1 Year, 2 KLRs, and a whole lot of open road...: March 9th-11th, 2010 pt.1

Ok so here’s the scoop. As soon as we saw the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign, we pulled over to the side of the road to take a picture. We were rushed to do this because there wasn’t really a shoulder, but the bikes were narrow enough for cars to get by; the thought of a car hitting the bikes would be too much to bear at this point of the trip. Amanda was pestering me to hurry up as I set the camera on timer and perched it in place as quickly as I could and got down on one knee. Amanda had no clue what was going on. Initially she thought it was a cool pose to do in front of the Vegas sign after so many generic poses we have done in the past. I didn’t say a word. I just stared into her eyes for what felt like eternity and simply said, “You wanna?” Her response, “You’re joking right?” Not sure that was the response I was prepared for, so not knowing what to say, I simply shook my head as if to say no. A moment of silence; a release of emotion, a huge smile, and a faint “Of course I do” as we embraced. Cars could have smashed into our bikes right then and there and it would have taken a few moments for us to break out of our trance.

Casa mpanther

It’s great to finally meet mpanther. We’ve been corresponding back and forth over ADV on whether we’re ever going to make it to Vegas. Many a times has he pleaded to the East Coast inmates to stop hogging all the fun already. He’s also allowed us to ship a few supplies in advance for when we get there. mpanther along with his wife Roo took us out to a sports bar close by to have dinner and get to know one another. mpanther already had an idea of who we were after following our posts since October. Later on that evening we rummaged through the stuff we had sent in advance to mpanther. A pair of Shinko 244’s rear tires, a monocular, wedding rings that were too big (I’ll explain this later), and a new pair of runner’s for Amanda.