In Las Vegas

Pleasant sleep on my bed last night. I lifted it up to learn what my body would do. Won’t do that again for a few more days.

Bid adieu to Scott as he headed to Sedona.

My turn to leave JEM TH. Battery dead! Too many hours of listening to XM and not enough driving. OK. Have road side assistance from insurance carier. Fired up computer but it was having issues blacking out, something to do w/ the battery charge. Managed to find on line a tow service in Hurricane. Said he would be there in 20 mins. I walked out to the highway to wait. Along the way I picked 2 grocery bags of litter. He beat the 20 mins. He put the cables from a portable charging device and the motor turned over right away. Cost $75. Now I wrestle w/ insurance claim reimbursement.

Fed Ex site said fork was out for delivery. Cool. Last night I bought a ticket on line to Race Across the Sky, theater in Las Vegas, 130 miles away. Have the ticket, put the fork back on my Spot, find a computer geek store, get a shower in Santa Clara where I scored one last spring, & drive to LV in time for movie.

Bought a 6 pack of beer for bike shop. Pulled in and fork had been delivered. Parking lot install and Spot back on the van. PUSH said that fork is fine, leak source could not be identified. Rich went ahead and rebuilt it all the way to eliminate whatever caused the leak. Warranty.

Computer store told me the issue is with using the battery charger when the battery is charged. I always plug in charger when computer on. Computer finally said I can’t take a charge when i am full. Cool, a win for me, no charge and knowledge gained. He said that the battery needs to run down to almost empty before charging to prevent the battery from creating a memory. Said that if I wanted I could run computer on rig battery power and just take out computer battery.

Guy @ Anytime Fitness remebered me from last spring. Used the lavender bar of soap from Jen.

Windy drive down !-15 to LV. Spectacular drive down Virgin River canyon.

Deal w/ movie is friend Grace has some face time and video version won’t be released for 4 months.

LV puts me on course to trip to Death Valley NP for several days. Have another week  to complete 3 weeks of rest.  Poke around Death Valley environs for several days.

Back in PST again.

Stark desert and then LV pops up w/ lots of people & traffic. Dirt bag camp tonight or maybe a mtn biker might adopt me for the night. Buzz of 737s taking off from airport.

Turner factory is just 350 miles away.

2 comments on “In Las Vegas

  1. Craig,
    I give you permission to buy that new Turner. Let me know if it the best you ever rode. You deserve it! It is your life style. Why not have the best. Thanks for the slides of Washington rides. Is the solar cell not keeping up with your use? Randy

  2. Death Valley sounds like a good idea while you’re recuperating. Temps will be warm. Let me know what you think of the area. I’ve been there a couple times but never did much more than just the paved roads. There should be some interesting hiking there. Regarding the dead battery, Costco sells a small unit that has a compressor and jumper cables on it for starting a dead battery. I think it goes for a little over $50. Might be cheap insurance and give you peace of mind knowing you have a backup if you run into the same situation. Alternatively, in my camper, I had a deep cycle battery for running the accesories when the truck isn’t running. The beauty is that there is a diode in line between the trucks generator and the battery which allows current to go one way only. The deep cycle battery charges when you are driving the truck and can be used as a power source when the truck is off until it is depleted leaving th battery in your truck fully charged for starting the truck in the morning. These deep cycle batteries are similar to you computer battery in that they are designed to be used until they are almost drained before charging. Your truck battery is the opposite. It isn’t doesn’t do well when being used to power your accesories, getting drawn way down then getting charged again when driving (i.e. deep cycling). On a regular car battery it will reduce the life of the battery significantly. I don’t think installing a deep cycle battery in parrallel with your existing car battery and isolating it with a diode would be that expensive ($200?). I’m sure there are kits readily available. Look on the internet. Might be worth investigating.

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