December 18, 1971 - 2008, 37 years!

Happy Anniversary honey, I love you so much!!!

Hard to believe that 37 years ago in Los Alamos, NM we were married. We moved back here in September 1972 and have lived here ever since.
We raised 2 great kids here and have had a good life! Here's hoping for at least 20 more years!

#1 wife

First photo snowman

Isaiah took this lower photo with his new kid digital camera, and we just built the snowman this morning too from the overnite storm New Mexico received. His name is Rudy.

Awesome quilts

A dear friend of ours since high school days, yes that long we have been friends...she was even in the wedding party, made us 2 beautiful quilts for our upcoming 37th anniversary! Here are a few photos of them....so warm and pretty!

From our Halloween visit to Salt Lake

Mason waiting for Sophia's dance class to be over.

Carving thier own special pumpkins with Mom.

Fall in New Mexico

There are many things which mean fall in New Mexico. The wonderful smell of roasting green chile and the tradtional peeling and feezing it for the upcoming year.

The beautiful leaves as they change to all sorts of colors, yellow, golden, red and bronze.

Len has a lot of work gathering all the leaves every year usually with my help.

Montreal? Oui

We headed waaaaaay north for a week-long trip to up-state New York, Vermont and Montreal. We really hit the jackpot on beautiful weather for the entire trip and ate good food until we were ready to explode.

Montreal is the french extension of France and was intended to be a colony under french political (actually religious) control. The island was awarded colonization where the french could expand to the new world without leaving the customs and language of France. Indeed, they have kept the french language and the Provence of Quebec even attempted once to secede from mainstream Canada.

Forget all you have heard about the french being difficult people. We had no such experience while visiting...at least in french Montreal.

This is a skyline of Montreal downtown; A very busy city with many educational institutions ranging from music to architecture. Anyway, I digress.



We started by staying a couple of nights in Burlington, VT. This city rests on the shores of Lake Champlain, a 120 mile long lake, separating Vermont and New York, that was a critical strategic "highway" for commerce and military transport. In fact, Lake Champlain is the home of the United States Navy. Fierce battles were fought during the American Revolution and French American war for control of this valuable resource. Steam ships were first put to use on Lake Champlain and used for commerce shipping from Canada all the way to Manhattan.

Living in this area, it is such a joy to have breakfast lakeside.





We took a tourist ride on a boat around a portion of the lake.



The University of Vermont is in Burlington and school started the day we arrived. What a ZOO! The downtown has a street set aside for outdoor dining and general shopping, no vehicle traffic. This is great for people watching and watching the street performers. We had a great Italian meal on this street!!






Watching the sun set over the lake was a favorite activity.

Leaving Burlington, we searched for the holy grail of ice cream. Behold...Ben and Jerry's original ice cream factory!! Yummmmmm. We took a tour and ate the flavor of the day. Lots of fun. Of course neither Ben nor Jerry are active in the company anymore. They sold the company several years ago and only participate in some activities. Set for life, they now do...whatever...and live in Burlington, VT.

We arrived at Montreal and walked our little (well sorta little) butts off. We went to the church, Notre Dame (Our Lady), which was built to accommodate the increased population as Montreal grew. The church was built in the style of the Notre Dame in France.

There are many fountains and statues throughout the city.




Susan gets the real feel of Montreal!





In 1967 Montreal hosted a world expo. The "Biosphere" is a remnant of that event. In 1967 this sphere had the plastic cover over the dome (burned completely during a fire) and the world's longest escalator. There was even a monorail used to transport folks around the expo. And, there are also remnants of the Olympics held there in 1976.

We rented an apartment while in Montreal and enjoyed some vino and cheese one evening.

Diversity abounds in Montreal and even has a small china town.


Street art is very common and we stopped walking long enough to hear a classical trio perform.

We had to come back, finally, so we went through Lake Placid, NY.
A great little town and it's amazing that this little town could support an Olympic event...not once, but twice!

Now Lake Placid is used to lure NY city refugees and serves as a world-wide training center for Olympic athletes. Of course the main claim to fame is the ice rink which is home to the miracle on ice hockey team win against the Russians in 1980.

The ice rink where it all happened. You could almost hear and sense the excitement still lingering in the air at the arena.

Suz was just a little early for the next game!

We had a great time, but as always, it's great to be home.

Colorful Colorado

Long time no Blog! Well...we've been busy this summer!

We took a ride up to beautiful Colorado a few weeks ago and had a great time. Lorenzo (aka, Wrong Turn Renzo) and Unica were great company and she was gracious to provide pics for the blog.

The ride was called the 100,000 foot (vertical) ride through the mountain passes of Colorado. One rides through many high altitude passes and admire God's handy work. A highlight was riding through Rocky Mountain National Park...FANTASTIC!!

Here is the clan posing within the park boundries. I love to take pictures when using the camera timer. It's always a hoot to have someone run back to get into the picture and creates a natural laughing pose.




We stopped for lunch with all the other riders in...well, I guess I don't remember where. Oh, well. I do remember it was a good lunch catered by a real nice lady who said we could have seconds on the pasta, but only one cookie!! Rats!!


So here we are entering the park and I wanted to take Lorenzo and Unica's picture, but...they had the camera. No problem. Lorenzo tossed me the camera from about 20 feet away! But...it was Unica's camera!! Anyway, nice shot.



When we arrived at the crest of Timber Ridge Road we were treated to a huge herd of bull elk lounging in the cool tempertature.




Unica tried her hand at some trick photography--taking a picture backwards--while riding towards a summit.



Smoochie, smoochie at the top of a pass.



Even more smoochie, smoochie.

Gee we had a great time and this could be an annual event!!

Isaiah visit, August 2008

And here is a photo of Isaiah on the jungle bars.

Visit from Stephanie, Mason and Sophia

Little Sophia picking daisies....

Mason is the next generation of BMW motorcycle riders it seems like....

What a nice time we had with Steph and the grandkids. A photo from a picnic in the Jemez mountains before it started to rain....

A bit North

I headed off to the National BMW Motorcycle Rally in Gillette, WY, and had a great ride! I spent some time near and around Gillette and then riding around the Black Hills of South Dakota. I managed to bypass Sturgess where the town was getting ready for the a huge Harley weekend.

Gillette is a boom town that supplies the nation with coal. Four new mines are opening and a power plant is also on the horizon.

If you saw "Close Encounters" you'll remember Devil's Tower. This place is awesome!! Out in the middle of nowhere, this huge tower of rock rises tall. The indians believe that several small girls were playing when a bear started to attack them. The girls prayed to the gods to save them and the ground rose up to put them out of reach of the bear. Of course the bear clawed and clawed to reach the girls, leaving the existing pattern on the side of the tower.

There were over 5,000 attendees at this year's rally, most camping. I took this picture the night before I left and when most of the neighbors had already left. The first night of the rally we had to endure a drenching downpour and lighting that shook the ground.

On the way back I went up North and just South of Montana to the Big Horn Mountains. Great scenery in this part of the country! Moving South I went through several small towns including Thermopolis whose claim to fame is the largest natural hot springs in the world.

Next week we're heading up to Colorado for a 100,000 ft. (vertical) ride through the mountains surrounding Denver. Suz will be going on this trip, so you might get better pictures!!

ROAD TRIP!!!

I don't want a pickle, I just want to ride my motor-sikle:

I'm on a road trip...Yahooooo. Left this am bright and early and in the wake of Suz who was off to fly and babysit some of the grandchildren.

I stopped for the traditional breakfast burrito at Dos Hermano's and it was yummy (ham/red). Cruised on and actually stood on a corner in Winslow Arizona while eating at Subway. Yup...me and Jared. Caught a little rain on the other side of Flagstaff which was welcome and brought down the heat factor. Motored into Kingman with a heat wave of 100 degs. Wasn't too bad, so I decided to put 60 more miles and head to Needles, CA. BIG mistake!! My bike thermometer peaked at 113 degrees and I just sort of melted into the hotel. When I handed the clerk my credit card he commented that it was hot, and I don't mean stolen. I checked in and started to move my motorcycle and discovered I could barely hold on to the blazing clutch and brake levers!! I guess mountain living has got me spoiled.

Headed to the coast tomorrow!!

Yeah!! Made it the coast and spent the night at a fairly crappy camp ground near San Luis Obispo. The good spots near the coast were taken by the time I got around to finding a spot. I had to spend some time removing my rear tire for a replacement at Cycle Gear. It was nice of them to accommodate me and probably only spent an hour or so getting this done.

Sunday was a beautiful morning as I headed North on US 1. Smoke from the fires were noticed a long time ago, probably as early as Mojave, 150 miles from the coast. What beauty there is along the coast!!! It's hard to concentrate on the road when you want to take in all the continuous changes in the landscape. I got past San Semion and caught a glimpse of the Hearst castle (through the smoke) and high on a hill. I thought to myself that I really need to stop at that place one of these days, but not today. The road turned to fantastic twisties as I went further and I had no problem concentrating on needling through this section of road. Wow, this is really fun!! I knew the road was closed near Big Sur--because of the fire-- but what I didn't know was that the roadblock was not located near a detour option for Highway 101. So, I got about 40 miles up this winding coast line and had to backtrack to grab 101. Not too bad, the twisties were just as fun on the return.

I stopped for lunch in Monterey. I've always liked Monterey. We went to a professional bicycle race there a couple of years ago and had a great time. One thing about riding up the coast...It's freak'in cold!! Temps were about 55-60 degrees all day!! I made it to Santa Cruz and grabbed a motel hoping for a hot spa.

I'm off again bright and early and finally put on another layer of clothes for riding. Up through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge. Hah, I crossed for free as do all North bound traffic. I'm one up on them!!

I really liked the small communities that spring up along the coast that seem to cater only to tourists. A general store and one or two restaurants seem to make up most of the town. Almost all the B&Bs in the region were without vacancy. Moving on through Bodega Bay, famous for the filming location of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", I camped at the Humboldt State Park, home of the California redwoods. The trees are huge...but then again, so are the mosquitoes! This was one of my favorite areas. I just can't believe how big some of these trees are.

Next morning I proceeded up the so-called Redwoods Highway. This is a fabulous forest, clean and almost pristine. I crossed into Oregon right after lunch in Crecent City CA. Oregon wins for having the best, and most, state parks. I begin to see many logging trucks filled with fresh cut trees. This section is also the beginning of more industry in the towns, mostly wood and pulp. I find my way to Coos Bay where I spend the night at a really big state park. The park is full except for primitive camping, which was fine with me. Primitive to these guys includes an included hot shower!!

I decide to begin heading East to make it to Salt Lake City in time for the 4th of July activities with my daughter's family. My primary stop along the way is Crater Lake. This is a 2,000 ft. deep lake formed from an extinct volcano. There was still snow--lot's of snow--surrounding the lake. The lake is simply stunning, but again fogged in from the smoke.

I connected with 140 SE and fought off the rabbits and wild donkeys on 140 and hit junction 95 in Nevada at sunset. My plan was to ride to I80 and spend the night in Winnemucca.

About 15 miles outside of Winnemucca my lights came upon a deer trying to make up it's mind as to whether to cross the road or stay in my path. I put the bike in ABS mode and placed my bet on the deer turning back, she probably would have if not for me colliding with her head and front quarter. Boy, you want to talk about temporal distortion...seemed like extreme slow motion. She knocked the "knock-off" mirror from my RT, brushed the front of the bike and also my leg. I caught a glimpse of her in my mirror and she just dangled her head and shook. I have my mirror tethered with a leash so it was now banging on the side of the bike. Wow...I was still upright and in control!! No harps!! I stopped the bike and went to the front of the bike and accessed the damage. At first it looked like the mirror coming off was the only causality and I popped it back into place. I assumed the deer was long gone so I remounted and slowly proceeded while I accessed any handling problems. None detected, so I continued to ride to Winnemucca. I later noticed my primary lights were out and I was riding with only my PIAAs (hi-intensity lights). I guess the impact knocked out the H7 bulbs. I reached a hotel and checked in when a city police car pulled up and the officer asked me if he could talk to me about my bike. I said, "sure". He asked if I had just hit a deer and I looked at him surprised as to how he knew. I told him I did and he said my saddlebag was back at the scene and a whole lot of policeman were looking for me to determine if I was hurt. He, in fact had just come from the hospital to check. Well I glanced at the bike and--sure enough--my saddlebag was missing! I guess the deer sheered the bag right off the back! I didn't notice the bag was missing because I got off on the left side and inspected the damage on the front and didn't even notice the right side bag was gone. A state policeman was still at the scene and finally had to put the deer down. I guess she made it as far as the fence and was in shock or brain damaged. The SP was kind enough to bring my saddle bag to the hotel...as least what was left of the bag. He brought me about three pieces of the bag and my shoes with 3 pair of socks. The rest was scattered throughout the desert. All the policeman were great throughout the incident and they just couldn't believe I didn't go down. I guess I can't either. I replaced the H7s and found a little more damage to the headlight assembly in the light of day. I shattered the Cee Bailey headlight cover and cracked the lens on the main headlight. So, here I am, happy to have seen the sun rise one more time.

I slept in the next morning even though I wanted to get an early start to avoid the head. I bought and installed two new lights for visibility and headed towards SLC. I think this was about a 400 mile trip. It was really hot on the way and I was sure wishing for some of that 55-60 degree coastal weather I was feeling just...a day (?) before.

After SLC I made it home following the 600 mile ride. I had a renewed focus on deer and must have seen 6 dead on the side of road coming home. We need more deer hunts!!! Total trip milage was about 3500 miles. I'm now planning to head up to Wyoming for the BMW national rally, sooooo, more later.