leapinggnome.org

Last weekend was quite the weekend for Chris and I. We set out towards Baraga to look at some property for sale (Chris is looking for some land to put up a pole barn on). We made it out there fine with some directions obtained from a local bar. The property was nice — rolling hills and woods and out in the middle of nowhere. Just what he was looking for.

The fun came when we decided we needed to get some gas soon. We told his Garmin GPS to bring us to the nearest gas station. Instead of taking the way out to the highway we knew, it told us to go down a bunch of National Forest Service and logging roads. Like fools we trusted in the machine more than our own minds and drove his little mazda right into a big snowbank about 15 miles later — even more in the middle of nowhere.

All efforts to un-stuck the car failed. His cellphone had very low battery and close to no signal. Even if we had been able to get a call out, nobody would be able to find us. It was also getting dark by this point. Chris and I figured it wasn’t really winter anymore, so we grabbed some extra clothes, the GPS and 2 bottles of gatorade from the car and began walking. We ended up walking close to 20 miles this last weekend, 3 of which was straight through the woods, up and down ravines and generally just brutal. Navigation was poor at best with his %*$@ GPS and we were walking through the very cold and very dark night. The next day we got to US41, hitch-hiked into town and called for a pickup. What a great way to lead up to finals week…

Well, today I took the Honda out for a spin…the first time this year. I managed to JB Weld the camchain guide together and install it. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing how well it is holding up, save for spending 45 minutes tearing the thing apart again. So my plan right now is to put about 50 miles or so on it and then take things apart so I can look around.

Aside from all of this, it seems to be running well. I haven’t taken it out of town yet, so we’ll see how it does on the highway one of these days. I really wish the forecast didn’t include rain/possible snow and temperatures headed back below freezing.

Well, Wednesday’s good news was followed up by news that’s less than good. Yesterday night I had some spare time so I thought I’d rip into the valve cover on my motorcycle. All was going well until I pulled out the front cam chain guide (pictured above). More specifically, I pulled out half of it.

The cam chain guide stops the cam chain from rattling around, skipping teeth and rubbing against the inside of the aluminum engine casing. It’s really sortof necessary, and I’m bummed that instead of riding the motorcycle around right now I am frantically trying to find a source for this part. So far I’ve had no luck — nothing on ebay or any motorcycle parts shop online. I may have to head to the salvage shop where I originally picked up this bike. I hadn’t really planned to head downstate in the next couple of weeks, but perhaps I will now.

For anyone who’s interested, you can see a diagram of how it all works by clicking here. The part I have that’s broken is #5.