Our daughter Polly’s possessions are still at the ex-boyfriend’s house in Ajo, Arizona: furniture, kitchen stuff, clothes, the lot. Since she’s still with us and doesn’t yet have a place of her own, the ex has been allowing her to keep her things there. Polly found another job, this time with our local school district. She starts this week, so maybe she’ll find an apartment soon and finally be able to get her stuff back.
Remember the Ducati motorcycle I gave her? We decided to rent a trailer and bring it back from Ajo this weekend, along with her bicycle, important papers, and some clothes she needs for work. Our plan, now that she has our old Lincoln and no longer needs the bike, is to sell it. Perhaps the money from the sale will cover the up-front costs of renting an apartment … that’s our hope, at any rate. After she’s on her own again, she can rent a U-Haul truck and go fetch the rest of her things. She’d better hurry, though. I get the sense the ex is getting impatient with the current arrangement.
You may also remember we’ve been looking for a trailer for our motorcycle. Donna and I thought the trailer we rented for the weekend was perfect and we were all set to buy one just like it, but last night a question disturbed my sleep: will our Honda Goldwing, considerably longer and lower than Polly’s Ducati, clear the apex of the angle between the ramp and the trailer bed? This morning, seeing as how the rental’s still hooked up behind our truck, I decided to find out. The answer is no. No it won’t.
The Goldwing scraped a bit when I rode it up the ramp. I figured it was grounding on the frame or the folded center stand and didn’t worry about it much. Once on the trailer, the Wing fit perfectly. But when I tried to push back out of the trailer and down the ramp, it grounded hard. I had to plant my legs firmly, pull up on the bars, and rock the motorcycle back and forth to get it over the hump. I managed to do it, then took a look underneath to make sure I hadn’t damaged anything.
Sadly, I had. The Wing didn’t ground on the frame or the center stand. It grounded on the plastic coolant reservoir behind the engine, which is now dripping. I’ll have to replace it with a new one, along with all the coolant, before my mid-November ride to Death Valley. And I’ll have to find another kind of trailer, so the search starts again from the beginning. Oh well, at least I didn’t do more damage than I did, and thank goodness I checked before plopping down money on a trailer that wouldn’t have been compatible with my motorcycle.
The drive to and from Ajo is a boring one. It’s a copper mining town, but the open pit mines are shut down and the main employer today is the Border Patrol, which has a large station nearby. Polly’s ex is a BP agent, which is why they were living there. Ajo’s a long way from anywhere: Tucson is two hours east; Phoenix two hours north; Yuma two hours west. Puerto Peñasco, a resort town by the Sea of Cortez in Sonora, Mexico, is only an hour south, so there’s that at least.
Friday night, before our weekend misadventures, Donna and I went out to dinner with Ann and Ross, here from Australia for a few days. We met at a new-to-us restaurant, the Wild Garlic Grill. Great food, but like all restaurants these days very loud. Ann’s American and we had a hard time understanding everything she was saying, let alone Ross, who’s Australian. I’m sure it was difficult for Ann and Ross to make out what we were saying as well. We managed, though, and had a great time catching up with one another in spite of the racket. In fact, we wound up closing the place down … when the waiter took this photo of us at the bar, we were the only patrons there!
I’d planned to ride the motorcycle today, but since I broke it will stay home instead. Seems like a good day to make a pot of chili, and maybe Polly can make corn bread to go with it. Here’s the chili I’ll be cooking today, if you’d like to try making some yourself … I’ve tried many chili recipes over the years, and this is the one I’ve settled on. Tomorrow I’ll take the rental trailer back, and while I’m at the trailer place will see if they have something more suitable for our low-slung motorcycle. If not, it’ll wait. My priorities now are selling the Ducati and fixing the Goldwing.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the beautiful weather. Cooler temperatures are here at last. The air conditioner’s off, the sliding doors and windows are open, there’s a slight breeze wafting through the house, and it’s heavenly.