Greatest Ride So Far

Mark was having a bad hair day but other than that it was a great day.

Our little jaunt today was about 220 miles.  It was the best ride so far.  Plenty of back nice back roads with curves and scenery.  We stopped here for lunch.  It was a little hidden gem.  We needed a nap afterwards.  Oh well. 

 

Taking pictures at 60-70 MPH on a motorcycle is a little different.  Not really any side pictures just straight ahead.

 

Here we are at Lake Livingston State Park.  Mark was still enjoying lunch

We left about 9:30 AM and got back home at 3:30 PM.  Temps were in the seventy's and the sun was out.  The winds kept us alert in several areas.  It was our best run so far.  The month of December looks like it won’t be as great due rain and cooler weather.  Where’s those rain suits?

The GPS system on my bike didn’t work.  It just wasn’t bright enough.  Yes, it was on the brightest setting.  Oh well…

See ya….

Now The Harley Is Up

OK, I thought about this and thought about it.  Lock the trailer bed down, get a 2X12 10 foot board and just drive the Harley up.  That’s what I did.

With 750 lbs of bike on the trailer I noticed the tires were hurting.  I pumped them up to 80 psi of their 90 capable psi.  I saw cracks in the tires.  I ordered new ones on Amazon.   duh……  The tires were $90 bucks (pair) delivered.  Then $60 because I filled out an Amazon credit card application and then $30 because I also got a gift from what or why I don’t know.  Bottom line $30 for the tires.  The 12 inch tires are on wheels already. That was well worth it.

Back to the bike.  It still needs a little fine tuning but were in the ball park now.  Oh, to get the bike off I released the pin on the tilt bed and slowly backed off.  Yes the bed went up in the air after I started to back up.  No problem what’s so ever.

I tried cooking something that I never did before.  I cooked some pork ribs in the Weber gas grill.  I put muster and rub on them like I was going to smoke them.  I then put them on the grill backside down.  A few squirts of apple juice ever so often.  About 35 minutes later I turned them over for 10 minutes.  A total of 45 minutes and they were done.  They were pretty good.  Not fall off the bone but for 45 minutes they were great.  The ribs were on sale for $2 a lb and they weighed about 2.5 lbs.  Not bad at all.  Carol even liked them.

I thinking about starting a motorcycle Birds of the same Feather (BOF) group.  It falls under the RV Escapee club chapter do hicky.    Any interested parties?

See ya…… 

Harley Goes Down Again….

First thing this morning I was finishing up putting the Rand McNally GPS on the newer Harley. 

Sunday Mark and I will go riding and see how it does.

Next I went over to Mark’s place to help him and James do some work on James car.  Plus do some work on Mark’s RV and to install the rail on my motorcycle trailer.  James parked on one side of Mark’s work shop and me on the other side.  James was working on replacing his U joints on his driveshaft.  We had Mark running back and forth with advice for us.  Mark wouldn’t let me handle anything more than a drill and tighten a couple of bolts.  Then  I broke one from over tightening it.  Mark just laughed and shook his head as he was cutting it out.  He also did some cutting and welding on the trailer.  I did the screwing (up). At lunch time we went to La Colona and had our usual fill of Mexican food. 

Back at Mark’s we finished our work on our stuff then went and worked on Mark’s RV.  We dropped (removed) his gas tank.  The fuel lines were starting to rot away on his 19 something class C.  He ordered new lines but they won’t be in for a day or two.  We all finished and went our separate ways.

Back on our lot I decide to try out the ramp on the tilt trailer bed.  The first attempt the rear tire of the Harley got stuck trying to come up on the ramp.

Then I laid this board down to cut the angle down.  It was to great of angle before that’s why the tire couldn’t make the trip up the ramp with the bed up in the air.  You had to be there to understand probably.

That was a failure as you can see.  I was near the top when the bike and I fell over.  Yes, I drove it on.  The trailer would not drop down in the front to make it level or it would have been a piece of cake.  I  couldn’t hold the bike up with the trailer bed up so high.  Gravity has priority and down we went.  Here’s Wayne surveying the fall.  Dave and Jon came over too. 

We set the bike up which wasn’t hard.

Then just backed it up slowly down off the trailer which was still in the up position.

Not a scratch on the Harley.  “It just keeps on ticking.”  Yes I practiced with the old Harley before the new Harley goes on it.  duh…………

Plan B…don’t use the tilt feature on the trailer to load the bike.  I think I will get a 2 by 12  ten foot board and just ride the bike up on the board on the trailer with the bed locked down instead of being up.  If you can’t ride a motorcycle in a straight line on a 12 inch wide board then maybe you shouldn’t be on way is what I think.  Anyhow, THEN when I want to off load the Harley put the bed in the up position and back it off – I think! 

Tomorrow I will put Plan B in action.

Turkey Day

At 6 AM I was up and was going to start the turkey in the smoker.  One small problem.  The turkey was still partially frozen.  I put it a pan and in the oven at 200 degrees to thaw out more.  About an hour.  Then it went into the smoker.  Shortly thereafter my Mom called and said she wasn’t up to a thanksgiving dinner today.  Oh well, I guess Carol & I will have to eat it all.

 

We had a nice quiet dinner by ourselves.  Our very own basic Thanksgiving dinner for us.  It just worked out that way. 

See ya….

Getting Ready For The Bird Day

Wow, this time 5 weeks we will be in AZ.  Exactly where we’re not 100 per cent sure yet.  It could be Congress, Ajo or Yuma.  I really got to get some dental work done down in Mx.  Somebody gave us a dental referral for down there and they had been using them for a very long long time.  I lost the referral and forgot who told me.  If you remember who you are, tell me.  If you don’t remember either, oh well, I won’t tell you how they were.

On the road by 7:15 AM this morning.  Carol had Dr appointment down south at 8:30 AM.  This should be here last appointment – again.  Oh, I got a call from my Dr office who said that all my tests were within normal range.  Oh no, someone said I was normal.  That means everyone else is crazy don’t it?  Plus I was told that my PSA number was below normal which is really good.  I’m not really sure what that means but it’s good so I will take it.

We got back about noon.  Now we get ready for Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow.  I’m smoking a turkey and will even take out the paper inside of the thing.  I got to start that about 6 AM tomorrow.

Mark came over and we are prepping the small utility trailer to cut/weld the rail for the motorcycle.  Don’t worry.  Mark isn’t letting me weld even though I think it would be cool to try it.  We changed our plans on how to mount the rail to the trail again.  I think we got it.  Friday I will go over to Mark’s place and help/watch Mark & James work on James truck.  Then we will work on the bike trailer.  mark thinks it will take an hour.  I think not even close.  We shall see.

I worked on installing the Rand McNally on the Harley.  Yes I did.  I tried a Garmin GPS and it kinda worked.  I mounted it on the lower part of the tank.  I had to look down to see it.  That don’t get it.  This time I’m mounting the Rand McNally on the windshield.  It just might work.  Pictures to follow when I get it all done.

I’m straightening up the garage and making it ready for a storage shed vice a work shop.  Yes, the first step in getting ready to leave after Christmas.

See ya…..

Out Talked

Gotta get going and do something.  Nope not this morning.  I had the most severe head pain that I ever had in my life.  This is two days in a row now.  Nurse Crachet (Carol) fixed me up with her meds (Z-Pac ?).  She said that I have a sinus infection.  After taking the meds and doing all sorts of hot air breathing it went away almost all the way.  BUT it takes about 4 hours each time.  Wow, that’s some type of pain.  It’s like someone hit me with a frying pan pain – not to be confused with a headache – night and day.  blah, blah, blah, and so forth.

Greg and Jan White came over in the afternoon.  Greg & Jan have a great blog at  http://ourrvadventures.com/.  Greg wanted to see what kind of damage I did to my computer.  Mark don’t allow me to use tools on either of Harleys unless he’s around.  Greg said  I shouldn't work on computers either.  So a couple of weeks ago I figured it was time to speed up my computer so I did a few little tweaks on it.  I don’t think I’m allowed to tweak my computer anymore.  I erased from program files – my backup program and a few other little things.  Greg couldn’t undo all of my damage - the backup file I didn’t know where my disk was.  He found a free one on line and now I have a backup file.  He also undid a few other little things I did dealing with my picture files.  He said I’m not as bad as Nick though.

Afterwards we went to Texas Pete for dinner.  I ordered something I could pronounce besides taco or burrito and it was called Hidalgo.  Damn was it good.  All of our meals were over the top.  We’ve ate here before and they were good but this time they were great.  Maybe it was the friends we were eating with – nah………  I  found another person that could out talk me – Greg wins hands down.  Of course they been couped up several months on gate guarding.

I caught Greg taking a breath  so I started to talk.  Greg and Jan headed for the door.  What’s up with that?

This was the first time that we really got to talk (listen) with Greg and Jan.  It was really great and time flew by ever so quick.  Hopefully we can get together again down the road out west next year.

My computer stopped backing up about 4 AM this morning.  I think it went to sleep during the back up.  It’s 5 AM and 37 degrees outside.  Time to sent this off.

See ya……..

Here They Come

OK, the pork butt is looking good at 7AM.  I had to cut off a little piece to make sure it was OK.  It was fine so I let it continue to get even better.

Next was to try to arrange the mobile's living room/kitchen so it could seat 17 people.  It will be a little tight but doable.  It gives people a chance to know each other better too.

Time to soak my feet for a half hour per the Doc’s instructions.  I have to do this for about 10 days then see him again.  Yesterday while riding I wore steel toed high top boots.  No not cowboy boots!  I really had to bandage them big toes up good so as not to get them all upset.  Plus the pills helped me.  When it was all over they had only bled a tiny bit.  Well worth the ride.  Here’s a pic Carol got when Mark & I were leaving Sunday.

Tonight…here they all are…             

It must be time to leave….I think everyone had some fun sharing about there adventures.  Great friends……

Thanks for coming guys…..

See ya…..

A Little Jaunt

The expected storm did not happen last night.  This morning the sun came out and it was a little humid which made it nice.

Mark came over about 10 AM.  He wanted to adjust the shift cable on the antique Harley before we went for a ride.  I was letting him ride the antique.  He adjusted the shifter with me being the gofor.  Go for this, go for that which I was more than willing to do.  We then went down to the nearby gas station and filled them up.  So we got under way about 11 AM and headed west.  I was the leader.  I had mapped out a backwoods route and had it in the GPS on the tank bag.  It worked fine – kinda.  I had to look down to see the GPS and that ain’t good when your doing about 60 MPH on back roads.  I need to find a mount for a GPS that goes on the handlebars.  It must have the round ball mount for the GPS.  Any help out there?  Our next trip will be this weekend probably.  I have a new large Rand McNally RV GPS that I might mount to the windshield.  We will see.

Mark didn’t really care for the Harley at first.  He said it was like setting on a big old couch going down the road.  After about 50 miles he started to like it more.  A 100 miles down the road he really liked it.  The ride was soft but the seat being 30 years old the leather cover was a little hard for his tender butt.

We ran into a little water problem.  This area west of Conroe got hit by the heavy rain storm we were suppose to get but didn’t.  The water was running over the road and not just setting.  plus further down the road it got worse.  We turned around.  It added about 30 or so miles to our trip but we didn’t care at all.

We got back about 5 PM with 225 miles for our little jaunt.  We both liked the ride and talked about it as we drank a nice cold Bud Ice.  Ahhhhhh what a nice ride.  Mark said he would get a windshield for the Harley if I would let him ride it some more.  No problem.  I think he’s getting hooked.  A Harley just rides different from other brands.  If you like it…you like it.  It’s a lot of bike and heavy.  Oh yea.  Before we left Mark was walking the bike backwards out of the barn when it happened.  Minutes before I told him about if the bike leans too much one way or the other it will fall over.  At that point, it’s best just to let it down and slow as you can because you can not stop it.  It happened and he did.  No bigee at all, not even a scratch.  He grunted real hard and lifted the bike back up.  He agreed at that point it was heavy.

I would like a ride down to Galveston via back roads if we get a chance.

Mark left and I started working on tomorrow evening’s pork butt.  Got it already and the smoker going.  It will be fine by tomorrow around early afteroon or so.  We’re expecting to feed a total of 17 people with it and with it being a pot luck typed dinner it shouldn’t be a problem.  If the weather holds out some people will be outside probably.  It’s gonna be crowded in the mobile.  This will probably be our last smoked butt dinner for awhile.  Well, maybe for November.  I got a turkey to do later this week.

Here’s Two Years Ago

I would have done three years ago but the pictures had disappeared.  So here’s what we were doing two years ago.  Basically, enjoying friends ….   

Our friends make us laugh……

Oh, three years ago we were in and out of the repair shop just about every week with the Newmar (awning problem).  We actually were staying in the mobile until they got it right.  It was just easier.

And today I was in my man cave…

 

Here are the rails I got the other day to make the utility trailer a bike trialer.

I had to cut this cover off (middle of pic) with a Dremel  because I screwed it up several times trying to get it off the correct way.   Meanwhile my toes started to bleed because of the unusual positions I had to get to it on the floor.

I got the sucker off and put the adjusted shift lever on and glued it back on.  All is back to normal.

Mark & I are going for a ride tomorrow (Sunday).  It’s supposed to be near 80 degrees and sunny.  That’s a big swing.  Mark will be riding my 1985 Harley.  Hey, he worked on it enough so he might as well get to ride it.

The oil spot is from when we were working on it.  Neither of these Harleys mark there spots.

See ya…….