News Paper Article

Do you remember the week we went to Wellsville, Kansas and had the Kansas City Star newspaper reporters there to do a story on the Romeo Riders?

Several folks made comments asking if they would be able to read the write up...  And you can by following this link....

KC Star Article

We were all a little worried about the Successful Aging title of the newspaper supplement, but what are you going to do...?  And yes I was in the group picture, but it is like looking for waldo..  I'm in the very back next to one of the posts on the porch...  All you can see is my head and sunglasses.....  No hat either.

So here you go,  by request....

Retired Rod

On a Trip

Hello from the Dayton, Ohio Hamvention.....   We left the Kansas City area on Tuesday and drove to Terre Haute, Indiana through out the day.....  I arrived around 5 PM, but quickly realized that crossing the Indiana state line  about 5 miles back put me into the Eastern Time zone....

So in the last couple of months, I have now been in all 5 mainland time zones...   What the heck time is it anyway....??    On Wednesday, we stopped at the Speedway in Indianapolis for the time trial practice session...   That was a hoot....  Well it was anyway until the fastest driver in car 3 lost it and spun backwards...   Then hit the wall hard and air got under his back end flipping him into the air and onto his top....   He was going about 225 at the time...       Video  But he got out with the emergency folks help and was OK....

Since then, we drove directly over to the Hotel in Dayton   and have been going to the Ham Show each day...  They had good attendance and we have been busy scoping out purchases that would be possible if we wanted to spend the money...  Our sales have been fairly brisk, but we are about out of stuff to put on the tables, so now it is time to get other stuff to take back home...  Its a disease you know....

We always go to the many favorite places for meals that we have learned over the last several years...   A Mark's Big Boy for the old cars on Wednesday and Mario's Pizza on Thursday and tonight it was Hooters for Chicken wings and then on to an Ice Cream place.... We thought we were going to Friendly's, but it turned out they had closed that location and up the road a small ways there was a Cold Stone....   Well, what are you going to do..........!

Tomorrow is another big day of looking and dreaming...  And then home on Sunday...

For Biscuit fans, she is at her grandkids home, snuggling under the covers with the grand girls...  And they also have a new puppy named Augie...   He is a standard Poodle and Wheaton mix called a Whoodle.....    He has all the energy of both breeds, so son Ben is hoping that Biscuit can help settle down the new puppy....

Walking Augie with the bicycle...  You can't keep up unless you are on wheels...  And then he pulls you along, so you have to be ready....

Retired Rod

Where the heck have I been...?

Its a sad thing to get out of the habit of writing a blog.....   You put it off at first, but then you are so far behind that you can't catch up...  So then your motivation goes South....  But perhaps I can catch things up all at once...

I'm still waiting for the drywall repair folks.....   It was all scheduled and they were to come this past week...  But at the last minute they called that their workers have some kind of a family emergency and wouldn't be arriving......  The workers are hispanic and do not speak the language well enough to have the contractor, which is my point man understand what went wrong...

All I know is that they didn't arrive....  But the new carpet people are supposed to be here tomorrow...  But only to do the measure.....  So we will have to slow that down some....  In the meantime all of the furniture from the living room and the dining room has been relocated to the family room...  I can barely make it to my recliner chair...  The tables are in the kitchen.... including the dining room table and the china dishes have been unloaded from the hutches....  We are a total mess........

I did find a replacement used piano as the old one was a total loss...  It arrived from Manhattan, Ks and is now in the way as well....  It is shoved up against the entry way wall...  There is not a thing I can do about any of this... So I have decided to remain happy...  But frustrated......

I have been going on a number of Motorcycle luncheons.....  Some of the destinations were Adrian, Mo and then Williamsburg, Kansas...  We managed to not get into the rain on those days, but it has rained here almost every day since the middle of last week....  Tuesday of the past week we rode up to Cameron, Mo which is about 100 miles North of me here in South KC...

On that day, I broke away from my friend Al as he was headed to Cabella's for camping gear and I ended up in Guitar Center looking for a Looper..  That is an electronic gizmo that records a few minutes of playing and then loops it back to you...  You can then play along with yourself on the next loop... This makes it sound like there are now two guitars...  Of course my skills are awful, but how will I ever learn if I don't have the gizmo..?

When I write up the motorcycle trips, not many folks seem as interested and my numbers of readers wanes...   So that kind of kills my motivation to blog about them....  So that's my story and I'm sticking to it..... LOL

Retired Rod

More of Kansas

On Tuesday we went to Wellsville, Kansas which is just South of Olathe about 30 miles... The KC newspaper was there to do a write up of our lunch ride activity for the Sunday paper... So we kept it close...

And as our leader Roger put it, the town of Wellsville kind of typifies our destinations, with its old wide brick main street and the restaurant that must have been a rooming house years ago... Wellsville is right along the Interstate 35. Has antique stores and is worth your stop even if you have to come by car.... LOL

I didn't count them myself, but it was rumored that there were 100 bikes present... and they are lined up in the next block North as you can see....   They not only warned the restaurant but also the local police guy...  And he sometimes rides with us to farther destinations, so he was more than proud to set some orange cones out it front of the restaurant...

On Wednesday the stated destination was Leavenworth, Kansas and a bar and grill named Ross's...   It was out in the suburbs to the west of Leavenworth...

 I got a kick out of this sign on the front about Husband Day Care.....   Well if ya have to be taken care of it may as well be a place with beer on tap and lots of TVs.....!!  Not to mention about 50 of your friends to boot..

The ride up there didn't quite turn out as planned...   We went North right up I 435 and took the East side of the river scenic road along the Missouri...  But!!  When we got to the bridge over said river going into Leavenworth, they had it blocked off...  That wasn't funny.....

So with nothing else left to do, we had to ride all the way up to Atchison and then back South to the restaurant...  And we were quite late..  Most of the folks were leaving, but several straggled in behind us, having been caught by the same issue...  That spread the crowd out, which kind of helped the restaurant crew keep up...

On the way home we ventured thru the back roads, including 3 miles of gravel when we made a wrong turn,  ending up in Tonganoxie and then Lawrence.. Finally stopping in De Soto at the McDonalds for our famous late coffee...

As I type this, I am down at the Lake house in Central Missouri....  But you didn't want a blog about scrubbing toilets and floors did you?  No I didn't think so...

Retired Rod