Early to bed
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2008
1
8
50
Trip End
Nov 23, 2008
Sedalia,
Missouri,
United States
Friday, October 17, 2008
All was going well until 10 miles or so I see, or don't see, because there is fog. Oh, yeah, river valleys do that, don't they? Well, it's not that bad and it should thin as the time is after 9AM. And the traffic and road are fine. So on to Herman.
A pretty town and I stop to take pix at the bridge over the misty Missouri when I look down and about the moment my nose tells me there's an odd enginey smell, my eyes spy a black smudge on my right grey overpant leg. Gah! My Vulcan does not mark its territory or me. What the ????
Closer inspection after I compose myself by taking some photos, shows the rubber gasket is crinkled around the air filter. So I unearth my phillips driver and smooth out the gasket before screwing it in well. The bike is running fine, has been running fine. I am just bemused that it did this. I vow to find an explanation.
I lose 40 minutes going off to find a biker who might tell me where to find a Kawasaki dealer in Jefferson City. A 'Harley man' warranted there was one of them in Apache Flats but looking at my air cover where the oil had sprayed, he said hmph, his bike does that all the time. I bit my tongue that this Vulcan wasn't a Harley and had never done it on a trip.
The service manager was reassuring that maybe the oil was quite full and with prolonged cruising, esp if there was any high reving, this could happen and didn't mean anything. More importantly, we talked about the ride thru Colorado and that at this time of year I might be risking snow in the high passes. Hmm.
OK, I spent the rest of the afternoon rethinking my routes and figure after Dodge City I might head southerly to play it safe. An early rain sent me to the motel early, but I have lots of time to look at the maps and plug different configurations into the gps.
Photos will come when I have upload access from my phone!
