Day 22, Friday, July 8

Well, when I took the bike back to the dealer this morning, they confirmed my fears. The clutch is done for. Needs to be repaired/replaced, and it definitely won’t make it over the mountain range to San Francisco where there’s another BMW dealership in a more interesting location. As though that’s not enough, they’ve done 2 clutch jobs already this week and are now out of parts, AND they can’t get parts until tomorrow, AND the shop is completely booked already on Saturday, AND they’re not open on Monday, AND the work will take all day Tuesday, AND they may even need to continue some of the work on Wednesday morning. CRAP, CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!!! At least they gave me a loaner motorcycle, a Triumph Bonneville, for the weekend. Well, yeah, I’ve got a loaner motorcycle, but I’m in Salt Lake city, it's 105 degrees and smoggy today and the Mormons aren't exactly known for their Partying. Sooo riding would be miserable (about like holding a hair dryer on HIGH directly in your eye), partying is pretty much out, and I’m at a KOA which, while quite nice inside, is in a bad area of town right by an EXTREMELY active freight train line and with the airport less than a mile away. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the better part of a week.
Enter my brother Peter (thank you, thank you, thank you!) I called Pete to whine about my situation and he immediately says "I think I can hook you up, let me call you back in about 20 minutes." Turns out that Pete’s ex girlfriend, Lara, has a sister, Suzie Liese who lives near Park City UT with her husband TJ and their 2 year old son, Zeke (Ezekiel). What a hook up! I called TJ and within an hour and a half, TJ was at the KOA picking me up and taking me out to join them at their place. TJ, it turns out is an ex-pro snow boarder and now does professional photography of cost-no-issue mansions in the Park City Area for real estate listings. Also just so happens that TJ does photography work for the Canyons ski resort there in Park City and that his Mom also owns a time share there. So in one day I went from stuck at a KOA at, as TJ puts it, the corner of Crack Ave and Meth Street in Salt Lake City to joining TJ’s and Suzy’s families at a gathering around the heated pool of a luxury ski resort. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!? After sitting around the pool and mingling with their families, we went back to their house and I set my tent up in their back yard. What a great ending to a ratty day. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, when TJ was driving out to pick me up, towing his snow mobile trailer so that we could load my motorcycle trailer in the back, his trailer came off the hitch at 65 – 70 mph! The trailer only hung on by the safety chain and from the damage to the trailer, we could see that it had swung to nearly 90 degrees to the van. It’s amazing that no more damage was done, that he didn’t lose control, that the trailer didn’t hit any other motorist, and that there was basically nothing bad that came of it. One of the RV drivers at the KOA had all the tools we needed to repair the trailer to nearly good as new.