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"My Eastern present."
(letter from Gary Thomson)
-"As the Boon's are arriving in July-Aug for and have rented a bike I had to get busy and get a new bike for myself. I sold my bike 1998 Road King and came across this 2002 Road King for sale in Edmonton. I was going to buy a "sporty" HD, but Deb thinks that I do not need another bike, so I will just have to make this Road King as sporty as possible. The bike does have "Vance & Hanes" pipes on it, with a stage one kit and HP air cleaner assy, so it sounds more then sporty, and goes OK, (for now). |
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Had a bit of an adventure collecting the bike over the weekend. Took the bus up to Edmonton, 3 hr drive, where my brother picked me up and we spend the night drinking beer and getting ready to pick up the bike in the morning. My brother lives about 1 hr west of Edmonton, which I didn't know when he picked me up from the bus. When I got up in the morning I should have had a feeling what was coming as when I was having a shower and just got the shampoo in my hair, (or in John T's case the bar of soap), the water suddenly turned ice cold. That was a nice awaking experience and was just the start of my adventure. As we started driving into Edmonton from my brothers house it started to sprinkle a little rain, but there was still quite a bit of blue sky around, but the temp was only about +7C. I collected the bike and got about 5 minutes away and it started to pour rain. We then decided to go to a local Irish pub for lunch and a few Ceasar's to see if we could wait out the rain. After lunch and 2 Ceasar's the pouring rain turned into heavy snow fall. After 2 more Ceasar's I now had a choice as I did not know anyone that lived close to where I was where I could wait for better weather. I could sit in the bar and continue to drink Ceasar's until I was unable to drive, and as I allready had 4 I was getting close to that point. I could try to drive back to my brothers in the snow storm, but that meant that if I did arrive there OK I would then be 4-1/2 hrs from Calgary when the weather got better. Or I could give it a go and drive 30 minutes south from Edmonton to Leduc and stop at Kevin & Michale's and see how the weather got from there. I decided to go for the last option and put on all of my warm clothes and luckily I put a wet suit in my bag and I put that on as well. I then said good bye to my brother and headed south into the great white unknown. The trip to Leduc was "refreshing". I could not see a thing as the windscreen and the front of the bike had snow more then 1 inch thick stuck on it and my glasses were fogged up and also had snow all over them, but I did manage to get to Leduc and even managed to do about 90-100 km all the way. I didn't want to go any slower as the speed limit is 110 and I did not want anyone running into me from the back in the snow if I went any slower. Most of me kept pretty dry, except for my shoes which were soaked and frozen up with ice. I then stopped at Kevin's and watched the weather channel for a could of hours as I still had 2-1/2 hr drive (in normal weather) back to Calgary, and dried my shoes and socks in the drier. After a while the snow stopped and there was even a couple of patches of blue shy, but the temp was now about +2C, but I decided to go for it anyhow. I drove all the way to Red Deer, 1/2 way , with no sun in site, but it didn't rain so it wasn't too bad, but I was frozen so I stopped at some Cowboy Bar for a couple of beers and to warm up. I then took off for Calgary and it was sunny for most of the way but about 30 minutes from Calgary it started to rain and when I got on the freeway in Calgary, the bike and I got covered with filth from the road. I arrived home at about 8:00 PM, 10 hrs, after I picked up the bike for the start of what should have been a 3 hr ride. I was frozen and had to spend about 30 minutes in a very hot shower. Oh well I now know that I can drive in the Canadian conditions, a bit different from the heat and sand I am use to." |
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