Rodeo trip 09

Every year Sheridan WY (Dave and my hometown) is a stop on the P.R.C.A. tour (that's pro rodeo cowboy association for those of you who didn't go to high school right next to a feed lot). It's pretty much the biggest thing that goes on in town all year and draws people from all over. It's also a really good excuse to head back and see family, go camping and shoot guns and all of the other Wyoming stuff that you miss.
This year Dave Jordan and I decided to ride up for the town's car show (which we get kicked out of before we had even shut the bikes of). I'd just finished my 66 and was itching ti put miles on it. Dave had just done a bunch of work to his iron head and Jordan's 750 was almost finished after 2 years of flying out to Denver from North Carolina to work on it for a week at a time.
Loose ends kept us from getting Jordan's bike from running before we left so it went into the back of Dave's truck along with his Enfield and he got to drive to Sheridan. We rolled out of Denver at about noon, hoping to make it to Sheridan by dark (it's only a 6 hour drive). We figured were in good shape. Boy were we wrong. We finally rolled into town at 630 am the following morning.
A quick list of things that contributed to our 16 hour journey were
1. Waiting on the side of I-25 for the three feet of standing water to drain off so Colorado HP would let us proceed. We finally found a semi that was crushing through the pond and just followed in his wake.
2. My tail light bracket breaking off and sucking into my chain, along with my license plate. Took about an hour to pull loose. Highway patrol pulled up as I was taping a flashlight to the back of my bike to see what was going on. I told them the light was for visibility until I could get something better. He said "Looks good, have a nice night"!
2. Having to hook Dave's sporty up to the truck to jump it everytime he shut it off. We later found out that it was vibrating enough to break the lead plates inside the battery.
3. Dave's fender falling apart at 80mph and locking his rear wheel up sending him for a 270ft skid through the rumbles and into the dirt. I about shit my heart out when all that went down and I was right behind him. He didn't even fall down once he got into the dirt. We popped the fender strut off and continued down the road. Dave with now fender, me with a little led pocket light for a tail light.
4. At about 1 in the morning Dave started dropping WAY behind, I thought that he was just giving himself room to come hauling ass by me (I was doing break in mileage and couldn't go over 60) but turns out his tranny had crapped out. Load the sporty break out the old reliable Enfield.
5. Riding behind Jordan driving the truck we watch him but all four tires on the dirt side of the rumble strip. I ride up next to him and get him to pull over. He says "Glad you guys decided to stop, I'm getting pretty sleepy" when we tell him he'd just drifted off the road he has no recollection. So we decide the best way to revive Jordan is to have him shoot Dave's S&W 500. If you've never fired a hand gun like this go crash a skate board while getting smashed in the face with a really firm pillow and that a pretty close feeling. So Jordan torches the .50 off a few times then dave hops in the truck and drives off, leaving Jordan to ride the Enfield. Of course Jord has never ridden it. It's jockey shift and has bars that take a little getting used to. I give him the quick run down and off we go.
Oh and it was raining most of the time we were on the road. Pretty typical trip.

So we finally get to town after sunrise that morning and grab a quick nap. At about 830 we ride our bikes downtown to the show and park among all of the muscle cars, old man pastel color street rods, a few old survivors and douche bags talking about how hard they had to look to get their new Z06 corvette in the color they had. They come and tell us to leave because we didn't register two weeks ago with everyone else. Keep in mind this is a 12,000 person town and the show has maybe 100 cars in it, and no bikes. We say sorry and that we didn't know and of course we'd be happy to pay the registration fee. No dice. The show organizer is power trippin so we fire up and rip out of there.
The next few days were just camping and riding.
Jordan, The Dave and me.
Biff drove up a few days later and we had the sporty fixed so we all went for a ride down a county rode to where the pavement ends. Shooter also came for a ride with us (he's Dave's surrogate uncle and one hell of a painter/pinstriper.)

That night we went down to the street dance (the town shuts down main street and turns all 4 blocks of it into an out door bar. There are live bands and throngs of drunk cowboys) always a good time. We hung out with shooter all night, going in and out of a house party that one of Dave's dad's old friends was throwing. There was vajunka (polish helicopter fuel that you drink) and food and lots of old guys telling stories.
It was a great trip and I can't wait to see all of you guys again at GNRS!