Engine Sputters

Before we even hit the road, complications arise.

First, and the only serious one, is that I ask for your thoughts to be with our good friend Burt Mitchell and his wife Diane and their family. Burt was to meet up with me this Saturday in Northern Arizona and join me for the ride into New Orleans. Sadly, Burt experienced a ruptured cerebral aneurysm on Friday. At last report Burt was doing well, the hemorrhaging having been successfully stopped by the surgery, but prognosis is difficult to make until the immediate situation settles down. Our third rider from the West, MtnRick of Park City Utah fame, will still join up with me in Albuquerque and the two of us will complete the last three days of the ride into New Orleans. We hope Burt will be able to follow our adventures through this diary and join up with us for some future galavantin' around!

Second, The Bike also began hemorrhaging oil this afternoon, three days prior to takeoff. Thankfully, the only thing I know for certain about it is that it isn't related to the mechanical work I did to get the bike ready, as it is occurring in a completely unrelated system. The Bike goes on the lift tomorrow bright and early to see if early hypotheses about the problem are correct. If they are, then it will be just a little glitch and not a serious problem. Let us keep our fingers crossed.

We have been asked by the Best Friends Animal folks to make our charitable target a bit more specific. Rather than have the money we raise go into their general aid program for shelters in the New Orleans area, they have asked us to make it all specifically available to the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter's Animal Relief Project. We readily agreed, as it is a change in emphasis rather than kind, and means our dollars will perhaps have even more of an impact on the ground in one concentrated area in need of help. I understand an article about our little project will be coming out in the Best Friends Magazine, which is widely distributed, and we look forward to a surge of participation as a result. We thank all of those who stepped up to the plate early and really got the ball rolling with the substantial amount which has been raised already.