It's a Small (www) World

The night before last when I checked my email there was a note from Bill Boeck, whom I haven't seen or talked to for over 50 years.  He went to high school with me but moved to Colorado before he graduated.  However, he still feels a kinship with my class, and attended the 50th reunion and gets emails from the group.  They emailed him about my trip and, not knowing my route or anything, he took a chance and invited me to stop by if I happened to be anywhere near Walsenburg, Colorado.  I had planned to overnight in Salida, which is just north and west of Walsenburg and then go through Walsenburg the next day.  By extending my riding day a little, I managed to get to his house and spent a very pleasant evening with Bill and his wife Marsha at their recently built home in a peaceful high desert-like setting outside of Walsenburg.  Here's the surprise bonus:  Bill has been riding motorcycles, both street and dirt, for almost as long as I have.  We could barley scratch the surface of all the things there were to talk about in one evening.  And then the highlight of my ride so far; this morning Bill led me around on a scenic, curvy loop of about 70 miles over what I believe he said was the first designated scenic highway in the country.  I mounted my helmet cam to the fairing of my bike and took a video of part of the ride.  I have downloaded the video to this computer, but am not having any luck posting it on the blog.  Since I have done it before I must either be too tired, or there is some problem with the wi-fi here. I know it's extremely slow.  I'll try to post the video later.

I do have some pictures.  Here is Bill in front of his house.

And here we are during the ride.  Bill rides a Yamaha FZ6, which is very similar in style and purpose as my bike. We rode pretty well together considering we had never done it before.

Unfortunately, after I left Bill and started across Eastern Colorado towards my destination for the night of Dodge City, Kansas, my bike problems returned.  The problem was the same as I experienced the first day.....the bike would quit but after I coasted to a stop it would start up again.  There was one common trait with the circumstances of the first day:  It was extremely hot.  It did not depend on the tank being low on gas, though, as it happened with an almost full tank.  I found that I could get the furthest, about five or 10 miles, if I waited for a couple of minutes after I stopped before starting out again.  If I started out right away, I might only get a little ways down the road before it quit again.  Since I suspected the high temp was part of the cause I started to keep an eye on the digital thermometer that is part of the clock I have mounted on the handlebars.  When I first started keeping track of it, the temp was 95 deg.  Slowly it cooled as evening approached until at 91 degrees the problem went away and I rode another 50 miles with no hiccups.  I have bought another fuel pump online and had it sent to my brother's house in St. Louis.  Hopefully, that will solve the problem, but the weather forecast for tomorrow is for cooler temps, and that may also solve the problem.