I am now posting from a new netbook. I will be posting pictures from a brand new camera. I also will be cooking with a brand new stove on brand new pots and pans. Soon I'll be searching out a GIVI supplier with stock on hand in order to get a brand new top case. I will also might be shoe shopping in the near future. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and find a shoe store that also can replace my tool roll and my allen wrench set? Why does Ray need all these things (you're asking yourself)?

BECAUSE MY GODDAMN TOP CASE FELL OFF MY BIKE IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING KANSAS!

That's why. It should have made a noise since it weighed somewhere near 20 pounds and was made of very hard plastic. It also shouldn't have fallen off the bike at all. The ratchet strap I tied it down with was tight enough to crush a bears skull.

It's over now. The trip will continue. If anyone is on highway 24w, 283n, old 9w, 181n, or 36w from Cawker City, Kansas to Phillipsburg, Kansas please scan the sides of the road and if you find my case there is the reward of either money or almost anything that suits you.

I also lost my travel journal from this trip. As a result all of the inspiring notes I was able to gather from Nick Vaughn have been lost. Sorry Nick, your segment will be freeform and less accurate now. That journal also had all of my travel notes from the last 5 years. It was more important to me than anything else in that box.

In the end this boils down to a mere inconvenience. There are real problems happening the world over as I type this. People are undernourished, jobless, or dying everywhere. Someone is being stabbed in an alley right now while another persons circumstances are sending them headlong into homelessness. I am riding a motorcycle around the US in search of cool people to spend my time with.

I am still winning, but furious in spite of it.


Here's to happiness.