Wednesday – Salt Lake City

Well, the weather was turning, it had been beautiful and sunny the past two days but clouding over now, cooler and a bit damp 😦 I had things to do today, with only one day left before we head south for a ride 🙂 First off, I had to take my Elka shock to post it back as it has a problem with the preload adjuster. So, off I go to the US post centre where I got it packaged and shipped back to Quebec in Canada. Not cheap at $24US, but it has to be done.
You can see the crappy weather outside the post shop.

The next stop was back at the RV and Marine shop that I had been to the other day, I wanted some cable for power hook up and a waterproof two pin plug/socket. I want to add power to my tank bag for charging on the move. But, they could not help me except make a few phone calls and said they have one down town at another marine place, which is where they would source it from.
It sort of makes me feel cold looking at the machines on the shop floor 🙂

I did not mention the wind that was about, crikey it was blowing, at one stage it nearly blew me into the next lane on one of the freeway flyovers! Check this flag out, they have heaps of these massive flags around the city and it is nearly horizontal!

I tried a few places to get some cable, at one I got some male bullet connectors for the heated grips, then next I tried a car audio place and he gave me some red/black twin cable for free 🙂 Thanks m8

I went back to the house and checked out the tent that Ken had brought home and although a struggle inside the garage (too cold and windy outside) I managed to work out how to pitch it. It was only a two man and not free standing, but the price was good so I decided to try it a few times and see how I go.

I connected my heated grips and used a fair bit of glue again, I remember the last time 🙂 After some lunch it was off over to the Suzuki shop again, craftily I had stored the location as a favourite in my TomTom 🙂 The hand guards had arrived, so great stuff, I bought them and was on my way. Now I tried to find the marine place to get them connectors, but no way could I find it. The city grid system had me stumped again, although I asked a few places. This is at yet another intersection I know not where 🙂

I even made a few incorrect turns, especially when I hit one way streets. I got some honks, a bit scary when the headlights of cars are right in front of you 😦 I survived, a bit shaken and not stirred and eventually found the correct store, bought the bits I needed and headed back and installed the hand guards.

I think the bike is nearly finished 🙂 As it was a Wednesday, Ken gives instructions on certain subjects to the boy scouts while Bev does some things with some of the local girls. Well, Ken asked if I would be interested in going as a ‘show and tell’, maybe the kids would like to learn something about bikes or Australia, so I said sure. He chuffed off and phoned a bit later and said he would pick me up at 7.30pm. Meanwhile their son Fenton was going to give beginners guitar instructions to the girls group. Busy, busy, busy, while I continued cleaning up and sorting my gear in the garage. Eventually, Ken came and we took the bikes up the road a bit to the boys group, even though it was spitting rain and cold, brrrr 🙂

So, once we got there and the boys gathered around, of course they had no questions, wrong age I guess and too shy. But, the leaders asked and we both, Ken and I, talked about the bikes and travel etc.

Then we headed back to the house where it turns out the girls had got bored with music, poor Fenton, and I was roped in to another show and tell, this one a bit more enthusiastic on the part of the girls and I am sure I made nothing up about Australia, no exaggeration, honest 🙂 I found out later Ken had been busy with my camera while I was handing out my website card and spruiking nonsense 🙂

Meanwhile Fenton was sitting back watching all the fun, he told me later after about 15 minutes the girls had started to talk about hair and clothes, very short attention spans 🙂

And finally a photo of Ken and Bev, my hosts and they are great at it 🙂

During this evening, I had been expecting a phone call from around 5pm onwards about my netbank stuff, but no calls at all 😦 Once the session with the girls had been finished I went and tried to sort it out again. So, over the next hour or so I managed to get another direct number for the bank and it turns out the lady had tried to call but it never got through?? Once again my parents had been down to the local bank and sent me an email with a direct number and also the number that had been tried by the bank lady. Well, the stupid &^%$^ had totally forgotten to use the international code for the US, which is 1, so of course it would fail. Anyway, I phoned this direct number and finally got through to a human!!!! After a small security session, just to validate who I am etc, he deleted the whole SMS text thing from my account 🙂 Now, all I need to do is log in, answer the on screen security questions like it used to be and bob’s your uncle! Well, it worked, so whatever his name was, good onya m8 🙂

So, having transferred a few grand to my Travelex card, all I had to do now was wait the two days while it gets processed. So, I am hoping it is not two business days as Easter hols are on the horizon.

Anyway, it seems that I may be back in the cash society, which means I can give my credit card a bit of a cool down. After that, I started packing some gear up as we were hitting the road in the morning, and it was probably going to start out a wet ride.

Day – 62 miles and 99km
Trip – 951 miles and 1,522km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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