Day 21- The curse kicks in.

Total miles- I cant even be bothered to get up and check but its not many more than yesterday.

After googling the weather forecast last night and finding out it was going to be in the 40s I got genuinely concerned about my ride today. I stocked up on water and ice and planned to leave at 4:30/5am before the sun came up to make the most of the cool morning.

I was woken up by a facebook message at about 2 (stupid time differences) and got out of bed at four. I packed quickly as I could see the sun was already on the horizon. FF slept in and then moaned for about half an hour about wanting coffee and fruit for breakfast.

I drank as much water as I could,left the room at 5am and went to the front desk to check out. This is where failure number one happened.

I had left my ‘power brick’ and US mobile phone in the room and I had just put my key into the drop box. I tried to fix the key out but my hand was too big and I was on the first floor so I couldnt climb through the window so I had no choice but to sit and wait and wait and wait.

I did manage to get  this photo though .-

Eventually at just gone 7 the front desk opened and I was able to collect my forgotten things. I sat on my scooter and programmed my sat nav. This is where failure number 2 occurred. For some reason it would calculate the route, it would get to 99% and then freeze. I tried over and over again but it just wouldnt work. By this time it was 8 oclock and I was considering giving up and booking another night at the hotel but eventually it sorted it self out and I was on my way.

The first 45 minutes were plane sailing,it was hot but not too hot and the roads were pretty quiet. Eventually I turned off the main road and headed towards a golf club (not a 3 iron in the road but a club where people play golf). The road suddenly changed to a dirt track which I though was novel and would only last for a couple of miles.

Well a few miles passed and then a few miles more and the ‘road’ got progressively bad until I was literally bouncing along a land rover test track. I ended up getting stuck on a few ruts and falling over sideways a couple of times but my gps said kept going so I did.

Eventually I was in the middle on nowhere I hadnt seen any sign of human life for at least an hour and massive lizards were running out in my path.I was lost,mrs Garmin was an idiot, it was hot and I was running out of water.

I took a few breaks in the shade when ever I could find it to try and work out what the best thing to do was. I considered turning back but in the map civilisation looked pretty close.

I stopped here before a very rough section,you can see my scooter half way up.

The road got worse and worse until I was eventually just following very faint tyre tracks through the desert. By now it was midday,stupidly hot and I began to actually think I was going to die out here.

I hit some particularly rocky sections and my scooter took a few hefty blows but it just kept on going. By this point FF was bawling his eyes out saying he didnt want to die (all morning he had been calling me a wimp for worrying about the heat).

Suddenly over the brow of a hill the highway was in sight, I motored towards it then pulled over in the shade to inspect the damage and noticed a pool of oil underneath my engine. I was going to die !

Under the tree that I was stood next to was a skull and a spine from another animal that had tried to cross this place on a scooter. I didnt really know what to do so I called Syd and explained what was going on. There wasnt anything she could do but it helped just to speak to someone. I tried to plug the oil leak with some chewing gum and thread lock but it kept leaking.

I used my sat nav to find the closest hotel but it kept trying to send me back the way I had come. It told me there was a gas station 2 miles away so I topped up my oil and headed in that direction.The road quickly disappeared and turn back into dirt track and the gas station that was apparently on my left was nowhere to be seen. I shouted at the GPS and FF continued to cry.

There was only one thing for it,I could either stay there and burn to death in the sun or ride the interstate back to the nearest town topping up the oil on the way.

Obviously I went for the second option or I wouldn’t be writing this now.

It was 15 miles on the interstate to the hotel so and every one of those miles seemed to take an hour.I rode with my hand over the clutch so that I could disengage the engine if the oil did suddenly run out and pulled over every couple of miles to check the level.

I have never been so happy to see a hotel as I was today. The cool air conditioned breeze dried FF’s tears WE HAD MADE IT,WE WERE ALIVE !

I called my mum and then went about trying to fix the leak. It turned out I had got the source of the leak wrong and put the thread lock and chewing gum in totally the wrong place. There is a tiny hole in the oil screen filter cap that I have now blocked with thread lock. Thanks to the hero that is Graham,who drove for an hour today to fed-ex me a new cover I should be back to a 100%ish fixed scooter by Tuesday.

Tomorrow I ride 200 and something miles to Vegas,see the sights before getting my scooter fixed and heading off and covering as many of the last 500 miles as possible on Wednesday.

I will be in San Fran by Friday even if it kills me ……

https://www.justgiving.com/Matt-Tipper1/