Wednesday 18th July

 We had one of our usual leisurely starts, so it was already hot when we packed the bikes. Kevin wanted to get a particular synthetic engine oil, so he could do an oil change, and some gearbox oil. He'd seen a bike shop, further up the strip, and wanted to try there.

We pulled up at Tom's Auto and Cycle Repair and were surprised to find a few Shovelheads when we went inside.

Tom is a big Shovelhead fan, but he'd not heard of Shovelhead USA. He only had Harley synthetic oil, which Kevin didn't want He had one quart of Shell aviation oil, which he swore was brilliant for Harley transmissions, which Kev did want. He only had one oil filterHe didn't have enough straight 60 to change the oil in my bike, either. However, he was our happy to let us change our oil in his shop, if we could get some oil.

We went to NAPA, a few blocks down the street, and Kev found the oil he wanted, but only enough for one bike. When we got back to Tom's, he'd found enough oil to do my change and another filter. We rode the bikes into the shop and did the oil changes.




Tom has a fully equipped machine shop at the back of his premises, including a Van Norman Boring Bar.



Tom called his friend Greg to come to see us because he has visited England and has relatives there.



It turned out his Mum had lived just a few miles from Kev's house, and he has a cousin who works at the Volvo Ttruck dealership, where Dunstable's fire engines are maintained. It's a small world! Whilst the geographical revelations were being shared, a young cop came round the shop.

He was excited because his police car was brand new that day. We shook hands with everyone and took our leave.

You may think we hit the road then? Nah, we went for a very late breakfast at McDonald's. We were too late for the breakfast menu, of course, which pleased Kevin. What didn't please him was the two busloads of high school kids, each ordering individually. There was nothing fast about that food!

After our brunch, it was gone midday. We went to a gas station but Kevin tangled with a Lakota brave, causing a twenty minute farce just to refuel. I think they had both prepaid fuel on the same pump. It would have been funny but for the fact we still weren't on the road and it was almost one o clock. The Lakota fuelled his car, then we fuelled the bikes, then we hit the road!

It was really hot when we left Alliance, headed for Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. On our way out of Nebraska, we stopped to have a look at Chimney Rock.

We ran the 85 in Wyoming, to Cheyenne, where we were going to spend the night.

Coming round Cheyenne, I took the wrong exit and we ended up at Warren USAF Missile Base.






Kev checked his map and found a route across town in the direction we would be heading in the morning. We checked into the first motel we came across, with free wifi. We asked if the signal was good to all rooms, because I was desperate to upload my photos and get the blog up to date. This was a the way Korean, rather than Mexican, motel, but the signal was pretty crap just the same. It took about three hours just to upload pics, with the netbook needing to be outside the room, in the end.


There was a biker bar over the road, so we decided to have a couple of beers there after eating at a sandwich shop. When we arrived at the bar, there were quite a few bikes and lots of loud people, but within about ten minutes it was empty. WTF?


Kevin had a conversation about bike building and travelling, with a local couple, but it was really hard work. He gave up and went back to the motel to work on his bike while I blogged. I stayed up till silly o clock, but still ended up a day behind with the blog. AAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!


This was today's route