We are mobile again

Per our plan, we showed up at the dealer Saturday morning right around 9:15 expecting the R1200GS to be finished shortly. After watching an hour of ‘Speed Network’ on TV (boring), I walk back down to the service area and see my bike hooked up to a bunch of hoses and electronic equipment.
Hmm. That doesn’t look like it’s ready ‘any time now’. 🙁 Diane’s F650GS is ready though so we pay for the service and reattach all the panniers and the tank bag … and go back to the customer lounge and wait, and wait some more.

By now we are getting antsy because we still haven’t checked out of the campsite. Our blue waterproof bags are packed but the tent is still up. Checkout is at 13:00, it’s now 11:15. In addition we put together a bundle of items that we packed originally but are not using that we want to ship to Diane’s parents. The post office closes at 13:00. This is going to be tight. Not to mention that we wanted to ride to Great Falls, MT (160 miles away) to get us closer to Glacier as well. Needless to say, I had to really force myself not to start pacing and bugging the service manager every five minutes ;-).

The R1200GS is finally ready at 11:45 (the counter balancer and final drive seals were replaced). We quickly put on my luggage and head to the campground to finish breaking camp and pack up. By the time we are done it’s 12:30 – 30 minutes to go to the post office. I get us lost so we get there at 13:10 – too late, it’s closed. Option ‘B’ – there’s a grocery store nearby that also handles USPS shipping but when I called earlier in the morning their systems were down. We ride there anyways and hope for the best.

They are open for business, yeah, but are out of the large ‘Flat rate’ shipping boxes which are neat because no matter how heavy the stuff you are sending is you pay a fixed amount, around $14 I think. Instead, we have to go the ‘pay by the ounce’ route. After paying our $25 (10lbs) ‘learning tax’ we buy some groceries and head for the ‘Good Food Store’ for lunch. At this point we decided to scrap the Great Falls plans (of course I had already made hotel reservations since thunderstorms were predicted in the area). After canceling the reservations we get a bite to eat. It’s close to 15:00.

We are both drenched from riding at city speeds in our gear, plus the anxiety of trying to get everything done isn’t helping. By the time we check into a hotel in Missoula we are both exhausted although we haven’t really ridden at all. We use the remainder of the afternoon to organize our gear and check up on the bikes. I spend about 45 minutes thoroughly cleaning the oil-film covered area off my bike so I can see if the weeping starts again.

I also cut Diane’s hair with a pair of Wahl clippers we picked up at Wal-Mart, since she figured I couldn’t do any worse than the $15 hair cut places ;-). Plus, now with the clippers I don’t have to shave my head anymore :-D.