During this time, an old friend and former customer of the BMW shop calls up; do I want to buy his R90S? Well, gee; Glenn, tell me more! It's been parked on his front porch for seven years or so, the engine doesn't turn over anymore. What do you think it's worth? I ventured a guess of $600. "Sold" sez Glenn. He thinks his small child stuck a hose up one of the mufflers (Will someone please tell me the use of these little beings?). He brought it over in a pick-up truck and three of us dragged it off. Use a block of wood and a hammer to get the heads off; looks pretty bad in there. Drain oil; get about a quart of clear water first. Looks like I got myself a project here, boy. Looks to require more gumption than I can marshal at the moment so I put it aside for now.

Summer rolls in, the over-the-phone and mail preliminary work for the Rally is all done; time for the adventure. First stop; Paonia, for the Top O' The Rockies Rally. Lots of people this time as the National is a week later and 250 miles down the road.

B. Jan had Airhead Central set up, right on the path to the toilets, so we got to meet everyone at the rally, sooner or later. Mellow, laid back Rally, as usual. I never do much at Paonia, except hang around in a hammock, visit with people and maybe some repair work on an airhead or two. Come Sunday, most everyone took off for Durango. The town said we could stay until Monday if anyone wanted to. So, I spent most of Sunday sitting on the grass, leaning against a tree, watching people tear down, load up and pull out. Lots of butterflies too. Had a couple of books. Not far from me was a fellow from Kansas who had an elegant battery powered CD player and a number of jazz albums. Very nice. One of the more peaceful days I have spent.

Late Monday morning, glorious Colorado summer day, took my time packing up and heading south on the Western Slope, to Durango. This is the sort of touring that Strider prefers; no hurry, interesting state and county roads and a few towns along the way. The Million Dollar Highway and Red Mountain Pass were stop-and-gape awe inspiring. Rolled into Durango, found the fairgrounds and Larry. I was to use the jockey shack as the first aid station; extremely funky, I cleaned it for several hours; but it did have two of the four on-site showers. As we spent the next couple of days gearing up for the Rally, Deb Lower and a couple of her friends would come by in the morning to use the shower and have coffee off my camp stove. One of her friends was this person from Connecticut, Susanna Battit. Of all the first aid stations, at all the BMW Rallies in the world; she had to walk into mine...... There was a certain electricity, albeit, at a low level. Who was this person? We continued to encounter each other at the Rally. In between spells at the first aid station, I volunteered a shift at the Country Store, as she was running that enterprise.

On Saturday night, I and a friend decided to wander over to Airhead Central, which was way over on the high school playing field. It was dark and as we arrived at the parachute, we thought we had stumbled into some sort of pagan, Druid ritual. A dozen or so folks, with flashlights, lanterns and beers, were gathered around a torn apart /5. In the background was a stripped down donor /5. We were seeing the end of a day and a half long front-end transplant project. A half hour later the bike was successfully fired up.

First aid kept me busy and soon I was boxing up the supplies to be sent back to St. Louis. Sunday morning, I ran into Deb, Susanna and a few others in a gas station in town as they headed off to Taos and I started for home. I had purchased a bunch of parts at the Rally and had a banana crate full of old /5 stuff tied over the back seat. Was in no hurry to get home so after a slow, leisurely run through the San Luis Valley, stopped at Valley View Hotsprings for an overnight rest and some soaking. Next morning, waited for the sun to warm things up and rode the last 140 miles home. A message was on the phone machine. Seems Deb and Susanna stopped by a little earlier on the Interstate to see if I was home. So, I waited a while and called up to Deb Lower's in Denver. Chatted with her and asked if Susanna was still there (she had flown into Denver and used one of Deb's bikes). Yep. so we chatted and said we'd keep in touch. And so, we started writing and calling between Colorado and Connecticut.

I started work on the R90S. The engine was a mess. Tore it down to the crank and bead blasted a lot of rust away. In doing an overbore, the machine shop screwed up and got a bore seriously off center. So I had to find a replacement cylinder. No luck with used 90S stuff so I ended up with a R90 cylinder and having it powder painted. One bit of luck, Glenn had repainted the bike about six months before he put it up and the paint work survived nicely.

Susanna came out to Colorado in October and we decided we definitely "had something" going on. Christmas time, I went to Connecticut to visit her and meet her two grown children (she was a widow).

Then, off on the "Mexico bike," a '72 R75/5 to the Yucatan for my usual get-away-from-the-Colorado-winter trip. After a four year hiatus, I was impressed by the changes in the infrastructure of Mexico: better roads, more Pemex stations (with cleaner toilets!) and a much more developed telephone system. Still, much was the same, as I stayed in campgrounds and cheap hotels on the "Gringo Trail", with most of the people I encountered being European and Canadian.

Susanna was on the BMWMOA Board as a Director and had a club board meeting in late January. She took her MOA issued Connecticut to St. Louis to Connecticut ticket to her travel agent and said "See what you can do with this." And, for an additional $65, turned it into a Connecticut to Cancun to St. Louis to Connecticut ticket. I picked her up at the aeropeurto and ran 60 miles down the coast to Tulum, where I had rented a thatched hut on the Caribbean. We had a delightful six days, during which, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We figured to do this it would take a while to organize so we figured, "sometime next year." She flew off to the MOA board meeting with a smile, sand in her shoes and a liter of tequila; I took off across the Yucatan peninsula and up the Gulf Coast to head home, via New Orleans and Mardi Gras.

To be continued... Matt Parkhouse