Tuesday, June 2, 2009

28 May 2009 Boulogne-sur-Mel France








This morning I after loading my motorcycle I set out, searching for some food and gas. Surprisingly, I found in about six kilometers; a grocery store and gas pumps. I tried filling up with gas but couldn’t. It wouldn’t accept any of my credit cards. It is so frustrating. I have European Euro, I have credit cards and there is gasoline and yet I cannot purchase any. I went into the grocery store to buy toilet paper. There is no toilet paper in campgrounds or wayside rest areas. You have to provide your own. While in the store I bought some bananas and apples because I have not eaten any fruit since I left the United States. I ate both bananas and saved the apples till later. So off I went still needing gasoline. I will be traveling north and east today driving toward Belguim. I will be traveling by Autoroute as much as possible and as fast as possible because I want to get away from the Altantic Ocean and the unpredictable weather it brings. I will be traveling to Bayeux, Caen, Le Havre, Abbeville, le Touque-Paris-Plage and Boulogne-sur-Mel. It was the best day for traveling since I started this trip. I didn’t find any place to camp so I stayed in a hotel Boulogne-sur-Mel. I pulled into the hotel parking lot and there were a lot of guys standing around talking, drinking beer and enjoying the sun. My motorcycle was an instant attraction. I went in and purchased a room for the night. When I came out, several younger men were talking about my motorcycle and admiring it. The usual comment I hear is that it’s well-equipped. So I started taking my bags into my room and on my return trip one of the men pointed at my tire and I looked at it. One of the lugs on the tire was torn off down to the tire cords. I thought to myself, "will these gremlins never go away?" So for the rest of night I was mad. What should I do now? Should I put on my spare tire now? Surely it will lose tire lugs just like the first tire. This Bridgestone tire had maybe 1800 miles on it so I opted not to change the tire, run it into Holland, and replace the tire there. After I took my bags into the hotel I came out to check the chain and oil it. When I spun the tire I checked for other lugs coming loose. Sure enough, five more tire lugs were coming loose. That made me madder yet. I just went to my room and worked on my blog until midnight, then to bed.

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