Last year the old-school wet cell battery on Naomi's bike somehow used enough water to bring the electrolyte level half-way down the plates. I added distilled water to bring the level back in spec, but didn't put the battery on a charger. Weeks later after not using the bike, the battery was dead and wouldn't take a charge. It was time for a new battery. I suspected that the bike might be overcharging the battery and that's what was cooking the water off. In the driveway the alternator was always charging at a perfect 14 volts, so this spring I installed a cockpit-mounted voltmeter so that we could keep an eye on the charging while riding, maybe under certain conditions it was overcharging. Well, for the first three thousand miles of our trip, the volt meter always showed perfect charging, so I expected the battery was doing fine.
Now, after the nearly-dead battery this morning, I wasn't so sure. At the gas station after filling up the tank, the battery shows a perfect 12V at rest. This is a good sign, maybe we'd just left the lights on after all. Nonetheless I decide to take the bike apart to take a look at the water level in the battery. We pull just enough of the body work to sneak a look at the fluid level, but in the limited light down inside the battery compartment we can't seem to see the level of the fluid. Time to pull the battery. With the battery out my fears were confirmed. Many of the cells were almost completely dry. Conventional wisdom says add distilled water and off you go, but my experience last year had me concerned that there may be no reviving a battery that's run so dry, or that the battery will need to go on a charger after I correct the water level. Worst case would be that I add water and turn a running bike into a non-running bike, or worse yet that I add water and it starts fine now, but won't start next time, when we're on our own in the middle of the New Mexico desert.
We call a trusted dealer in NH for a second opinion, but it's lunchtime there and they can't locate a tech right away. When they finally do they say go for it, adding water is part of normal maintenance. I say "even if the battery is almost completely dry? Will I need to charge it afterwards?" They don't have a confident answer for me. Now I'm thinking I should try to find a new battery for the bike, just so we can rest easier. Luckily there's a few motorcycle dealers half an hour down the road, and one of them has a battery that will work. We put the bike back together with the nearly-dry battery, it starts right away as if nothing is wrong, and we head down the road to the dealer.
When we arrive, we find they haven't bothered to prep the battery before our arrival, so we pay them for the battery and wait 45 minutes while they fill the battery with acid and give it a fast charge. When they finally bring the battery out, I see it's a sealed, maintenance free battery. Maybe this one will fare better than the old one. Well, turns out the battery doesn't fit in the battery compartment. The book they'd consulted listed the wrong part number for Naomi's bike. Luckily they also have the correct battery, but now we've got to wait another 45 minutes while they prep that one. There's only so much poking around at dirt bikes and UTVs one can do in a small motorcycle shop, so I decide I'm going to fill Naomi's old battery just to see what happens. I correct the fluid level, put the battery back in the bike, and the volt meter shows a perfect 12V. Interesting science experiment, but for an additional 20 minutes and 89 dollars we can have the insurance of a brand new battery, so we wait and install the new one.
We stay on the front edge of the storm for a while, where the winds are high but the rain is modest. Then the storm overtakes us for a bit, and we get briefly drenched. Then we're back out in front. All the while we're traveling through totally unpopulated countryside, passing nothing but large white pickup trucks, each with an orange or yellow flag at the top of a tall fiberglass mast, the kind of "don't run over me" flag you might see on an ATV at the sand dunes, or on small trucks at a huge mine site. Over time we find out these aren't mine workers, but oil and gas field workers. The countryside is dotted with well sites, and we must have passed more than a hundred of these trucks, all going the other way. With the storm on the horizon, I started to wonder if they knew something we didn't.
Then the oilfield trucks disappeared and we were alone heading east, still chased by the storm. Soon we were climbing mountains. We got to around 11,000 feet, the temperature dropped to the mid 40s and we were in and out of rain and hail. Once again, it was looking like camping wasn't going to be our preferred lodging for the night. We were going to need someplace to warm up.
Out of the mountains and into a vast valley plain, we were the tallest thing for miles around as we were watching lightning in the distance. The wind picked up to absurd levels, Naomi told me over the intercom that my bike was leaned over so far that if she took a picture of me it would look like I was cornering hard. Wind and rain be damned, I wanted off that plain with the lightning around, so we kept our speeds up as high as we dared, charging towards Taos in the distance, at the foot of another set of mountains.
Naomi was starting to get excited about the "earth ships," these crazy, off-grid houses outside Taos built out of largely reclaimed materials. "They'll be on the left side of the road if I remember correctly, though I'm not sure which road, or which direction you'd have to be going for them to be on the left." Then, minutes later "Earthships! There they are!" On the left, just like she remembered. We weren't about to stop with the weather the way it was, and me still trying to warm up from our brief excursion into winter, so we pressed on to Taos, vowing to come back to see the earthships the next day.
We rolled into Taos and found an adobe motel that fit the budget. Better yet, they had a hot tub, which we wasted no time getting into. It's a rare kind of day for me to want to get into a hot tub. This day qualified.
Got recommendations from the staff for an enchilada joint, which did not disappoint.