We got a pretty early start this morning – we were only a few minutes later than yesterday. The sky was clear, and the temperature was a muggy 82 deg. F. We found a gas station on our way out of town and wound our way through Monday morning traffic without a problem.

The coffee in the hotel was weak and tasteless. It came from an instant dispenser. After a couple of hours of riding we stopped at MacDonald’s for real coffee. We chatted with a very nice man who lives nearby on the lake. He told us his cardiologist told him he had to sell his Harley. So he did and then bought a jet ski. He took our picture so he could tell his wife about our adventure. I gave him an EZMototTim sticker.

Last year we rode US280 east from Birmingham to Columbus. The first 25 miles is fully developed commercial corridor with tons of stoplights. This year we took US280 east out of Columbus, but when we got to US231, we made a right and went up to I-20 to avoid all the stoplights. Passing through Birmingham on I-20, I-65, and I-22 was a breeze.

We like I-22 because it is not too crowded. It does go up and down big, long hills which put a lot of strain on my bike, The motor really is too small to be pulling a 600 lb. trailer.

When it was time for lunch, we exited and started to head for a city park a few miles off the interstate. Instead of going to the park, however, we pulled into a Pilot Travel Center because I was having trouble with my clutch. The fluid had gone bad and would not disengage the clutch completely.

We had a gas station lunch while I came up with a plan to fix the clutch.

You can see the fluffy clouds in the picture. That’s part of the patter – clear mornings give way to puffy clouds and late-afternoon dark storms. The temperature by noon was 95 deg. F.

After lunch I rode Beth’s bike into town and bought a bottle of DOT-4 brake fluid and a brake bleeding kit. We took the bikes across the road where they were out of the way. We have flushed brakes and hydraulic clutches before and have the routine down pat. Beth squeezes the handle and fills the reservoir as needed,

while I operate the bleeder screw.

The kit was pretty simple – some tubing, a bottle, and a magnet to hold the bottle.

I put the flushed-out fluid in an abandoned water bottle. The fluid was pretty dark.

The fresh fluid in the reservoir looked pretty good.

This problem was of my own making. I knew I should have checked the fluid before leaving home. One day a couple of weeks ago I looked at the bottle of DOT-4 on the shelf and thought to myself, “Nah – it’ll be OK.”

This afternoon we were not able to avoid the rain. The first shower was only 2 minutes long, and we didn’t stop to put on rain gloves. The second shower was obviously not going to be so short, so we pulled into the campus of Ole Miss to zip up the vents in our jackets and put on our crab claw (3-fingered) rain gloves. The shower didn’t last too long, and we stayed pretty dry.

At the hotel I moved my bike from the front entrance to a parking spot. I wasn’t wearing my helmet and ear plugs, so I could hear a very loud rattle coming from the engine. I called the Harley dealer 45 minutes north of here. They can look at it in the morning.

Stay tuned for more repair stories…