Day 20 - 21 June 2014

Finally arrived back close to home; my folks and kids who live in the Tulsa, OK area. I still have 290 miles to reach my real home in Little Rock but staying in Tulsa a couple of days before heading over to finish AK2.

I left Salina, KS at 4:55 am this morning so I could get through Wichita before rush hour and to arrive in Tulsa before the heat started building. It should have been an easy 272 miles but I never like to do things the easy way.

My son Jeff wanted to ride out to meet me part way on his Harley Davidson and ride in to his house where I’m staying. We planned to meet at Perry, OK which was a 172 mile ride for me and a 100 mile ride for him. As I was approaching Perry my fuel reserve started flashing saying you have about a gallon left. I planned on getting fuel before we headed the last 100 miles to Jeff’s house. Jeff also need fuel I found out later. BTW the last 100 miles was on a turnpike (toll road) with limited access.

I met Jeff at the Perry Micky-D and had a breakfast and coffee while we talked about my trip. We finished and went to the bikes and discussed who would lead; I won. Both of us totally forgot about fuel.

We jumped on the Turnpike and headed to Tulsa. About 30 miles down the road the bike started stalling. You guessed it, out of gas! I just road 7000+ miles where fuel was always a top priority and I run out of gas 70  miles from my destination. The fuel gage and reserve indicator are not very easy to see on the Yamaha and it never caught my attention until the engine died. I now know I can ride 43 miles when the reserve indicator starts flashing.

As I pulled off the highway and told Jeff what happened he said he was also on reserve. I said I saw a sign a short distance back saying fuel and food available 35 miles ahead. The good news was I still had the 1 gallon of fuel in my reserve tank locked on the rear rack. I had carried that fuel from Anchorage, AK to the Arctic Circle and back then down the ALCAN highway through Canada to the great plains of the US so I could have it available 70 miles from my destination in Oklahoma. I got it off the rack but had never used it before and could not figure out how the locking mechanism worked. Luckily Jeff uses these same tanks on his 4-wheeler so he fueled my bike while I took his picture.

We were still not out of trouble. Jeff thought he had enough fuel to reach the next service station but my bike gets about 37 mpg and it was close to that to the next fuel. We took off and drove about 55-60 mph so I could stretch the fuel to the maximum. We made it and fueled up. I took a picture of the pump reading showing I put 5.3 gallons in a 6 gallon tank. Not sure how accurate any of those readings are but I don’t want to try this again to find out.

I’m changing the oil in the bike tomorrow then heading to Little Rock early Monday (290 miles to go!).