Best Layed Plans

I was looking forward this morning to taking the Niagara neophytes Smoke and the Beaver to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, a wondrous thing to see at least once. (kinda like top fuel drag racing) Anyway we rise with the chickens, like usual, and hear the pitter-patter of rain drops on the roof. No worries cause we are hard core adventure riders by now and we ain't skeered of a little rain.In the parking lot are several Harleys from yesterdays hog conclave.Harleys in my opinion are the most efficient mechanical devices on earth for converting gasoline into noise. I may just be sensitive cause Beaver says my V-strom sounds like a weed-wacker. We head west toward Niagara only about 40 miles away and stop at a small gas station on some obscure New York backroad. We all three fuel up but Beavers GS won't refire.The engine turns over but won't light. Hmmmm? The obvious things are checked like kill switch off, sidestand down clutch engaged...no luck. Look in the manuel under heading "won't start" but again no solution. Of course to make this a better story the rain picks up.....So Beaver calls the BMW road side service 800 number and gets some chick in Arizona who offers nothing other than to send a truck to pick up the bike and take it to the nearest dealer which happens to be 60miles away and doesn't open til Tuesday am. Drat! Beaver has them go ahead and get the recovery truck headed our way and in the meantime is able to get Milt McNally on the phone (Boy were we lucky we had cell service?).Milt owns the BMW dealership in Knoxville and advises Beaver immediately that the problem is in the ignition switch . Apparently this has been a frequently recurring BMW problem and BMW is recalling all these ignition modules. The solution: have the bike hauled to the nearest dealer, wait til they open Tuesday, get the module overnight delivered and installed, and by Wed. or Thurs., Beaver's sudden status as pedestrian will be repealed. Totally unacceptable plan but turns out to be the only option. Double damn!!! What about Niagara Falls? What about our leisurely ride home? But, as Smoke is fond of saying "it is what it is". The rollback arrives, the bike gets loaded and we head back in the direction from whence we cometh to the BMW dealer in Fairport, New York. Of course it has to be raining like stink, but Beav gets to ride in the nice dry tow truck. After a good bit of discussion about how this impacts the rest of our journey it's decided Beaver will stay in a motel near the dealership and when the bike is ready, ride it home.Smoke and I would head south on our own. That seemed like the best plan. If all three of us had stayed in a motel together for 3 or 4 days we surely would have pecked each other to death..Fair port seemed like a nice little community and knowing Beaver ,by the time his bike is ready he will he will be friends with half the people there. So smoke and I pointed south on the superslab and landed somewhere in Pennsylvania for tonight . I don't know where nor do I particularly care. I really wanted to go to Niagara.