Farewell Old Friend

Well, I've been gradually packing up and cleaning out here at the house, under the assumption that I'll be moving to Moscow once I'm back from my trip.

It's pretty tough selling and throwing away some of the stuff accumulated over over the last several years, but today was especially tough: selling my first bike, the trusty BMW R1200C that I bought last March and that carried me all around the US. Definitely closed some chapter in my life.

I put ads up on Craigslist and a BMW site, but didn't get it sold--had a couple of deals fall through. So I e-mailed one of the guys who had been interested and offered a big price cut--from $6500 to $5200 to get a deal done. He agreed, and drove down from New Hampshire to pick up the bike. In fact, after our initial deal didn't happen, he agreed to buy another R1200C in the DC area, but he like my bike better, so he drove down with a trailer to pick up BOTH bikes, and then figure out which one he liked better and sell the other. He got a pretty good deal on my old friend!

Anyway, I took it for what turned out to be the last ride on Sunday, but to Great Falls and Edward's Ferry in Maryland--a very nice ride. I was pretty sad packing things up as Mark (the buyer) pulled in, but I really had to sell the bike. Even if I had a place to store it once I move, it would do the bike no good at all to sit unused for years at a time.

Here are the final pictures of the R1200C:

So Mark loaded it up in the trailer and drove it away. Farewell old friend!