Well it's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm spending a great holiday with my son, his wife, and my new baby grandson. That's not such a big deal except me and the wife liked not to have made it.
It's 500 miles from us to Benton, LA and we were loaded up and headed west and everything was going well until. . . . Yep the danged bike quit 300 miles out. The day before Thanksgiving. Oh crap, now what were we gonna do?
I stripped the bike down, checked the fuses, the wiring and any wire couplings I could find looking for the problem. I couldn't figure out what happened, except I figured I wasn't getting gas. I couldn't figure out how to get information on the cell to get a hold of a Kawasaki dealer. Screwed! I had to think. What to do, where were we gonna go for the night, what were we gonna do with the bike, and how in the he!! do you get information on a cell phone?
I was getting frustrated and po'd to say the least. My wife tried to calm me down. "Don't worry", she says, "I just prayed for some help". Great, that oughta do it, I thought, knowing my relationship with the man upstairs, I'd say I was really screwed!
My wife, dang it, I hate it when she's right! Five minutes later, while I'm putting the bike back together, here pulls up a rough looking character on a Yamaha Maxim. Jeff Covington was his name and part of the Southern Cruisers Riding Club rescue team (the power of prayer). We discuss what's gone on and what I discovered and he agrees with me that it's not getting fuel, clogged filter or fuel pump he figures. Great, now what?
After a couple of phone calls and a few minutes up pulls a truck with another member of the SCRC, Baron Kleinhans. The two of them talk a little bit and a few phone calls later they tell me they're off to get a trailer and we'll pull the bike to Jeff's place and try to fix it. I was sure happy to have some help, but worried none the less that there wasn't much we could do on a Holiday weekend.
Just minutes after they leave for the trailer Deputy Sheriff James Brown pulls up to make sure we don't get run over by the now heavy I20 Traffic. Seems the Sheriff is a biker and a member of the SCRC and he sent Deputy Brown to assist us. Things are looking up. The deputy even offered us half a sandwich he had from lunch.
Well, in an effort to try and make a long story short we get the bike trailered to Jeff's place in Vicksburg, MS. They offer me and the wife, total strangers to them, more hospitality than you can imagine. I'm always amazed by the generosity of bikers.
Well, we tear into the bike. Not the fuel filter. Fuel pump? Yep, dang! No where to get one now, it's to late and the Kawi dealer let the mechanics off for a long weekend. We check some voltages, ok, no problem there. We clean the terminals to the connections of the fuel pump. No luck. I guess I dropped the fuel pump on the concrete floor and just for a minute I thought I felt it start to work. Dang I can't win. Mad, I take the fuel pump and slap it on the floor a couple a more times. It works! Go figure. I'm sure my wife was in the house praying.
I call my son and ask him to meet us half way between us and the Covington's just in case. We made it, and are having a great weekend and made a couple of more biker friends a long the way.
Our holiday saved! I'm so proud to be part of the biking community and the members like Jeff and Baron that go that little extra to save weekends, I'm sure, for a good many other bikers. All I can say is "Dem bikers is a good breed".
*We still have the trip back home and who knows may be another adventure awaits? I'll keep you posted.
Side note: If you plan a trip through Missippi pm me and I'll give you my cell number and if you get in a trick I'll give you the numbers for Jeff and Baron.
It couldn't hurt.
