Back in the USA (Not sure how we feel about that)

Here we are again

One of the busiest airports to get the bike delivered into

Arriving back into North America – Re-entry!

Our flight back into LA went without a hitch, 13hours on the plane, nonstop with Virgin Airlines, other than the fact that neither of us can sleep on planes it was a good flight, oh well we watched movies and listened to some great tunes, they seem to be serving you food all night long and free drinks too.

We hadn’t booked anything for our arrival in LA as we landed at 9am and the plan was to head straight to Delta Cargo and pick up the bike.  We flagged down a cab and headed over to Delta only to find out that the bike had not arrived yet, upon further research it turns out that in fact there had been a “electronic error” at Delta in Sydney and the bike was left on the tarmac at the airport and wasn’t on the promised flight.  Ok that was bad enough, we left Delta and one of their workers kindly offered to drive us to a hotel close by, what a dodgy part of the city that was.  The motel was only $57.00 a night so you can imagine what kind of area it was in and how lovely the rooms were, oh and did i mention we didnt have the backup of our sleeping bags cause of course they were with the bike still – we were both too tired to care at that point so we booked in for one night and thought we would check out, collect the bike in the morning and head out of the city.  

I guess when you need some were to stay
this will do bit not our first choice

We got some sleep so we wouldn’t screw up our human clocks with the time change from Oz to the US we woke ourselves up again at 6pm and walked a mile to get some dinner – well you know America its full of fast food restaurants – the portions are grossly huge, im thinking of sending a letter to the government telling them they should pass a bill for the restaurants to reduce the portions sizes by 50% and charge less, this would go towards helping the numerous amounts of obese people in this country, especially the women, it really is quite sad to see.

Walking back to our motel in the dark in this run down area of town was not my idea of “happy that I had arrived back in North America” I couldn’t wait to get to the mountains.  We were starting to realize that indeed we were on the homeward leg and that wasn’t going to change, we cant say that we are ready to be home but at the same time we have a plan and then in a couple more years we will ride to South America, so its all good.

Now where is my bike

Back to the bike saga, Trev emailed the Brisbane shipping agent and informed him the bike was not on the plane and he knew nothing about it, after a few phone calls he emailed us letting us know that that was the case, yah!,  and that in fact it wasn’t even going to be on the next days flight either, crap now we are p---ed!  Another day in this hellhole never mind the fact that we have only 12 days to get home.  We let him know that he needed to ruffle some feathers over this for us at Delta, someone has screwed up big time and we would be looking for some compensation.

Well he came thru for us, he did manage to get us some sizeable compensation which eased the pain of being stuck here and being late leaving to head north, the bike was on the next days flight and we picked it up without a glitch.  

This was just too easy

The girls at the Delta Cargo terminal were as happy
 to see our bike as we were

The people at Delta Cargo LA were great, the two girls in the office were as happy as we were to see the bike arrive, very fun couple of girls, thanks ladies, it only cost $50.00 to get the bike out of cargo.  The forklift driver took the bike outside in the parking lot for us to assemble, lent us his own personal tool kit and told us we could put the wooden crate into the bin, wow that was wonderful service.  

This is always a great feeling
seeing the bike for the first time after shipping

The most difficult thing is getting the dam box open

All in one piece
Well it will be soon

This is the bit where Chenty always tell me
to make sure the bolts are tight

Before we got the bike we had to clear customs, that turned out to be a breeze also, Trev had called customs the day before to check procedure and they said as long as we had registration and Canadian insurance we should be good to go, they said if you have any troubles tell them to call us direct, couldn’t have been better than that, the whole thing took about 15mins and no fees either, we are free to ride home, it was great to have Big Red out of the box, all put together again and us back on the road. (god even i have turned Big Red into a real person, yikes)

Ready to head out again

Now this looks familiar

First thing first we need new boots

Great service guys thanks for fitting me in!!

We needed to get some new rubber for the bike before leaving LA and Mark (our brotherinlaw) had mentioned that he had a contact at the Harley store here so he called them and they recommended that he contact the BMW store instead which he did.  That was great because they were on standby for us the whole time while we were trying to get confirmation of which flight our bike was actually on, as soon as we got it all put together we headed over to LA BMW and they took care of us.  Onto the lift she went and got 2 new shoes and a protective cover for the Petentiometer, which we decided it needed as during shipping a small piece had come loose.  Its great to own a BMW because the dealers all treat you so well, they fit you in at a moments notice, give you coffee and entertain you with stories.

Now we get to head North and into those mountains!