Flurry's new home

Last night Brad and I delivered Flurry and his bike to their new home here in Panama.

We put the word out to some of the taxi drivers here at the hotel that we had two bikes to sell. One immediatly passed on the word to a local Panamanian that was parked nearby because he was picking up a work associate at our hotel.

We started to chat with him and it was an immediate sale. Tito is a Panamanain photo-journalist working for the Associated Press. He´s married to a very nice girl from New York, has a 3 year old son and lives in a lovely new housing developement that was a former US Army Base. It has apartments, four-plexes, duplexes, single homes and large executive homes, all on about 100 acres of green space. Tito and his wife live in a four-plex, and an area of the development that he calls the UN because of the diversity of the residents. Anyway, Tito just sold his previous bike but regrets it because they´re on a budget and the gas bill for his Jeep is kiling them. He´s a devout Christian and he´s convinced me selling him Flurry for $500 out of the blue is a gift from God.

He looked at both bikes with a friend who´s a mechanic but he initially said he only wanted to buy Flurry. I told him it was a package deal so he eventualy brought over his neighbout to look at them too. It turns out his neighbour is his good friend and about the same age. His father had a Silverwing when he was a child and used to take him for rides so he jumped all over the chance to buy Brads´s bike so he can restore it and give it to his dad as a surprise present. Tito had to lend him some money to cement the deal but eventualy, after handshakes and final arrangements we agreed to sell both bikes for $1,000.

Brad and I drove the bikes over to their house last night and met their wives, kids and neighbours and were the talk of the town. We had a brief scare when we received an admonishment from a local Policia Naciaonal to slow down through the development but all´s well that end´s well.

Flurry is happy to be able to live out the rest of her days providing much needed support to a great Panamanaim family and she told me she loves the warmer weather. She never liked having to use her choke to start and says she´s much happier in this climate. She´ll also have Brad´s bike to keep her company and allow her to talk to someone in English whenever she gets homesick.

So, a sad day and a happy day all at once.

Adios old girl - you did good, really really good!