flat tire crisis/saga Part 1
My first morning at the Grand Canyon started off great. Barry & crew cooked up a delicious brakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes, grilled veggies, coffee, & juice. The sky was crystal clear and it was already in the 70s by 10AM. i packed up my gear at a leisurely pace and set out to return to pavement and civilization. The only route was a very primitive, unmaintained road made up of mostly gravel with periods of big rocks, deep sand, severe washboarding, steep grades, blind cresting curves, and the occasional long straight inbetween hillsides. 60 miles of it. In fact, pieces of vehicles were scattered along the way like scraps of tire, broken plastic body parts, or entire license plates. None of this was any real concern to me, however, i was riding the ultimate 2-wheeled explorer, the king of all thumpers, the KLR650! The first 5 miles nearest the overlook are actually the worst, and can only be travelled at very low speed, 1st gear crawling, and this is where i took a few pictures of the rugged-ness. For the first 10 miles i was having possibly the best morning of my life; it was all worth it...the job, the stress, being broke, it was all worth it for what i was doing. I had a kind of complete satisfaction and contentment , pride, confidence, and clarity. It was exactly a week into my journey and things were going, on average, very well. I was taking pictures and video of my ride back to the highway when (unfortuneatly between videos) a very load WHACK WHACK WHACK from under the bike...
