The thought of 2-week trip touring the Grand Canyon and riding the Rockies were foremost on my mind as I prepared for my departure. About 3 hours into the trip, somewhere around El Centro, CA I stopped at a K-mart to get some bulbs for the speedo light. On the way out of the parking lot I hit a chuckhole and upended myself. So here I am laying in the parking lot pinned down by my bike, my right leg twisted back in excruciating pain under the saddlebag. Two guys come up to help, lift the bike off of me and ask if I'm okay. I reply that I'm okay while thinking that my leg is broke. So I just lay there, depression setting in on top of the pain, thinking, "What am I going to do? Hundreds, NO! Thousands of miles from a support system, broken and bleeding." I think I groaned. Meanwhile the two guys are periodically asking me if I'm okay and I keep saying yes. Finally, one guy shouts "Well if your okay why don't you get up?!!" I almost laughed, while I was sliding into despair and these guys were trying to decide whether to call 911. I felt sorry for them. My leg was just sprained really bad, and some major road rash on my right shoulder but I would survive.
Stopped into a restaurant to get a bite and use their washroom to lick my wounds. It was there that I decided my only alternative was to ride straight through to Dallas. Rode to Yuma, AZ that night and stopped at a motel to get my leg up and eat some aspirin. The next morning I found a welding shop where they could fix my road bar so I could keep my leg propped up. Rode to El Paso, TX and napped for a few hours on a roadside table. Daylight put me on the road again where I made it as far as Midland, TX before the heat and pain got to me. Took a short nap and rode on to Dallas arriving at 8 PM.
I traveled 1200 miles of interstate, in pain, in 40 hours. Hmmm, thought I'd promised not to do that again. Frankly, I wish I had jumped a curb.