Travelogue -- Dr Bob's Northwest Territory Motorcycle Ride
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8 June 2015, 9:00 PM CT, Alexandria LA

Well, you can see from my byline that I am still in Alexandria. I didn't ride many miles today, only from the hotel to the Harley dealer and back to the hotel.

I took one picture.

Keep in mind that what I try to do with my pictures and text is to give you a feeling of what I experienced that day.

I guess I am done for tonight.

But maybe before I sign off, I should tell you a little bit of what happened when I was at the place you see pictured above. You know I had some dead gages (tach and speedometer and some warning lights). I had tried changing a fuse. There are about a dozen of them, and they all have names that sound like something else, like radio, ABS, etc., except for one called instruments. I changed that fuse but the gages were still dead. I did that yesterday morning.

I woke up early today and headed to the Harley dealer, I wanted to be there early, before the official opening for the day. I was there about 15 minutes early, and they were already accepting some bikes. They were very good to me and got me in the shop right away. The problem turned out to be a broken wire, the wire that carries power to the gages. Keep in mind that there were other gages that did work, just not those two that are separate in the layout. The wire that was broken was inside a harness that runs from the battery area which is under the rider's seat along the frame up under the gas tank to the neck and then into the gages. It is hard to say why that wire inside the harness was broken, it was not at a stress point, it was in the middle of a tied down harness. I saw the bike at one point in the shop, they were showing me where the problem had been, and all kinds of things were hanging off the bike where it had been taken apart.

It was late afternoon by the time I got the bike, too late to go anywhere. I had a phone committment that meant I needed to stay put.

I am about 120 miles from Baton Rouge, and another 80 from New Orleans. My plan had been to ride into New Orleans, and now I am trying to decide if I want to do that or just keep riding toward home. My initial plan had been to ride Interstates to get back home when I reached I-10 (except for riding through New Orleans), which will happen tomorrow. The reason for riding Interstates to get home is that it is hot and muggy and I have ridden the same part of Florida many times.

Now my gages work. Now my odometer works. It did not count miles during the dead time -- I know that because the mileage showing after repair was approximately what my estimate was when it quit working.

I estimate that I rode 14 miles today.

I estimate that I rode 296 miles while the odomoter was not working. So my total official trip miles as of now is 5,115.