I forgot to take a picture for this post, so you get a picture of my friends’ pet bunny instead. Unfortunately, I have no pancake to put on her head to complete the meme.
Today I hopped on the bike to begin storage shenanigans. Why the bike, you ask? Because when Allison changed the lock for me after Trisha got her stuff out, she left a spare key at an undisclosed location. It was in a small lock box of its own, wired to a nearby street sign. She also mailed me a key, but it was on a ring of old keys that I never found when I was cleaning out the old van, so step one is to get the new key to my storage unit. This lock box was completely her idea. If it was still there after two years, I’d have my key and be able to get in there to take an inventory immediately.
It’s much easier to maneuver and park a bike than a van, and it’s a beautiful day for a bike ride, so I took the bike. It’s weird, tooling around this area where I lived before van life on my motorcycle that’s never been to the northeast before. It’s also fun, because it’s a lot quicker than the other bikes I’ve explored these roads on. I found the signpost in question, and much to my surprise the lockbox was right there, still attached after two years. The combination she thought it was (her memory was fuzzy, too) worked, so I didn’t even have to smash the box open to get it. I cut it off the signpost and kept it anyway, just because it’s not needed anymore. I’ll be getting rid of this storage unit anyway, so even having it there as a spare that I can let a trusted friend use won’t be necessary.
However, I did not go to my storage unit itself on the bike. Three years ago, after getting my KLR out of its winter slumber there, the automatic gate failed to open when I tried to leave. A motorcycle doesn’t have enough metal for the sensor in the pavement to detect and open the door. I had to climb over the fence to punch my code in from the outside. When I jumped off the fence, I rolled a 1 on the landing and broke my foot. I will never do that again, so I need a vehicle large enough at least with me to trigger the sensor. In March 2021, Trisha went with me in my car to get the bike out of storage, and drove ahead of me to trip the sensor when we left.
I didn’t take the direct route back to Ally’s. I hopped up US 202 to Hancock, then backtracked to Jaffrey down Route 137, one of the best motorcycling roads in the entire area. Needless to say, it was a blast on the V-Strom. It was also… not so much a let-down, but it didn’t measure up to some of the other epic roads I’ve ridden recently, like the Tail of the Dragon and the Back of the Dragon. It’s quite fair to say I’ve been spoiled. But it was still a fun ride, and more traffic-free than I expected, especially for a holiday weekend.
When I got back, I decided to remove the tall Givi windshield I’d installed on the V-Strom and put the smaller original one back on. It’s warm enough now that I want more ventilation than the Givi windshield will give me. It seems that I now have a winter windshield and a summer windshield. It’s easy enough to swap, with just a few screws. When temperatures cool off for winter, I’ll put the Givi windshield back on to keep the wind off me and keep me warmer.
After lunch and dealing with some business on another project I’m working on, I detached the trailer and drove the van over to my storage unit. If my Mazda 6 had enough metal to trigger the gate sensor, the van definitely will. It was pleasant to drive without the trailer, for once. There was no need for tow/haul mode, which has become my default. The van tows just fine, but is definitely more pleasant to drive without it. Still, after pulling the trailer from Florida to New Hampshire, I have no complaints.
I arrived at storage to an unpleasant surprise. The key and replacement lock that Allison put on my unit worked perfectly. Unfortunately, there was a second lock on the door as well, preventing me from getting in. Storage facilities often do this to coerce you into making payments you’ve skipped, but no one has contacted me about any such problem. I know this from when I shared a storage unit with a girlfriend, and regularly found the second lock on our unit when she didn’t pay the months she was supposed to. I know how to pick them, don’t I?
I’ve been out west for almost two years at this point, so this is the first indication that any problem exists. I dropped an email to the address on their website. I doubt I’ll get an answer to either that or a phone call on a long weekend, so it looks like I’m stuck for a couple of days before I can even begin to deal with my old stuff. There are other things I can work on, though, not the least of which is enjoying sitting still in a safe place and relaxing a bit. My friends are making Thanksgiving dinner tonight, in thanks that I’ve returned safely. They say it’s a new tradition. I’m more than okay with that.
Smokey Da Van 