Broke down in West Texas....

Setup: A few years back, February's Bike week in Daytona beach Florida was a couple weeks away and I decided to make a quick motorcycle ride over there to take it in.

I've had this bike for years and was over confidant about its reliability, and besides I'd recently put a new to it motor that I'd put together.

So to that end, I left for Daytona one early morn to try and make the run across I-10, The southern route, about 2400 miles, to Daytona, in 2 days. Along about the 14th hour and somewhere in west Texas a noise in the power plant, that sickened me, indicated the end of my trip. Oops, you can't miss the noise/symptoms of a spun bearing.

A total failure in the crankshaft department had left me along the side of the freeway about 15 miles west of Ft Stockton. It was dark and cold. I did thank my lucky stars that there was no Tx wind to add to the ordeal as I waited for an AAA tow truck to haul me into town.

I have been a tow driver, and there is nothing worse than to be sent out on the freeway to look for someone when you don't know exactly where they are.

The AAA lady keeps asking me for an offramp close to me. I tell her, "This is west Texas, lady, there are no off ramps." At least not for 50 miles. I had passed a sign that said 28 miles to Ft Stockton, So I guessed that I was about 20 miles from town. After a bit, she settled for that.

So it's night in west Texas. There are no landmarks. I'm on the incoming freeway side of the freeway. The tow truck will be coming out of town on the other side of this four lane freeway with a wide ceter between the lanes.

I watched every vehicle that passed on the outgoing side of the highway. I could see enough of an outline to guess at what it was. The semis and passenger cars were easy, but the mid length vehicles were hard to make out what they were.

I was looking for a flatbed hauler. When I would see anything remotely the right size I would turn my headlight on. The pickup with a utility trailer almost got by me, but then I tumbled to him being a possible as well, and he responded to my light signal by throwing a quick u-turn across the 30 yards of Tx desert that they call a center divider.

The wait for AAA took nearly an hour. That wasn't nearly enough time to solve my problem in my mind, but it was time enough for me to realize that my plans for Daytona were out the window.

The tow driver turned me loose at a motel with WIFI right next to where he would keep my bike for me. He was a rider and very a nice guy of about 30 years old, and offered to let me keep the bike at his house under a tarp. I was thankful for that, and went to the motel after bedding down the bike.

I was damned happy to be in a bed at midnight after leaving Ca at 4:15am.

This story is about my couple days with tow truck driver, Mike, in Ft Stockton

Story begins with me trying to ride to Daytona Bike week in Fl....

I had bike trouble in Texas. The engine went completely bonkers.....like blew a rod. So my trip to Fl is now a recovery trip to Texas to get the bike.

...over night thoughts....I might be able to buy a truck here and haul my bike home, or maybe just go home on the train or bus, and go get my bike from there.

Still unsettled. Bike is in West Tx at Ft Stockton. Tow truck driver is a biker and letting me keep the bike at his house. Nice guy.

Next Morning.....A bike internet lister from ABQ named Linda has offered to pick me up. I can more likely find a pickup In ABQ than where I am in Ft Stockton. After being picked up by Linda................

My mind is all consumed with getting a little work done on one of Linda's bikes in ABQ. Linda had known about this trip and we had talked about me cleaning the carbs on her Motorcycle if I travel past her place. She has an ST 1100 with a carb problem.....so all my bullshit, about bike work that I do, has her thinking that I can help out some. So we will see on that issue......

So I contacted a couple places in ABQ about renting a truck. Enterprise has pickups for rent, but won't do one way. Penski has box vans and will do one ways, but you can't put a MC in one of their Vans. Sheesh it is one thing or another. Seems as though the world is out of pace with me. LOL

Anyway, before Linda picked me up. I had a day to work out my logistics in Ft Stockton. After being towed to town late last night, I got out of the motel room by the check out time. At that point I was within three blocks of the tow driver's house (where my bike was being kept for free) and the Greyhound bus depot. So after breakfast at Lupe's Cafe (breakfast Burrito with cheese and sauce). BTW Texas Mexican food is altogether different than SD Mex food). I went to work on buying a pickup for under 2000.

I saw a gentleman sitting in a pickup, and asked him about buying a truck there in Ft Stocton. Of Course, it was Sunday which eliminated car lots in this sleepy little dying west Texas town. So Abraham Gonzales (ABE) it turns out is 68 years old and his family has been in Ft Stockton since before the Alamo.

Abe was an interesting guy. He made and lost a couple fortunes there. He bit it big time when the Tx oil boom died in 1980. Said he lost about a mil from that deal. But he has property and family all over town. But today he needed to get an 89 Lincoln moved from in front of a house a few blocks away.

So Abe was laying in wait for a tow driver to come out from the little Cafe where I'd had breakfast.....and that he might know of a pickup for sale for me also.

So in the meantime me and Abe became best friend. Abe will do anything. He has owned liquor stores, antique/thrift shops, mex restaurants. This car he needs moved is purely junk, but it has a good set of tires that he is eyeballing.

I offer to steer the car to his property if he tows it with a chain. Well we get there and find out he doesn't have keys so we can't steer it ..That's out. So back to the Cafe to talk to the tow driver about moving it for him.

Tow driver wants 50 dollars to move the car and lies to Abe about doing it at 2pm. He also calls a couple guys that have car lots. They have pickups for 5000. Abe tells me his tow driver is a lying no good, SOB, and to be careful.

Abe wants to know about my tow driver. So I get Abe an introduction. My tow driver say sure he'll move the car for him but has to wait for the tow truck owner to go to church so he won't see this free tow job happen, otherwise he'd have to charge 50 bucks also. Mike tells Abe that if he's a friend of mine the tow job is free. We say goodbye to Abe until church begins. Mike and I will call him. Abe is beside himself with appreciation.

Abe takes off and I go on a couple tow jobs with my new tow driver friend (Mike). We also stop for burgers from the local convenience store. I try to buy burgers, but he won't hear of it. I end up with a freelunch. We go back to have our burgers with his live aboard, Serina. We eat our burgers and watch 'Edward Scizzorhands' and drink cream sodas. Life is good.

Tow driver says its time to move Abe's car. He contacts Abe, and we get the car and take it a couple miles to Abe's 25 acre parcel of Desert. Holy cow, Abe has a junk yard of all manner of trash as well as a dozen cars from years past.

Abe and the tow driver talk about the Various old relics there and who used to own them, and who is now dead and who is in jail.

In Fact the tow man, Mike, was in jail a couple days ago for not having a moto license while he was riding his '04 R1. Seems as though a check on Mikes driving record show 3000 dollars worth of past due tickets for one thing and another. Mike is now making payment to the county.

Then we go out to a buddy's wife's house and give her a free jump start, cause her old man is in jail also for warrants.

I could go on and on......I tell you this stuff, because I don't want you to think I'm not having any fun. Life in Ft Stockton is a blast, sport bikes everywhere. Mike know them all, and they all pull a wheelie when they see Mike.

I go back to Mike's to wait for Linda. Mike gets a call to go impound 4 cars for the local cops. Seems the boys were getting into a little mischief and racing down the main street in town.

Well, what the hell do you expect, its Ft Stockton for Christ sakes. 🙂

Linda is due to show up at about 7pm. She is a little late cause she took the back (shorter) roads and got held up for 30 minutes by a cattle jam. Gotta expect that in TX. Still she cleaned the 500 miles down and 500 back to her place in 13.5 hours.

She has a V1 on the dash of her Z300 so those 65mph night time speed limits are just for the other folks. She moves that thing down the road. Oh, yeah!

So this morning with hot coffee in hand, at Linda and her husband's house in ABQ, I was reading the daily classified trucks for sale. I contacted Olivero. He has a 87 Nissan Pickup. wants 1700, but will take 1400.

Linda says Craigs list has one for 1900. the options here in ABQ are endless, which is not the case in Ft Stockton.

Linda says that if we can get her ST 1100 running, I can go look at some very neat roads in the area riding her bike. I've never been to Tao, I will work harder under those condition.