Leaving Jackson this morning on the way to Chattanooga, TN, I ran in to a spot of trouble. About 20 miles outside Meridian, MS the engine just died, like hitting the kill switch, at about 75 miles per hour. After about 5 minutes on the side of the road fiddling with every connection I could find it just cleared itself up and started. I rode cautiously the rest of the way in to Meridian and had it happen once more, but it was a momentary blip, just an off-on instead of staying off.

Pulled in to the dealer in Meridian and they had the bike on the lift in less than 10 minutes. The diagnosis was a bad circuit breaker on the ignition circuit. Since they didn’t have one in stock we swapped the one for the accessory circuit and I was back down the road.

I stopped for lunch in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and called ahead to the dealer in Birmingham. They happened to have one in stock and put it aside with my name on it. When I got there it was waiting for me and along with a shirt and a new rear turn signal bulb it went in the luggage to be worked on when I stopped.

Since I was making such good time, even with the problems, I called ahead and told the Knoxville crew that I’d be in late tonight. It didn’t seem to make much sense to pay for a hotel room in Chattanooga when I only had about 110 more miles to ride.

I arrived at around 9:30 PM a little tired but done with that leg of the trip.