Mount Rushmore, July 1990

This was my last long ride on my 1981 BMW K100RS – my first serious sport touring motorcycle.

I was attending the 1990 BMW Motorcycle Owners of America International Rally at Rapid City, S.D. and was on a day ride to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse sculpture with Tim and Linda Balough. This was back when parking was free at Mount Rushmore.

After the rally, we rode down to Breckenridge, Colo. for a week with other Indianapolis BMW Club friends before riding home to Indianapolis.

I retired the R100RS the following June when I bought a 1991 K100RS. I ended up selling the R-bike with about 80,000 miles on the odometer, to a young fire fighter who pretty much rode it to death. It was a beautiful machine and it changed my life. It broke my heart to see how badly it had been abused when I noticed it outside the service department at Revard BMW Motorcycles ten years later.

Something I miss about winter

Our homes are warmer in winter and cooler in summer, thanks in part to double-pane windows, but those of us who live in colder latitudes gave up something exquisitely beautiful in exchange for comfort.

Frost on our windows.

I’d forgotten how beautiful it could be until I saw it in a Russian woman’s photos of her kids and her farm. I poked around on Google to find this example.

I remember being absolutely enchanted by frosty designs like this on the windows of my first childhood home at 609 E. Franklin St., in Delphi, Ind.

I think my sons may have experienced it when we all lived in Indianapolis in an older home on North College Avenue.

I’m sure I haven’t seen it since and I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it until now.

Isle Royale revisited

Here are two more images from that 1976 backpacking trip to Isle Royale National Park.

The top photo is of lunch at the foot of the Mount Ojibway fire tower. The bottom picture is a mixed review of the freeze-dried dinner at our Moskey Basin campsite. I think it was chicken a la king, but I can’t be sure. Sean liked it more than Steve did, quite obviously. That’s my Frostline kit tent in the background.

One of my favorite photos and memories

This is one of my favorite photos of my sons Sean (on the left) and Steve.

I shot it at sunrise on a late June morning in 1976 on a backpacking vacation to Isle Royale National Park.

Isle Royale is the largest island in Lake Superior and is probably America’s least-visited national park because it’s only accessible by seaplane and ferry and is open from April 15 through Nov. 1. There are no roads or motor vehicles on the island and the last time I checked it has no year-round residents, other than wildlife which includes wolves and moose.

My first wife Diane, who is the mother of my sons, and I visited Isle Royale the previous summer and wanted to share the experience with the boys. We flew out from Houghton, Mich. to Rock Harbor, a small cluster of buildings on the east end of the island and took the ferry back.

We all slept in a big ripstop nylon tent that I sewed a few years earlier, working with a kit from Frostline, a Colorado company that made sew-it-yourself kits for tents, sleeping bags, down-filled jackets, 60/40 mountain parkas and other stuff. And we survived for a week on freeze-dried camping food as we hiked from one campground to another along Moskey Basin on the east end of the island.

We had encounters with moose and other wildlife and did a day hike up to a fire tower on Mount Ojibway along the rocky backbone of the island. The tower was manned in those days, but now it just houses a bunch of weather recording apparatus, the National Park Service having decided it is impractical to try to fight a forest fire in such a remote location and, therefore, pointless to maintain a fire watch in the island’s two towers.

Slim pickings

It was slim pickings when the wraps came off of the Jan. 16 Amazon Vine Program offerings this afternoon.

No refrigerators, no printers, no vacuum cleaners. The biggest items were a couple of tabletop gas grills that didn’t interest me.

So I opted to have them send me a $25 stand-up cover for my Paperwhite Kindle and a $40 folding knife. Already-published reviews suggest the Kindle cover is a piece of junk, but I’ll give it a fair evaluation, as I will with the knife.

The day begins

I’m enjoying my morning mocha cappuccino in my reusable Starbucks go-cup before we motor in to town for a meeting with a financial consultant.

The aim is to protect our assets and improve our cash flow.

More later.

Going, going…

I drove to town this afternoon to run some errands, including stopping at Lowe’s to pick up a dark brown electrical outlet plate for our downtown rental property.

Much to my amazement, Lowe’s has no plates in dark brown plastic. They have huge sections for white and ivory, but no dark brown.

Then my eyes fell upon a huge supply of soon-to-be-extinct 60 watt incandescent light bulbs. By EPA (Employment Prevention Agency) decree, these are not to be produced after Jan. 1, but stores are permitted to sell their remaining stocks.

I bought four eight-packs at $4.48 per package because I want a good supply of them for the chandelier that hangs over our kitchen table.

Curiously, the ACE hardware on U.S. 49 is out of dark brown switch and outlet plates, but an employee ordered some and expects to have them by Friday.

My first ride of the new year

We needed milk and some other stuff from the Dollar General down the road and the temperature is 60 degrees. It would be wrong to waste such a riding opportunity, so I fired up the K75S and cruised on down to the store.

Let’s hope 2014 turns out to be a better riding year for me than last year was.

Paying attention

Returning from the post office this morning, I noticed someone has posted a Neighborhood Watch sign at the entrance to our small subdivision.

Nobody has ever contacted me about being part of an organized program of neighborhood crime vigilance and I doubt if any such formal watch structure exists here.

Nevertheless, I and several of our neighbors, pay close attention to comings and goings along our dead-end road just off a major U.S. highway.

At least two of us are retired guys who are here most of the time. I scrutinize every vehicle that comes into our cul-de-sac and I know our friend Tony makes the most of his wider field of view of the main street.

And I’m pretty sure that every house has firearms and the will to use them on home invaders.

It's probably time

To take down the Cheistmas decorations.

2013 was my worst riding year in 27 years

I finally got around to calculating my BMW motorcycle mileage for 2013 this morning and the result is singularly depressing.

I only rode 5,016 miles last year, making it my lowest mileage year since I started keeping records in 1986. I put 2,986 miles on the 1003 K1200GT and 2,030 miles on the 1994 K75S.

I had high hopes for 2013 that included Daytona Beach Bike Week, the European Riders Rally in Burkesville, Ky., in May, the BMWRA Rally in Asheville, N.C. in June, the BMWMOA Rally in Salem, Ore. in July, and the Falling Leaf Rally in Potosi, Mo. in October.

But health and cash flow problems intervened and conspired to keep me home much of the riding season, so I never made it to the Euro Riders Rally, the RA, and the MOA. If things had gone as planned, I would have racked up more than the 10,000 miles required for a 10K award from the Indianapolis BMW Club.

My wish list for 2014 includes Daytona (maybe), Burkesville, the MOA in Minneapolis and Potosi. As long as I’m dreaming, a Western tour including Portland and Las Vegas to see both of my sons and a visit to the Baloughs in Alma, Colo. would make me very happy.

We shall see.

Free coffee

I’m in town, running some errands, so I brought one of my empty Starbucks coffee sacks to swap for a tall dark roast (bottom right of photo).

The roads are thawed and just wet as the temperatures hover in the mid-30s. We expect a high around 50 tomorrow, so the nasty weather is over for now.

I had high hopes about getting in three visits to the gym this week, but it was not to be. Tomorrow, for sure.

Glancing at a copy of today’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette (the big paper in Little Rock) someone left on the counter, I notice that all of their page 1 art is from the AP, as are the dominant stories above the fold.  At least they haven’t whored out their front page for advertising like The Jonesboro Sun and The Indianapolis Star.

Just enough ice to call off school

As we expected, the school districts where Maria is a substitute teacher were all closed today because of freezing rain and the resulting icing.

It was just enough ice to make driving treacherous, while not taking down branches or power lines. The temperature rose above the freezing mark by noon and the sound of melted ice falling from the trees makes it sound like a gentle rain.

A tale of two tailless dogs

I brought Dora home from the Animal Medical Center about 10:30 a.m., some 25 hours after I dropped her off to be spayed.

When Dr. Heather Curry brought her into the waiting room, I expected an excited greeting. Instead, she acted like she didn’t know me. Aussies are well known for their range of emotional responses and this felt like a deliberate snub, as if to say, “Thanks a lot for putting me through hell, asshole!”

It wasn’t until we were halfway home that she started looking me in the eye and acknowledging that there might be some familial or emotional connection between us. (You can see how she looked away in this photo taken in the car outside the vet’s office.) She perked up even more once we got into the house and I gave her some food in her kennel.

We have some antibiotic and pain pills for her with instructions to bring her back to the vet in 10 days for a checkup. In the meantime, she’s not supposed to run, jump, or otherwise put a strain on her incision. That means isolate her from Jack and Liese.

Keeping her away from Liese got easier this afternoon when Charlie and Deb showed up to claim their suddenly ecstatic Weimaraner. Charlie is home after extensive medical abuse in Little Rock and needs Liese’s companionship to help him heal and regain his strength.

He looks pretty chipper for all he’s gone through in the past few months, but he conceded this afternoon and Daytona Beach Bike Week is off the table for this year.

I may go anyway if it turns out that Indianapolis BMW friends will be there. Otherwise, I’ll skip it too.

A pedophile for your Christmas tree? How about an out-of-control young Jersey Shore hedonist?

I chauffeured Maria to and from her substitute teaching gig in Paragould earlier this week when the doors of her Subaru were frozen shut.

Coming home Monday afternoon, she asked to stop at Walgreens to buy some hairspray and, of course, we had to browse the on-sale Christmas items which were being blown out at 75% off.

That’s where I saw these Christmas tree ornaments that struck me as wildly inappropriate. I guess a lot of people shared my view, because there was a good supply of Michael Jackson and Pauly D ornaments that remained unsold.

Monday morning report

Yes, it’s cold. It was 9° at 9 a.m. and the forecast is for a high of 11° before it drops down to an overnight low of 7°.

But it beats the hell out of being snowed in without electricity in below zero weather in my old neighborhood in Indianapolis, trying to keep warm and waiting for the pipes to freeze and burst.

I’m sitting at my desk in the upstairs office, which – thanks to the lack of insulation in the garage roof – is the coldest place in the house. It’s 52° up here, but I’m reasonably comfortable in my heavy corduroy pants, a turtleneck and my Willis & Geiger Diaplex pullover.

We expected all of the area schools to be closed today because of the extreme (for northeast Arkansas) cold. But Maria got a call at 6 a.m. inviting her to be a substitute teacher at Greene County Tech Elementary School in Paragould, so we were up and gone before sunrise.

I’m sure her Subaru’s doors are welded shut from yesterday’s rain and plummeting temperatures, so I drove her to work in the Lexus which I had the foresight to park in the garage. The garage is unheated, but it was still 45° in there this morning. Just the right temperature to chill the Beck’s and Leinenkugel beer.

After a backyard bathroom break and breakfast, all three dogs are snugly ensconced in their kennels and nobody is complaining.

We had several power dropouts after midnight and Liese, the visiting Weimaraner found them very disturbing. The only way we could get her to settle down was to let her sleep on the bed with us, something Dora protested with a couple of WTF? barks.

I got back from taking Maria to work about 7:20 a.m. and there have been no dropouts since, so maybe the grid is stabilizing.

Watching the temperature drop

Looks like we’ve been spared the snow, but the cold front is advancing rapidly.

The temperature was 47 when I drove in to town for my morning workout at 10 a.m. Now, at 4 p.m., it’s down to 25 and still dropping.

It was well below freezing by 1 p.m. when I brought the Lexus into the garage. I’m glad I didn’t wait any longer because the doors were starting to freeze from the quarter inch of rain we got early this morning.

I suspect there will be lots of moviegoers at the Malco Theater on the southside of Jonesboro who come out to frozen doors this afternoon and evening.

A check of WISH-TV’s web site shows about a foot of snow in Lebanon and Jamestown, Ind., so I guess we’re in a better place.

Waiting for snow and cold

I was not surprised to learn this afternoon that my 68-year-old nervous system is not calibrated for Chuck E. Cheese’s.

We journeyed to the kiddie restaurant today for the fourth birthday part of Morgan’s boyfriend’s daughter. It was perfect for a little kid and I enjoyed watching her having fun, but it sure felt good to walk out of there into the relatively quiet parking lot.

Friends and family in Indiana are hunkering down for what could be the biggest winter event since the Blizzard of 1978. The forecast here is for an inch or two of snow followed by the coldest temperatures in 15-20 years.

Being expatriate Hoosiers, we’re not worried. We can bundle up and wait it out. But it’s a sure thing that the schools will be closed because they aren’t designed to stay warm in such cold weather. Ditto the school buses with their wimpy heaters. Ditto the kids, many of whom don’t have warm winter clothing.

In other news, it appears that Dora is in heat. Our first clue was this morning when we noticed Jack was in a state of high arousal. Naturally, this occurs on a weekend.

I’ve been putting off taking Dora in for spaying, but it looks like we’d better get it done Monday morning.

A litter of Jack and Dora puppies would be a joy but:

1. She shouldn’t breed until she’s a couple of years old and
2. Our cash flow can’t accommodate the vet bills for a litter of puppies right now.

So it goes.

At least one bad habit

Liese, the Weimaraner staying with us, will take at least one bad habit home with her.

Charlie and Deb don’t allow her on the furniture. But we have no problem with her lounging on our leather living room furniture and she clearly loves the comfort.

Meet the new year, same as the old year?

We all have hopes for the coming year, but 2014 looks just like 2013 to Liese, the visiting Weimaraner.

We went to bed about 9:45 p.m. and slept through whatever neighborhood celebration there was. There must not have been much fireworks or the dog would have stirred and awakened us.

At last report, Charlie and Deb are coming home this weekend – maybe even Friday – so Liese can be reunited with her “parents” and go home. We hope she hasn’t picked up any bad habits during her stay with us.

My friend who thought she had a fortune in Beanie Babies took the news of a flatlined Beanie Baby market gracefully and brought me a $400 Coach handbag to sell for her on Ebay. I hope to get it listed yet today.

Dora greeted 2014 this morning from the luxurious folds of a down comforter on our bed. She started the night in her kennel, but signaled that she needed some backyard time about 2:30 a.m. After I let her, Jack and Liese back in, she asked to join us in bed, so I gave her a lift and that’s where she stayed the rest of the night. She is a perpetual source of joy.

Her breeder reports that her mom – Mercy – is expecting another litter by the same father – later this month. It will be fun seeing the photos they post.

Here’s Dora and her littermates with their mom back last May.

I think that’s Dora on the far right.