Ride report 6/12/13 - Doug Picard, you little devil with a heart!

Ok, let me start off that all of the shots at Doug Picard throughout this post are all meant to be funny and with Love. If they come across any other way, I blame my writing skills which are known to be lacking.

Let me start out with last night while eating dinner so you have a better understanding. I get a txt message from Chandler Grieve, you can read about him here, that he wants to chat. Mr. Picard, what have you done? So Chandler and I chat for a bit and he wants to know more about my trip, the where’s and why’s, and then he wants to know more about Dixie. Doug? So we talk a bit more then he asked me if I would like to do an interview via Skype, and I agreed because I didn’t want to be the bad guy. Not that I’m the bad guy, but this was Doug’s doing, not mine. Ok, all in fun, I will go along with this. Heck, who knows, Dixie might just show up.

First thing in the morning I get more emails and txt requesting information and I complied with every request. I also had a mission of maintenance that had to be finished today. I also had one visit that I wanted to complete and that was Touratech Corp. They sell motorcycle parts. I didn’t want to hold up the interview process because CTV and Chandler seemed very interested in the story. All of it, Dixie and my trip. So I sent them a txt to give them an out and told them they could use Doug Picard for the interview since he know almost all the details. They quickly sent me a txt back saying they wanted me. Doug, your buying me dinner somewhere at sometime.

The first order of business, oil change. I went to an O'Reilly's auto parts store and asked if they recycled oil to which they answered yes, but tank is full. I told them where I was from and what I needed. He said, follow me, I ‘m heading to a sister store and we’ll check if their full. So I did. He lead me down the road, almost on my planned route anyways, and bingo, they had room in the tank. I bought oil,  a pan, then went out back and changed the oil in 30 minutes. Cost me $40 bucks. Not bad!

Got another txt and email from Mark Planiden, this time.  They wanted to know if that 2 o’clock time was going to hold up. I gave them my plan for the rest of the morning and said it should be good.

I still love you Doug! Your heart is in the right place but I’m going to kick thy butt.

Touratech was a little bit of a disappointment because they didn’t have any gloves that fit me properly and the showroom was smaller than I envisioned for what seemed to me a big operation online. Nice folks though and they like to chat, and I had no problem with that. They gave one of their custom stickers that they only give out if you show up at their store, and I left for Tacoma.

Did I say this place and or area is big? It is and sometimes the roads, I-5 in particular were 6 lanes wide. Coming from a 1 stop light town on main street Stephens City, that a little overwhelming. I’m sure that if you would have been a driver in a car behind me, you would have thought my head was on a Swivel. I was scanning mirrors, spot mirrors, and left right to make sure know one was going to squeeze me.

Finally reached the BMW Dealer after a quick lunch and these guys were ready for me. I just gave them a little heads up of a approximate arrival time over 2 day period, but they knew me soon as I pulled up. Pretty cool operation they had. I had to drive my bike inside to a special write up area and then they took her away. I didn’t have to do any of the work this time changing the tires and the cost was inline with the Anchorage dealer, so I’m good with that. I took the opportunity to txt and email Chandler and Mark that I sat waiting on them.

Shortly a woman called, and forgive me but I forget her name, and she conducted about a 10 – 15 minute interview about why the motorcycle trip and of course Dixie. I thought it went very well and was fun. I believe I answered and gave them everything they wanted. I ended the interview by giving them my impressions of the Canadian people and I will repeat here. I thought as whole, the entire country that I traveled the people were extremely nice and I thought the folks in the United States could take some lessons from them. People in Canada always wanted to know details of my trip and to the person, welcome me to Canada and told me to enjoy the ride. I always felt welcome here. Do we in the United States do the same? Some yes, but majority no. Maybe it was just being on a motorcycle, but I loved the country. Before you guys in the States bash me, no I do not want to move, I love my country. That doesn’t mean we could improve. Travel Canada first, before you make a judgment on me. It’s a great place.

So back to Dixie, maybe she will be found and maybe she will not, but what started out as a innocent jester by one woman has blossomed into a lot fun and something that I will remember for a long time. Course if it were not for Doug, most of the above story would not have been written either, so you can thank him for this part of the entertainment. You know, you just can’t make this stuff up.

Route changes, due today’s maintenance requirement, will have to be made. The good part is that, that should be it for the bike until I get home unless something breaks. Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen, but it is always possible. This is the first time in 10,000 miles and 26 days of riding that my bike doesn’t have tires hanging on her. I now have street tires on the bike and almost immediately pulling out into a 55 mph zone, I was thinking ahhhhh, quite! Plus she is smooth on the ride. I got my girl back. Those dirt bike tires were starting to work on my nerves and I just couldn’t take it anymore. So the BMW is setup for the final 2.5 weeks or 6,000 miles to get me home. Yea, I still got miles to lay.

I will make adjustment and post them on the Intermarry page, so you can check them there by date.  When and if CTV, Chandler, or Mark email me a link to the news story, I will post it here. If you’re wondering how that one picture of me was taken, a woman got out of her car and offered to take a couple of shots since I was by myself and that was the only one that turned out. She could have been my Grandmother, so I couldn’t tell her no.

Doug? All I can do is shake my head, but it was all in fun, so it worked for me. I hope you enjoy the interview if you can find it or they email me the link. What would be amazing is if she showed up. What a story that would be. Either way Doug, you made me smile, so well done you.

The rest of you out there reading this, make it your mission to make someone smile today. It’s amazing what it does for you.

Pictures of the Day