Missing in action

I have been missing in action on the blog front around here for the last week or so....  I guess I was down in the blogging dumps, as the big motor cycle trip event that will be this years high lite isn't of much interest to my blog readers...

People going to the site and reading about the trip are down to less that half of normal blog entries where I didn't have much to report....  Just saying that you took a  motorcycle trip seems to preclude people from even clicking on your blog....  Now had I driven the big lumbering motorhome getting 9 miles to the gallon.........

So this is one of those posts where I don't have much to report...  We took a lunch ride out to Richmond, Mo on the North side of the Missouri river about 40 miles East of KC...  This is to a Mexican restaurant where the people serving you are truly spanish speaking fellows....  They look at you kind of funny when they don't understand what you are asking for.....  But when I changed to my very poor Spanish and asked for Coke dieta con mas heilo it came rather quickly...

See my time in the US Southwest hasn't gone completely to waste..

On Wednesday it rained for most of the morning so we sat around in McDonalds....   I had caught heck over driving the jeep the last time to the lunch, so we decided to just not go...  And there were thirty or more folks that did brave the storm.  Just not me...

Then on Thursday it was back to the Hospital here in KC for the annual tests that you can't study for... as a cancer survivor..  They always have trouble starting an IV on me, and this day wasn't any different...   At one point they had blood running down my arm and dripping from my fingers...  Maybe I wasn't helping too much, when I made the comments about the floor looking like an axe murder...  Ya I have a weird sense of humor...

But the verdict was that I am free of the cancer for now...  And I get to wait a whole year now before returning for yet another procedure...  The Doctor said it was time that I gave up the professional patient badge....  See he has the same sense of humor....

Otherwise its just life as usual her in KC.... Pay the bills and mow the yard....  Oh, we did go to the lake over last weekend...

That trip was mostly to change the oil in the pontoon boat's engine and take the jet ski out of the water for yet another year...  We set the furnace on really low heat for the winter and cleaned out the fridge..  Old items in the freezer are never good after six months, so we have learned to toss them now...

Biscuit and I are hanging in there for now and still have no idea when we will go West this year, but it can't be too far off...

Retired Rod

Going Home

Thursday was the day to travel back to Kansas...  It had been forecast to be the driest day of the week...  But....  What does the weather man know..? It was again overcast and misting rain...

As we looked at the radar image on our cell phones, it was really nasty up by Branson..  And from there all the way to Springfield...  So back into the still damp rain suits...

Everything on the bike was dripping wet in the mist and packing was a challenge...  I had taken a thick pillow and it didn't have a plastic bag..  Lesson learned there...  I had also purchased some fog lights in a kit at the bike shop in Russellville, and they were on a big cardboard card blister package...  It was too big to go inside any of the cases on the bike, so it had to come apart and individual parts were stowed in corners of the lockers...  The package was left for the trash...

As we left the McDonalds in Harrison, we went head long into the red part of the storm map....  But this time I had the rain pants in my riding gear and I stayed remarkably dry...  Some water down my neck but not too bad...

As we reached Springfield, it was beginning to  be sunny as we stopped under a big gas drive canopy..  In Clinton we again stopped at McDonalds...  Al likes their coffee..  I had a small sandwich..  I'm not too much on McD's meat..  Or what they pass off as meat...LOL  But the restaurants are always air conditioned and a good harbor if it is raining...

From there it was like a normal Romeo Luncheon as it was less than 100 miles so in another hour and a half we were back home....

Of course it had to rain on us in an isolated cell South of Harrisonville, Mo..  Just one more time to put the exclamation mark on the end of the big ride...

We traveled around 1000 miles in four days......  Needless to say, the bike hasn't been out of the garage since we got home....

Biscuit was with her grandkids over with Ben's family and jumped right up in my face and licked my nose when  I went to get her.  So perhaps she was glad I made it back as well...

Retired Rod

Where's Oark

On Wednesday it was raining and that was going to be that...  So we donned our rain gear and headed back to the South, up over the mountain again...  This time taking a fork in the road to the west...

Most of the roads run along the ridges of the mountain tops, with jaunts thru the valleys to get to the next ridge...  Our destination was a little town of Oark, several mountains over to the West..

The Oark General Store

We went back thru the fog and mist but lost the wet rain drops fairly quickly..  But that was when we also thought we were lost...  As it turns out, we had passed the correct road....  So we stopped at a country post office in Ozone, Ar...  And in a few moments a local fellow arrived to get his mail..

So a quick discussion with him yielded that the road we were looking for was gravel..  Well no wonder we didn't take it..  I guess it was mostly mud and the gravel part was big rocks that might be up to 8 inches around...  And he strongly suggested we didn't want to take that on our cycles...

But we were determined that we had to get to the Oark General Store...  Mostly because of the ride up that mountain..  It is billed as one of the harder and more scenic roads...

We ended up traveling all the way South again to Clarksville, Arkansas which is farther West along I 40...  Then back to the North up the steepest mountain road, complete with 10 mph switchbacks.  These were so sharp that my Goldwing motorcycle had trouble making the turn if it was an inside corner...  You  couldn't stop, as the steep incline wouldn't let you start up again without killing the engine..

This road almost was beyond my ability to ride a motorcycle...  And later at camp that night we heard a story that two of our Romeo brothers had crashed on such a switchback...  That happened as one of the riders was attempting to shift down and mistakenly ended up in neutral as he was leaned over going around the sharp corner..  The bike fell instantly to the inside of the turn, and the fellow behind him crashed on top of him..  They didn't end up hurt really badly, but their bikes had a lot of  road rash..  One of the bikes was only 6 days old...

Eventually we found the general store and had dinner there...

Al inside the store waiting for our meals

From the town of Oark, we headed out on another road called the Pigs Tail Trail..  We were miles from the Hub and the road was even more curvy and steep..  That's when it began to rain in earnest..  So back on with the rain gear..

This time I was soaked...  My jacket kept my main body dry, but my pants didn't have the liner inside and I didn't want to take my clothes off along the road to put it in.  But as we travelled the road we were treated to the most beautiful rainbow..  We seemed to chase it, but couldn't catch it...  I was cold but ignored the wetness...

This was the last evening of the rendezvous, and our last ride in the mountains, so we enjoyed it even while we were wet...  Arriving back a couple of hours later, we had a banquet to go to after a change into dry clothes..

There were over 100 people in the hall, and we had a raffle ticket drawing for some door prizes, along with the pork roast and beef in gravy dinner...

I was glad to hit the pillow that night...

Retired Rod

A wet Bike Ride

I have to laugh at the title of the last post now...  As I was sure I didn't want to ride in the rain...  But we had this trip planned with the Romeos...  For a ride in Northern Arkansas...

Arkansas River from Petit Jean State Park.

South of Harrison, Arkansas there are numerous roads that go up and over the mountains there...  They are extremely curvy and quite steep in places....  That makes for some challenging riding...

We stayed at a resort called the Hub..  It appears to be an old church camp that was re purposed as a motor cycle resort...  It has a circular activities hall and attached restaurant along with a 50 room hotel...

Now this isn't the newest facility and the rooms were in need of a bit of repair....  But we were just sleeping there and gathering in the conference center to do what Romeo's do best...  BS with each other...

The Hub is in a non existent town of Marble Falls, Arkansas, where there are numbers of old shut down buildings....  It must have been an attraction at one time...  And the couple that owns the Hub does what they can to keep the property up, but............   Things weren't the best..  We had holes in the lamp shades and the head boards had been removed from the beds without any replacements..  Just the holes in the wall where they used to be...  But then what do you want for $50 a night....

We rode the cycles down there on Monday the 15th and it was 60% chance of rain...  But we never found the part where it was raining...  It was overcast for most of the morning and we rode thru wet roads where it had just rained but nary a drop on us..

It was 250 miles down there from my house but mostly divided highway..  Fairly straight too...  But that all changed on Tuesday morning... We looked out to fog across the mountains to the South..  And we promptly rode off into that fog...  Curvy hilly fog...  But not rain drops... Just damp cloudy air..

As we topped the mountain, it was sunny on the South side and we descended into Russellville on Interstate 40, where there is a really nice Honda motorcycle dealer....  They custom build trikes and repaint many of the other bikes that are brand new from Japan..  So custom colors are everywhere...



After a while resisting the sales pitch, we headed off to Petit Jean State Park..  This is a mountain top park named after a small lady that stowed away on a ship from europe as a cabin boy...  The park was built by the CCC in the thirties...

The picture above was taken looking Southwest from the mountain over the Arkansas river as it winds towards Little Rock...

What the picture doesn't show is the thunderstorm that over my right shoulder...  And that was exactly where we had to ride to get back to the Hub...

We ended up taking refuge in a McDonalds for... a couple of hours while it poured rain..  And then rode 75 miles in dense fog back up over the mountains, arriving well after dark.  That was a white knuckle ride in the curves, but we weren't soaked yet...

More in the next post, as this is too long now.....  Retired Rod

No wet bike rides for me...

It rained again today.....  And that wouldn't be of interest except that it rained last Wednesday too....  And Wednesday is when we go on the long motorcycle rides to far away places..  But not in the rain...

Last Wednesday the planned ride was out to Pamona Lake at Vassar, Kansas...  There is a golf course there and they had scheduled the riders for a luncheon...  But the weather forecasters had other ideas as we had lightning bolts coming down in rapid succession...   I don't do lightning on the motor cycle..    So we decided to drive...  And of course when we arrived it was sunny and bright..

Most of the Wednesday crowd comes from Topeka, so they couldn't understand why we were coming in the Jeep....

Yesterday we rode to Wellsville which is just South of Olathe  right down the Interstate highway..  That was an interesting place because the downtown is old brick streets and most of the shops are antique offerings..  But the restaurant is Bar Be Cue and very tasty to boot..

But this morning we were supposed to ride over to Lawrence where Kansas University is located...  Its only about 30 miles over there...  and as I backed the bike out of the garage to go....  as I was standing there, a deluge of water came from the sky soaking me to the bone..  So I calmly rolled it back in the garage and took the car again..

I would have just passed on the ride, but I remembered the chicken fried steak from last year... And it was big and good...  So I drove over...  And just like last week it was dry and somewhat sunny in the next county West...  Again I was explaining that it was pouring over in KC....  To which I was getting the "Ya sure just like you said last week"  line...

I probably won't take the car to Wednesday rides any more....  LOL

Other than that, I have been doing some fall jobs around here and thinking about the trek next month to Arizona...  The weather here will deteriorate rather rapidly after Sept 30....  Rain will become the new normal and cold will set in on most mornings...

So its time to do all the fall oil changes and so on Monday I worked on the garden tractor that I use as a mower...  Its an older John Deere with a Kohler engine..  It has an oil filter and a pressure system..  I was changing the oil after I had mowed and it was still hot....  So when I took the cap off of the drain, oil went everywhere in and explosion..  It was as thin as water....  That gave me a mess to clean up later that afternoon....  But I'm making a list of things to do before I leave and these oil changes are at the top...  Most of the items will not be started again until spring..

Tomorrow its motorcycles and the hobby car...

Other than that, its just family stuff like baseball games and cookouts...  And on the grill session Sunday evening, we ran out of propane right in the middle of the cooking....  That set us back about a half and hour...

Are you thinking about your winter travels as well.....?

Retired Rod

Holiday Routine

The same old holiday routine had me off to Lake Ozark this past weekend...  I went down on Thursday and came home Monday...  We did the usual stuff....  Cooked way too many good meals and ate every bite of it....  I had both of my son's and their families along..

On Sunday night we had the Taco bar...  Marinaded Chicken done on the grill and the beef done in the taco seasoning.....   Then all the fixens....  Danielle made a special Mexican cheese dip with spinach in the crock pot....   Needless to say we were spreading cheese dip all over the tacos, making them open face tostada style...  With oddles of gooey cheese running off of the sides...... Don't tell the cardiologist...

It rained this morning but no one was done playing on and in the lake...  So once it let up things progressed with more boat rides and jet ski jaunts....  It was late and I was packed up, so I left it in the kids capable hands to shut things down..

It was dark when I arrived home so they will be late into the night.... The kids will have school tomorrow, so I hope they don't snooze in school....

It rained again heavily on the way home....  It was so dense that I had to stop once to let the worst of it pass me by...

Today, September 1st was Loyce and my anniversary...  So its a little sad here once things come to a complete stop....  I'll try not to dwell on it.....   She passed away on the 8th last year, and its hard to realize that a whole year has gone since that day......

Well tomorrow we have another motorcycle ride in the morning, so perhaps that will keep my mind busy......  And on Wednesday there is yet another ride to Vassar, Kansas....  Its supposed to be in the mid 90s that day....  I'll be killed...

Retired Rod