One hundred fifty miles

[Willow]

In the final steps for us to leave the hotel in Dubuque I was putting my "tool bag" back together.  I carry the little bag with other things beneath the saddle on my rather stripped down Valkyrie.  As I was working the tools into the bag I dropped a couple of sockets.  One fell past the battery and into the inner mechanical area of the Valk.  I looked at where I expected it to come to rest near the swingarm.  No socket.  I searched the pavement under and around the bike.  No socket.  I turned on the flashlight on my "phone" and carefully searched every nook I could see among the parts of the machine that might catch a wayward piece of a tool.  No socket.

I decided we needed to be on our way and gave up the search.  Perhaps the piece had slipped through a portal into another dimension.

We headed down the road, roads, traveling usually at seventy miles per hour or better until my fuel tank ran low.  We were passing through a rather fuel station limited portion of Iowa when I went onto reserve.  Ultimately I settled on a Casey's station some one hundred fifty miles into our journey.  I pulled up onto one side of the pump and Lori put her machine on the other side.  I finished first and decided to go inside and get something to hydrate my body.  I pulled into a space at the curb outside the store and was greeted by a gentleman next to his pickup who wanted to talk about the Valkyrie.  We conversed for a bit and I got ready to go inside when he said to me, "There's something under your bike."

I bent down to look.  It was a blue 8mm socket.  One hundred fifty miles.  Some two hours and a fair amount of up and down, accelerate and decelerate.

The are just some things in life that I don't fully understand.    

[Oss]

be thankful the little bugger did not fall and puncture your rear tire on a lucky bounce

[old2soon]

     Well Carl some things are NOT meant to be understood. And Happy the socket stayed along fer the Ride! When you stated it went down I had Not good visions of the ending. And besides it weren't the dreaded 10  MM socket loss!   RIDE SAFE.

[ridingron]

I was going to ask if it was the dreaded disappearing 10mm.  ;  You're a lucky guy!

[Willow]

be thankful the little bugger did not fall and puncture your rear tire on a lucky bounce

LOL!  It was a socket.  Mine are round. 

[h13man]

On my 21st. Bday a "souvenir" shot glass stayed on the back of my XL250 thumper motor for the ride to next bar and fell off when put it on the kickstand. And no I didn't put it there as my passenger did.

[hubcapsc]

I did that once... only with a jack adapter. I stopped for gas
in Franklin on the way to the Fall Color Ride and CLANK it
fell off at the gas pump.

-Mike

[DIGGER]

Couple yrs ago my brother in Houston Tx  took his family snow skiing at Red River NM.  Ready to leave Houston he couldnt find his eye glasses.   847 mmiles later in Red River Nm he found the glasses laying on the rear bumper of his truck.   Amazing.

[Moonshot_1]

be thankful the little bugger did not fall and puncture your rear tire on a lucky bounce

LOL!  It was a socket.  Mine are round. 

So are bullets. It is amazing it stayed where it was for as long as it did. If it would have dropped at 70 mph and bounced on the pavement coulda caused a bit of a problem for someone. Good to see your Guardian Angel at work.

[cookiedough]

amazes me how far some smaller items you drop roll way far away or get stuck in nook and crannies ONLY to find them later on, not right away as one would expect.  was working on my furnace small 6mm or so socket dropped inside down below, took off several bigger parts ONLY to find it hidden up top shoulda been an easy find.

[Rams]

Couple yrs ago my brother in Houston Tx  took his family snow skiing at Red River NM.  Ready to leave Houston he couldnt find his eye glasses.   847 mmiles later in Red River Nm he found the glasses laying on the rear bumper of his truck.   Amazing.

This reminded me of a time I (and a few others) were riding toward Wichita, KS on the open highway.   I was #2 position in the group.   The lead rider started pointing at the car in front of us.   I wasn't sure what was so interesting but, still looked and could see something on the back bumper.   As we got closer to the city the road went from two lane to four and we all sped up to pass the car.

There was a big fat cat riding on the back bumper while the car was doing the speed limit or close to it.   As we passed, we were able to get the passenger (a young girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old) in the rear of the car to roll down her window and told her about the cat.   The car just laid there watching us pass.

The car immediately pulled off the road and the cat (I presume since we all went ahead and rode on.) was rescued.

Rams

[Wizzard]

I did that once... only with a jack adapter. I stopped for gas
in Franklin on the way to the Fall Color Ride and CLANK it
fell off at the gas pump.

-Mike

I had the exact same experience. Can you imagine if it would have fell off on the road at 70 mph?
Never forgot that again.

[hubcapsc]

I did that once... only with a jack adapter. I stopped for gas
in Franklin on the way to the Fall Color Ride and CLANK it
fell off at the gas pump.

-Mike

I had the exact same experience. Can you imagine if it would have fell off on the road at 70 mph?
Never forgot that again.

It just means that me and you aren't qualified to use the kind of jack adapter
that's not bolted on permanently  ...

-Mike