I had called ahead to the Kiva RV campground ahead of time to let them know we were coming, so they were ready for us when we arrived there at about 1:45pm (Mountain Time) on Saturday. As I rode into the back of the campground I saw skinny guy with gray hair tied in a pony tail next to a parked Harley Sportster waving me in. At first I thought Brian had come down from Amarillo himself, but it turns out this was Earl from Kansas, a snowbird who spends every winter at the campground. I don't even want to think about the significance of the fact that we were joking about the show "My Name is Earl" and karma before we headed down there and then there is Earl in the flesh! LOL
Donna came out too and she and Earl said Clarence was in his camper and that he knew we were coming and had been "chomping at the bit" all day. I think he was a little nervous, because it took him a while to mosey out of the camper.
Brian had described him all too well. Quiet and unassuming, he emerged shortly from the camper dressed in simple blue mechanics overalls and a grungy ball cap. We were a little concerned that after having driven an automatic moped, he wouldn't be comfortable with a clutch-operated motorcycle, but once I had started it and warmed it up for him, he hopped on it and took off like a bat outta hell! In fact, I was wondering if he was coming back at all for a while!
He did come back though and I presented him with the title to the bike. After shooting the breeze for a while, we asked him if he wanted to go have lunch with us. He did, so we left the campground for the restaurant up the street with Clarence leading on his new bike and me following on the Bonedbike, and Trainwreck bringing up the rear in his truck. Clarence left both of us in the dust travelling up Tucumcari Blvd. He was doing about 50mph on the boulevard where the speed limit was only 35mph. I had a few moments of anxiety as we passed a cop going the other way.We had lunch at the restaurant and got to chat with Clarence while we ate and learn more about him. It is very sad that his family apparently wants nothing to do with him any more. I offered to hunt them down for him. I told him Trainwreck and I would go talk some sense into them for him, but he didn't seem too willing to take me up on the offer.
He was very grateful for the motorcycle. He kept saying he wished there was something he could do for all of us in return. He did say that he wanted to get everybody's addresses so he could mail out Christmas cards to everybody. So if you want a Christmas card from Clarence, e-mail me your snail mail address at (Bone's email appeared here) and I will forward all of them to Clarence. I know it would make him happy to be able to do that. I am also going to send an invite to Donna from the RV campground so that she can join this site and she and Clarence can see the photos we have posted, etc.
After lunch we headed back to the campground with Clarence once again far ahead of us. He kept saying how much "zip" the bike has. He said he used to own a 350CC Honda years ago that did not have as much get-up-and-go as this bike did.
Back at the campground we exchanged e-mail addresses and I got Clarence to write down his P.O. Box number for me. We posed for a few pictures, and Brooklyn, a great kid who comes to the campground to visit his grandma took a picture of both Trainwreck and I with Clarence. I have attached that photo to this e-mail, but I will also post all of these in the "Clarence" photo folder.We asked Earl and Donna whether there were any scenic roads that were not too far off from Highway 40 and we came up with a route back into Texas that wouldn’t add too much to the travel time.
This concludes the second installment...
-Scott
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