Sorry I haven't posted much

Ahhhhh

SK, I'll trade places with you right now. I would be greatful for a heatwave right now. Here on the east coast it's been raining five out of seven days for the last two weeks and every weekend for three weeks before that and its cold. We actually just had a two day Northeaster. What a mess! Trees down, power outages, flooding, high temps in the low 50's. Plus the temps drop at least 10 degrees along the coast We've had almost no spring here at all. Forgive my language but this sh_t f_ing s_ks! You fill in the blanks. At least if you get hot you can find a watering hole with AC and take a break. If you ride in this stuff you have to spend a week cleaning mud and leaves out of every orifice on the bike. That's after you get over a case of hypothermia. Alright. Enough venting. It's supposed to warm up for the weekend and only a chance of showers every day except Saturday which will be mostly cloudy with a high of 68. That's something to look forward to.....I guess.

Maxpower..ok..I give. It ain't so bad here when you tell me about the no-easters. It did cool down here to 96º today and finally cool enough in the morning to open the windows. I just hate riding in the heat because I don't wanna wear protection and I don't feel comfortable doing that anymore.

Marc..this time of year it's almost always fog on the coast. Late September into early October is the best time of year to ride the coast. You can hook up with Bob as he rides down and come through Las Vegas, or we could meet in Flagstaff again like Bob and I did last year. Don't matter..just come on down!

BTW..I'll be staying in Virginia City again later in September for St.Vibes. DaleRK said he's definitely staying up there with John and I this time. When we first started staying in VC for St.Vibes, there was only one bar/restaurant open at night. Now there's about 8. It's really nice getting away from Reno at night.

Glad you brought the bike safely to a stop Marc. I've been lucky and haven't had a tire mishap at speed..yet (knock on wood).

We'll come up with something at St.Vibes. We usually spend the day in Reno on Friday and the day in Virginia City on Saturday. One day in Reno is enough for me anymore.

Marc, you got wire wheels on that Ultra? I'm glad you're OK. I've not heard a lot about Metzelers blowing up. They used to be a pretty good tire. I was considering a switch to them after I burn up the stock Dunlops on "Chuggy"- the bagger. I've never really been a big fan of Dunlops but these tires actually give pretty good feel and aren't wearing that badly either. The kicker was flicking the bike around riding up the lake road on wet pavement. The tires stuck well. I hope you can make it down to Arizona for Labour Day. We could work something out and maybe catch Monument Valley while we're down there. We've still got a few months but we could meet in Pocatello and then go pick up Kevin in sin city and then go check out the desert before we go to Springerville..or we could catch it while we're there on a day ride. I really hope that you can get the time off to go.

Weekend

SK, Guess what. I went out this past Saturday with the bros. The morning was terrific. Bright blue skies, sunny and warm, about 70. We took off and spent the morning riding which was nice. We ended up back in town at a friends cookout. While we were there the skies opened up on us. We put the bikes in his garage and waited it out for about three hours. Two guys ended up having a few too many by the time the rain ended and left their rides there. I made it home but got wet again on the way. I give up. I'm getting pontoons.

**** Maxpower..no luck. At least ya got a bit of good riding in early. Hope nobody rode home with a couple too many in their belly, but it sounds like better heads prevailed.

I can't get a good ride in either. My only riding is commuting across town in this **** Las Vegas traffic. My ride home late each afternoon right now sucks, and I'm lane-splitting illegally so I don't have to come to a stop on the black asphalt freeway in this heat. Gotta watch for the crazies. On the news the other night, they suspect somebody in a van purposely rear-ended two motorcycles..killing one of them. The van driver hasn't been caught yet. Don't know the circumstances, and it did happen at night (I don't ride around this town at night). But somebody got pissed off. Tell ya what..no matter the circumstances..don't piss off a cager while riding.

I've got a couple of weeks off around that time. I was planning on taking three days or so to get there and three days or so to get back. I can't stay too long after the weekend as I have to get home and take June out to Vancouver island. It's nice that I get to go on this trip so I wouldn't want to wreck things by not getting back here. I don't have the exact dates in front of me but when I get them I'll let you know and we can work something out.

Marc, the K491 Elite II is a great touring tire. Never hear anything bad about em. I'm not sure if they stick as well as the D402, but I know they last a long long time.

I've booked two rooms for Springerville (2 beds each). I'm kind of expecting DaleRK to make it. We may need to book one more room.

I remember the flang to the kickstand on my Royal Star breaking off, so you couldn't put the **** thing down without reaching down with your hand to pull it out. Yamaha replaced it for free.

Pocotello works and it's the same kind of deal for me one big day or a couple of easy ones. Then it's a good ride to Kevin's for the big bash..... and off to Springerville. That's the first I heard of a Harley stand ever having problems involving something that broke. I had the rubber bumper fall off my stand while riding the Lake road and when I got to the ferry I thought the bike was in serious trouble. It took me a while to figure it out. Six bucks for the rubber man was I relieved.
Kevin, thanks for booking the rooms hope the school work is still going good.

Going pretty good Bob. I'm taking a Summer class right now..1/2 way through a 4 week session in organic chemistry. Then it's off to W.Yosemite to spend the 4th of July with DaleRK at his new lake cabin. Looking forward to that ride as I'm not riding the Colorado 500 week after next. Also looking forward to switching to the big school here in the Fall..UNLV Rebels!

Marc, I'm pretty flexible on the front end of the trip, it's coming back where I may be a little cramped for time. What works for you? Kevin's booked a couple of rooms so if Milt wants to come along I have no problem..I haven't Milt since we met in Bonner's Ferry in 2000..come to think of it, that's the last time I've seen you. My basement got flooded a little with all this rain that we've had so I've been pretty busy with work and this mess. It looks like I'll have to put a sump pump in ...seal the cement floor and put new carpet in. I got lucky, caught the flood early and draineded the water out through the sewer..it's been a wild week.

Marc, with Goose and DaleRK hopefully coming, we ought to book another room with you and Milt coming also. You can call the Reeds Lodge in Springerville at (928) 333-4323. Just tell them you're with Dave Small's Bike Talk group.

Sorry to hear about your flood Bob. At least you got to it before it got too bad. I've had to deal with floods at Kim's house twice, and it's not pretty. A sump pump is the way to go, especially if you've got a decent outlet for it to go.

I had a great time Monday at Yamaha's annual dealer meeting at the Mandelay Bay Hotel & Casino here in Las Vegas. It was their 50th anniversary. Got to see the newly remodeled Road Star among a few others. Nothing really new though. Saw a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a while from Yamaha and from STAR. Yamaha is branching off the whole line of Star cruisers to a line called Star Motorcycles..kinda like Toyota branching off a separate brand in Lexus.

Monday night I went back for their 50th anniversary blowout dinner and entertainment. Great food, and they had the B-52's for an opening act. For the encore, Huey Lewis and the News rocked the place for an hour and a half. I got up within 5' of him for quite a while, so that was cool. He and his band put on an awesome show for about 2000 people.

After such a great time Monday, I came home from school late yesterday afternoon to find my dog Star hardly breathing. She'd been having a tough time the past 3 months with a whole blood transfusion because of a blood disease and damaged liver. She'd finally succumbed and I immediately took her to my vet and held her while they euthanaised her. She was 10 years old. That's both my dogs now in the past 3 years, so I'm dogless right now. Gonna wait a while before getting another one, but the next one will be a small dog I can take with me on my bike.

Kevin..sorry about Star and Butch. THe wet basement is a PITA but really, it's just that...house smells a little septic like work but it'll come around