TravellingStrom

Wednesday – McCall, Idaho

An early start as I had promised myself and I was off and heading south around 9am though farm land.

My first goal was a state sign of Idaho, so I stayed off the interstate but still on a main road. The road followed the river and I soon found some interesting information about this area.

Now, I had mentioned I was travelling through farm land and I was. I could smell something, quite a nice smell and nearly recognisable, but I just could not work it out. It reminded me of cooking in same way, but for the life of me I could not work it out. Then I saw a sign on the side of a building and at the same time saw the machines in the field next to me 🙂 They were harvesting onions, that was the smell, uncooked onions by the millions!

Now I was amongst the small country roads, lots of left and right 90 degree corners around fields, some of which had hops in them.

Now the reason for being here was the state sign, when I did actually cross the border, the sign was illegible, so it was a wasted side trip, I even forgot to take a photo of the crap sign 😦 Never mind, I can get one maybe on the way out in a day or so, so now I made a beeline for Boise and the Happy Trail people, but I still did not manage to find a interstate as I was too far off the beaten track, but the main road when I got on it was fast enough 🙂

Now, when I got here at the outlet store, it turns out that Jason was over at the factory with my lid repairs. When I spoke to him on the phone, they were just going to lunch, it was 11.30am, so I had an hour to burn but I would make my way over there to the factory for a decko anyway 🙂 I checked out the shop and ended up buying some new summer gloves, my old ones had too many holes in them, that is holes where there should not be any 🙂 I needed a multimeter to test my brake lights and after chatting with Ed, he pointed me to Harbour Freight Tools, which was on the way, where I bought a cheapo multimeter and some other stuff 🙂 I like shops like this, I could spend hours in there, but I had to leave real fast as my wallet and hand were getting itchy and I had nowhere to put all the toys anyway 🙂

After some lunch at a Wendy’s I arrived at the factory and met up with Jason, who is the main designer of the luggage. I proceeded to strip the panniers down, and the racks as well. This photo shows the inside of the lids, those nuts are what holds the lid racks onto the lids, they are the cause of the seal failure as every time I open the lid up, these nuts drag across the rubber seal and rip holes in them, (ignore the loose bolt and washer).

That said, I have never had water in the panniers due to the seal failure, but they needed to be fixed. Now, Jason tells me it is only in the past few weeks he has come up with a fitting that solves the problem once and for all, this is it, flat headed tube bolts and nuts 🙂

The bonus was instead of repairing mine, he had brand new lids, lid racks and seals for me, thanks very much. We also discussed a few other issues, mainly customer feedback from my point of view and it turns out a number of these had been addressed already and they have a whole new mounting rack design and also pannier mount and release. A shame he had none in stock, I may have talked him into letting me test them through South America 🙂 So, all in all I was there for a few hours stripping the rack off the right hand side to get a new flange welded on and of course getting it all back together. I also had a tour of the factory, but I was not allowed to take any photos, fair enough.

During this time while it was apart, I checked my brake lights with the meter and they work, real strange they did not the other day, but at least now I have a meter and now know it is not the bulbs, but maybe a loose connection somewhere?

I have to thank Happy Trails for their time and effort, I like the luggage system as they are tough, mine have been dropped on quite a few times, the right hand one has killed a roo, I have used them as an esky many times and even spoke to them about an insulated slip in liner to help the Aussie people use these more effectively as an esky 🙂 Hopefully they realise I was absolutely serious 🙂 Anyway, I fuelled up down the road, here I saw the typical American girl, fuel nozzle in pumping fuel and her standing there texting on her phone, at least she was not driving at the time eh!

I took the main route from Boise to McCall where I had been invited by a fellow rider to stay and have a BBQ with an Aussie friend of his, snags and cooked onions on the menu at last, maybe 🙂 This main road took me through a lot of nice winding country next to the river, a great ride, most enjoyable 🙂

There were some information boards along the way as well, so I stopped and had a read, they were interesting.

More twisties to get up high into the plateau area, up around the 4000ft mark.

I arrived at Mike’s place where I was presented with a beer, thanks for the thought m8, all I need now is a stubbie cooler that fits that size can 🙂

We chatted for a while before I had a quick shower and then we headed into town where we were to meet some other people at an eatery where they have pizza beers and music 🙂

Now, I had been introduced but of course there were too many names to remember, so to make it easier I named them thus which got a bit of a laugh, from left to right it is Bruce, Sheila, Sheila, Bruce, Mike, Bruce and Bruce 🙂

During the evening of course I started to remember some of the names, and with a bit of help from Mike, these are the corrected names 🙂 left to right – Winston-Bruce, Karen-Sheila, Ellen-Sheila, Matt-Bruce, Mike, Ed the Aussie Bruce and Brad-Bruce 🙂 It was nice to meet you all I had a great time 🙂 Now, here is a beer I could live with, normally I am not an Ale drinker, but I decided to try this one and it tasted quite nice actually, of course it is the Holy Grail of beers 😆

This is Adam the singer, I tried to get him to sing a song called Tiger Woods, by Dan Berm, but no luck. Scotty back home would not sing the song, nor Toony, one day I will hear a live version. This chap had actually met Dan Berm and knew of the song, so I am getting closer 🙂 Adam writes a lot of his own stuff and they seemed to be slightly protest songs from what I could understand, usually about the local issues.

As Mike was driving he could not drink, so I suggested that was unfair, maybe we could adjourn back to his place and have a beer, this was acted upon and we were soon chatting about lots of stuff. Matt-Bruce and myself managed to get into a ‘spirited discussion’ about a few things, but that was sorted out.

As for the snags and onions, it never happened. Apparently, Matt-Bruce the brew master at his own local micro brewery has no liquor license, so he has a pub with beer but no beer license, as useless as tits on a bull eh! That was where were supposed to go originally, but the plan was changed at the last minute. It seems there was a change to the requirements, so although the paperwork had been done, the ‘license’ had not arrived or been issued. Never mind, it was a nice evening with some pleasant company, regardless of where we were at the time. It was very late by the time we finished up, well after 1am anyway. Tomorrow I was heading to Spokane for the finish of the Iron Butt Rally where Margaret and Davo were competing. Well, bad news for Marg as her bike was down with a couple of broken valves after a bolt came loose. I had no internet here so I could not check, but she had told me if she could get back on the road by 6.30pm this evening(Wednesday) just gone, she would be able to finish in the points, so good on her, meanwhile Davo had been to the Gay bar in Michigan and was heading to Manitoba and the other maximum bonus points along the way by the looks.

Day 208 miles and 335 km
Trip – 34,634 miles and 55,738 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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