Wednesday, April 10, 2024:
Spending the night at: Mack’s Pines near Dover and Russellville Arkansas
Weather- cloudy like we’re in a cloud with high probability of rain. Hi 64, low 50, Humidity Hi 85%
We didn’t get up early. It was supposed to rain last night and it did not. It was supposed to be raining this morning, and it is not. We kept checking the weather apps, and every time we looked, the rain was supposed to start in the next hour. And it kept moving out to a later time. Finally about 11:00 we decided to take a short ride nearby so that if it did start raining we wouldn’t have far to go to get back. The trail was rocky and bumpity and fun.
There were some uppies and downies. Kawi started making a weird grindy/rattly noise that we’d never heard before. We always are listening and if I hear something weird I try to describe it to the mechanic. This time he heard it too.
There are lots of trails that go through creeks and streams around here. Greg said we shouldn’t have any trouble with any of them with our rig since we have such high ground clearance and even more than stock for a Kawasaki KRX since we have 35” tires rather than the 31” stock height. We did find one stream today; it was clear and we could see the rocky bottom and that it wasn’t deep, so no fear KimosabeeKawi.. let’s cross.
Oooh – this reminded us of some of the riding up around Elbe near Mount Rainier in Washington. I’m really glad there was a go-around for this mud pit.
We really heard the weird noise when we went up this hill. Kenny was getting concerned that it might be something with the clutch or the new belt he put on when he was doing maintenance this winter.
We were only gone for an hour and had a few sprinkles of rain. We could have done some more trails, but the noise was really bothering the mechanic so we came home.
We parked Kawi under Nitro’s awning, and Kenny did some diagnosis while I went to the picnic tables by the office to work on this blog. He took the clutch cover off and made sure everything in there was put together correctly after the work he did at home. He changed the belt back to the old one which is warn a little but still good. He also noticed a little metal guard pan that sits above the muffler that seems loose and noisy if it vibrated. But our noise was curiously only noticeable when we were under power, so that’s why he thought the belt or clutch might be the culprit.
We took Kawi for a quick spin down the rocky trail and back up so we’d have to crank up the throttle and rpms to get back up the rocky hill. No weird noise. So we don’t know exactly what the source of the noise was, but at least the mechanic can sleep tonight and not worry about tomorrow’s ride.
The sky was getting dark so we decided to not go out for another ride. Instead…. we went to town. Like Conway town which is 65 miles away. We’ve been talking about the possibility of getting a starlink for all of our travels, primarily because we boondock camp by ourselves with no cell service, with no way to get ahold of anybody if we need help. The price of the unit is $599 and we can use it while camped in Nitro, and we can use it when we’re anchored with Island Girl. The monthly charge is $150 for a mobile plan, but we have no cable bill when we aren’t in Florida because we turn it off…. so that offsets some of the monthly cost. Kenny hasn’t mentioned it for awhile, but today I suggested we go to town and get one. So that’s what we did! He had a surprised look on his face when I said it, because he’s usually the one twisting my arm. We bought it at BestBuy, and they offered a 4-year warranty for $99 for full replacement if anything happens to it…. if it falls and breaks, gets run over, whatever.
While in town we also filled up one of our propane tanks at Tractor Supply and went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Kenny loves their ribeye steak. Oh! And even though it’s in a DRY county, they still can serve alcohol at the restaurant. Weird, huh?
On our way back to camp it was pouring down rain, and rained until sometime around 2am. Ha! The rain finally came and it was serious wet. Kenny had all kinds of trouble getting the StarkLink set up because the numbers weren’t matching or something and he finally had to do online chat with somebody who had to fix something. Anyway, he said it took until 2am, but now it works!! The Starks are connected to the stars!! And I tell you what… its FAST! I’m finishing this up on Thursday morning – not outside at the picnic tables, or five days later when we finally get cell service. I’m in my jammies in Nitro, and it’s amazing. Woo-hoo!
Now I won’t have very good excuses for not getting my blog out on time, huh?