Texan spotted in Cranston

I’D SAY GUESS WHO but you’d never guess, I’d have to tell you it was Jan Daub from Houston, aka CCjon, which I always thought the CC stood for cubic centimeters of motorcycle displacement, turns out it stands for Corpus Christi. CCjon and his bride lived there before Houston. If you ever thought I’m not a lifelong learner let’s put that rumor to rest.

Dig his latest build, a 1000-cc Suzuki V-Strom with a sidecar that pops up into a tent camper. He sets up camp in under two minutes, saw it with my own eyes.

Yesterday, CCjon met the bride, met our D1, her SO1, their little D1D1, we all had dinner on the porch, then he camped on the lawn overnight, expects to make camp in southern Maine this evening, then it’s on to Ellsworth to visit Matthew and Peggy, I made their acquaintance in Newfoundland two years ago. We’re all working on a plan to ship our South America vehicles to Cartegena in the fall of next year, sea transport in a 40-foot container, Matthew and Peggy’s Toyota Land Cruiser, CCjon’s KLR 650, my DR 650 piglet.

CCjon and I have been trying to set out for Tierra del Fuego from Colombia for several years now. It’s a process fraught with obstacles not all that easy to describe let alone overcome. And getting there is just the start. He did it once before, solo, got wracked up near the Strait of Magellan, woke up in a road spitting gravel, in a hospital for a week after that, then taken in by a Croatian-Chilean ranch family until he was well enough to travel.

Travel by air, his stove-up bike never came home, GS 1150, that’s another story.

That reserve fuel tank pivots out of the way. In traveling trim it rides on the back of the sidecar.

Here’s CCjon packing up the camper this morning. Everything drops into the tub…

Close the lid…

Swing the fuel tank back into place…

He’ll need that extra fuel and then some to make it across Labrador. Oh, forgot, he’s doing the counter-clockwise version of the piglet trek I did two years ago. I went Quebec, Labrador, Newfoundland, here’s the piglet taking a break in Newfoundland…

Start over… Quebec, Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, CCjon’s hitting it the other way around, PEI, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, Quebec, then Ontario, cross the border in Detroit, head south for Texas. He’ll be on the road a month or so.

All saddled up and ready to head north. That’s okay, pal, leave me here to die the death of a thousand cuts, I don’t mind. I was supposed to be riding across the Dakotas today and in Seattle by Friday but so what? I’ll do it some other time wha? just have to live to be 120 wha? wait and see.

But oboy, yeah, well, had a setback this week in the pain department, now undergoing a new twist, numbness radiating down the insides of both arms. Clearly I antagonized something of a cervical nature. I called and canceled out of PT for the week, give things a chance to calm down, see what’s what. Making the call I had a moment where I despaired of ever getting back on the road, like Gus in Lonesome Dove where he’s shot full of arrows in Montana, an old trapper finds him on the high prairie, Gus says he pulled a CCjon and rode up from Texas, trapper says “You’re a traveling son of a bitch!” Gus says, “Was, I’m afraid,” and for a moment there, yeah, you bet I identified.

But ol’ CCjon coming through, that was a shot in the arm, good for morale. We caught up on the yah dee yah of everyday living, traded motorcycle adventure stories, today he’s out there doing his thing with ten more years than I have on the clock, I have no excuse.

Tony DePaul, August 2, 2017, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA