That night we drove all Dixie down

Well, at least so was the plan. Dropping by Barber Motorsports Museum, then just blast down to N’Orleans. We knew we could not make it in one day with the distance and the stop at Barber, but nevertheless we believed we could.

Needless to say, we didn’t make it despite we didn’t even see the shadow of Stoneman’s Cavalry. Didn’t take much time from Doug’s place before we saw the first overheating. We used incredibly long time on the 100 miles from Doug and down to Barber so we just made it before the museum closed. Brian Slark, the curator awaited us and let us in for free, and Brian’s boss Jeff gave us a backstage tour.

Soon it became apparent that we wouldn’t even be able to enjoy the all the eye-candies at the museum before it closed. Jeff is a hospital soul and let us camp at the premises next to the race track that’s integrated with the museum, gave us a big cooling box with ice for supplies and sorted out the entire thing. American hospitality at its best.

We finished seeing the collection the next morning and drove more than 10 miles before we blew another head gasket. The gasket got replaced, and we marched on till it got dark. We found one spot to camp in Southern Alabama. It was an old yard, completely overgrown. The house looked like a twenties circus trailer and was obviously abandoned, and there was a barn falling down next to it.

Eddie, a concursed* New Yorker we picked up on the way, and Klaus started to plan the camp, while I moved on a few miles just to check if there was an even more suitable location.

Upon return I suddenly see them at the roadside at a different spot than the campsite. It turned out that the place was not abandoned, it lived some Deliverance hicks there. At first the birds had went quiet. Then they heard the squeak from a door. Then dead quiet. Eddie thought they were going to get eaten, but Klaus kept cool and just shouted “We’re leaving, sorry for the disturbance” and took off.

After taking off again the head gasket blew once more. We just pulled onto a farmer’s field next to the road and slept a few hours, and replaced the gasket again. The only gasket left was a used gasket, handmade in Siberia. For some reason this gasket actually held up the entire day and everybody agreed it had been a nice trip.

*
Concursed
–adjective
1.
under a curse; damned to drive a Kawasaki Concourse.


Tormod

The prototype of the new Buell dirtbike which would soon been on the market, if it wasn't for Mr Wandell or Vandal or WTF his rotten name is, the genious chief wanker at Harley Davidson that got Buell shut down.
Some other RTW'ers that had donated their bikes to Barber

Jeff, the very nice manager of the Barber. Both Jeff and Brian was very supportive and geniunly motorcycle interested fellows that made our visit to the worlds biggest motorcycle museum (currently 1300 bikes) very memorable.

The most tragic VIN in the motorcycle industry in 2009, the very last Buell ever made.

At least I can tell at the retirement home in a few years time that I got the chance to sit on the last Buell

The storage, it's the back stage stuff that interest me most when I'm at museums.

Camping at a field after Klaus and Eddie almost got aten by hicks.