July 29 2017. Steve’s bike was still in pieces. We started back on it at 630 am. We had a goal -if we couldn’t get it running by noon, then Chris and JB would continue on and come back for Steve’s bike with the uhaul in a couple of days.

The rebuild went smooth. It took us about five hours of methodically putting all of the bolts back in. We were researching the internet, messaging with the Wankers and making calls back to mechanics in Florida.

The three Irish bros that we had met two days earlier and warned them about the mud came through town and we shared our story. They heeded our warnings about the mud but ran into closed roads and had to divert to different roads. They were now in front of us. Their goal was to get to Oregon and Uhaul back exactly the same as ours.

While we were still working on the bike, Mike went into town (about 30 miles away) to pick up some oil for our bikes. We had just finished the reassembly when he returned. Oil in, it was time to kick it over. It fired right up! Steve commented that it sounded better than ever.

We had to get moving so we packed everything up, thanked everyone profusely and took off into the afternoon heat of Southern Oregon. Our goal was to reach the town of John Day about 150 miles away.

We came across this old bus in the middle of nowhere.

We transitioned from a desert landscape to tall pine forests within about 50 miles. The riding was smooth and there were no people (campers) in sight.

Bouncing around the forest trails Steve broke another bracket. We stopped for another safety wire fix. This time he added an old nail to reinforce the fix.

The trail through the mountains was beautiful and we arrived in John Day around 8pm. The parking lot of the motel was full of Harley’s headed for Sturgis. The guys were sitting outside their rooms having a few beers. We were certainly a different sight for the Harley riders as we came in all dusty on little dirt bikes.