Yes! Something finally broke!

I've waited for today for several months. I finally got to ride WY 296 and 212. These are incredible roads, twisty with unmatched scenery through the mountains. I climbed up to 11k feet, where the temperature dropped to about 40 degrees. There was still snow everywhere, in fact a small lift was still operating and people were skiing!

WY 296

My planning has paid off. I've used many of the things I thought I wouldn't necessarily need--breakfast bars, coffee, fingernail clippers, the plastic raincover. I charged a GoPro battery in the tank bag. I'm at a coffee joint in Red Lodge, MT right now, powering up the computer and emptying the SD card from the GoPro to free up space for more ride footage.

Finally met up with some other FJR owners on their way to NAFO (North American FJR Owners rally in Catlegar, BC). Scott and John. We had lunch at the pizza place in Red Lodge, chatted about bikes and modifications. Our routes are going to be a little different so we parted ways rather than try to ride together.

Checked in to a cool lodge tonight in Cooke City, MT outside of Yellowstone, with no electricity. The power was out. Electricity was one of the reasons I didn't camp tonight, the other is that the campgrounds in Yellowstone were full. Imagine that.

My Gear in Lodge, Electricity Out

  

 Cooke City, MT

But I'm psyched a couple of things broke today. I lost the zipper from my tankbag, the zipper used to attach the bag to the base plate. I looked around for a while but couldn't find it. Then, changing lenses in my new sunglasses, I cracked the frame. Then tonight, tightening one of the straps on the tank bag baseplate, I broke the plastic buckle--it was weak from the sun already. But because of my planning I had bought an outdoor gear repair kit, which had a spare buckle. But it didn't fit. But I put super glue in the kit just in case. And, well I used it to fix the cracked frame, and am going to see if it fixes the buckle, that is, if it's actually strong enough. I will be happily surprised if it works. And I think I can cannibalize a zipper from elsewhere on the tank bag.

Well the superglue was crap and didn't work, so I used some paracord to fix it, and it actually works better than the original now. Very satisfying.

My Campsite From a Couple of Days Ago