A Good Old Gal.

365 Group

One of my "girls" turns 40 this year.

"Miss Tilley!"  My 1977 KZ 750 twin, that I bought in original stock condition, 18 years ago from a lady in Oklahoma who's husband didn't like the fact guys whistled at her when she rode around town. They made a compromise and sold both their bikes. I was rather happy he was pissed that I took her old "junker" over his shiny late model V twin.
 This bike, with 97 thousand miles plus/ minus, has literally taken me all over the the Southern United States. Not too shabby for a $700 investment.

"catch ya on the road."
            (f)

Short ride after the surgery

365 Group




Posted: Dec-29-2016

 I fully understand now when I hear people that have had heart surgery say they cant raise their arms or cant do anything. The muscles are shot! It's been a little over three months since the operation and it's a killer to just ride the bike. Feels like I have no muscle tone or control or whatever. The vibration from the handle bars just seems to wear me out. I spoke with a couple of specialists and they said that it was the same thing only different in that mine was mostly in my stomach and that I was most likely atrophied from the months of not riding, Etc.           
 This morning I packed up and headed out on the first  of a program of "exercise" rides to build it all up again. It was a really short ride by normal standards, 198 miles. But I managed to incorporate all the things I normally did when heading to one of my usual travel spots. Packing, pretrip  maintenance, camp setup, Etc. The theory is a workout everyday of what I use to do everyday.
 Like I said it wasn't much of a trip but I enjoyed it. It was cool last night, but apparently I slept through it. This morning I was a little stiff but that seemed to fade as I got going. Cooking breakfast seemed to loosen me up for some reason? Probably the coffee. Packing up and breaking camp seemed to take a little longer than normal but not as hard as I had expected.

 It was a good trip along back roads that went no place. 

   "catch ya on the road"
(f)

Recap

 10-24-2016

Recap

It wasn't too bad of a summer. One wreck, two broken ribs Several states and up till surgery, which by the way SUCKS, 4437 miles. Missed Bikes, Blues & Bar B Que. Finally back in the saddle today. Only get to go short distances, but hey, a rides a ride. Everybody on a bike is drifting south for the winter... If I can get it together to make the 712 miles I'm going to winter in San Marcos at the lovely 3 sisters studios. All in all, I guess it wasn't too bad of a summer for a broken down old guy on a motorcycle.... Could have been a lot worse.

Road test. ..

Adventuring 

Professionally..... Today I was lucky enough to get to spend some time at the Cline Motor Works with the head of the R&D lab. Usually I come away from these visits with something new to road test. Today was no exception. 

Catch ya on the road

Adventuring Professionally....... 7-27-2016

 

Made a short ride this evening to go get dinner with a friend.  The clouds started changing and building pretty much as soon as we got on the road.
 By the time we had eaten everything was turning dark and you could smell the rain in the air.
We headed back and ran a rather quick pace to keep ahead of the rain. It worked for the first twenty miles. We got into high winds and some serious lightening strikes and the rain for the last six miles. I guess you could say that we fought the good fight and still ended up soaked.


catch ya on the road

Adventuring Professionally...... July 2016

 

When I travel I meet all kinds of people. gas stations and convenience stores and truck stops, most all are friendly and a lot of them become good friends. Here are two of my favorite "wild wimmin." ...... "Tater" & "Rockstar." (nicknames I give them fit as far as I'm concerned...all that matters.) Tater on the right I watched grow up. Shes been my buddy for ever. Rockstar I met this summer. Love her to  pieces, like she was cornbread or something... both of the gals are so full of energy and life ya cant help but be in a good mood around them. It is scary though, their personalities and everything, they could be sisters.




"catch ya on the road"

Professional level adventuring..... July 2016

Still on the road... Earlier today I had a brief audience with the "mayorette", the new Chief of Police and some hooligan on a "motorsickle" that came loudly cruising through. It was generally agreed, he had a long way to go to turn that little metric into a Harley, just cutting the mufflers off didn't quite do it.




"catch ya on the road"

Adventuring Professionally.... July 2016

Still on the road.... At the end of a long hot day of several hundred miles, I rolled back into town to a site that springs hope eternal.... Louis and "Sir" Ho Dawg had all the current world problems mostly solved. Yes! We can all sleep good tonight....

Adventuring Professionally..... July 23, 2016

 
Still on the road... (barely) Another episode of Adventuring Professionally. ... I ran out of one of the key herbs that's keeping me, more or less kicking these days. None of the places that I tried that does herbs, roots,gums, barks and berries carries the stuff I'm using. I was actually told "we only carry the popular stuff." A friend suggested trying (as he put it) a "bug hugger" grocery store. He was right. They even have the weird stuff. So, two things. 1) don't get something terminally wrong with ya and b) don't count out the bug huggers.




"catch ya on the road"

Adventuring Professionally..... july 24, 2016

Two months to see a doctor. They are that busy. So I've been running around going nowhere.Waiting is the hardest part. Maybe I should get a Golf cart?



"catch ya on the road"

Meisto....  A slightly psychotic lil feller

Adventuring Professionally ..... June 2016

Went to take some shots along the river for a bunch of kayaking types this morning. On my way back to Ft. Awesome, coming up US 412 today the A/C went out on my bike. Had to opt for the gas station repair job....




catch ya on the road

Adventuring Professionally... July 2016

Another exciting episode of Adventuring Professionally....
This afternoon blew in a much needed second rain storm. This gave (sir) Ho Dawg the opportunity to try out and model his latest "bare bones" rain gear. As you can see from his grin, all is good and we are still on the road,
(hi cydney)


catch y'all on the road

Travelers Oasis

7-10-2016

Still on the road...... A travelers oasis. A modest facility offering one the opportunity to regather ones composure.   

Remember, always seek the adventure.


 "catch ya on the road"

Fishing and Karma

7-July-2016

 Hot and muggy here today. I was kind of bored with laying around Fort Awesome so I decided to ride out for breakfast. My plan was to have breakfast and visit with some of the locals. something that I hadn't done in a long while.
 After breakfast and the locals thinned out I decided to run down to the twin bridges and get a few shots of the river.

The bridges over two rivers are about three hundred yards apart, hence the name.  One of the bridges has a parking area and boat launch under it and is kind of a neat place to take a few pictures and do some bank fishing.
 As I pulled in I noticed that there were three other vehicles there but no one around. I rolled down to the water side of the lot and a small dog appeared barking and growling. He appeared to be very serious about not liking me in any way. I hollered at him and he took off into the brush. Odd, but I've seen worse out of animals in this area. Figuring he belonged to one of the houses in the area I didn't give it too much thought.

 I snapped a couple of pictures of the still slow moving water and was about to head out to get my fishing rig when another vehicle pulled in. Again the pup showed up making all kinds of racket. And. Again he ran off into the brush. Something about this time though seemed a little odd. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was odd.
I gathered up my rod and reel and headed back down to wreak havoc on the perch. On the way I thought about the pup again. There was something just not right about him. Little guy. A Chihuahua, that looked like he had been well taken care of.  
 When I pulled in to the lot here he came again. This time it connected. He was scared. Bad scared. He was looking for someone in each vehicle that pulled in. It was very apparent. Someone had dumped this little guy.  Once this hit me I started talking to him and trying to get close enough to see if he might have a collar. He was so nervous that it took a while and all of my lunch to get him in close. Finally he let me pet him and I managed to pick him up and we made friends, sort of. I sat him down as he was a lot calmer and went to pester the perch.  Every step I made the pup made. I was sort of comical. Earlier he was going to tear me up. Now he was acting as my personal guide.
 I finally got enough muggy heat to do me for the day and headed back to the bike. There were a couple of people there loading kayaks and they told me he had been there for several days. This convinced me that my earlier thoughts had been correct. Some low life had dumped him. One of the kayakers said he'd love to have him but his apartment complex didn't allow pets. This kind of made up my mind for me. One problem, he wouldn't come near the bike. After a few minutes it came to me and I called my "cosmic" advisor, Beverly, to assist me.
 Beverly arrived in her Mustang and I handed him to her and told her to take him to my house.
 On the way we stopped at the local stores and put out the word that if anyone had actually lost this guy to see me.
 Now I have a new commander here at the fort. Lt. Col. Gasphard.  He's so far the best little pup anyone could ask for.

He's not much on the actual labor end of things but he makes a great "straw boss. He's even ridden with me and seems to like it.
 Now I can tell people that I went fishing and all I caught was a "Gasphard."

"always see the adventure"

always seek the adventure.....

Make no mistake, even with one foot on a "nanner" peel and one foot in the graveyard, old guys still have all the fun the law allows in situations like this.

simply getting "up there" in "experience and dashing good looks" is not a reason for counting them out.

you never know when one of these "old guys" will turn in their motorcycle for a wheel chair and run over you with it.

catch ya on the road

2016 Polar Bear ride.

 This years Polar Bear ride wasn't to bad. Aside from not being with my riding crew it was down right good.

  Once I managed to get past all the obstacles the ladies of the house put in front of me it was smooth riding so to speak. I made a lazy loop of about 17 miles around the area and called it good. 

45 degrees was not too bad and definitely a lot better than some weather I've been caught in in past years. Having relocated to central Texas for the winter I find that the riding seems to be pretty good
 almost all the time

.
  So this year was off to a good start.

(one should always seek the adventure.)

catch ya on the road

One of those non riding tales.

Through out my life I have been involved with family and friends that were ill in one fashion or another. You love them and so you try to make their illness or recovery as easy an experience as possible.

Some are resigned to the fact that they are sick and kind of roll with the flow. Others however refuse to give in and fight things at every turn.

Then you have my gorgeous redheaded daughter who is a combination of both with other things thrown in for good measure. Yeahhhhhh baby!!

Imagine if you will, being in your early twenties, the obvious life of the party and being told that “those tonsils have to come out.” Facing a two week period of “confinement” is a hard thing to visualize for someone that is constantly on the go.

Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015 was the date of the surgery and all went well from all the reports I got.

She arrived at the Maximum Confinement Center that afternoon all spacey and and painfully sick from everything. The first step was getting her meds all lined out so that they would work “hand in glove” with the tested and time honored traditional folk remedies we had lined up to speed her recovery. First there was the pain medicine. (Turned out to be non effective on this poor child. Just didn't work.) Next was a way to get it down as swallowing was almost a luxury. Same with the antibiotics and anything else that she needed to get into her system. Food became all liquid. Liquid mashed potatoes was an instant hit with both patient and cook. Once all the little details for the prescribed medicines and foods were worked out we began the complex regiment of feet tickling and belly poking and general all around pestering, aimed at improving ones overall disposition. These "home" remedies began almost immediately to have the desired effect in the producing of
great smiles and wonderful giggles. You know it's powerful treatment for any condition because Readers Digest always stated "laughter's the best medicine." 

By Dec. 22, my wee child had recovered enough to go over the wall and attend the showing of the latest Star Wars movie. From this point on everything improved on a daily basis. So much in fact a Guard dog had to be employed to ensure that no unnecessary tom foolery occurred. 

 

As you will notice the guard dog strategically place to prevent any further shenanigans such as the going over the wall incident.

Overall the daughter fared and recovered remarkably well and rather quickly. The ten to twelve days of forced confinement seemed to me to have flown by. Before long my wee child was eating regular food again and the time had come for her to get back into the rat race. 

I hated that she was sick and all, but I wouldn't have traded this time with her for all the green in

Ireland.

 

The wee child leaving the Maximum Confinement Center much improved and no doubt joyously happy that shes doing it under her own steam.

always seek the adventure....................