Day 8 - Kingston, NY

70 Miles today.

Oh...woe is me...I'm such a putz...an idiot of the first order. I am the poster child of stupid. A picture of me is next to the entry for ignorant in the dictionary.

More later.


The morning began beautifully in Litchfield, CT. We had planned to go to breakfast about 9:00am then Bob and I were going to take a little tour of Litchfield, leaving me plenty of time to take the short ride over to Hyde Park, NY where I intended to visit the Franklin D. Roosevelt home there. But, as Mr. Robbie Burns so aptly said, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley."

I awoke at 6:30 and thought I'd just nap for a few more minutes. When I awoke it was already 9:00 and I was late. Managed to clean up almost presentably and joined Bob and Karen. We had breakfast and then Bob and I went on the aforementioned short tour of Litchfield. If you are ever up this way you really need to see this place. There is history at every corner, and absolute beauty where ever you look.


Main street - Litchfield.
















The Court House















A little country road to the park donated by the "Brass King" of Waterbury's daughter to the city of Litchfield.













Bob and Karen't church in Litchfield. Recently renovated to the tune of about $2M.

















Several of the homes had dates on them like 1789, 1770, etc. In fact, a couple with dates like 1853 seemed upstart, new money dwellings after a while.









Yet another beautiful old home.














An another. I especially liked this one because it was painted something other than white.











A little further on is the sign announcing the earliest American Law School.

Interestingly the two most famous graduates are Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun. The former, obviously, the former Vice President of the U.S. who shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and was later charged with treason by Thomas Jefferson's administration.
Mr. Calhoun is the long serving and famous "States Righter" read pro-slavery advocate from South Carolina. So...what conclusions can be drawn from this? Lawyers are scoundrels? Well, yeah, but...how about things haven't improved much in this area over the last two hundred and thirty-some years?


This is the actual building Burr attended college in. You will note there is no chimney so there was no heating during those Connecticut winters; something I suspect is guaranteed to not improve one's disposition or viewpoint on life.










Okay...now for the rest of the story.

I saddled up Betsy about 1:00pm contemplating a short trip to Hyde Park and flooded her on trying to crank her up. This happened once before but is a very rare thing. I let her sit awhile then tried again, but, alas, to no avail. Upon waiting over thirty minutes I tried again and, again, she wouldn't crank. Thankfully, Bob's driveway slopes downward to a road which slopes even more. We got her headed down and by the time I was halfway down the hill she fired up and off we went. At least until stupid showed up.

About five miles out of Sharon, CT I'm thinking I should check the oil because I didn't get it changed yesterday. So I found this station with a wide pullout area and pulled in. I popped the oil filler cap off and got out my oil in anticipation of needing some when I was very pleasantly surprised to find none needed. This isn't totally surprising because, as I said earlier, it is a very small leak. But the problem(s) begin here.

I was preparing to put the oil filler cap back on whenever a guy pulled into the parking area near me and yelled out something like, "Nice bike!" I looked up, waved, and thanked him, then reached down and stored my big screwdriver and channel locks (used to remove the filler cap). I then mounted up, donned by riding apparel, and pulled out, happy as I could be.

Pulling into Sharon, about five miles down the road I noted the smell of oil. I came to a stop sign and it became worse, then I actually saw smoke rising around me as I felt this pulsing, blowing feeling on my right pants leg. Looking down I note in absolute horror the gaping mouth of the oil filler hole sans filler cap. Yep! Stupid looked up to thank the guy and failed to replace it, then drove off. I was devastated.

After setting there a few minutes a lady on a Harley Davidson drove by and, noting I was in trouble, stopped to offer assistance. This is why I like motorcycle riders. They are nice people. Her name was Marsha and she is the local animal control officer. She lived just a block or so down the street so I saddled up and we went to her house where I met her husband Steve. They were just so nice. Marsha piled me into her jeep and drove me back to the place I'd checked the oil. Unfortunately, no oil filler cap. I purchased some oil in anticipation of needing some more, the we then rode back very slowly on the route I'd taken, but never saw anything resembling a shiny, silver oil filler cap. Didn't find any brains for me either.

By the time we got back to their house, Steve had found a plastic oil filler plug he though might "wedge" into the threads of the filler hole and hold until I could find another one. I tested it and agreed, so I replaced the quart of oil that had blown all over me and the bike and, after profusely thanking them, pulled out for Poughkeepsie, that being the nearest Kawasaki dealer.

It's time now for another grievance against motorcycle dealers. The guy had no filler cap in stock. Whenever I had stripped the oil plug I discovered that my local (Houston) dealers didn't stock those ($2.25 part for Christ's sake). If Kawasaki gave a ferret's fundament about their customers they would require their dealers to keep certain parts in stock. I would think oil plugs and oil filler gaps would be high on that list of parts. But what do I know? I've already proven myself an idiot.

I determined that the next closest Kawasaki dealer was in Kingston, NY, across the Hudson and about 15 miles north of Poughkeepsie, so I headed there, arriving after 6:00pm in yet another rain storm so I pulled into a motel to await the morrow to be disappointed again by a Kawasaki dealer. I have pulled the phone numbers for all on my route headed south into New Jersey. Let's hope I get lucky. The temporary filler cap is allowing some blowby and it's messy. I need this fixed. It's time to turn toward home.

Wish me luck.