So if yesterday lots of stupid little things went wrong, today lots of stupid little things went right. I hadn’t realized the Alamo was in San Antonio until my mom asked if I had gone there. I really don’t much care for historical battle grounds, but I did love Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. I did not however, inquire about the basement. I spent longer than I meant to and checked it out. I think that its funny we have a monument to the one time brown people won in the United States. Although I suspect locals might think that a perverse way to view it. That’s ok, I think it’s perverse to call yourself a patriot while wearing the flag of a traitorous insurrection that tried to destroy the nation they claim to be patriots to. But I digress.
So from there is was out to Seguin and Autozone, where I got two replacement Xenon bulbs for 57. Once again, big fuck you to the folks at Houston BMW. So getting to the lightbulbs is about as easy as you could imagine requiring no tools besides my hand. Getting the bulb out was also ridiculously easy requiring said hands. Getting the lightbulb back in and the retaining clip set – near impossible. There is no space between the forks and the headlight covers to really manuver. With the fairing still on there is no way to see what your doing, and I had never done this before. So 30 minutes of cursing, bending, contorting, taking pictures, trying to use my phone as an arthroscope etc – I finally got the bugger. I’m pretty sure I could do it in 10 next time. That being said I did not replace the other bulb yet. Will probably do that in the morning.
Even more good news, the warning lights dissappeared so Helga seems 100% happy again. The only downpoint. I had gotten a sticker that said “You can all go to hell, and I will go to Texas, David Crockett” and I had put it on in San Antonio. When I went to take off from the autozone, I realized it had blown off. Boo. I was not going back to San Antonio for another one though.
It was 1pm at this point, but I still wanted to get some forward miles, so found a Best Western on the west side of Houston and skedaddled.
It was a little rough on my back, but this best western also had a hot tub – total bonus. Also the new hiking pants I bought yesterday to replace the ones that chaffed, in fact did not chaffe and I’m way happy about that. Oh also picked up some face moisturizer as I’m wind burned. So all in all a good day, fixed Helga, got some shopping done, and still made good miles.