It all started about 3 months ago when my pops told me about the oil boom that had been going on in North Dakota. I have lived in Orlando FL for the last ten years. During my time there I did quite a bit, but I was starting to feel as if I was in purgatory. No matter what I did, I could never put away enough money to pursue my dreams of traveling and one day buying a large piece of land to do some experiments in terraforming, farming, and sustainability. After doing some research on the job market in ND, I decided it was the best chance I had to have some adventure and possibly kill two birds with one stone. So in a period of about 3 weeks I sold my recording studio and t-shirt business equipment, my car, and of all my worldly possessions save my motorcycle, a couple changes of clothes, and some camping gear. Suprisingly, just having less stuff has increased my happiness and sense of freedom ten fold.
After doing a bit of maintenance and building a monstrous sissy bar to strap my bags to, my bike was ready to hit the road. The only thing left was saying goodbye to all my family which was and still is the hardest thing Ive had to deal with in my 30 years. Im the 2nd of 7 siblings and my family is what makes me feel more wealthy than anyone else Ive ever met. Despite how much I knew I was going to miss them all, it was long past time I got out and saw some of the world.
I left from my pops office (an old steel fabricating shop where a lot of the framework for NASA was done) and headed west to meet up with a buddy who I had planned to travel with for a large part of my trip. Prior to this trip, he was really pressing me to do some backcountry hiking and I was on the fence about it. Roles reversed though on our first real hike through the red river gorge in Kentucky. We got no further than half a mile before he got a blister and we had to pitch camp. The next morning I was informed he was through with camping and was headed to a pricey concert with some of his friends. This was when I decided I was going to finish the hike and fly solo the rest of the way.
I started having second thoughts about this choice when my bike, which had been running like a champion the entire way, started having troubles no more than 10 minutes into my solo journey. To top it off, a record breaking heat wave had just hit the entire eastern side of the states and temperatures were easily peaking 100 on what seemed to be endless miles of newly paved asphalt in Kentucky (it was so hot my kick stand was leaving holes in the road). This is when my adventure really began.
Despite my pretty firm knowledge of mechanics, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was causing my bike to bog down and choke out whenever I tried to go any faster than about 40. The heat wasn't helping my thought process at all so I hopped on my bike and limped into the nearest town where I found a McDonald's to rest and rehydrate in. I hopped on an internet forum for people who ride bikes like mine and asked if anyone had ever experienced this issue before. As luck would have it, I had several members within a couple hours of where I was that invited me to their homes and had garage space where we could wrench on my bike. It may sound cliche, but there really does seem to be a brotherhood amongst riders. These folks took me in and treated me like family without knowing a thing about me other than that I rode a motorcycle and was in need of some help. Despite having the knowledge of several mechanics who knew a good bit more about motorcycles than I do, we were not able to solve the bogging issue (we did do some tuning and maintenance that was needed though). I decided I was going to have to bite the bullet and find a dealership that had the hightech tools to run diagnostics on my bike to figure out what was wrong. The closest place for that was in Indianapolis which took about two short days of riding at what felt like a snails pace through country roads and vast expanses of sweltering corn fields.
I arrived in Indy on a Monday (which every motorcycle shop Ive ever been to is closed on) and when I went on Tuesday I learned they were going to be closed until Thursday because of the 4th of July. Luckily I had met some nice folks who invited me to stay with them and showed me around Indy. When I finally was able to speak with the guys in the shop they said I would have to get on a waiting list for an appointment and the earliest available time was the 24th. Deciding that was too ridiculous for me, I tried picking the brain of one their guys who was taking a break, but he didn't have any valuable advice and just tried to sell me on buying some expensive parts I was 99% sure I didn't need.
Feeling a bit depressed and not wanting to try another slow trip to Chicago, I decided to do some more tinkering myself. From the get go, it felt like a carburetor issue, but we had taken it apart, cleaned and rebuilt it twice, with nothing seeming out of order. We had also checked the fuel lines which seemed to be flowing fantastic, but not having anything else to do, I had a brainstorm moment and came up with a quick and dirty test for measuring the flow when I was going over 40. Once again I got lucky and finally found the problem. A small little piece which is called a fuel auto valve was restricting the flow when the temperatures in the fuel lines started to rise. Everything seemed to be mechanically fine with it, so I can only assume that the back pressure caused by the heating fuel was keeping the diaphragm from opening as far a should be. The simple fix was just to bypass it and run the line from the tank directly to the carb. Just like that, my bike was back in champion form and I could hear the easy rider music playing somewhere in the distance.
From there it seems like time has really been flying. I spent several days wandering around Chicago which was awesome, partied hard with a bunch of Chilleans and Russians in Madison, and got and inside view of Minneapolis from a really cool photographer. To put a cherry on top, Ive only stayed in a hotel once (during a hail storm that didn't seem to want to end) since I split ways with my friend almost 3 weeks ago now. I been blessed to come across someone with floor or couch space I could crash on in every city Ive been through and gotten a real taste of what the local life is like.
I finally arrived in Fargo yesterday and hit up the local Jobs service to start looking for work. Im sure a lot of folks will think me foolish (which I might be lol) for not securing a job or housing before I came, but I'm not too worried about it. I know jobs (at least the good paying ones with a lot of hours Im looking for) aren't abundant like they have been in the recent past and housing on the west side is near impossible to find, but I feel that once I can get some interviews things will work out. Even if Im not lucky enough to land something right away, I have a pretty good idea of how to kill some time without traveling too far away or spending much money. My main concern is just to land something before it starts to get cold because if I don't, Im going to have to start heading south towards Texas.
I did a good bit of reading on these forums several months back before I left, and quite a good bit more here in the last 2 days. There is lots of good info on this board and the helpful attitude a lot of you portray was one of the things that helped me decided that moving to North Dakota was a risk worth taking. I would really like to meet as many of you as I can while Im still traveling if any of you are interested. Im a pretty handy guy also if anybody is in need of help around the house, farm or whatever. Ive been so blessed on my adventure that I just want to share the positive karma and good will Ive experienced with as many folks as I can.
Ive also taken quite a few pictures on my adventure to share with my family. If anyone wants to check them out you can do so here
http://s1166.photobucket.com/albums/...our/?start=all
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
