Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

We’re at the Dunnigan Rest Area on I-5, somewhere in Yolo County. This is definitely the central valley, with fields and rivers as far as the eye can see–or at least, until the eye bumps into the distant foothills.

I was up at 7:30 this morning and everything pretty much went swimmingly until I ran out of gas. Typically I’m up before Don, allowing me to work, drink coffee and generally wake up.

The minute the office opened at 8 I was down there to make my return reservation, pick up my free cup of coffee and then get a new laundry card. I started laundry, and used the between time to suck down data I needed to do the tax returns–forms, mostly, and data. My accounting program corrupted and refuses to reinstall, so I have to pretty much reconstitute the accounts from scratch.

(Excuse me while I sway around: Don is climbing about on the roof; the cats are hiding again.)

The laundry was done by 10:30 and I hopped on my bike with the hopes of heading to the post office to get stamps and maybe score a Netflix DVD from the post office box. I figured we might get an early start as we’d done most of the work in advance–tire inflation, maintenance, that kind of thing.

The universe, as the universe is wont to do, had a different idea. The last time Don and I filled up together, we prepaid $20 and I didn’t quite get a full tank. The bike conked out at exactly 89 miles instead of its usual 120 to 130, and I was left pedaling the thing off the main drag into a residential street. Huff-puff, huff-puff.

Multiple phonecalls failed to raise Don from his sleep, so I called the office staff at the RV park and had them go round and hammer on the door. That worked. ;) Because the only vehicle left at the campground was, due to our rare efficiency, the RV, Don then had to break camp on his own and head down in the RV.

It took a while–long enough for me to find a local strip mall, realize that there was a gas station a third of a mile away, and get lunch. It’s hard work to pedal a bike, so I just walked on back and waited with my impromptu lunch. I wasn’t bored: I had a saddlebag full of old books from the last Book Crossing meetup and read about the Pony Express.

Don tootled up in Harvey, and tried to get a few drops of gas from the generator. Alas, the generator was low, so no gas was to be had. He tried the tried and true method of shaking my bike to get a few drops out, but to no avail. It was capital-E Empty.

So, off we went on an RV ride to pick up a gas can, ho hum, tra la, diddly wee. Gas was deposited, engines were started, and there was much rejoicing.

By the time we filled up Harvey, it was three o’clock…but we weren’t bored. ;)

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