So, I'm not an electrician...sue me.

Countdown - 73 Days

I'm down to the little nitty gritty items now, in preparation mode. I've got all the big stuff done:
Tires, luggage, super good cleaning, brakes, coolant flush, etc. Now it's the little stuff.

Like a better system for powering my Garmin GPS. Prior to today, I had your standard GPS power cable running from a cigarette lighter adapter in my saddlebag all the way up to the front of the bike. Worked fine, but it was a pain in the rumpus to connect and disconnect power to it quickly (without draining my battery).

I have already installed a switch for my Bambi lights (these are an extra set of passing/driving lights that I've mounted on my bike to make sure I see as much of the road in the dusk/dark as possible). The switch works out great (as long as I remember to shut it off). So I thought, why not go ahead and wire the GPS up to that power source and get rid of the 6 foot cable running the length of the bike?

Well, it sounded good. Unfortunately, I must have wired something funky because as soon as I plugged the GPS in, I got nothing. No flash of the screen, no smell of burning wires, nothing. It just wouldn't power up. Ever. Even just trying to power up using the internal battery didn't work. I even tried plugging it into the lighter socket in my car, in case I had a short somewhere, but no dice. So, apparently I blew it up.

So now I have to decide whether I want to get a different GPS mounting system and take my wife's other GPS (wider, newer, cooler), or just replace my old one. Either way, we're looking at a nice unexpected expense. And since Garmin stopped making my cheap model a couple years ago, I'll have to resort to Ebay and cross my fingers.

And before I do anything else, I'm checking with the nearest electrical expert (or Radio Shack store manager) and making sure that what I have wired now won't burn out another GPS or give me one helluva shock riding down the road.

As Matt would say, "That's how you learn these things." Yeah? Well I'd much rather learn by NOT spending all that extra dough on replacement items! I even tried to pep talk myself into doing it right. I kept saying, "Gordo - be smarter!" Didn't work.