On Wednesday morning, September 12, 2001, Bill sent me an email saying, among other things, “I barely escaped being tarred and feathered or even burned at the stake as a heretic when I mentioned in a coffee shop that America has been attacking so many countries for so long that why should it be any surprise when someone retaliated?” A few days later he drafted the following letter, which he planned to send to Rush Limbaugh.  He emailed it to me for editorial comment first (I don’t know if he ever followed through on sending it; even if he did, it no doubt wouldn’t have shed any rain on Limbaugh’s parade).

While the blame for our recent terrorist attacks is being placed on our lack of airport security and failures of our intelligence community, has anyone ever bothered to ask just why anyone might want to attack a bunch of nice people like us?  For over a half century, bombs and artillery paid for by the American taxpayer and supplied to Israel have been killing Palestinian Arabs.  Has anyone ever questioned that this may not be a prudent investment of our social security surplus? Read more…

7/17/01, Guaymas — I was going to send the previous from Mazatlán, but it seems that in some towns down here the locals still observe pagan rituals left over from the days of the Spanish Inquisition and burn shopkeepers at the stake for opening on Sunday. Consequently, the cyber cafe was closed. I’m beginning to suspect that the presence of so many Catholics, along with crucifixes over all the doors, may be affecting Der Gegenchrist’s performance almost as much as the Mexican gas–some of which may possibly be contaminated with holy water.

Up until yesterday I had been able to avoid the Mexican toll roads, but in just one day I spent about 700 pesos on gas and tolls. Mexico really needs another Pancho Villa. Hopefully I won’t have any more bike problems. If I can keep the schedule, I will be sputtering back into Azusa on Friday the 20th in the afternoon.

Talk to ya later,

Bill

7/15/01, Mazatlán — Der Gegenchrist’s health suddenly took a turn for the worse yesterday. Again this started after a new tank of gas. Now when I release the throttle the engine misses, and when I come to a stop it dies. I was worried about making it as far as Mazatlán, and to make matters worse it rained a large part of the way. I really don’t relish the idea of being stranded in the rain in the middle of nowhere down here, but I finally managed to sputter into town.

This morning I looked for air leaks around the carb input and didn’t find any. I also changed the plugs. I was finally able to get it running better by increasing the idle. I think I may have had a piece of crud in the idle jet. I’m thinking now that if I had installed one of those fine mesh in-line fuel filters below the tank, I may have avoided a lot of these problems. I’ll take the carb apart and give it a good cleaning when I get back. While I’m down here and about 2500 miles from a BMW mechanic, I’m a little reluctant to really taken the thing apart.

If German tanks run as poorly on French and North African gas as their bikes run on Mexican gas, it’s no wonder they lost the war.

7/7/01, Acapulco – To my admiring public: I’m in Acapulco now, and have been lounging around on the beach for the last few days. I can easily see how people can get to like it down here, even if the weather is a little too warm. Remember, when the Antichrist says the weather is warm, that means really hot by mortal standards.

The problem with Der Gegenchrist started suddenly with one tank of gas. I know the mileage was okay before that because I went on reserve at 176 miles before I bought the suspect tank. This was over 1500 miles ago. I’ve run the tank to almost empty several times, so any water should be long gone. Other than low power and low mileage, the bike runs fine, and the plugs seem okay. I cleaned the air filter and set the valves just before I left. Since it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, I’m not as worried about it as I was and am not too worried about having to take the bus home and return for the bike in the truck.

Right now I am thinking that this may be caused by the entire quality control dept. at Pemex going on vacation the day after I left for this trip. I’ll know if that is the problem on my first tank of distilled-by-rednecks gas when I get back to the uncivilized side of the border.

I’ll stay around here and leer at the bikinis for another day or two, and then start slowly heading back up north, stopping at the nicer beach towns along the way. I should be back before the end of the month.

Talk to ya later,

Bill

N.B. In the summer of 2001, Bill set out for Central America on his fire-engine red BMW motorcycle, “Der Gegenchrist.” He also acquired a new travel email address inspired by his heroes from the film “Easy Rider,”: sleazyrdr@hotmail.com. I missed his first few emails on the trip because he sent them to my work address, where I was inundated with all things The Lord of the Rings and deleted them under the assumption that they were part of the voluminous waves of spam coming through (this was a handful of months before the first film in Peter Jackson’s trilogy was released). Fortunately, before long the light bulb went on and I decided to open up an email and see if the “Sleazy Rider” who kept writing to me might be my dear wandering brother. Lo and behold, it was!

6/25/01, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – I’m in Puerto Vallarta now. This is a nice little beach resort town, but, since the last time I was here, 10 years ago, it’s gotten way too touristy, and of course the prices have gone way up. You’ve all heard the warnings about allowing minorities to move into the neighborhood. The damn gringos are already complaining about riding in the last four rows of bus seats, and soon will want to use the same restrooms and eat at the same lunch counters as honest, decent people. Read more…