North America Through My Eyes

So a few of you know about my trip.  For those who don't, I'll try and fill you in a bit.  Around the middle of August this past summer I had a trip planned to visit my family and friends back in Nova Scotia.  I had a return flight booked from Vancouver to Halifax.  About three days before I was going to catch that plane I received a call from Gus telling me the pistons I waiting on were finally in, I had been working on my motor with him every Monday for three weeks, maybe 3-4 hours a day.  I made a claim that I was going to cancel my flight, rebuild my motor and then ride my 68 Slab across North America (Solo), I kept my end of the bargain and in a day and a half the bike was back together and sorted.  I got my pistons on a friday and left at 6 AM Monday morning. So from here on out I will try and make a few posts a week including photo's and words.  I would also like to thank all of the filthy filths who helped me with the speed mechanics and everything else, mainly Mitchy and Andrew.

First time fire on the lift

All packed up around 2:00 AM, notice Mitchy's donation covering my seat 

Quick stop in White Rock 

Where I woke up on day two, well into Montana

Skid Plate

I have to write a piece about the man shown above.  Fist I will recap where I am was this point and how I got there.  Before I left I had decided it would be best if i took the I-5 to Seattle then head East on the I-90, the fuel, food and beer was cheaper for one and if I broke down the chances of finding help would be greater in the U.S.  Around noon on day two I was cruising along middle Montana and I rolled up on a Harley dealership.  At this point the only bikers I had seen were on the other side of the highway heading West on their way back from Sturgis.  When I pulled into the dealership to check it out, there was a rugged, aged man that rolled out of his tent onto the grass.  I powered down the garbage truck and had a look around, I decide he was definitely the most interesting person on the property.  I walked over to him and he looks at me and grumbled "Hey old Hippy!".  So him and I got to talking, he asked me where I'm from, where I'm going, the usual, but one thing he didn't ask me was "How can you just take off by yourself with no real plan?".  I could tell he was a seasoned road warrior.  So he was on his way back from Sturgis when he dropped his pully, he had to get a tow to the closest dealership.  They told him he couldn't sleep on the property, and that he would have to find a Hotel, from what I gather he pretty much told them to "Fuck off and fix my bike!".  After a while we start talking about his old Shovel that had been gone for years, then we talked about mine.  I told him the story of where and how I bought my bike, in that story I mentioned smoking some pot, anyway that fired him right up and we ended up behind the shop on a grass hill.  He pulls out a pipe and a pill bottle jammed with Medical Bud, we smoked a bunch and then hung out for an hour or so.  He called himself Skid Plate and had many stories of many places.  Before I got back on the road he gave me roughly a 1/4 to keep me going.

Grizzly