A drizzly day, with heavy rain forecast tomorrow, the day I head north to Las Vegas to meet my son for a motorcycle adventure. I decided to trailer the Goldwing to Vegas, so today I wheeled the trailer around to the garage to pump up the tires. While I was at it I decided to hook up the electrics and test the lights, even though they’ve always worked correctly before.
Good thing I checked, because the lights were tits up. Both turn signals going off alternately when I signal left or right, going dark when I hit the brakes, as confused and crossed up as they could possibly be. The wires coming from the electrical connector looked frayed, so I went to the auto parts store and bought another. When I got home I spliced the new connector to the trailer’s wiring harness, but that didn’t fix anything, and I began to feel as if the fates were ganging up on me.
Thank goodness for my friend and maintenance guru Ed. I called him and by great good luck he was home, so I towed the trailer over via back roads and he found the problem … a wire splice somewhere else that had become disconnected … in seconds. Now I really am ready to go. The trailer is attached to the hitch and most of my luggage is loaded. In the morning Polly will help me put the motorcycle on the trailer and strap it down, and I’ll be off.
If it really does rain four to seven inches in southern Arizona tomorrow morning, as they say it might, I-10 between Tucson and Phoenix could be washed out. That’s what happened to parts of I-15 east of Las Vegas during the last hurricane, two weeks ago. When torrential rain hits hard-packed desert it has nowhere to go but sideways, and it washes out roads, railroad tracks, you name it. If that happens, I’ll know for sure the fates are ganging up on me, and will turn back and try again Thursday.
It’s always something. But that’s what makes it an adventure.
If my son and I do pull this road trip off, I won’t be blogging much for the next few days. I’ll be posting short OTR (on the road) reports and a few photos on Facebook and Twitter, and you can follow me there. If I find the time (and can stand typing more than a sentence or two on my phone or tablet) I’ll post something here. No promises, though. It’s time to go live life for a change.