Progress!

The weather was actually decent yesterday, so when Ray got home we took a ride. We didn't go far, but we got in some good practice and prep for longer rides. So much needs to be toughened up and strengthened.

The sun was shining, the rhodies are in bloom, and daffodils. The grass is still green and the sky blue for a change. We loved it! On the way home, we stopped by a new burger place, Broiler Bay. They have nice onion rings and decent burgers.

Norman was seriously bummed we didn't take him along. He loves the ride as much as we do. But we knew we'd stop for dinner at the end of the ride, so we didn't bring him. Although I think he'd wait quietly in the sidecar.

Ray took Clark out for a motorhome lesson and discovered the slide out on the passenger side won't slide again. Totally inoperative. So it's back to the shop for the mh on Monday afternoon. What a pain in the neck that (non)slide out is! This weekend, we'll take it out without the slide working and make do. The slide that's most important does slide, so we'll have room to move around. We're going up near Concrete.

Opened the windows for the first time in months yesterday. Fresh air!

The Demand for Motorhome and Motorcycle News...

will remain unmet for a while.

The motorhome is up at the dealership again, for an extended stay to repair and repaint the part of the hood that was damaged upon delivery. The selling dealership in CA, those blaggards, finally agreed to pay the cost of the repair. We've been trying to get it fixed since October 31, 2011. Should be done the end of this week or sometime next week if all goes well. And we plan on getting out sometime in April for a weekend.

But I have to tell you, I do not miss the behemoth parked in the driveway. It's so much easier to get in and out without that huuuuge wall sitting in half the driveway. Probably easier for all the neighbors too. I sure wish we'd get to the top of some motorhome parking waiting list. (we're on 2 lists)

As for the motorcycles, it is still snowing around here and is way too chilly to go out riding without a snowmobile suit and heated gloves and sox. Brrrr! I have not seen many motorcycles out at all so far. Just wait til the first sunny, dry and slightly warm day and they'll pop out like bees out a hive.

However, I can tell you that we are planning a weekend out in the mh soon, and are planning to attend both a Good Sam motorhome rally (in the arcane language of the Sammers, it's called a Samboree) in Moses Lake in late spring and a sidecar rally in Coeur D'Alene later in the summer. We are going back and forth about simply riding bikes and taking the motorhome for hauling bikes on a trailer and for feed and shelter. In general, I don't much favor trailering bikes to an event, but in this case, the mh would be handy. Maybe I'll let Ray haul his bike and I'll ride mine. Unless the weather sux.

Jason and 2 friends borrowed the mh for a long weekend and went out fishing on opening day (for some species or other). They caught so many fish the first day they ended up throwing a bunch of fish back because they had more fish than they wanted to deal with. So wouldn't you know? The remainder of the weekend, nary a fish to be had outside of the Safeway.

Clark and 4 friends will borrow the mh during the Ides of May for an overnight casino trip. Cheaper than paying for the casino hotel, even with gas and propane refills, Clark says. And of course, they can cook for themselves, which is bound to be way better than casino food.

So, if you had a motorhome, would you buy a motorhome site in a single membership park when you already have a membership to all the parks? It would get the mh out of the drive and give us an out of immediate area meeting spot in case of natural disaster. Of course, that assumes the roads are driveable and in an earthquake, who knows? But we can buy a site in any of the Thousand Trails/NACO/Leisure Time resorts....What do you think?

Well, we are almost ready to depart on our big trip, wonderful adventure or fool’s errand depending on your view of a 5000+ mile motorcycle ride. It certainly is not the longest one anyone has ever taken. Our son Justin did one of 11,000+ miles just last summer. We will be visiting some of the same places and people that he did. Moreover, it is not even a long one considering our age. I read of a guy planning to ride from Florida to the north shore of Alaska next year at the age of 75. But it is the longest we’ve ever attempted or likely to attempt again. We have done a couple of trips of a little over 1000 miles. Training rides if you will.

The basics are I am riding a 05 Moto Guzzi Nevada 750 and Susan is riding her 09 Suzuki Burgman that has a Kenna sidecar attached. Yes, she rides her own. The sidecar has solved many of the questions of “do we have room to take this? “

The bikes are all ready to go and we think we have the necessary accessories to make the trip enjoyable but we’re getting down to the wire on getting the house ready for the house sitters and various other things. So in a great tradition of “I need time to get ready for vacation” I took Friday off work to help Susan get the last minute things done. I should get lots of husbanding points for that.

We depart on Tuesday, August 17 in the evening and go just far enough to get past the Seattle traffic mess. The real trip will start on Wednesday when we head east on I90 and then I94 to Dickinson, North Dakota, to visit a niece. From there we get off the interstate and go through South Dakota and into Minnesota to Hasting to visit one of Susan’s sisters. Then we follow the Mississippi River on the Wisconsin side for a while and then on east to Elgin, Illinois, where will spend a couple of weeks visiting my brother and Susan’s other siblings. After that, we head back. While we have laid out a route, we are not tying ourselves to it. We’ve already talked of some alternate stops and detours.

Susan's ride. Dauntless Motors is the place that manufactures and installs the Kenna sidecar that's on her bike.'



My ride is a little more traditional.

North Cascade Day Ride

I got in a nice ride Saturday. Susan was sick but the weather was nice so I left her home in bed and went north on I5 to the North Cascade Highway (WA 20) and headed east. Just east of Mount Vernon I took a road that paralleled 20, the South Skagit Road. It goes along the south side of the Skagit River. It follows the river real close. I could see it most of the time when the trees weren't too thick. Nice road with very little traffic. That was over 20 miles I think. Then I crossed the river into Concrete. That's a town on highway 20 and I had lunch at Cascade Burgers. It was very good. I had a buffalo burger and onion rings. It's a place worth stopping at. I made a way point on my GPS so I could find it again. Not that it would be difficult. It's on the main road on the edge of town. I then continued east to Rockport and then to Marble Mount. There is a very good restaurant there called the Buffalo Run. You can get Elk burgers and steaks there. Susan and I ate lunch there the year before last on one of our three day trips. I made another way point because we are planning a Cascade loop ride for the last weekend in June and plan to have lunch there again. The stretch of highway 20 between Rockport and Marble Mount is really nice. Very good surface and nice curves, not tight ones those are further up toward the pass but it was still really nice to ride.

I gassed up and headed back to Rockport where I turned south to Darrington. That's a nice stretch of road also. It follows one of the branches of the river. At Darrington I took highway 530 west to I5 then on home. 530 is a good road but not a destination in itself like the cascade highway is. Except where the tree were thick I could see snow on the peaks and wild flowers starting to Bloom. The traffic was light most of the day until I got closer to Seattle on I5 but then I5 is not a good motorcycle road, just a means to get out of town.

I didn't take the camera so no picture to show. But if you look at our blog entries of 08 you should be able to find the ones we took then. I think the whole trip was some where over 200 miles. Really a nice day ride.

The weather next Saturday is promising to be just as nice. Of course who believes the weatherman's promises? We can only hope. Maybe Sue will be well enough then so we can both ride. We've got to get some training in before the big one in August.