buckle-up

Settling into our new home we were just reminded that it was one year ago when we first walked the lot, talked to our assigned builder and watched the concrete pad being framed. It has happened all so quickly – but doesn’t every new home build seem to flash by more quickly than anticipated. Put it down to inexperience building in Florida, although through the years, we had become fans of the show, 100 days. Then again, this is our house and we inspected every inch of progress almost every day. We rented a cottage for a year after we had taken the decision to build. That was probably among the smartest things we have ever done. It allowed us to drive to the site each day, sometimes more than once. It also justified us purchasing our first golf cart just for the purpose of traversing the two and a half miles that separated our rental from our new home. There is always an air of excitement surrounding any new home build and in our case, this proved to be no exception. Once we had made t...

  OK, so let’s talk cars! After all, this Buckle-Up blog has always been about motor vehicles, road trips, car shows and our time out on track. I know, it’s been a while to dedicate a post just to cars but for Margo and me year 2020 represents a milestone. That’s right; we didn’t buy a single car all year! Mark that down as a new record for Margo and me although truth be known (and already recorded in earlier posts), we did order a new car for delivery sometime in 2022. Does that even count? Worth noting, however, was how we took the time in 2019 to reduce the number of cars from six – plus an RV and trailer – to four and this year that number will be further reduced to just three. Count them; a garage with only three cars to choose from. I seriously don’t know if I will be able to adjust to this new reality! For the past two decades, we have really had opportunities to pretty much test drive many different cars.   Some we truly did enjoy more than others even as we had ac...

As a car-focused family and just one of many families that simply abhor flying for any reason, we are often asked about our thoughts on future prospects of electric vehicle ownership. Throw into this line of questioning autonomous vehicles and you get the picture. Surely, isn’t it time to modernize your vehicle purchase “metrics” to better reflect imminent changes? Even here, in Northern Colorado, any drive around our township will highlight just how many Nissan Leafs and Tesla Model S, X, 3s whatever can be seen standing on driveways. I have to admit, when Tesla first announced it is taking orders for its then-upcoming Model 3, it was hard to ignore the many texts I received from excited folks who had placed orders for this latest Tesla. As a car-focused family we continue to be inundated with statistics on just how fast today’s electric cars have become and yes, given access to the full amount of torque on hand as soon as the “gas pedal” is slammed to the floor, the numbers s...

I was reminded of this title when I came across a Led Zeppelin DVD – it’s the name of the video of a live concert by that group filmed back in 1973. A soundtrack album of the same name was released a little later, in 1976 – and it wasn’t long after that I returned to Australia and with each Christmas, I found a new Led Zeppelin album under the tree. “I had a dream Oh, yeah Crazy dream, uh-huh Anything I wanted to know Any place I needed to go Hear my song” Even now, there are radio stations in some cities that do little else but playing tracks from these albums for commuters who are leaving their offices and drive home. Perhaps it is a little melodramatic to kick off a post with these words but the more things change, the more they stay the same or, to be more precise, plus ça change, plus c’est la même. Before you move on to another post maybe it is a bit extreme to combine songs by Led Zeppelin with expressions by the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphon...

At this time of year the weather is highly unpredictable. However, of late there have been some amazing sunsets that I was able to capture on film as I was standing on our main floor deck having fired up the grill for the first time. April is Colorado’s second snowiest month of the year – March is the snowiest – and we have been watching the thermometer climb and fall on a regular basis. It may very well be spring, but there are times where we just aren’t quite sure what to make of it. On the other hand, there is a growing sense that summer isn’t too far away. Around these parts there are a lot of farmers heading for the fields and there are tractors rumbling down lanes everywhere you turn.  Grilling time is always a fun time and we have been entertaining a number of guests these past couple of weeks. Neighbors who spent the winter in Ohio have returned to Colorado while others who wintered in Arizona and Southern California are just now heading back – should see them shor...