Day 294 Wednesday 24th Aug Denison to Dallas via Fort Worth 220km

We got news late last night from Peens, his bike broke down, the clutch went, on a deserted farm road, he had to walk to town and pay someone to load his bike on a trailer and take it to a KTM Dealer in Oklahoma. The clutch was opened and they found oil leaking through at the shaft, so a problem with the O-Ring, either dirt or the seal was not replaced when KTM Seattle re-built the motor, not what one would expect from a reputable dealership, they made a few stuff-ups on Peens’s bike and now he is paying the price for poor workmanship. Sad. We now wonder if the bike is reliable enough to take through South America, that’s over 20 000km and one wonders what else will fail due to dirt getting in the motor while re-building it? So Peens is going to have the bike fixed and race to meet us in Houston on Friday morning before we fly home in the afternoon.

Rocky and Milsy’s bikes needed new tyres, they wont make the remaining 500km to Houston, the canvas is already starting to show at places on the tyres, so off we went to a great KTM Dealership just Weste of Dallas. Milsy and Rocky worked side by side with the mechanic and in no time the new tyres were on.

They are also a dealership for Husqvarna, look at this E-Bicycle:

The Truck I like the most here in the USA is the Toyota Tundra, it comes in a few different specs, but all with a 5,7 Petrol Motor:

Then Milsy went to the airport to fetch his daughter who is coming up from New Orleans where she studies to ride with her dad. Her little travel bag added some female-class to Milsy’s KTM, don’t you think.

Seeing Milsy’s smile made me realise how much I am missing my two daughter, so I went and bought them a T-Shirt each, special Texan T-Shirts.

Then it was off to the Stock Yards in Fort Worth. There was no Rodeo on tonight as that only takes place on Fridays and Saturdays. I would love to have seen this little town at night when the streets must be rocking, a real party street, like Bourbon street in New Orleans, or that other one in Nashville, I forget its name, the one with all the Country Singers in every bar.

Lots of Muirials painted on the walls on buildings added to the character of the streets.

I loved this sign:

There were lots of interesting shops where you could buy Antiques for your Den, or Ryne-stone clothing or boots, and the hand made Stetson Hats were only $500-00.

You can choose the Spurs you want.

The Big Horn Cattle have very similar hides to our Nguni Cattle and was very affordable:

Then the cattle was paraded down the Main Road, see the length of those horns :

Belt Buckles a plenty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had to have a beer and went to see inside a few bars, this one was built in the early 1800’s and the entire bar had Cowboy Hats on the wall and ceiling with a name-plate of who’s hat it was.

But all our phones would sound an alert and make a noise I did not know my phone had, with this Message, and it stays on your phone and screams for at least 15 seconds:

Its a sad message, irritating the 6th time, but at least within seconds every citizen in the State of Texas knows to be on the look-out for this child, and gets reminded every hour at least. Young Lady Jess, Milsy’s delightful daughter told us that they have the same in Alabama, but it warns then in Hurricane Season of approaching storms and when to go below ground into the shelter and when it is safe to come out again, very cool.

Tonight we are going for dinner with Pie’s Brother In Law who emigrated to the USA many years ago, pity Pie is already back in Johannesburg.

But what scared me today was the traffic and the high-way driving we had to do, we went up and down on the busy highways, 1st to get to KTM which was on the Southern part of Dallas, then back to the Northern part to the airport, then to the West and now we had to come for dinner near the airport, so we crossed this intersection 4 times, and remember each line you see on my GPS is a 5 lane highway:

We will chat again tomorrow.

Fleisch