us to Doug’s Kawasaki in Farmington, about 15 miles away. Thank You CMA!
Doug’s Kawasaki looks like it’s been around a while. There are enough vintage racing posters on the wall to let you know he has some interesting stories to tell. Unfortunately, he appears to be way too busy to find the time to tell them. Doug says that in all his years, he’s never even heard of a frame bolt just falling out of a Vulcan. It takes him some time to figure out the part number for the bolt that it turns out he does not carry in stock. Fortunately, there is a fastener company in town that carries the right size bolt, so I am sent to go get it. Ceci stays behind and sits on the new Vulcan 900’s Doug has in stock. When I return I am glad to see that she has not decided to replace her 750 just yet.
Neither of our tool kits has the right sized Allen wrench to fit the frame bolts, and no mechanic enjoys lending out his tools, so we let Doug install the bolt. He also checks the rest of them to make sure we don’t lose another. For his service he charges us the exorbitant sum of zero dollars. Thank You Doug! We do buy a couple of Bunjee nets, as some of my old ones are pretty stretched/worn out. He charges us the full (but very reasonable) price for those. In an industry where bad dealers seem to outnumber the good ones, Doug is a good one. I would enthusiastically recommend his shop to anyone around or traveling through the Four Corners area.
We stop for dinner at the 3 River Microbrewery in Farmington and sample some brews with our meal. As we are no longer ahead of or even on schedule, we put off Mesa Verde until tomorrow and head for Four Corners.
The Four Corners Monument is not part of the national park system, so our pass doesn’t work here. It is administered by the local Indian tribe(s). Admission to the monument isn’t terribly expensive, but you don’t get much for your money. There is the big stone slab for you to stand on so you can have your picture taken while you simultaneously occupy 4 different states. There are a couple of souvenir stands, but that’s about it. No visitor center or museum of any sort, nothing to really write home about.
We leave four corners and head to Cortez where we plan on spending the night before catching Mesa Verde tomorrow. The temperature was a bit cooler today and it was actually pleasant at night. Both the hotels and campgrounds were a bit expensive; we opt to sleep in a bed. We spend so much down time for maintenance that we only cover 264 mostly straight, flat, and boring miles.

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