buckle-up

While there may be nothing eye catching about this photo, it tells a story all the same. Devoid of decals and advertising, the 2003 “50 th Anniversary” Z06 Corvette is back in street guise, although it is hard to hide the presence of tow hooks, a harness bar and yes, the mount for our GoPro. A terrific Christmas present mind you, the GoPro that is, but video will likely be that of favorite canyon passages than of favorite road courses. The transition to a street car reminded us both of how good this Corvette really is – with barely 20,000 miles on the odometer after a dozen years of so, and it’s interior in pristine condition, it’s a heck of a ride. Imagine, just for a moment, these cars can still be purchased for a lot less than a reasonably equipped new econobox! And the engine bay, after three years of track duty, remains as clean as the day we picked up from the dealer all those years ago. A 5.7 liter Chevy small block V8 may not sound as impressive as it once day but it’...

March was a time to travel and once again it was a case of packing all we needed into the Jeep. The weather can turn on a dime and the forecast in the days leading up to our time on the road looked anything but promising. However, after the record breaking snowfalls of February, the month of March, which is the snowiest month of the year for the Colorado front ranges, saw very little snow but that didn’t mean we missed out on further cold snaps. It’s to be expected living in the foothills, with multiple peaks passing 14,000 feet the thermometer can head to the negative blue graduations pretty quickly, but all the same, it’s a time to enjoy home cooking and we certainly didn’t lack for anything as the weather kept us indoors. The picture above is of Margo throwing on a big pork chop that she was adding to a panful of spices and vegetables, mostly onions naturally, while on this occasion, even though I was out of sight, I mixed the evening’s martinis. However days on the road s...

Give me champagne on ice, and a spouse that is nice … or something like that! While not pulling directly from the Eagles and their Hotel California masterpiece, a song I still have trouble fully comprehending even though I just read that the song was “about the seductive and destructive nature of wealth in California in the Seventies. It's about the attractiveness of booze, drugs and free love, and how hard they can be to give up, even after you've realized how bad they can be”. After making California my home on more than one occasion, this interpretation kind of makes sense. At any rate, the real story coming out of Colorado is that it’s cold and if the snow continues through to the end of February, it will produce an all-time record snowfall for February in Denver. Running outside to place a bottle of champagne on the table as the snow kept falling was a tad risky as there was a layer of ice just beneath the surface – the result of a mild thaw between snowstorms – some...

Even in the middle of January there’s a need to travel and this month the road trip involved a lengthy loop through the southwest as we visited a client in southern California. If he theme of the post of two years ago, January 2013, was On the road, again! Again? should we add a further “again” to the title of this post? Perhaps not! Truth is, and it’s a fact I am reminded of regularly, we do like to drive and no matter what the weather may throw at us, there’s never a time when we aren’t looking forward to being on the road, again. The night before we departed we were forced to work the phones and rebook our accommodation – a severe snow storm was heading towards southern Colorado and was making a beeline for the very route we had planned on taking. Who knew? Turned out the western route, via Vale, was going to be less troublesome than the southern, less mountainous route. As seasoned winter travelers among the first items we throw into the back of the Jeep are a set of snow c...

The festive season has just wrapped up. For Margo and me traditions need to be maintained. Good wine is shared and then even as it’s darkest January, Margo and I are fond of pulling out the maps and looking at roads less travelled and this time, given the general poor road conditions everywhere we look, a trip to southern California via Interstate 10 is really enticing. Simi Valley via Tuscan, Yuma and San Diego just has to be done. A very long time ago I drove my then-current 1976 BMW 530i down this route at pretty much this time of year and enjoyed the winter sunshine. I know I have a picture of that very BMW around here somewhere. It was my very first BMW and I really enjoyed driving it all those decades ago. After two GM Holden Toranas , one a 3.3 liter straight 6 GTR the other a screaming 5 liter V8 SLR5000, the step up to the BMW turned out to be an experience on a whole different level – I skipped the air conditioning in favor of a sunroof and checked the stick-shift, r...