buckle-up

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...

“Like somebody has taken the wheels off your car When you had somewhere to go, well, it's annoying Not going to get very far, I know …” These lyrics by Sir Paul McCartney pretty much sum up the way the month went. In all the time Margo and I have been on the road I have never found myself looking into our garage and seeing no cars – nothing. Nada. Zilch. The iconic scene of Cadillacs, pictured above and buried nose-first into a field west of Amarillo, pretty much sums up how I felt as I scrambled to find a set of wheels for the family. Fortunately, our daughter stepped in and lent us her Toyota for which we are both highly grateful.   The month started with us already well into our long drive through the south western states of the U.S. As this was a business trip with several meetings scheduled and presentation to be given, we were definitely going to need a car. Needless to say, it was back to doing what we like to do best – hitching up the trailer and towing the ever-fa...

Last month I opened the blog with the commentary, “with April showers, May flowers” and I closed with the remark, I don’t mind the rains – the floods, on the other hand, well that’s an entirely different story – and there are predictions once again for a few more wet days to come. Well, little did I know just how much rain we would get – it’s been days of torrential rain followed by even more rain. As June came to an end, the temperatures finally rose to the 90s Fahrenheit, a first for the year, and a first since September 2014. So now I can add that it’s not just with April showers, May flowers but come June, it’s monsoon! Fortunately, what the rains didn’t stop were the visits to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where Margo’s identical twin grandsons are being looked after – having been born prematurely back on April 13th (in the middle of one of our earlier trips to the west coast), they’re doing it tough. If you would like to know just how much monitoring is performe...