buckle-up

We have  traveled  some very familiar roads this past month. Even as the month ended up with the Thanksgiving weekend where we were pleased to have house guests joining us for the annual turkey fest, Margo and I could always hear the highway calling. A popular expression between the two of us, having spent so many years traversing the west, when having spent a full month at home was an anomaly, so this month included a return trip to where it all started for us. San Jose, California, and Silicon Valley. As the picture above depicts, we spent the better part of a week at the San Jose Fairmont, an upscale hotel well suited for small to medium events and this one was very familiar. In our days as volunteers supporting the International Tandem User Group (ITUG) we had been fortunate to enjoy the two primary penthouse suits – the Presidential Suite as well as the even bigger, International Suite. Unfortunately, this time it was just a regular room, but with Margo once ...

Not to do an injustice to the lyrical skills of that New Zealand band, Split Enz, but truly, as I look around the township of Niwot I am taken back by just how popular maple trees have become, and this year the display has been fantastic. We have a number of maples in our own yard but they are puny compared to what our neighbors have planted and coming at a time when the golden leaves of the aspen trees have long gone, the splash of brilliant red everywhere you turn makes for a colorful vista. Winter isn’t too far behind the changing of the colors, mind you, but we will take the sunny days we have been enjoying without any complaints whatsoever. All too soon, the reds of fall will join the golds leaving only the soulful pines to throw a little color across the landscape. But it’s not all sadness; winter does bring its own joys of course, and with the end of October we celebrated Halloween by staying right away from the house – with the distance that exists between homes where ...

I am running around town these days in Margo’s Mini Cooper S Roadster and having a blast and I am reminded of just how much fun driving can be once you strip away much of the technology. Yes, it’s a stick shift with six forward gears and yes, it’s really light and yes, I know, it’s tiny. But that’s what is providing the almost instantaneous feedback in any road conditions I encounter – and yes, the continuous feedback through the seat of the pants is unmistakable. Put a tire off the pavement and you know immediately you have been a little too aggressive. As for the shifter, the third to fourth gear plane is the natural plane and it’s pretty strongly sprung and engaging first gear can be hit-or-miss affair. On the other hand, I am now mastering the quickly-to-accelerate third gear launch. Then again, as the picture above notes, it was Margo who received the instructions on how best to operate the Mini.  It was back on Thanksgiving 2007 when Margo and I had made it...

On a long and lonesome highway, (west) of Omaha You can listen to the engine moanin' out its one note song ... This past month was very much about motion. And mobility! Or, sometimes, the distinct lack of motion, as on one occasion I walked into the garage only to find it empty, except for a couple of motorcycles. As I wrapped up last month’s post I ended with the observation on how, only a short time ago, we had more cars than garage spaces and that perhaps we had culled the herd just a little too thinly, even as the highway beckoned. But yes, we still had the motorcycles, right? Well, not exactly. Taking the big Honda VTX 1800 (that’s 110 cubic inches for the metric challenged) out on the road for just the second time this year I only made it down to the local gas station before it too came to an inglorious end. No manner of coaxing could get the big twin to fire up so it too was hauled away on a flatbed trailer. As coincidence would have it, the driver of the tow t...