Catching up..

Not sure what I have been doing all week, but I have been keeping busy...   Mostly notifying folks of Loyce's passing..  That's dreary duty as you have to explain over and over..

Took all day to get a hold of the social security commission to shut off those payments..  I waited on the line for over an hour and finally put my name in for a call back..  That took over two hours longer.  And then I found out they already knew...  Seems the funeral homes are in cahoots with the government.......

On Thursday Biscuit and I drove to Lake Ozark with the car and trailer..  We loaded up the black 650 Suzuki Burgman Scooter and brought it back to KC..  It was about 7 hours of driving for the round trip..

Then on Friday I took it to a shop over in Missouri to get its oil changed and a new back tire..  I could do the oil change here but the tire requires the wheel to be removed..  That requires a lift to hold up the bike once the wheel is off the ground...  Due to safety and bigger tool requirements, that one is for the professionals..

If I end up taking one of the bikes to Arizona, then I will need the other one here in KC..   Assuming we have winter days that will be nice enough to ride..   I don't do snow or ice....

Yesterday was spent calling the cell phone company and cancelling the contracted phone and ipad service..  Verizon let me out of the contract on her iphone, which I thought was rather nice..

And today was the Iowa Hawkeye game at our oldest son Chris' house...  We played Minnesota which hadn't lost yet this year..  They were sure that Iowa wouldn't be any trouble..  But we got ahead in the beginning and stayed that way thru out the game..   But I won't crow any because the Big Ten has a lot of tougher teams on our schedule in the upcoming weeks..

It did feel good to have the kids win the game, as we got to keep Floyd of Rosedale..  A bronze pig that is the travelling trophy..  He was here last year, and will stay again for 2014, until we meet again..

Being completely alone has been tough for Biscuit and I, but we have to adjust, as the alternative isn't acceptable...

Retired Rod

Gallatin with the Romeo's

We had a good day riding up to Gallatin, Mo on Tuesday...  Its about 95 miles up there.. which is almost to the Iowa border..  The town is East of I 35 about 7 miles or so..

Romeo web site  is where all the pictures are loaded..  Some of the folks went on to Jamesport, which is an Amish community about ten miles to the East of Gallatin...  Go look at Don's tenderloin.....!

We decided to go back to the South on Highway 13 and then West over thru some of the other communities we have eaten in this summer...  Just for a nice ride going back home....  Places like Polo, Lathrup, and Plattsburg...  These were on a Missouri country road numbered 116...  Eventually we were back to Highway 169 which is North to South, and goes down thru the center of KC...

But as we rounded the corner, I thought to myself that is seemed much cooler than it was a few minutes ago...  I pushed the info button and the bike reported 68 degrees...  It was just 78 over in Gallatin...

Scanning the Western Horizon showed a line of thunderstorms with ragged cloudy bottoms....  Rain and wind...

We had planned to stop at a Mc Donalds in Smithville for our coffee, but those plans were scrapped instantly...   It appeared to be much lighter on the Southern horizon...

Riding down thru the center of town on the freeways, we managed to stay ahead of the storm cell, until...  We crossed the Missouri River and it became dark and as we crossed the Kansas River the rains pelted us...  I closed up the front of my helmet and ducked down behind the windshield..

Interstate 635 ends and dumps you out onto a city street of Metcalf.. in Overland Park, where we found another McDonalds.   As we parked the bikes and looked back North, it was a solid wall of dark blue black clouds..  Ya we just rode thru that.....

The storm tracked on East and never did much more than sprinkle on our McDonalds refuge, but there for a while I thought we might have to wring out our underwear....

Retired Rod

More Road Trips...

The day was gorgeous as the sun was out and it was 73 when I left the lake at 11 AM...  I rode directly back to the KC home without stopping, except for gas in Windsor, Missouri..

But that much exposure at 70 mph is hard on me as I fell directly to sleep in the big recliner once I arrived home...  Just sat down to enjoy a can of pop and read a little on the internet...  Ya right...... ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

My riding friend Al called in the middle of the afternoon, and we hatched a plan to go after the CRV that was done at the auto body shop...  We ran several other errands on the way as well...  Stopping by Sam's Club for fruit for his guests, and then on to a Hy Vee supper at the local deli inside that grocery store...

So tonight I am killed from too much activity, but I need to get rest, because tomorrow is another big Motorcycle ride with the Romeo's..  They are heading out to Gallatin, Mo about 85 miles North of here up by Iowa....

More riding, when I was already tired from this weekends trip...  Oh well, it should be fun...

Retired Rod

Lake Projects

Ok, right off the bat I should answer a question from the comments....  How do I connect to the internet when I am travelling with the motor cycle...?

Last fall on Black Friday, I purchased an Asus tablet computer from Best Buy down in Arizona...  Its a Tf 300t but only has 16mb of ssd ram...  I think it was $279 on that Friday...  It didn't take me long to realize that I needed the keyboard docking station as it made typing on it much easier, and it had a much better battery in it too...

So with that addition and a 32 gb micro SD card for more storage, I have this little 10 inch fold up tablet...  It runs on android, which is another flavor of Linux..   I also have a MIfi from Verizon that I use in Arizona and in the Motorhome..  They fit nicely into my overnight bag under my shirts and such...  So I'm not packing around a big W8 laptop on these junkets..

Yesterday and today I have been working on changing the oil in our pontoon boat..  It wouldn't be that big of a task except we have this big hill we live on here at the lake, so a lot of my time was spent climbing the 90 steps up and down from the garage..  Sometimes when the kids are here I can get younger legs to go after that different wrench...

So just because things are sad around here, the fall weather means the chores must get completed...   Believe me, I have wondered why I will need all of this stuff with Loyce gone, but they tell you not to make any decisions for at least a year, or you will wish you hadn't..

The grandkids really like our lake place, and so do our their parents, when they are not camping....

Retired Rod

Motorcycling along and ending up at the Lake

I often write this blog fairly late at night, as I have always been kind of a night owl...   But with Loyce's passing, I find that despair sets in in the late night..  So then if I write something, it seems melancholy..

So in the light of morning with the sun bearing down, I will post from the lake cabin...  Yes, I've traveled to the lake...  By motorcycle..  But I'm not certain that was a good idea because it is 54 here this morning...

Biscuit is messed up at our house in KC, because she is seeing or perhaps smelling momma everywhere, but she isn't there...  She is hiding under the bed during the daytime and not running all over like she did...    She needs a dose of her grandchildren...

So Ben came over and gathered her up to go home with his bandits...  Ya, they're bandits.....  Plus, they have two pet cats that she will chase, when they aren't chasing her...  But, the big orange one has all his claws..  I think Biscuit knows better than to catch Remmy, but that doesn't stop the fun of chasing him from his resting place...

The cats climb to safety up on chair tops and their cat condo...  Biscuit thinks she is a cat during these sessions..

I left KC about 3 in the afternoon and it was in the 70s..  I had my liner in the jacket and all seemed well...  But as I followed the rainstorm that was still in St Louis, it was getting cooler..  I stopped at a Wendy's for a small burger and a big rest...

It was after 7 PM when I arrived here at the lake house, and it was now 64 degrees...  I worked on some of the household chores, that remained from Labor Day, as we had left in a toot without finishing up the cleaning....

But eventually it was so quiet in here with no one around in any of the vacation lake houses,  that I went back into town to Wal Mart...  I bought some pop and english muffins..  By now I had a sweat shirt under the riding jacket..  Luckily it was here in the closet...

Fast forward to this morning, and it is now in the 50s with the sun shining...  I barely have the doors cracked and its cool enough to need long pants... Which I didn't think to bring along...  I do have my riding pants, and they will have to do...

I need to work on some of the water toys, as it is now fall and everything needs its oil changed....  That should provide some work to keep my mind off of reality...

Retired Rod

No plans..

We did manage to go on that motorcycle ride on Tuesday...  It was to Burlingame, Kansas...  That is 75 miles due West of us here in Overland Park and out in the country...

It is South of Topeka about 25 miles...  Kansas seems really rural out there, and the towns aren't very elaborate...  And neither was the restaurant...  But it did have a back room that we all were able to fit in, and they didn't mess up the orders...

I was good and ordered an egg and some sausage without toast or hash browns...  The diabetes usually won't tolerate those items very well...

This was the Wednesday group that usually rides from the Topeka area, as our KC group all went down into Arkansas for a three day ride in the twisties...

We had quite a rain storm here tonight, as a cool front went over about 6PM..  On Wednesday it was 92 as we rode back into KC...  But that won't last much longer, as looking at the long term forecast has highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s....

We also are having lots of rain, which is a sure sign that the season is turning...

Usually I park the bike in the garage on Sept 30, and don't even realize that the season just ended...  Maybe it will have to go to Arizona early this year....  But things are really without plans right now...  Well maybe just outright lost, would be more descriptive...

Retired Rod

Long winded blogger.....

Well here it is Tuesday evening, and I haven't written a blog since Sunday...  Blogging about Loyce's passing is going to be rather hard, so just know that it weighs heavily on me from the moment I wake up in the morning, until sleep gives me some peace... So alone.....

Sleep is not something that has been in great supply, as Biscuit is not leaving me alone much in the middle of the night....  She knows exactly what has happened and is spooked by the upstairs of our house..  Well for that matter so am I...

We go in our bedroom in the front of the house and close the door...  Loyce always slept in the back master bedroom...  We did that since we retired, as one or the other of us seemed to always snore...  Biscuit slept in with Loyce on most nights, so I am now awakened by her shaking or licking herself in the middle of the night...  She's on the bed and off the bed, and then repeat... Can't find comfort....  Then she sleeps during the day, so she can stay awake all night..  She might get her own bedroom, if I get frustrated enough.

She goes into the big bedroom looking for Loyce but seems to understand she isn't there...  But she doesn't stay in there for any length of time..

Chris, my older son helped me to deliver cars to their respective repair facilities on Monday...  The CRV had a scheduled bumper skin repair last week that didn't happen...  And we just took it over to our body shop friend yesterday and said when ever you get to it...

And my hobby car needed some scratch touch up where they replaced the headlight...  Seems that the fixture didn't come out without prying on it...  That was at the expense of the top of the bumper reveal trim...   They scraped it up and just returned it without even pointing it out...

Of course it was less than 24 hours before I noticed it...  I thought BMW would be better than that..  The service manager didn't even make any excuses, but it took two weeks to get it back into the body shop for touch up paint..

I did have a loaner over night, which was a brand new 2013 328i fourdoor...  This car had a four cylinder, 2 liter engine which was surprisingly peppy...  I think it has small turbos on it..  But it is weird!

When you come to a stop, and press the brake to hold yourself in place, the engine shuts off..   Dead silence.. And as you remove your foot from the pedal, the computer starts the car again..  The little engine cranks effortlessly...  And is running before your foot gets to the gas...

This is to save gas from idling...  And its saves emissions as well........  But it drives me nuts!!!  In stop and go traffic going back to the dealer this afternoon, it must have cycled about 50 times....

We went thru a construction area where I was rolling ahead two or three feet at a time..  over more than a block of backed up traffic...   engine on... roll ahead... brakes... engine off..... over and over again....   That has to be hard on things, I would think..

I was glad to give that car back to them.....  I would be demanding they disable that feature, were it mine...  Surely they can come up with something better than that...

The computer did say it was achieving 24 mpg in city driving which is good for a fairly heavy car...  I haven't looked, but would think the highway mileage would be in the thirties..  That beats my older 6 cylinder as it only gets about 26 on the road..

The gear shift was weird too, as it has a button on its top that puts things in Park..  And a squeeze button on the side to use along with the brake to put it in gear...  The lever only moves forward and backward from the center detent in a spring loaded fashion..  So foot on brake and squeeze the lever and pull towards the back of the car, and you are in gear and running...  Then pull the car ahead and put your foot back on the brake and the engine stops...  Take your foot off of the brake to go again and the engine starts instantly....

My car is older before they thought all of that up...  I seemed to be waiting for it to crap out on me at a stop light too, after driving the new one...  Since it is older, it doesn't have any computer screen for the radio or heater either...  They call that iDrive in the newer cars...  That's been around for a number of years in BMWs though... But only the really expensive ones...  But now that Ford and Chevy are doing it, they all have it...

Oddly enough, the screen in my Ford is way more complicated than any Beemer I have driven...  But that may not be good..

Biscuit keeps looking at me wondering why I have to type away on this keyboard...  Its upsetting her sleeping on my lap...

Enough for now, as I need to try and get some sleep... We are going on a cycle ride in the morning, and younger son Ben will be attending as well....  Perhaps that will be some good therapy for both of us...

Retired Rod

Back in KC

I don't know what to write, but I thought I should check in so you will know that I am still here...

We traveled to Des Moines on Thursday but not without my Ford car registering a low tire light right out on the interstate North of KC...  But because of the Romeo Rides, I knew immediately where the next small town was and we went for air...   My son Chris was behind me and followed so I wouldn't get lost...

On Friday we had the service with more attendance than I thought would be there..  Our support group is still very much so in Iowa...

After the service we had an appreciation party to celebrate her life, and had 60 people at the Hilton Garden Inn...   We rented the banquet room which was divided for our size of group...  The party went into the evening when we were finally asked to leave the room..

It then moved to the pool while the kids swam...

I came back here to KC on Saturday to a very empty home...  Biscuit has been at the Veterinarian's office where they have a doggy boot camp for boarded puppies...  It was closed by the time I arrived back in town on Saturday, so it will be Monday before I can go get her...

 I'm not certain what I am going to do in the next few months as it becomes winter...  Will I be able to go to Arizona without any friends to associate with..?

Questions...

Retired Rod

Update as we have things more set up

For Family and Friends that will attend these events.....

As of now, we will be having a visitation before the actual service at 11 AM on Friday...   Then we will go into the formal service at 1 PM...  This will last about 45 minutes...   Then the cemetery is actually right on the grounds with the Chapel...    So we can just walk out the doors and up onto the hillside for the interment..  

The whole thing should be over by about 2:30 or so...    We will have a reception with heavy appetizers and wine or beer back at the hotel...  Food will be out by 4 PM with beverages out before that...  Heavy drinks will be available from the Lobby Bar...  It will be Friday afternoon.....    But some may have long distances.... so your conscious is your guide...

The hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn on the North West Corner of I 80-35 at the 86th street exit  Number 129..  The room will be behind the pool area and will seat everyone....  This is also open to anyone that wants to come....   Come and see if you can make my bar tab higher....LOL

The Funeral Home is on Merle Hay Road South of the Interstate on the West side....  I think the address is 4400, but it is quite large and can't really be missed...

Email questions to the address associated with this blog   rivers63386@gmail.com

Rod

Planning

Using the blog to provide information on services for Loyce.....

For those that will be able to attend, the service will be in Des Moines, Iowa...  Where we lived for 40 plus years.....

Loyce is being transferred today, Tuesday, to Des Moines to the Merle Hay Funeral Home, and services will be Friday during the day...   We don't have a time yet...

We are trying to come in the night before so we can have some kind of a get together at a hotel somewhere....    Melissa is looking into which hotel this morning...

Chris and I are driving, right now to Des Moines to set up the services...  and see the available interment plots....

More as we get this done.....

Rod

Thank You

To each and every one of you that have left emails, and comments on the blog as well as messages and comments on Facebook, I thank you from the bottom of my heart....

Loyce was a special person to everyone she met....    She was a person to stick to herself a lot of the time, but she loved everyone she met or had the chance to take care of in her work as an RN..

Please know that your thoughts and comments are an offering of strength to myself and our family...  And above all else, all we really have in this life is each other...

To the Lord

I don't know how to write this.....   But today was awful for us....

At 4 PM this afternoon, the Lord called Loyce home to be with him....

We had gone to the Doctors for severe bronchitis which she had come down with after our Labor Day weekend...  She was having trouble with breathing...

They xrayed her lungs, but didn't see anything severe, but her white count was elevated....  They prescribed a breathing treatment and and Antibiotics...    I dropped her off at the house and she went inside while I went to Wal Mart to get the scripts...  I was only gone for about a half hour...

When I got home she was gone in her chair....   We couldn't revive her..

Of course I am in shock..  How can this be.....?

We just made 45 years on September 1st....

Our Father in Heaven..... Please accept her into your kingdom as she was a good person and a RN helping all of the folks that crossed her path.....

Rod

Freecell

With Loyce down for the count and upstairs in bed most of the day, I have become more domestic than usual...  That means sitting in the hearth room and going for groceries and the like.....

Of course sitting means computering....    I get all caught up in Freecell Solitaire, studying the 8 rows of cards and how I plan to move them in order to put them in order....    It can waste hours...  Have you played Freecell...?

To me it is more challenging than sudoku, where I can usually determine the right answers  even if I am slow at it...  With Freecell, you might have an unsolvable deal...  Its up to you to determine if that is the case and why...  Of course ya can't cheat on the computer....  Like you would be able to do on paper cards on the table...  No peaking to see where the cards are...  But of course Freecell is all face up....

Anyway its been hot and almost unbearable humidity, so we are mostly inside....  But does that mean that the weather will turn quickly... And suddenly be cold.... too cold to ride motorcycle..... Hum,  that might chase me off to Arizona...

Retired Rod

Sideways..?

There's not much going on around our house on these slow after holiday days....  Loyce seems to have come down with the cough that the grandkids had over this last week, so that is slowing us even further...

Of course the lawn doesn't know that it is a holiday, and was up to our ankles...  So yesterday was lawn mowing day...  I went out about 8:30 and tackled that project to get ahead of the day's heat...

I would have liked to get the bike washed up too, but the sunshine on our driveway was bearing down, which turns my shirt and brow into a mushy sweat...  Yuk....

We are to get even warmer again this weekend, and Loyce talked some about going back to the lake... But that was before the kids colds landed on her...

So we move on, perhaps sideways though...

Retired Rod

Knob Noster, Mo...

Have you ever heard of Whiteman Airforce Base....?  That's right, its in the middle of Missouri....  Out in the sticks so to speak....  At Knob Noster..

That was the scene of the Romeo Ride today...  A family Bar Be Que named Millers.....  Where the Tuesday crowd is usually non existent...  When our advance fellow told them to expect about 50 before noon, they didn't know whether to believe it...

Well about 55 folks were there right at opening time....  Better believe it, as we ate sandwiches and ribs...  Fries and slaw...   The place was sort of expensive too at about $10 a head....

Of course planes of all sorts were flying in and out of the runway.....

Here you can see a B2 bomber as it leaves the runway... The planes climb out right over downtown, but that's OK, as most of the towns citizens are either in the Military, or work in some capacity for them... So they know all about what takes place inside the compound...

A number of years ago, we went to an open house on the main runway.. So I guess we also know what takes place there...

And come to think about it, folks in Iraq and Afghanistan know how this works too... Planes fly right over the top of the earth to head for those far away places....

Knob Noster is about 70 miles from out home...

We rode back to town in the early afternoon, and enjoyed some nice weather, until we stopped at one of our usual McDonalds out in Independence... The bike thermometer said it was 91 degrees.... Hey what gives...?? It was supposed to be in the 80s...

Once back here at the house, Loyce and I went after the hobby car which was now finished at the dealership....  Again it was all covered by extended warranty, and we now have a completely new headlight assembly as well as another new controller module....  They claimed the last one installed last week was defective new out of the box....

Color me skeptical....   Romeo Web Site with the pictures from today...

Retired Rod

Officially Fall

We are back in KC tonight and wondering about the end of the summer season...  It always seems like the end of summer has arrived with the end of Labor Day weekend.....

Our kids have been back in school for the last two weeks so its not like school will be starting tomorrow, but our sub division officially closed the swimming pool this afternoon...  All of the fall sports have now started and we are looking at Fall!

Not much will change here for us, as we will march right on with our daily routines, but tonight we still have the youngest grandkid here with us...  Her school will start later this week...

Tomorrow will bring another Romeo Ride which will be nothing new, and its still hotter than the dickens....   But we are forecast to be in the mid 80s tomorrow rather than the mid 90s...  That's some kind of a break..

I changed the header picture to the four older kids jumping into the lake all at once, as I think the Mackinac Bridge is now just a summer memory ...  Besides I think everyone has seen that ....

Has fall started at your house?

Retired Rod

Wordless Holidays