Questionable Outcome: Dealing with Subjectivity

Making The Case; For Gold

2011-10-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream that Ron Paul's campaign manager called me up to see if I would host a small gathering for Congressman Paul to talk to voters about his positions and reasoning. I said yes and within minutes he was at my door with a group of people he wanted to converse with. They asked me to act as secretary for the meeting, where I went through the list of topics they brought (essentially to argue about). After they were done Dr. Paul came over and put his arm on my shoulder to thank me, at that point I realized he was somewhere around 6'8" tall. These things were funny to me because he never struck me as affectionate towards strangers and I was pretty sure that he was not that tall on TV and videos.

Well, a friend recently loaned me "The Case for Gold" by Dr. Paul which I will start reading after I finish my current book. Before I read it I wanted to take a chance to document my overal feelings to see how my view of the gold standard may change.

I've always been a critic of our monetary system, but I've never been a large proponent of the gold standard as a solution, but thought it might be better than no standard at all. In my opinion, a monetary system has to be based on something tangible to be worth anything, but I've always said that it doesn't matter if it's based on precious metals or lima beans, since what really matters is who controls the supply and how you control them. Since the entire basis of paper money in our society is a means for the government to issue compensation for services without providing anything tangible in exchange (a government shouldn't own anything to give since it all belongs to the people), I've always supported currency minted and controlled directly by the government. Since we elect the individuals who control it, I've always believed this to be the best means for control and mitigation of corruption.

Many argue that corruption among elected officials is rampant and that we shouldn't trust them with this kind of authority. I agree that the corruption is rampant, but as far as I can see, they always have had and always will have authority over those systems, so I would like to pursue the system which at least gives us the best opportunity to see what they are doing and elect someone new. I have read some studies which indicate that gold stockpiles are controlled primarily by non-government entities, which seems like a reduction of control. On the other hand, however, I believe Dr. Paul may be advocating a system in which money is minted directly and the value is set as a backbone of something tangible. I'm not completely certain that this offers us more benefit than risk, but I'm open to consideration.

Here are some principle beliefs I already have regarding the financial system:
1. The Federal Reserve was only created to act as an executive credit card that could bypass a notoriously stingy congress.
2. Paying interest to the Federal Reserve as a private institution is pointless since we could do everything they do, but without the added cost of interest and with the added benefit of running it with elected officials.
3. The fractional reserve banking system is completely unfair and only makes higher profit for banks at the expense of greater, impractical debts for the people.
4. Attempting to control inflation with interest rates does not work.
5. Money is a representation of debt, in this case, money should circulate because the government prints it to pay for goods and services rendered. It is removed from circulation by taxes. This works kind of like an investment, where the money paid is reused exponential times so that when it is collected again through a tax, it should have served numerous people with beneficial exchanges before being collected as a tax. That being the case, even a high tax rate (which shouldn't be necessary in a balanced system) should reflect an equally high output of products.
6. In order to use government minted money as currency, it needs to be readily available to everyone. This means that annual spending (investment) should be very high, but that they should also succesfully balance debts using short terms. Instead of a system of unmitigated and substantial debt growth, it should be a system of frequent monetary rotation, but with controlled thought regarding our next moves.

Overall, I don't expect the book to change many of those views, but suspect it may offer suggestions for enhancing and governing them. I may not be the biggest proponent of the gold standard, but it is something I probably wouldn't oppose as an improvement. The current system seems to make everyone throw their hands up as if there is nothing we can do about it.

Step 2: Getting Rid of Dangerous Trees and The Ongoing Quest for Firewood

2010-12-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

If you read a post of mine from earlier this year called "The Big Move" you would have read a story of toil and despair about how I moved a shed from one side of my yard to the other so that I could make way for a new shed to use for firewood storage. This is a short continuation of the overall project which "The Big Move"was pivotal in completing. This weekend, while all you normal people were resting at home, out at church or making the last dash for holiday shopping before the big day, I was happily ending the lives of 20 maple trees in my backyard.

As I mentioned before, this all started with my desire to build a wood shed in a specific, out of the way spot in my yard. After removing the existing shed, I decided to wait for winter so that I could cut down the corkscrewed and slanted maple trees which were growing over that area. Not only did their slant and the soft soil pose an immediate threat to the shed I wish to build, but they are also choking out many young evergreen trees and within two more years, would have been tall enough to damage my house if they fell in a windstorm.

The recent weeks of unrelenting rain we went through made this a little less than an ideal day, but being eager to make headway, I thought I should take advantage of the sunshine while I still could. The trees would be wet, but not sticky with sap or heavy with leaves (though they are formidably heavy, even without).

My main chainsaw is Husqvarna 51 that my dad recently gave to me, I only asked to borrow it, but he hasn't cut down any trees in years, so he just gave it to me instead. I went out to buy a new chain for it and got a carry case while I was out (if you ever transport a chainsaw, you'll know that keeping the mess off your truck's upholstery is a serious chore). The case was for a Stihl, but cost half what the Husqvarna case would cost, so I guess plastic is just expensive in Sweden. The saw has a 51cc engine which is powerful for it's size and a 20" bar and chain. My secondary chainsaw is a Poulan Pro 260 which has a 40cc engine and an 18" bar and chain.

I used the Husqvarna 51 to cut all the trees down, and the Poulan to do most of the limbing and bucking once the trees were on the ground. There are a lot more opportunities to get your chain stuck while taking off limbs and the Poulan is just not strong enough to go through a tree of considerable size, where the Husqvarna slices through trees feel like I'm carving turkey, with a lot more sawdust.

The two most dangerous problems you will generally run into when felling a tree are when the tree doesn't finish falling, such as when it's caught on something (usually other trees) or when the tree falls or starts to fall in the wrong direction. In the 20 trees I cut down, I couldn't help but run into these problems at least a couple of times.

In my opinion, the more immediately dangerous of the two problems is usually the tree falling in the wrong direction, specifically when there is something in one direction that you don't want to inadvertently destroy. In my case, however, I positioned the notch so that if the tree did fall the wrong way, it would land in a clear area without hitting the house.

Everyone is probably fairly familiar with the principals of felling a tree. You look at the variables which will make a tree fall in a particular direction (hopefully that is the direction you want, or at least a directly that will work), then you notch the tree on that side going far enough through to encourage the tree to fall to one side, but not far enough to cause the weight of the tree to pinch your bar and trap your chainsaw inside. Once you have made the notch by making two angled cuts, you then cut through the opposite (back) side until the tree begins to fall. This makes the tree fall away from you and your chainsaw.

In the case of this tree, it didn't have any apparent lean at all, but split into three large trunks half way up, so it was especially heavy at the top (a classic characteristic of many maple trees). I did have some difficulty making the notch on this tree since it was on a steep hill, but I guess that the notch I made was just not big enough to convince the tree to fall down the hill towards my creek. When I cut almost half way through the tree, it began to lean very slightly to the rear, not enough to trap my chainsaw, but enough that I could see it wanted to fall in the other direction.

These are the moments which take some critical thinking. If I continued cutting, it would almost definitely trap my chainsaw, adding a thrilling element of added danger to the already complicated situation. If I tried to cut through the back without using a notch, or tried to make a new notch on the back side using my first cut, I would also be likely to pinch my bar, trapping the chainsaw. In both scenarios, there was no way to guarantee that the tree would fall in the right direction anyway, since it was only just barely leaning backwards from my first cut. A tree trunk spinning and falling in any direction would be very dangerous.

I decided that the tree was still strong enough that I could make a new notch on the "back" of the tree, about 18" up the trunk from my first cut. Then I could cut through from behind and get the tree to fall toward the house. This could have been done lower than my first attempt as well, but I felt like there would be less pressure above my first cut and therefore less of a chance at pinching my bar and it would lower the chance that the pressure from the falling tree would be just enough to break apart what was left of my first cut, sending chunks of wood in all directions. The operating principal in that assumption was that it would be falling off of my first cut instead of with it (this assumption was correct). The tree came to the ground with ease and is now resting in a location which actually makes it easier to limb.

The main reason that I feel as though this type of problem is considerably less dangerous (though still dangerous enough) than a tree which is caught on other trees is that, if you catch it soon enough, falling backwards is much easier to control or correct since the variable forces are limited. If I really wanted to, I could have strung up my 2-ton puller and pulled the tree in the direction I wanted it to go, and I could have done so easily and with plenty of time while the tree stood strong.

I ran into the other problem three times, but was able to solve them all with relative certainty. In the case of my first stuck tree, it was about a 13" tree which became caught in the tops of some nearby, younger trees, which kept the cut trunk resting on the stump at an angle. I first tried to winch this off, using the trunk of a larger tree I had cut down a few minutes before. The winch came close to freeing the top of the tree, but I just couldn't get it far enough to pull the tree down. In my next attempt I made a new cut in the stump, leaving a little more space for the trunk to fall. This caused the trunk to fall off the stump, but was not enough momentum to free the tangled tops. Now having the base of the trunk touching the ground, I had a better angle, so I made a new notch in the top side of the trunk and cut upward from the bottom a little, then went back to the notched top and cut the rest of the way through. The base fell away and the tree finally came lose and landed on the ground.

The danger in that type of situation is that so many variables could bring the tree down and the addition of a spin or roll caused by the branches could land the tree just about anywhere. A strong wind or surrounding branches finally giving way could cause the tree to come down at any moment.

Luckily, the other two "stuck" trees I ran into were much easier to fix, both were falling down my ravine, and when they got stuck, they were at such an angle that they were already almost to the ground. In both cases the tops simply got caught in the branches of the millions of other maple trees on my property. One of them was just barely pinned to the stump it was cut from, so I used a sledge to smash the end off. Since I never had to enter the path of the falling tree, I'd call that one the safest.

The other one, however, was part of a cluster of tree trunks that grew out of the same root system, Since it was on the outside and I only had one more trunk to cut in that cluster, I decided to let the weight of the last falling tree push it down the rest of the way. I notched the next trunk in the right direction, made the cut and backed away as one tree knocked the other down like a bowling pin. Another case where careful thinking allowed me to make everything safe again, without putting myself in the path of any serious danger.

Aside from those adventures, the rest of the trees went down quickly and smoothly, landing exactly where I wanted them and without any problems. Some of the trees were as small as six inches, and a few were as big as about eighteen, but the average tree was about nine to ten inches in diameter. You would think that taking out so many like this would have a huge impact in my backyard, but when you look at the first picture, you'll see that I would have to clear about 100 small maples before there was a major difference.

This picture shows where nine of the 20 trees fell, directly into my backyard.

This pictures shows how close the very tops were to being tall enough to hit the house. As I mentioned before, in just two more years they would have hit the house when they came down.

This is a picture of the large tree which decided to fall back towards the house.

Here is a limb which broke under it's own weight from the force of the fall down into my ravine.

You can't see the depth in this picture, but the trunk of that tree is about 15' below the stump I took the picture from.

This is the pair of trees in which I used one to knock the other down since it didn't fall all the way.

This is the base of the same tree, if you look closely at the moss you can see water droplets pouring off. The ground was so wet that this stump was pouring out water.

This is another large limb which broke under it's own weight when it crashed down into my ravine. I'll get lots of good firewood out of this one, I just have to figure out an easy way to get it all back up the hill.

I have a few more maple trees that I would like to take out on my property, but since I took care of the ones which posed any type of danger to my house or shed, I don't think I'll be taking down quite as many at one time in the near future.

One of my secondary goals in thinning the trees was to make room and give light to the young evergreen saplings which are struggling to grow under the thick canopy. This should give them some space for now, most of my future felling will revolve around even more space for them, but this will be enough for now.

A Good Price for Wood Floors

2010-08-26T00:20:00.000-07:00

Because I can't sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, I've been working on installing hardwood floors in our Bedrooms. It all started a few weeks ago when I found a Craigslist ad for pre-finished birch hardwood for $2/square foot. Since our carpets are the original carpets for our 1989 home, and the original owners smoked a lot, I have been waiting a long time for this day to come.

The flooring outlet place we bought the wood from in West Bremerton had just about 500 square feet, which should be enough to do all three bedrooms and the hallway between them. Since I already had an air compressor, along with many other tools, all I needed was a finishing nailer and a lot of nails.

We started with Coughlin's room, which was in the worst shape since someone who stayed with us previously had some not-so potty trained dogs. Brandy removed the carpet, pad and tack strips and I pulled up most of the staples (they used an inordinate amount) and took out the trim as well as the closet doors.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the subflooring. Luckily, even though our home was built in the late 80's, we have solid plywood floors. I think it's 5/8th", but haven't done any drilling through to check. It doesn't sag and it's very solid, I am glad about this because it was a popular trend at the time to put in particle board, which is horrible.

All of the small yellow spongy looking spots represent a staple for the pad, they went really overboard.

After everything was removed, we put down 15lb asphalt paper (for roofing) to provide a moisture barrier and to improve the insulation, even if only slightly. I used my staple gun to attach the pieces that I rolled out and cut with about a 6" overlap.

Next we put in the floor, some sites and how-to books say to use a flooring stapler, but those are expensive (even to rent) and so big that you can only use them on about half the job, since they don't fit in the small spaces. The device itself is about 12x12 total with a mallet activated button on the top which you have to hit to drive the staples. After reading up on it, I decided that a simple finishing nailer would be better for me, it fits into fairly tight spaces if you get creative, and with three or four nails per board, I haven't noticed any signs of looseness.

The first room I finished was Coughlin's, he stayed in our guest bedroom for a couple weeks while we finished his room up.

Here is his finished room looking in the door (you can see Kitty Cow enjoying the new floors).

This is the closet side of the room finished.

And this is the other side of his room.

The next room to work on was the hallway, since all three rooms and the hall will be connecting, I have to go from one job to the next, maintaining contact the whole time. Even if I measured out the spaces perfectly in advance, there would be no way to get the wood to match up as nicely as I have by going from one room to the next without breaking the connection.

The hallway required a lot of small detail work, so it took just about the same amount of time as Coughlin's bedroom. I had to remove the trim on our three bedroom doors, one bathroom door and had to take out entirely the door for the hallway linen closet.

This picture shows one of the heavily detail oriented corners of the hallway, the door to Coughlin's room and the bathroom being just a few inches apart. I had to trim the flooring and the door trim very carefully. You can see the very small gap between the door-frames and the floor where you can see a bit of black tar paper. Those gaps look big in this zoomed in picture, but from a stand in normal light you can't see them at all.

The small 1" trim pieces that go in the corner were pretty beat up, but they are hardly noticeable with normal lighting so I decided to keep them anyway, it was easier than finding and cutting new trim, especially since it wouldn't match.

Here is the view looking into our bedroom. You can see our nasty old carpet with the exposed pad below. It will be coming out soon as part of this project, so we didn't put any effort into making it look nice for the time being.

On the left you can see the edge going into the bathroom. I had to make careful measurements and cuts to get all the pieces to line up perfectly. I will probably get a small wood reducer strip to cover the threshold there, so the wood must be perfectly flush.

This is the view into Coughlin's room from our room. You can see the hallway closet to the left of Coughlin's door.

Here is the view from the living room into the hallway. We still have to work on the guest bedroom on the left.

I turned the last piece sideways so that the floor was held in tighter and it gives me a dividing point where I can change to a different color, stain, size or grain in the living room, since I don't have enough of this birch to do more than our three bedrooms and the hallway.

Hopefully I can find a deal as good as this for the rest of the house so I can do the living room and family room for a low cost.

Waste Consuming Reproduction Factories

2010-08-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

In other words, I got four hens a few weeks ago.

Peter and Karen had raised these four hens from chicks at their home in Miller Bay Estates, not knowing that their homeowner's association covenant did not allow any livestock of any sort, no matter how small.

They didn't want to risk selling them to someone who would turn them into meat and they also wanted to be sure that the four girls could stay together; Knowing that I had intentions of turning half of my garden shed (the one I talked about in "The Big Move" no less) into a coop and creating a large pen in an otherwise unusable part of my yard, I came to mind right away.

I went over a few weeks ago and helped them take down their temporary coop, both hauling it away for them and scoring some free lumber and wire with which I could construct my own.

Since I have a few things to do before I can build their new coop and pen area, I made a temporary coop of my own using a combination of scrap lumber which I already had and the parts I took away from Peter and Karen. In the end I only threw away a few unusable pieces of lumber and wire from their original temporary coop.

I made a basic lumber frame out of 4x4's which used to be fence posts that were part of the fence which was falling over at the end of my garden and 2x4's from the fence which used to be falling over in my front yard.

Being a tall person I was concerned about standing room, so I went with a simple lean-to design which gives me enough head room to stand and keeps rain from collecting on the roof.

Here is the finished product.

They were using an igloo doghouse as the nestbox, and instead of building a custom nest box, I went for the quick solution of moving forward with the doghouse. The only alteration I made was building a short base for it to rest on, giving the chickens more ground room and making it easier to get eggs since it is at a higher level. I have some more lumber which I may use to build a more appropriate nest box, but whether or not I do that depends on how soon winter comes and if I will be able to finish their new coop instead. For now, the doghouse is a great summer home, as bulky as it is.

The odd angled boards which seem out of place in the foreground are roosts, which the hens love.

I made a ramp which they can use to get up to the nestbox, but they usually bypass the ramp and hop directly in.

In addition to the ramp, you can see that I made another small stand for their water dish. With chickens, anything that is on the ground is fair game for roosting, so their water was getting knocked over or filled with dirt daily. Now that I raised it up to head level for them, they don't knock it over or get mud in it anymore. One of their favorite places to take dirt baths is right below the stand.

Another item I made out of scrap lumber was a small feeder, which you can see below the ramp (it stays extra dry down there).

It's pretty easy to build these, I used scrap 2x6's to build the box, and though it's hard to see in this picture, I bent some old wire fencing over the top in an A form so that they have 4x2" slots to eat from. This keeps them from walking in the food or standing on the feeder. It also prevents them from fighting over the food, it is hard to explain but if you watch chickens eat they are constantly nabbing whatever they can right out of the mouths of their friends, and when they are trying to chase each other away from whatever they've found, they do so by pecking at each other in the same fashion.

They all came with names, in this picture the one looking at the camera in the back is Sadie, and the one pecking the ground is Macie. Sadie is a little bit bald on her head.

In this picture Sadie is again in the back, the closest chicken is Malalie and the one with a little more red around it's neck on the left is Sophie.... I think... We have a hard time telling the two apart.

Here you have Sophie in the foreground, Malalie just behind her and in the far back, partially blocked by the roost is Macie. Sadie is the one showing her butt to the camera.

They produce 3 to 4 eggs per day on average, some days they only leave us 1 and sometimes one of them doubles up and they make 5.

The coop is where they spend most of their time, but they get to come out at least once a day, we let them roam the yard freely with supervision (they love the garden, but we aren't done growing vegetables yet this year). They mostly hang around the fence and the shed, digging in the plants to find slugs and insects. If one of them finds a slug, they usually run across the yard at full speed to try keeping it for themselves, but the others chase them down and it's mayhem until one of them finally eats it.

Coughlin absolutely loves the chickens, even though he was afraid of them the first day. It only took him a few hours to start mimicking their clucking. When he wants to go see them now (which is several times a day) he grabs our pants and pulls while saying "bock, bock, bock" in a deep, scratchy voice. He will make a sound which is also very close to the word "chicken" now, but he will only say it after a lot of coaching.

Every night after work Coughlin and I go out together to pull up dandelions from the yard or weeds from the garden to feed to the chickens. Dandelion leaves are one of their favorite foods (aside from slug of course). It's mostly an excuse to work on weeding the lawn, but I pull a bucket full of dandelions out of the ground and dump them into the coop nightly and by the next morning there is usually no trace left of the large pile of greens. They consume the dandelions completely, tearing off every leaf first, then the stems and eventually the roots.

I usually set aside a handful for Coughlin and I to feed to the chickens ourselves. He brings one of his small chairs from the porch (with much grunting) and sits in front of the wire while I hold dandelions leaves and let the hens tear them up. Coughlin will occasionally hold out one or two per night, but the chickens grab it so quickly that it startles him (which he laughs about) so he prefers to drop them through the chicken wire instead. When we run out, he usually grabs strands of grass to feed them until I tell him that it's time to go in and say goodbye to the chickens. He waves his hand and says "buh" to them, turning around and repeating the process several times before we get to the porch.

The chickens eat about as much feed as Abby does in a day, but their feed is much cheaper. We feed them a mix of chicken feed pellets and scratch grains, which are cracked grains of wheat, corn, rye, etc. A 50lb bag of feed is about $14 and a 50lb bag of scratch grains is about $10. We also mix in some crushed oyster shell and grit every once in a while, the oyster shell providing enough calcium to produce egg shells and the grit being for digestion. Those two supplements are not completely necessary for us since our chickens are out often enough to forage for what they need or want. They are made mostly for chickens living in more confined spaces on an egg farm or otherwise.

Ultimately, I'll have a pen for them which borders the garden, which will also be fenced, and during the fall and winter I will let them keep my garden weed free and fertilized for me, while during the spring and summer they can eat blackberry bushes and stinging nettles which cover my hillside.

It's a pretty good trade in my opinion. I give the chickens all of the stuff I don't want and they turn it into eggs which I do want.

Poncho

2010-07-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

Our sweet, precious Chihuahua, Poncho, died last night.

On Friday morning I awoke to find Poncho on his back, attempting to roll himself over without success. He was very stiff and cold, and he was unable to move his neck. I rolled him over and checked his eyelids, which were clear (no nictating membrane). He was very conscious and present, eyes tracking well, responding to touches and interaction, but unable to move.

I massaged him for a few minutes to loosen up his legs and checked his heartbeat which was weak and irregular, but his breathing was fairly consistent. Brandy made an appointment with the vet and I moved him to a bed in the living room, on top of a heating pad to keep his temperature up and help relax his muscles. He rested easily but was still responsive when given attention.

I suspected that this was either some type of inadvertent poisoning, or severe arthritis since he was showing signs of cognizance. Poncho became less responsive as the morning went on and when Brandy took him to the vet, they confirmed our fear that it was a poisoning and that there was not anything which could be done. They considered a feeding tube to force a charcoal slurry, but they didn't have any tubes which were small enough for Poncho, and they were worried about potential damage from doing so.

The only options were euthanasia or waiting. Since he did not seem to be enduring incredible pain or suffering, Brandy brought him home. Neither of us will use euthanasia except as a last resort, because there is a large difference between an animal dying and determining that an animal will die and killing it. Given his age and his recent weight loss, I didn't think Poncho had much of a chance, but I wasn't willing to personally reduce that chance to nothing.

When he got home, though he was less cognizant, he was more relaxed and his vital signs became slightly stronger. He did have a couple of short seizures and a bout or two of panting, but otherwise he was fairly quiet and mostly slept.

When I got home at about 9:00pm he was howling softly, not sounding as if in pain, but softly, very similar to his singing which many of you are familiar with. I sat by him and pet him as I diagnosed this problem and decided that it was not an intentional noise, but due to his troubled breathing. I turned him over to see if he could breath better on the other side and his breathing became less strenuous and he stopped howling.

Coughlin thought that it was hilarious when Poncho barked or howled. Coughlin was tired, and also excited to see me so he was being fairly noisy. I decided to move Poncho into a comfortable bed in the garage for the night since it was mutually beneficial. Coughlin would fall asleep, without the chance of interruption and Poncho could enjoy some rest in darkness and silence (reading up on dog poisoning today reminded me that bright and loud environments induce seizures). It was a good thing that I did, because Coughlin became much louder after he first fell asleep because he woke up vomiting, coming down with a stomach flu that Brandy just recovered from.

I laid Poncho in his bed and covered the kennel partially in a blanket to reduce any noise or lights and told Poncho that we loved him dearly, but that if he could not make it, to leave us.

After starting a load of laundry and cleaning up a couple of vomitings, I had a long internal debate as to whether I should check on Poncho before going to bed. It was a matter of deciding whether I would lose more sleep knowing his condition (still fighting or at permanent rest) or not knowing. Since I had first put him out there, I had felt fairly depressed, up until about ten minutes prior to my internal debate about checking on him, at which point I felt suddenly relieved at the strong sensation that he was no longer living. Which goes to say that the real internal debate was not whether I would check on him or not (because I knew that I would have to) but whether it would bother me more to find him still fighting or deceased.

I opened the door and turned on the light to find him in the same comfortable position with his eyes open, staring into space. I have always wondered at the fact that most bodies have open eyelids. They say it is because your eyelids are relaxed when in their open state, but I like to think that they must see something the living aren't able to comprehend.

I checked for his pulse and breathing and left him there for the morning. To answer my internal debate, I slept well knowing that he was finally gone. It's funny the kind if impact such a small creature can have on your life, compared to our life-span, we know them for such short times, but they teach us so much about love, loyalty and compassion.

I buried him today, below a young cedar tree, and I spread wildflower seeds over his grave.

Instead of offering condolences , if you knew Poncho, post a story of your favorite memory; for those who don't have a story to share, no need for apologies, everyone knows what it is like to lose an animal and we appreciate your thoughts of kindness.

Goodbye Old Friend

2010-04-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning someone finally purchased my 2000 Suzuki Bandit GSF600S. They were only the second person to come look at it, even though I've been listing it off and on for several months. I took a break from listing during the winter months since I didn't want anyone to come out and take a test ride in the rain (leaving me to clean it up again) and because not many people are in the market at that time, but this is a great demonstration of the fact that people are still not buying many toys with their money. I've sold a lot of motorcycles in the past and it has never taken me more than a week to make a deal with a buyer.

Before the interested buyer came out, I pulled the motorcycle out and started it up for a bit. It was nice outside so I took it for a ride to make sure it was sufficiently warmed up and the battery was charged enough for them to take a pleasant test ride. I'm going to miss the way that the Bandit handled, taking it out for the last ride reminded me how smooth and zippy the engine was when it was wound up to 9000 rpm.

The V-Star is certainly no comparison in that department, but it's considerably more comfortable, so it works much better for the distance trips and pleasure cruising I do more frequently these days.

I'll miss this motorcycle occasionally, but I'm glad to have yet another thing off of my very full to-do list.

Another person came by Sunday afternoon to look at the F-150. He was interested, but wants to tow a 3500lb sailboat, which the engine and transmission can haul, but the bumper hitch cannot. He indicated that he would look into hitches and get back to me today, I'll see if that goes anywhere or not.

Amidst all of this, I managed to till in the new plot for my garden. I had to remove a lot of large rocks left by the county when they were putting in their drain field for the storm drain system. I assume they used it to drive their heavy machinery over when they were working on it, otherwise they just dumped the extra rocks they had after completing the drain. In either case it was definitely annoying to dig them all out, but at least it is something I only have to do once.

I didn't plant any seeds yet, last year I planted on the last weekend in April, and it looks as though I will do the same this year. It seems like it will be warm enough to plant now, but I'll be too busy to do it any sooner. I look forward to an expanded crop this year and taking advantage of better sunlight.

The Big Move: Another Crazy Project I Dreamt Up Comes to a Close

2010-03-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

It all came together unexpectedly. I sent a message to Ben (my "wood guy") a message to order my fire wood for next year, and I mentioned in passing that I was looking to move my garden shed and wondered if he would rent me his flatbed trailer for a weekend. I was surprised to find his generous response. I could borrow it for free if he could drop it off this weekend (March 12th) with my second load of firewood and that he'd happily pick it up the following Monday.

A sudden rush of calculations whiz through my mind, I've been planning to do this for more than a year, the thought of being able to wrap it all up in one day got my adrenaline flowing. I go over the plan in my head several times. I still had to finish clearing the new space, buy some concrete mix, get the posts in the ground. I had everything I needed aside from the concrete, more lists burned through my head, tools, beams, blocks, floor jack... As if a light goes off I decide that I can actually make this work. I respond to Ben with an affirmative, still in moderate disbelief that I had a free day on a weekend and that all of these plans could come together so quickly.

The pace of the project would not be my style at all, I tend to try for a patchwork plan of implementation, piecing things together at a slow and steady pace. I can easily adapt to rapid demands like this, but it was certainly not what I expected. The lack of time I have to dedicate to projects like these make a slower approach almost a given. Even now, being done, it's hard to believe that the whole project was completed like this.

The shed itself was situated in the North East corner of my yard, right on the edge of the hill, the veritable border where my level upper yard descends sharply into a creek filled ravine. The picture below doesn't make it look like much, but the floors were made with 2x6 studs and the structure is water tight, it has been a great garden shed but it has always been located in a very inconvenient spot. The whole reason for this move is that I want to build a large open woodshed (about 25' x 8') where I can store my firewood, lawn tractor, garden tools and everything else. This blue garden shed has been in that location and I need it to use as a place to store all my gardening implements until the new shed is made.

My first iteration of plans basically included dismantling the shed in place and storing everything on my covered patio while the new building was constructed, but after a lot of deliberation, I realized that the shed was not attached and could simply be moved instead. My first impulse was to rent a forklift; the shed (by my calculations it can't weigh more than 1200lbs at the most) was well within the capacity of a forklift, but I would have to overcome the obstacles of strapping it in place and having enough traction for the forklift to get across the yard. The problem with renting a forklift is that the cheapest forklift seemed to be about $140 for four hours, and the rental company had to drop it off and pick it up for you. Which meant that if this didn't work, I would be out the cost of forklift rental with nothing to show for it.

Someone I spoke to suggested building skids out of 4x6 beams and dragging the shed across the yard, and also suggested trying to roll it with drain pipe. As I thought these over, I realized that skids or rolling it on pipe would both require me to jack the shed up, at which point I realized that if I could raise it a few inches for skids or pipes, I could raise it high enough to put it on a flatbed trailer and tow it into place. This would be a lot cheaper than renting a forklift and it would cause minimal damage to my both my yard and shed at the same time. That settled it, months of thinking things over in my mind and I finally had a flatbed and it wasn't going to cost me anything to use, I just had to do the work in one day.

Here is a picture of the shed before the move. It needs to be painted, and the door that was installed was an interior door (just veneer) so it's falling apart, but if you were to inspect the studs and plywood of this structure, you would agree about how solid and move-worthy this shed truly is.

I got up around 6:30 on Saturday and started work immediately. The first step would have to be digging post holes and setting the posts in concrete. I went out on Friday night to buy the concrete and I already had some short cedar posts which I had purchased as part of the lumber for my larger and future-planned woodshed project.

I measured out my area, cleared out a few bits of brush and put two green fence posts in the ground where I expected the rear corners of the shed to align. I used my digging spade to dig the rear post holes, going much larger than I thought was necessary to make sure that I had a very firm footing in the otherwise soft soil at the edge of my hill. The first two holes I dug were too close together, but it only took a few minutes to move both over a few inches each.

I went 16" into the ground on each hole, then picked out a short post and used soil to level it. When I was ready for the concrete, I hooked up my garden tractor's small trailer and used it to haul the 80lb bags of concrete as well as the tools I would need.

My dad loaned me a concrete mixing container which he's had around and has not used for a very long time. It basically amounts to an over-sized kitty litter box, but it works very well for mixing up concrete, I was able to fit one 80lb bag at a time and mix it fairly effectively.

Before pouring in the concrete, I used my large level to re-affirm the placement of my posts. Since the trailer was about 90" wide, I made the posts a little more than 8' apart on the inside edges. Since each post was also about 10" wide, this meant that the posts would come within about 6 inches of the outside edge of the shed when it was in place.

Here is a picture of the first post after dropping concrete in. Behind the post you can see the green steel fence-post I was using as a marker for the rear corner of the shed.

Partially because my rear post-holes were oversize due to the relocation of them, I used two full 80lb bags of concrete in each. When I got to the front post-holes I was able to get away with about 50lbs of concrete in each since I did not have to move them and I had a better idea of the size I would actually need. I only bought four 80lb bags of concrete, so after putting in the two rear posts I was all out of concrete.

Since my Dad was coming over to help me out I called him to see if he could bring four more bags with him, which he agreed to do. I still had several other tasks to complete before my Dad arrived, so I got started on them after a short lunch. The first task I took on was digging the two front post-holes. As mentioned before, I was much more effective in making these appropriately sized by using my post-hole digger more than my digging spade. I selected some appropriately sized posts and made sure everything was ready for the concrete to arrive. All of the posts, front and rear, were buried 16" in the ground, leaving about 16" above ground. My plan was to make these all level by using a 2x4 and fencing level to mark them and my chainsaw to cut off the excess after the concrete was well set.

Having secured the future of the posts, I moved on to the trailer. Since Ben mostly uses this trailer to haul rounds of wood, he has mounted 2x4's and plywood around the outside edges. All of this would have to come off before the shed could go on. I carefully removed every bolt and washer, numbering all the parts of the frame with pencil and drawing arrows to show the upward and forward directions. Ben had warned me in advance that the trailer would only go together one way, so I made a concerted effort to note all of the details that I could.

After getting all of the bolts out, the side panels came out fairly easily, though the OSD board that they were made of was definitely not light. I set all of the parts near my patio in a place where I would not inadvertently run over them, and where they could easily be put back on the trailer the next day.

Having finished that, I moved a few of the telephone poles which were in place to separate my garden from the rest of my yard (after I till my garden this year it will become a retaining wall separating my higher level lawn from my lower garden). I rolled the poles well out of the way and made sure that the invisible fence wire underneath would be safe to back over.

The next task was to take the tractor back to the garage to collect some heavy things like a couple of blocks, jack stands (which I didn't end up using at all) and my 3-ton floor jack. I parked in the front so that I could load up the concrete as soon as my dad arrived, which he did as soon as I pulled the tractor around. We loaded up the concrete and all the tools I would need and headed around to the back yard again (talking a little about my new truck that I hadn't yet told him about).

I dropped the jack and stands off at the shed as I drove by and then headed over to the posts. We mixed up the concrete (a lot faster with two people), poured it in for both posts, ensured that they were level and then went up to move some things out of the shed while they set.

Since I was operating on short notice, I didn't have much time to move everything out of the shed. I had taken a few things to the patio already after getting home from work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but I still had a lot of garden tools, two air conditioners (which I moved with the tractor's trailer) and some other things. We moved everything except for the air conditioners right outside the door and stacked them near my fence line to the left of the shed (out of the way but still saving time). There was also a considerable amount of scrap lumber (a lot of which the former owners left) under the shed which we had to move out of the way.

I pulled out two 4x6 beams from my pile of lumber next to the shed, set the jack on the ground and after double and triple checking everything, we started raising the shed on the right side. I initially tried to just use one of the floor joists, which was a 2x6's, but after raising it about half an inch, I could see that it was bending more than I wanted, so I lowered it again and then started over using one of the 4x6 beams directly under the floor joist. I don't have a picture of this since I wasn't rolling around in the dirt and didn't want my camera to be smashed, but to describe it the best way I can, the 4x6 was running directly under the floor joist the whole depth of the shed on the right side, and was sticking out 2 to 3 feet on either side of the shed. This allowed the weight to spread enough that the shed held steadily.

Once we had the shed high enough, we pulled out the cinder blocks which it had been resting on (most of them were thoroughly filled with dirt and grass), then put them them back in place, along with a few pieces of scrap lumber to raise it up. We started to raise the other side by using the same process on the left, except that we accessed it from the rear of the shed where there was more room to get the jack and beam in place (the ground at the left front was much higher).

One of my chief complaints about this shed in it's original location was that it was never leveled properly after the county finished their drain field behind it. The short version of the story is that the county has a storm drain that releases into a small drain field in our back yard. The original owners back filled the original and it was apparently causing problems with clogging on the other end. So while the house was up for sale and nobody was there to object, the county came in and rebuilt the drain field. When they did so, they dismantled a fence which used to border the property and apparently had to move the shed, at least that is what I assume since we weren't there to see it all. It was never a serious problem, but it was just un-level enough that the door would not stay open and tools could only be stacked against the back wall since they would just fall down if you leaned them against the front.

This problem was causing stability issues after we raised the left side of the shed and moved back to the right. Just before we started jacking up the right again, the shed shifted about 6 inches to the left, moving it's weight onto three of the temporary posts (one now at a 45 degree angle) and the fourth being unused entirely. The first step in correcting this was to shift a little more weight back onto the temporary post which was completely unused. We carefully placed the temporary post back in place and used more blocks of wood to raise it's height. After getting it as tight as we could without jacking it up any further, we moved back to the left side and started raising it off of the temporary posts which had fallen over.

We made a more secure footing for the temporary posts and reset the shed's weight, that was basically the only excitement we had in the process of raising the shed up. We progressed in the same manner, doing a few inches at a time on each side and gradually making the temporary posts higher and higher. After the first two rotations of this process, we started using large firewood rounds which were delivered to me the day before, at every resting point, I would re-measure to see how much higher we would have to go. I also took measurements to ensure that we left enough space on either side to fit the trailer underneath when the time came. In the end, each temporary post consisted of one 18" wood round, a cinder block and a 4x6 block. On the back posts we had to use a couple of additional 2x4's to level it out.

I used my 8lb sledge to break up the concrete ramp which used to go to the door (the poorly made concrete came apart easily) and we dug out a little bit of the dirt as well. There were all sorts of treasures left below the shed in addition to these things, I had to remove shards of glass from a broken window pain and a wide variety of other interesting wood and metal scraps.

I took my final measurements, checking for the 23 inches of clearance we would need in the front for the trailer to clear. We only had half an inch to spare, so I decided that we would back the trailer up to the shed with the truck, then disconnect it and walk it the remainder of the distance. This gave us a little more room to play with since the height of the hitch on the truck made the trailer raised slightly. Once underneath, we would back the truck up and reconnect, then lower the shed onto the trailer.

This all went very well, the trailer was pretty heavy, but it slid under the shed without a problem and we reconnected the truck with ease once the trailer was in place. I raised the shed just enough to remove the blocks and carefully lowered it down to the trailer deck, once the weight was resting fully, we quickly checked the tire clearance to make sure we weren't rubbing the deck. Having plenty of clearance to spare, we lowered the other side and checked again, everything was clear and well balanced.

Here is the truck in front of the shed just after it was lowered onto the trailer.

You can see the firewood rounds we used to prop it up. under the bottom right corner.

Here is a picture of the shed itself on the trailer. We used the ladder to put a 4x6 across the top to make it at least a little bit more secured on the trailer. I was going to use two of them, but one of them was not quite long enough to cross the whole roof and we were starting to run out of daylight.

While my dad used the 4x6 beam and ladder to secure the trailer, I started up my chainsaw and moved over to the posts to level them out.

Since the ground was not level, there was no way to measure the posts out for a perfectly level cut. The method I used was fairly simple and can be applied in any construction project where you are using posts on un-level ground. The problem is that you'll only be able to control how far your lowest point will be from the ground, the others portions will vary in distance depending on the change in slope.

In order to do this, all you need is a pencil, a long, straight board and a good level, the size of the level does not matter. All that you do is place your level in the center of the board, put one end of the board on your shortest post, then hold the board up to the post you intend to cut. Use the level to find out when you are level, then make your mark along the bottom of the board. Do the same for every other post, once you are done cutting, you can verify your accuracy by laying the board across each post. No matter which two posts you choose, the level bubble should always be floating in the middle. If there are any mistakes, trimming or using a shim should be fairly easy.

In my case I was using a chainsaw, which is unsatisfactorily sloppy for accurate cutting, but was the fastest way to make a cut where perfection didn't matter. In the end the cuts were a little slanted and uneven, but once the beam was laid over the top, it wasn't going to make a difference. My first cut was the biggest reduction of them all, I cut off about 12 inches of the post to bring it down to the right level, it was for the right front post. The two rear posts only had to shave off about 3 inches each.

When I was done, all of the cuts I made were about 1.25" taller than the post I started with as the lowest point. I assume that I inadvertently made my first mark across the top of the 2x4 and not the bottom, then measured the rest based on that inaccurate cut. In any case, instead of redoing all of the cuts, I simply used a 2x6 to bring the shortest post up to par (the perfect fit of the 2x6 is what makes me think I was measuring across the top of my board and not the bottom).

After getting the shed onto the trailer, I was feeling rather giddy. I had been laughing to myself for most of the afternoon at certain points when my ideas would actually come together. I was so tired and rushed that the entire jacking process seemed somewhat unreal as I went on a roller coaster of feelings, thinking that it was actually going to work and that the task was impossible. One of the key points in our eventual success was when we discovered that the stability of the shed required you to use the outermost joist of the shed as your fulcrum. The 36" difference in using the next joist in changed the pivot of the shed drastically, even though the majority of the weight was still secured on the opposite side, it was simply not stable. I believe that a denser or heavier item would probably never have the same problem in this case, but it was an interesting lesson. The most interesting part being that it was easiest to use the jack to raise the shed from one joist in from the end, even though the pivot points worked better from the outermost joist.

Having leveled the posts and cleared the way, I was ready to start moving. I was still in a general state of disbelief when I started. I told my dad that if for some reason the trailer pulled my truck and myself down the ravine and I died in a fiery ball of flames to tell everyone that I died doing what I love, which would have been true had it happened that way.

I put the truck in 4 wheel drive low in anticipation of the damp ground and heavy load and began to roll forward. The trailer jerked a lot at first, I went as slowly as I possibly could since the ground of my yard has a lot of dips. and the trailer was rocking quite a bit. I pulled as close to the far fence as I could, then got into reverse and began to turn slightly. The shed and trailer were facing the wrong direction in the beginning. Even though the final position in the direction it would be facing was just a few degrees off of the direction it was facing to start with, I would have to do a complete 180 degree switch in order to get the truck and trailer going on the right direction to get into place. The house, wood pile, cedar tree and hot tub (another project) were in the place I needed to be in order to make this a simple job. I had to pull forward and back up several times in order to get the trailer going in the right direction down the slope.

It took a seven point turn to get everything on the right path. As the trailer got towards the bottom of the upper slope, it went through the ruts which I made for my telephone pole retaining wall. It took several iterations of going through these ruts until we felt we had the right angle, during one of the attempts I pulled forward a tiny bit too fast and one side of the shed lifted off the trailer then fell back in place. At this point I wasn't worried much about the safety of the shed, I had always calculated in the complete destruction of the shed ad a possibility in my plan. I accepted before starting any work on this project that something might go wrong and my shed may end up in splintered pieces or wrong side up in the middle of my yard. At that point, I wouldn't have been at any real loss since I would just use my posts for a new shed's foundation and I would have needed to take my old shed out eventually anyway, so I really had nothing to lose by trying.

The biggest difficulty in backing up in this case was that I was completely unable to see the trailer itself from the cab of the truck. I was also completely unable to see around the monstrous shed which was on top of the trailer, so I was relying entirely upon direction from my dad to guide me into place. Since there was a juvenile western red cedar (pictured later) directly in front of the shed's new home, I was going to have to back in at an angle towards the posts and then turn at just the right moment. It would not be the most complex backing maneuver I've ever accomplished, but it was certainly the hardest because I had no visibility around or beyond the shed.

It took two or three tries to get into the space before we got the right angle so that the trailer even went into the space between the four posts. Once we got in, my dad had me pull forward and back to wiggle all the way back into the space. He said "I think that's it" so I stepped out and began to investigate, the two front posts looked good, but when I got around to the back, I saw that the far post in the rear was not under the shed at all. Just six inches from victory over a minor angle adjustment. I didn't have any more room to adjust, I would have to pull out and try again. We talked it over for a minute and then pulled out carefully to adjust and try again.

This time we tried a different approach, I pulled up as close to the cedar tree as I could and tried to slide into the space, but being that the angle was shallow, we didn't have enough control or room to get it into the space. I got out and told my dad that we'd have to back at a steeper angle so that I had room to turn and maneuver, the way we were trying to come in would require me to get the truck into a place right where the cedar tree was, and there length of the truck and trailer combined was too much for that space.

We pulled out and tried again, Brandy came out to see how things were going and let me know what time it was, my dad was on one side and Brandy on the other. My dad guided me back and Brandy, standing next to the passenger window began to say "You'll have to stop because at this angle you are going to hit the post" while at the same time my dad was saying "Keep coming everything is clear." It was too late, I felt a soft lurch as the trailer wheel hit the post.

Brandy was angry that I didn't stop, I explained that she couldn't hear my dad talking at the same time on the other side, so I didn't register what she said. I also encouraged her to simply yell "Stop!" in situations like that to get my attention, then explain the problem to me after I stopped. She was mad, but we laughed about it on the way to dinner later.

I pulled forward and got out, the post had been pushed over so it was leaning, but the damage was minimal. We were able to shove the post back into a perfect upright position and repack the still-wet concrete. If the concrete around the posts was fully set by this time, it probably wouldn't have moved with how slow I was going, but the combined weight of the truck and trailer made a barely noticeable nudge.

After it was reset I pulled forward again, we increased the steepness of the angle again, moving another telephone pole out of the way to make room. Everything went well, we were fairly good at getting into the space at this point. My dad told me to turn to start to slide into the space and I did so, I could see the wheel of the trailer clear the post through my mirror this time. As we continued back I heard a loud cracking of wood, I stopped and my dad checked, it turned out to be an old fence-post and nothing important, so we proceeded.

A few inches more and I felt a little resistance, I stopped and asked if I was against one of the posts, my dad checked and said we were clear, so I continued, but he couldn't see that the drivers side trailer tire was against the rear post, I pushed further and the resistance grew, and my dad eventually said to stop. I pulled forward and walked back to assess the damage. The post was pushed over, similar to the first one we backed over.

I pushed it upright again and packed in the concrete with my boots, I pulled the truck all the way out and parked. I went back to investigate again, and decided that it was simply over. I got back in the truck, thoughts of backing the trailer down the ravine and letting the shed fall to it's doom ran through my mind, but instead I just straightened out, pulled the shed onto the level ground and turned the truck off. I thanked my dad for all the help and explained that I would have to figure everything out the next morning. After 13 hours of hard labor I knew I was in no condition to be making decisions, but my options seemed clear. The next morning I would need to take the shed off of the trailer so that it could be dismantled and it's parts could be used for a new shed.

After my dad left, I took a quick shower and changed so that we could go out to pick up my grandma, we were taking her to dinner to celebrate her birthday from a few days before. Brandy drove for this event because I was already so sore. The dinner was pleasant and the food was good, we went home and had a quiet evening with a relatively early bedtime for a Saturday night.

The whole time my mind was still racing with the possibilities of what I was going to do next, I felt as though the task would not be completed due to our lack of time and I was dreading the weeks ahead where I would need to go through long weekends of dismantling the shed. The stress of incomplete projects really eats away at me, so between that and my sore body, I slept sufficiently, but kept waking up throughout the night.

When morning finally came I felt a lot more clear-minded, no longer depressed, I had regained the majority of my normal confident and nonchalant stature. Since our only plans for the day included going to Hurricane Ridge to show Coughlin snow for the first time, I realized that I had plenty of time to get the shed off of the trailer and subsequently put the trailer back together. I made myself breakfast and then collected my thoughts while drinking my coffee. I went out with coffee in hand and started to asses the situation. The first stop was the posts, I found that each of them, even the two which were displaced the night before, were all completely secure now, the concrete had completely dried and all of the posts were now securely set. I walked along the paths we tried to take and verified in my mind that the angles of approach all seemed attainable. I walked around the yard finding a location to drop the shed so that I could dismantle it later.

I got in the truck and backed the shed into the location where I was considering unloading it, but I couldn't bring myself to accept defeat yet, I decided that I should try to get it into place again, and if I failed, I would dismantle the shed closer to the new foundation.

I moved the truck forward all the way across the yard, then began to back up again. I took an approach which brought the shed very close to the cedar tree, I went very slowly and got out every few inches to make sure I was on the right course. After getting the shed past the tree (breaking a couple of branches as I brushed by) I got to a point where the truck wasn't going to be able to continue without hitting the tree or one of the posts. I turned off the truck for a few minutes while I thought this out. I could either cut the tree down so I could back straight into the space, or I could take on a shallower angle, which would require me to run over my apple tree seedling (which I guessed it would escape from unharmed). After a few minutes of deliberation, I decided to go over the seedling, I really like my cedar tree and I didn't have enough time to play around with cutting it down and clearing it away.

I pulled the truck and trailer forward, more or less at a 90 degree angle to the posts, I got the shed as close to the post side of the cedar tree as I pulled out, and I made sure that my apple tree seedling went between the tires and not under them. As before, I got out every few inches to make sure I was still on track. When I got to the pivot point I turned hard to the left, pushing the sharply to the right. Continuing on at the pace of one or two inches at a time, with minor adjustments to the right or left as needed, I moved the trailer slowly into position. When I finally stopped, the angle of the trailer was slightly off, but it would be more than good enough to drop in place.

Here is my truck right after I finished backing the shed into it's space. If I could have picked up a shot from the sky it would show the extreme angle difference between the direction of the shed and trailer and the truck.

This picture shows the trailer with shed on top, parked neatly between the two posts.

It is no optical illusion, I am definitely about three inches closer to the post on the left than the post on the right.

Now that it was in place, I moved my jack and my blocks over and raised the shed up off the trailer. I only gave myself about six inches of clearance since I wouldn't need much space to pull the trailer out.

Here is the shed just before removing the trailer.

Since the ground was un-level, there were about 12 inches of clearance in the back.

Here is a picture of my jack and the very sophisticated jack assistance tools.

I used various pieces of scrap lumber to spread the weight while I was raising and lowering the shed. In the end I didn't cause any damage to the shed's structure or cosmetic damage (not that you could tell if I had).

Here is the shed standing on the blocks after I pulled the trailer away. You can see the tiny, short posts way down below.

I laid my 4x6 beams across the posts as squarely as possible, I used some 4d nails to secure the beams to the posts and lowered the shed down. It came down quickly, it only took one turn to get the shed onto it's new foundation.

Here is the picture of the shed after completion, you can see that it is just a little off center and slightly angled, but still securely in place.

This picture shows one of the steel fence posts that I put in place as a marker for where I wanted the shed corners to be. You can see the bottom of the other one just behind the shed close to the ground.

I was pretty happy that in the end I was only about 2 inches off from my intended mark, well within tolerable margins of error for this project. Just to the right of the end of the shed you can see my grapevine which I cut back entirely this year so that I can change it's direction to run along the side of the shed between the shed and the garden. I'm hoping that this directional change will help produce more grapes since the vine will get more sunlight.

We took our trip to hurricane ridge and my mood had changed entirely. I was completely relieved to have another finished project, especially one which I felt was doomed just a few hours before.

In all, if anyone is thinking of moving a large shed this way, I would tell them that it's a completely insane idea, but that I have proof that the concept can work.

The Highway Home; Montana from End to End: Part 3

2009-11-24T13:40:00.000-08:00

I glided down the sidewalk, stopping at the corner to check for traffic, before riding down the ramp and onto the street. The low, familiar rumble of the engine growling gave me a satisfying feeling of going home. There was no need for the GPS at this point since I basically knew my way to the Interstate. It was already over 90 degrees, I was sweating profusely while I made my way through the stoplights to the freeway.

I merged onto their freeway branch of I-90, once you get up to speed, the heat isn't so bad at all. Before the Rapid City branch merges onto I-90, it turns into another on-ramp, turning sharply after crossing over the main road. I was so happy about moving quickly that I didn't notice how sharp and fast this curve was coming up until just before I hit it. I made a quick brake to reduce my speed and pulled out of the corner without any problems, but I was slightly shaken at the way it came up so quickly without warning.

Getting onto the Interstate was simple, there was very little traffic and everyone was holding a reasonable pace. I passed so many riders that I had to stop waving to the ones heading eastbound so that I could give my left arm a rest. I was glad that I decided to take my open face helmet on this trip, the added airflow was pleasant in the heat. With beautiful red dirt to my right and the pine covered black hills on my left I rode through Sturgis and Spearfish to my exit on US 85. I could tell immediately that I was going to enjoy this route more than the interstate. The highway sprawled out over miles of plains where I could ride easy with little to no traffic.

As I approached Belle Fourche, the hideously mis-pronounced center of the United States, I decided I would pull over to take off my long sleeve shirt. This has become my favored way to ride any time the temperature exceeds 85 degrees. Anyone who has talked to me about riding knows how important good gear is to me, but riding with bare arms is a calculated risk I am willing to take in extreme heat. I tried riding in shorts once on a trip to the grocery store, but I felt too exposed to try it again. I've always felt that shorts are particularly stupid on a motorcycle since the chances of a bee flying in are very high and aside from that your legs and feet are always the first part to hit and they are usually hit the hardest of all when you crash.

I pulled into a parking lot in front of an auto-parts store. Since my shirt was under my vest and my vest contained my pistol, I had to be careful when removing it so as to not show my secret to the world. I usually don't have problems with sunburns, but I decided to put some on anyway since the sun was intense and I didn't have much time to stop if I started to burn.

Here I am at about mid-day in front of the auto-part's store. This is the last picture I took of myself on the trip.

Here is a nice picture of the bike in the sun. Notice the helmet resting on the license plate on the back where I normally keep it. I got on and was ready to ride off before I realized that I forgot to put it on. I was too busy focusing on charging my ipod and getting comfortable.

There were some detour signs indicating that there was construction ahead and possible delays of up to 30 minutes on my current road. I guessed that since it was the weekend any construction would be on hold or at least lightened and that traffic wouldn't be too backed up. I could have left highway 212 in favor of highway 24, which would connect with highway 112 and then reconnect with highway 112 beyond the construction. I chose to move forward along the planned route and after about 10 miles (right at the border of Wyoming) I was finally stopped to wait for the pilot vehicle to guide us.

I was third in line at the stop, where they had road crews handing out fliers and maps to show people the detour I described above. I asked them how much more time it takes on that route, which they indicated was about 30 minutes more. I decided to stick with my initial decision since the time would be about the same, but this route would give me some time to rest.

Enjoying some beef jerky and lemonade I took the time to stretch out and relax as much as possible. I applied more sunblock and just as I finished that, I could see the oncoming traffic and our pilot car arriving, it wasn't even a 10 minute delay. Packing everything away, I got on and started my bike, after the traffic cleared and the pilot car turned around, we were off and running again.

The pace was too slow to keep me sufficiently cool, but better than standing still. We never had to come to a complete stop, but there were several points in which we slowed down to a crawl to get around some large machinery. I was impressed with the way that Wyoming was handling their repairs, instead of spreading out several small crews, they had one large workforce. This reminded me of a trip to Reno and back that Brandy and I took a few years before, highway 89 in California had approximately 9 different road crews working on various portions of the highway. I was glad that this was not the case here.

Once we cleared the construction, I had the pleasure of riding on brand new roadways. They were all concrete instead of asphalt, I'm not sure if this is for cost savings, durability or some other reason, but I would guess that asphalt doesn't hold up well in the cold and snowy winters of that area since they make most of their roads in this fashion.

As I said before, I was only crossing through about 20 miles of Wyoming with this route. There was not much to make note of. The road showed me a fantastic view of small surrounding mountain ranges. It was a very clear morning and I could see a long way. There were a good deal of cattle ranches, which I could recognize by the fencing and gates, but I didn't see many herds of cattle and only an occasional driveway or house.

Just after getting out of Wyoming, I made my first stop at a small town named Alazda, Montana. It quite literally consisted of one small gas station and convenience store with only two 1970's style gas pumps, the kind with the on/off lever below the nozzle and with nothing more than a readout of gallons and cost. Since I was paying with cash anyway, I wasn't inconvenienced by the lack of ability to pay at the pump.

I bought some cold bottled water and enjoyed the air conditioning while I paid. I was still a little hungry, so I pulled my motorcycle to the side of the building and parked in front of a large round hay bale. I had cellular reception, so I called Brandy while I consumed a peanut butter granola bar and some very cold water.

Here is my motorcycle in front of the large bale, with the fields of Montana in the background.

I was entertained by all of the spots on my windshield made by bugs, despite the fact that I was cleaning my windshield at almost every stop. The picture doesn't show them all well enough, but in the streak of sunshine you can see a representation of the real magnitude.

You can see a lot of gnats on the headlight and turn signal bar, though it also doesn't show the true magnitude.

Alazda actually shows up on Google's Street View feature. If you happen to look it up, you'll see a lone fuel station surrounded by a lot of open dirt. It didn't look quite like that when I was there, but it is a good way to see the seclusion.

I put my button up shirt on underneath my vest because I can see patches of clouds and don't want to expose myself to a pummeling of rain-needles if I hit a patch of precipitation. I have adjusted to the heat enough that I don't feel uncomfortable in the extra layer. To the contrary, because I wasn't moving, putting my arms back in the shade was relieving. Once I got moving again, I felt fairly comfortable in the heat.

I listened to some music again to take a break from the monotony of podcasts. The bright day and beautiful scenery made for excellent listening. I was beginning to feel hungry, so I made plans to stop in Broadus for lunch if I could find a place. When I looked on the map that morning I could see that Broadus was small, but that it was the largest town I would pass through before getting back onto I-90.

As I approached the town, I slowed to a crawl to search for potential signs of restaurants. There was nobody else on the road to get in the way of, so I took my time inspecting each intersection. The buildings were almost all residential with a small gas station that had old timey pumps which were even more old timey than the pumps at the station in Alazda. As the town started to thin out and seemed to come to an end, I began to think that I wouldn't find a place to eat and as the remains of the town fell into my rearview, I gave up entirely. After about half a mile I saw a building on the right that didn't look like much, but as I came closer I saw that it was actually a diner. I pulled in right next to the front door, there were no cars there, and two semi-trucks parked across the street in a parking lot made for them.

Before I went in I took some more Ibuprofen and made sure I was parked in a spot that could be seen easily from a window. Luckily a booth was available at the window right in front of my bike, so I could keep an eye on it while I ate. I made my order and took a trip to the restroom, it was nice to use a facility that wasn't part of a gas station, which meant it was considerably cleaner. I came back out and had a lemonade while I waited for my fish and chips.

There was a TV with local news playing overhead. I thought to myself how I hadn't so much as glanced at a television for more than four days. I stared at the TV to watch, and had a light conversation with the cook/waitress, but in reality I was reflecting on my journey for the first time, until now the trip was a surreal experience, now everything else was like a dream. I felt as though I had been traveling all of my life and that I would do nothing but travel for all eternity. Aside from a voice on the other end of a phone, Brandy, home, my job, all of my things seemed intangible.

The lemonade was a bit sweet, but I felt as though I needed carbohydrates so that I didn't end up with the burning ears brought on by too much water. The Fish and Chips were good, for what I would expect from a land-locked state, I felt like they were exceptional.

Getting back on the road felt like I would have expected, it was hot and dry with a touch of rolling hills. There was a large patch of clouds looming on the horizon ahead of me, I could tell that they were heavy rain clouds and from miles away I could still see an occasional lightning strike. The were definitely situated to the North of the highway, but I did not seem to be moving. I picked up the pace in hopes of getting to the Interstate before the rain got to the highway. I knew that the Interstate would have plenty of overpasses for me to use as shelter while I put on my rain gear, and I also guessed that the highway wouldn't have anything to offer for shelter at all. Lightning was a large part of this concern, but the heavy midwest rainfall was an even bigger one. I knew that getting soaked would probably result in a long stop later, so it was best to have my rain gear on in advance. Riding with my rain gear in this heat, however, was completely out of the question.

As I got closer to my next stop of Lame Deer, it looked as though my estimates of the storm staying to the North of the highway were accurate. I couldn't have been more than a miles south of the storm, but was still in hot, dry sunlight. The hills were starting to get bigger and closer in, but when I passed through wide prairies, the stark contrast of clouds and sun was quite impressive. There didn't seem to be any wind, so the storm was not moving anywhere. At this point I thought it may be possible to ride all the way around the storm before getting onto the Interstate, but being unable to see any end, I knew the chance was small.

I pulled into Lame Deer at about 2:30pm. There were only two roads, but the gas station was off the main highway by half a mile, and there were trees between us, so I went the opposite direction at first, getting a chance to see their huge tribal medical center. I didn't see any signs for a casino, so I'm not sure if this center was paid for by gaming profits or federal grants, but having grown up on and around a lot of reservations, I'm always happier to see tribes providing valuable services to their members instead of wasting it. I do feel like the federal government should stop giving grants to tribes after they reach a certain level of profitability, and I don't much like the super-citizenship that some tribes receive, but overall I'd rather see my income tax buy them a medical clinic than have it handed out as cash, which some tribes do with their grants.

Having corrected my course, I found the gas station/mini-mart, which was apparently the only thing around since it was completely packed. It was very hot out and I didn't mind waiting in a long line at the cash register since the building was well air conditioned. I was definitely the whitest guy there, which is an odd thing to happen to me, I'm by no means dark, but I'm certainly not very fair skinned either. I felt as though some of the other patrons noticed this and it could have been my imagination, but it was a small town and everyone seemed to know each other by name, I guessed that traveling strangers of the paler variety weren't common here. Looking back over it, I could also assume that they may have had unfavorable experiences with the type of motorcycle travelers who came through on their way to or from a large rally. I wouldn't blame them for their apprehension if that was the case.

As I pulled away from the town, the trees thinned out and I was out on open fields again, surrounded by small but steep hills. I passed by several small ranches consisting of homes on the hillside with some fenced acreage leading up to the highway.

Dreaming about living in a place like that, I saw a small housing development come up on the left. I recognized the building styles and proximity immediately as a government housing project, much like the many I encountered at home during my youth. They bore other marks which made me feel more justified in my opinion, the trash and broken cars on the lawn and street, the untended yards littered with bicycles and toys. Anyone who hasn't been to a development like this will have to bare with me, but once you experience it for yourself, you will learn to recognize all of these attributes as signs of people who live in a home they didn't pay for and don't care about.

Across the highway on the right I saw a strange looking, multicolor, mound in the distance. As I got closer, I was able to make out a concrete slab and a driveway. Nearing even more, I made out the mound as a trash pile and the concrete slab, with a sharp ledge and brown dumpster below, it was quite obviously a transfer station which was no longer being serviced. The trash mound was so large that it was piled high up over the end of the ledge and on top of the slab itself, as well as all the way up and down the driveway and scattered around the nearby area.

I wanted to stop and snap a picture, but I had already lost too much time in Lame Deer and didn't want to draw unnecessary attention from the housing development by turning around and stopping. I certainly wouldn't appreciate anyone making a spectacle if it were my trash pile anyway.

I looked it up on google maps, and took this screenshot of the location, obviously from one or more summers prior.

When I rode by, I don't recall seeing a fence, and as stated before, the trash was mounded up all over the slab, dumpster and driveway off to the right. Either I was too shocked to notice the fence, or (since it appears to be falling down in this picture) it was stolen.

These two sights in conjunction took me straight back to my youth. I guess there is some consolation in the fact that tribes everywhere have problems like these, but it shocks me that anyone can live in such blind ignorance of even the most basic sanitation.

It was no more than a fleck of dust among the scenery of that day, my mind was soon going to move to the more pressing matters of the storm which now seemed to loom just an arm length to one side. I knew I was less than 30 miles from the interstate, so I pressed onwards with determination. Occasionally I would pass through a flurry of drops, and 100 feet of wet road, patched on either side with blinding sunlight. the road started to wind downhill as I passed two hitchhiker's going back towards lame deer. They looked concerned about the lightning overhead, but there was nothing I could have done to help if I wanted to. It was warm, so I was personally enjoying the spectacle of heavy raindrops, sunshine and stormy flashes.

The road began to wind more and it took on a gradual downhill slope, ahead of me I could see that I was living the small hills and crossing into another large plain, one which I had passed through in the very cold and early morning before last, but didn't have the pleasure of seeing before. As I got closer to the Interstate, I could see it ahead, I was still skirting the edge of the storm, but the patches of rain became more frequent and I could see that there was a small patch of Interstate where the clouds were not thick, before it eventually headed right into the heart of it. I knew I would have to stop, but was very glad I would be making it to the interstate before doing so. I came into the lush farm valley and merged onto I-90 right at the monument to the Little Bighorn Battlefield. I was interested in stopping here, but thought it would be better to drag Brandy along the next time I was out that way. As much as she argues, she definitely enjoys historical sights as much as I do, it's the travel to and from that she wants to bring to an abrupt end.

I could tell that this valley received frequent rain because the farms had little or no irrigation, but the fields were all a lush and bright green. After two or three miles, the clouds became dark and sharp raindrops poked me through my shirt and gloves, I came to a stop under the next overpass and took a few minutes to study the storm.

I snacked on some jerky and had some water while I watched. The darkness made it feel like dusk, even though it was still the middle of the afternoon. There was frequently lightning and thunder, the clouds were dense and black and there was no wind, I wasn't going to be able to wait this out, I had to gear up and ride through it. I guessed that once the highway passed out of this valley it would clear up, I hoped I could get past it before dark so there would be time to dry off.

Here are a couple of pictures I took to show the storm, unfortunately a picture can't capture the magnanimity of something this big and the light in the clouds makes them much less ominous.

Here is my motorcycle under the overpass. You can see the line of water on the ground, showing where the edge of the overpass was.

This was the view to the South, where I came from. If you follow the line of the clouds going from East to West, it ends bordering Hwy 112 perfectly, you can see how I rode right around the edge of the storm.

In the full size version, you can see the two crows in mid-flight where the dark clouds meet the bright sky beyond.

This is the view to the North, the road ahead, showing a bit of the cool looking clouds. Off to the left you can see that it's actually raining heavily, though you can't see how the interstate curves off ahead, right into the rain.

The clouds and rain made me feel at home. Things like this are hard to explain, but I felt as though I should like to spend an entire afternoon under that overpass just relaxing and watching the storm, as though I had lived there forever and would never leave again.

It was not my home though, as much as it felt like one. I put on my rain gear, leaving off my thick gloves since it was far too warm for them, my hands would be waterproof enough on their own. I put away the camera and slipped all of the covers on my bags, including the two trash bags to go over my duffel and was on my way again, riding straight into the storm.

After five miles the interstate swings sharply to the West, the rain was heavy at first, but the further west I moved, the lighter it became, eventually melting into cloud cover. The clouds were high enough that I could see the land I rode through before, which appeared as a dark ocean outside my headlights in my previous visit. It was a vast valley with hills in the far distance, closing in closer and closer to their eventual meeting point at my next destination, Billings. The approach was mostly flat and straight, but the hills on either side were close and steep. On my previous passing, all I could see of them was an occasional flash of steep hillside in my headlights and a feeling that something huge was around me.

The storm became a black cloud behind me and my clothes dried out in the warm air.

I found a gas station with a small deli inside at the east edge of Billings. I had a strong desire to eat something other than burgers. I picked up some macaroni salad a couple of hard boiled eggs and a sandwich, and I convinced the cashier to let me refill my large empty water bottle with iced tea, instead of using their cups. I filled it up with a mix of iced tea and lemonade.

Taking a seat on the curb next to my motorcycle, I called Brandy while I ate my dinner, it was about 7:00pm and the sun was starting to get low. Now that I think back about it, I can't remember if I called Brandy when I stopped for lunch in Broadus or if this was the first time I had called since that morning in Alazda. After some internal debate, I packed up my rain gear, knowing that I would need to put it back on in a couple of hours when it became dark. I watched the storm behind closely and looked ahead as much as I could, to be sure that I wouldn't run into more rain unexpectedly.

While I pulled out of the parking lot, my back tire slid on some loose gravel near a storm drain, but I quickly kicked the ground and accelerated out of a potential drop. A couple on a Harley Davidson pulling into the parking lot noticed me and looked concerned for an instant, but by the time I saw their reactions, I was already on my way. I appreciate their concern, whoever it was. The single best thing about the motorcycle community is the universal fellowship among riders. I recall a time when I had only been riding for a few months and had stopped on the side of the road in Kingston to talk to a friend. A rider on a BMW pulled over to make sure I wasn't broken down. My astonished friend asked if I knew him or if he was a stranger, I explained it by simply saying "Nope, just the Brotherhood of Leather." The majority of riders on the road always offer the same courtesy and assistance.

Despite the clouds behind me, the hills glowed as the sun got slightly lower. About an hour after leaving Billings, I passed through a small town (I don't recall which one for certain, but I think it was Laurel) where thick white smoke and the smell of burning shrubs told me that there was a forest fire nearby. It was dense like thick fog and for a short time, it felt as though the night had come on much sooner than it should. The smoke burned my eyes and lungs a little, but it was over soon, leaving only a faint scent on my clothes. Driving through this made me think of the forest fires that were going on in the Olympic National Park when I left on this trip. The night before leaving home, the same odor filled the air as I packed my motorcycle with the garage door open.

As the sun went down, it became gradually cooler, but it wasn't cold enough to stop until the sun went down entirely. I stopped at a rest stop shortly after sun down and put on my rain gear, heavy gloves and opened a few air activated hand warmers for my boots, pockets and gloves, even though I wasn't yet cold. I find that it's a good philosophy to stay warm instead of getting cold and attempting to warm up after the fact. It took me about 20 minutes to put on my gear, I used the electric hand dryer in the bathroom to heat up my gloves, which were slightly chilled from being in the saddlebags.

The sun setting over the mountains to the West made the sky beautiful shades of deep blue, eventually fading into black. The lack of rest for the last few days was beginning to catch up with me, so irresolutely I decided that when I reached Livingston, I'd see if there were any motels with vacancy so that I could get a few hours of good sleep. I didn't feel overly sleepy, but I was worried about feeling sleepy on the road ahead, and to a tired and paranoid mind, you can easily work things up to be more extreme than they are. I knew from experience that there were a lot of cities in Western Montana which would have accommodations if I became too tired, and I also knew that I could always nap at a rest stop or on the side of the road, but as with the irrational paranoia I felt two days before on the late night portion of my trip, it is easy to overlook these things.

Part of the internal argument for stopping was that I knew the roads well enough to understand that there were a lot of windy passes coming up near butte, and that the weather radio at the rest stop said there were showers ahead in those areas. Traveling through those passes at night with the potential of a thorough soaking was the biggest discouraging factor. I was cold enough two mornings before in Wyoming without any rain, I didn't want to consider the possibility of having a harder night than that.

Taking the first exit for Livingston (one which promised both lodging and fuel), I rode a few miles down a highway leading away from the Interstate. My paranoid mind worried for a few minutes that Livingston was a long way off as visions of running out of gas, being stranded on a desolate highway in Montana ran through my mind. These were only slightly settled when I passed a highway sign that said it was just another mile ahead.

A motel appeared on the left, with a Chevron station just beyond, there was a neon vacancy sign clearly lit. I pulled into the Chevron and filled up the motorcycle. I needed to use the cigarette lighter adapter for my phone since I both forgot to charge it at Jon and Sheena's place (aside from some charging in their car while on the road) and since I forgot to turn it off before leaving, which caused the phone to search constantly for signal, which drains the battery quickly. I called Brandy to let her know my intentions, explaining that I wanted to avoid being stuck in a night time rainstorm and that I felt like a few hours of solid sleep would be a good idea. I could tell she was unhappy, but only because it meant I'd lose some of the time I made up by heading home a day sooner than I initially planned.

I rode back through the parking lots to the motel, driving right up to the lobby door. I had to ring an after hours bell to get assistance, a lady arrived to help me right away. We talked a little about my trip while she set me up and handed me my key.

I drove over to the room and parked in the space directly in front of the window. I put the front tire against the curb so that it would be harder for someone to steal or tamper with before drawing my attention. I brought in all my bags and bolted the door, hanging my jackets sweaters and gear on the rack in the room. I turned the air conditioning on immediately to draw out the humidity and cool the room down.

The room itself was a bit too simple, the carpets were pretty worn, but not dirty or broken through, the TV was pretty old, mounted to an arm on the wall, and the sink was in a plain Formica counter with no cabinet below, just the exposed plumbing. The air conditioner control knob was broken, but still on the unit, so I left it on a small table for them to see and used my multi-tool to adjust it. The bed and covers were pristine, however, so I decided I could ignore the other problems and stay. There was a small mini-fridge in one corner as well, I stored my bottled water and iced tea mixed with lemonade in there.

The water in the tap was warm because it had such a hot day, and no amount of running it would cool it down, but the ice machine was locked in the lobby and I didn't want to waste any time waiting for service there. Warm water isn't particularly pleasant, but it doesn't do any harm.

The control knob for the shower didn't really work quite right, due to the initial warmness of the water (from the previously mentioned hot day), so at first it was hard to tell which way was hot and which was cold. This problem was accentuated by the fact that there was only a small position in which the knob would actually produce hot water and if you passed that position by the slightest degree, the water would go back to tepid. I finally got it right and took a thorough shower, then vigorously brushed my teeth, riding for hours gives you a feeling of uncleanliness, even when you aren't particularly dirty, most likely from all the sweat and dust you can mix together on a hot day like this.

I took everything out of my bag for re-packing, set out the clothes I would be wearing when I got up, and set the pistol on the night stand next to my charging cell phone. The odds of running into a bad situation where are firearm will be needed are always extremely low, but they feel considerably higher for someone traveling alone in unfamiliar places. My calculations for remaining travel time and effective sleep time told me that I should set my alarm for 6:00 to allow enough time for me to get home before dark the next day. I had to re-count the time mentally several times to be sure (more of my paranoid state of mind). I went to bed just before 11:00pm.

At about 4:30am, I woke up from a dream in which I thought I had to pick up my grandma to take her somewhere, I don't remember where or why, but I knew I was worried about running late. When I sorted out woke up I mentally sorted out the dream in my mind and then felt worried that I had mis-calculated my travel time for the next day, I worked it out again and confirmed that I was correct, so I went back to sleep.

What seemed like about an hour later, I woke to what sounded like a garbage truck emptying a dumpster. The banging was coming from behind the building, but I couldn't imagine that a garbage truck would be making it's rounds so early in the morning. I saw that it was getting light outside, so I rolled over to the night stand to check my phone. Very surprised to see it was 6:30am, I jumped out of bed and started getting dressed. I was very confused at first, but as I got my things together and became more awake, I realized that I had set my alarm for 6:00pm instead of 6:00am.

The preparations I made in packing the night before paid off and I was able to load up the bike in just a few minutes. It wasn't raining or cloudly, but it had obviously rained hard at some point during the night, since the ground was wet and the bike was covered in beads of water. I thought this may happen, so I had a rag ready for wiping down the seat, windshield and mirrors.

The sky was turning bright blue, though the sun was not even cresting the mountains yet. I walked over to the main office, checked out (the same lady was working when I checked in) and I got back on the road. The three miles of highway out to the interstate was beautiful. There were lush green hills in the background and the road crossed over a very wide section of the Yellowstone River. I was overwhelmed and surprised that there was so much I didn't see the previous night. I knew that I crossed the Yellowstone River the night before because of the sign over the bridge, but in the moonlight I couldn't see just how large and sweeping the view was.

The bridge I crossed over was called Carter's bridge, which you can see a winter picture of here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:YellowstoneRiverCartersBridge.jpg

I was on the interstate in no time, I ate a granola bar before leaving the motel, but was planning to stop for Breakfast in Bozeman, which would only be about 30 minutes of riding. I had the road all to myself and the green fields around me made the short trip very pleasant. It was not very cold, but I was wearing my rain gear to keep warm anyway. When I got to Bozeman, the was still not up, but the sky grew brighter every moment. This is the best time of day to be on the road or relaxing on your porch drinking coffee.

There was a Mcdonald's just off the north side of the interstate, when I pulled up I noticed a large group of motorcycles in the parking lot, but the restaurant itself was almost empty. I guess that the motorcycles were just using this lot for the hotel across the driveway.

I ordered my small breakfast and sat down on a leather sofa to watch the news on a plasma TV mounted on the wall. I've never seen a Mcdonald's quite like this, but it was obviously new and all of the furniture and interior decorating resembled something far from a fast food restaurant in every way. The leather sofa was a great relief to my lower back, which was still fresh for the morning, but also tired from the literal thousands of miles in travel which it had been through over the past three days.

The weather report showed a hot clear day ahead of me. I was excited at the prospect of a day full of riding without any need for rain gear, though the morning was still brisk and dewy and I would need to wait until my next stop before I could take it off for the day. My goal was to get home before it was late or cold enough to put it back on, so as long as I didn't run into any unexpected storms, I was in the clear for a day of great riding.

I recognized the mountain pass as I got closer to Butte, I welcomed a second chance to ride through this area in the light. The shadows of sunrise sharply contrasted with the golden brown hills. Low wisps of clouds still hung down, close to the fields where it was damp and cool. As I came down the opposite side of the pass, in the shadow of the mountainside, I was glad to be wearing my rain gear. My fingers and legs felt a little cold, but the view of the valley below was distraction enough. I passed the point where Brandy and I narrowly avoided a dead deer carcass, remembering how tired and nervous I felt that night with rock to my right and cliffs to my left. I took it easy around the blind corners today for fear of finding a living beast out on a morning stroll.

When I pulled into Butte, I went to a gas station where Brandy and I refueled before heading home last year. There was nothing special about it, just a little Texaco on Harrison Avenue, but revisiting places like this gives me a very satisfying feeling of nostalgia. It's like re-affirming the reality of something which seems unreal after so much time.

While I was fueling up, I heard a low rumbling which was quickly growing louder. I looked around the skies to pinpoint the source, guessing that some airplane was flying very low. Two F-18's appeared over the top of the building. They were flying very low at slow speeds, making a kind of zig zag pattern over Butte. They eventually passed over the horizon and I went inside to pay. I asked the cashier if this sort of thing happened a lot and if there was an airbase nearby. He never really answered either of the questions with certainty, so I just moved on.

Before heading out, I packed away all of my rain gear, and even though it was still in the 60's, I knew it would warm up quickly with the sun rising, so I kept my sweater on for the time being. The tops of my legs got a little cold, but I kept my fingers warmed with my patented engine heat trick described before.

One thing that I wish I had taken a lot more of was books on tape. I loaded two onto my ipod and I listened to them both in the first day. Having two types of podcasts with the occasional break for music kept me fairly entertained, but I would have liked it much more if I could have put some heavy reading out of the way at the same time.

The temperature rose steadily into the hundreds as the sun came up. At times I envisioned the pine trees around me catching fire from heat alone. The air moving around me on the highway became so warm that riding at highway speeds no longer felt refreshing and cool, in fact, it just barely kept me from sweating.

The views became more impressive with every passing minute. I can't say how many times I-90 crosses over the Clark fork of the Flathead river, but the repeated views of the river valley below the interstate are overwhelming.

I breezed through Missoula, I hardly remember stopping for gas, I think I decided to skip buying lunch there since it was still a little early and I had plenty of snacks in my bags. The filling station was just outside of town on a narrow but very busy street. The only way in or out seemed to be through the freeway, but I assume a road somewhere must have led out. The tight grouping of automotive buildings around the gas station kept me from seeing anything in any case.

I think Missoula was one of the hottest points I passed through in both directions. I didn't pay close enough attention to my thermometer/clock along the way, but it definitely felt like the hottest point. I'm sure this was exaggerated by the fact that I was mostly riding along the south face of the hills, which only intensified and reflected the heat more.

There were occasional patches of clouds, but none of them looked like rain, only provided comfortable shade for a short time. I like clouds in the middle of the country because they leave such defined shadows, I enjoy racing the shadows to pass the time as I ride.

About 45 minutes beyond Missoula, very close to the State Border, I pulled into a rest stop for a break. While I snacked, I noticed family of ground squirrels in the bushes. They were walking out and eating out of the hands of families who stopped by with crumbs.

One of them was particularly fat, not that the picture shows this particularly well.

Since they were so well fed already, I didn't offer them anything I had, but they were very eager to come up to me anyway.

I needed to take off my long sleeve shirt for a while, so I went around to the back of the building to undertake the complex process of changing my concealment vest around without exposing anything that was supposed to be secret.

The section of road leading out of Montana and into Idaho has a large amount of interstate with two closed lanes. You can't seem to stay at full speed for more than 10 minutes before running into another repair site where both directions of traffic share one side of the freeway and speeds are reduced to 35 or 45 (even though everyone goes much faster than that anyway). The closed sections, which I could see from my side, did not appear to be under any sort of construction and had been closed for a long time judging by the amount of debris scattered over them. Since there were no road crews, it was fairly tempting to ride between cones to get to the closed section and explore. If I lived in the area there is no doubt in my mind that I would have done so already (carefully to avoid finding an overpass which was partially deconstructed).

As I moved into Idaho, a lot more big fluffy clouds came in overhead and occasionally blocked the sun, making it dark. I was a little worried that my expected day of sun might turn out to be rainy, but the clouds never got too dark. Because of the cloud cover, however, Idaho was very humid and muggy.

I pretty much burned through the panhandle, stopping for fuel once and at a rest stop once to put my shirt back on under my vest (I was concerned about sunburn, even with my hard to burn skin). The forests and mountains were a reassuring site, I hadn't seen any real forests for about three days. It made me feel like I was closer to home , though I knew I had to cross through a few more hours of desert before I was really there.

In Coeur d'Alene the humidity seemed to hit it's peak. When passing over the lake, you could actually see wisps of moisture over the lake surface, if you looked into the distance everything was hazy, almost like a far off fog. Moisture and sweat seemed to collect a little on my skin, even at freeway speeds. I stopped for gas in Kellogg, ID again before reaching Coeur d'Alene, having stopped there before I knew that it was difficult to get to the gas stations from the freeway, and Kellogg had several barely off the road. Running into no traffic, I flew through the remainder of the state, winding down the hills, crossing the Spokane River back into my home state, where I've spent more than 99% of my life.

There was some traffic through Spokane, which was pure torture due to the humidity. We crawled through the urban regions, I reverted to my normal traffic habit of staying in first gear at about 3mph to keep up with the flow of idiots who thought they would get somewhere faster by using the speed and brake method of heavy traffic driving. I'll always fall back a few hundred feet and watch everyone accordian in front of me as I dance with the nearby cars, casually gliding closer, then drifting further away.

The slight delay wasn't too disappointing, I was eager to go home, but I never spent much time looking out across Spokane, which has some very interesting architecture. Since the city is small, we were soon speeding away again, through a loose pine forest.

Something hit me there, between Spokane and Ritzville, among the trees and dried grass. The few hours remaining on my trip seemed like an eternity, a mixture of excitement to be home with a feeling that I would never get there. I recognized the feeling immediately, I've been on enough trips to know how it feels; days of travel can breeze by, but the last few miles of those old familiar roads will drag on, I spend a lifetime considering every pebble and crevice in my path.

I had already made three or four stops for fuel and only had two more left before reaching home. I was definitely on the downhill side of my trip, but when boredom and anticipation set in like this, you just can't go fast enough.

I took the first exit for Ritzville, I knew it would have more gas stations than the exit I took on my way out of the state two days before. Since the sun was being fairly effective at baking me, I was enjoying the idea of a short break in an air conditioned mini-mart.

I can't recall the exact tempurature, but I'm fairly sure it was 107 in Ritzville when I pulled in. Almost everyone around was wearing swimming suits, my denim jeans and heavy boots just couldn't compare. I felt kind of dead while waiting in line for the cashier. My face felt heavy, I was tired and a little dehydrated from all the sweating. After finishing off a couple of bottles of water I began to come around, though my head began to hurt a little, I suspect it was a dehydration headache. I called Brandy to let her know where I was and when I planned to be home. We talked for a little bit so that I could rest in the shade, though the conversation wasn't specifically interesting since I was tired from my trip and she was tired from our young son's sleeping habits.

To help distract me while I continued, I changed over to music in hopes that it would speed things up and raise my sprits. It certainly didn't drag on the way that podcasts do, but it was hard to enjoy any of the music with the sun blazing down. When you feel as though you are in an oven, everything becomes stale and washed out, colors fade and it would seem that notes do too.

The water I had drained and the Ibuprofen I took chased away my headache, but the nagging pains in my butt, back and legs droned on. I was constantly drifting up to 85mph in my eagerness to get home, but the vibrations from doing so would quickly make me slow down to 70 again. I only stopped once between Ritzville and Cle' Elum, at the one major rest stop right in between the two destinations. It's on a windy ridge that rises above a large flat valley on either side. Since I was not taking breaks, I had to adjust my legs and feet a lot, occasionally moving into my patented slouch position where I scoot forward and lay back on the seat so that I can't see out the rearview mirrors. It tires out your arms quickly, but it is about the only way to get relief for your lower back when you don't have pegs or floorboards that you can stand on.

The sun continued to bake me until I got closer to the Columbia River crossing. At the river itself there was a brief respite, then back into the oven as I climbed the western bank, though the temperature was definitely starting to drop overall.

I found myself thinking a lot about my strange attraction to the idea of a four day trip, by myself, traveling through five states each way. I never expected to spend this much time traveling, but as worn down as I felt bringing this trip to a close, I never hit the wall of regret that one can encounter on journeys like this. I certainly had feelings of loneliness and on one or two occasions may have thought how nice it would be to be instantly home, but I always felt reassured that the power of a journey like this lies entirely in the journey itself. Removing the best bits and condensing them down only makes a diluted version of the experience, your favorite recipe from a cookbook is not going to turn out well if you only add the parts you liked. This much is also true when considering the perfect balance in which the ingredients must be mixed in, even the ones that don't taste good at all on their own.

The bitterness of leaving my family was well balanced by beauty and experience. I've never spent this much time without Brandy and though he was still fairly new, the same could be said about my son. It's always better to do things which you can share with someone, I certainly prefer it that way, but in the end, I know that this was a trip which would never work any way except the way it did.

As I got closer to Cle' Elum, I once again had to move the fuel switch to the reserve. I knew when I passed Ellensburg that the way I was pushing my speed I would also be pushing the limits of fuel, so the familiar drain of power I felt was not a surprise when I started up into the mountain pass. I checked highway signs repeatedly and did the math in my head. I reassured myself that I should make it to Cle' Elum before running out and that even if I didn't, I still had my backup reserve, a 12 ounce plastic water bottle filled to the brim with gasoline (I had carried it with me the whole time). The idea of stopping is what bothered me most. The closer I got to home, the more drawn to it I became, an entire trip which could have easily been a dream became a very real past, I looked forward to the exciting future.

When I pulled into Cle' Elum, I opened the glove box below my seat and emptied the 12 ounce plastic bottle filled with gasoline into my tank. I no longer required an extra reserve both because I would be in populated or familiar areas and because I knew that there would be more than enough fuel to make it all the way home. I was very glad that I managed to repair my motorcycle's reserve switch before my trip, the added security of a half gallon reserve eased my mind even more being back in such familiar territories now. I threw the bottle in the trash and filled the tank all the way. Even with the bottle I put in about 4.2 gallons, my reserve was definitely close to being used up, but since I made it, I didn't let it worry me.

I had been thinking about coffee for a couple of hours, and there is a pretty good coffee shop in the same parking lot as the Safeway gas station I have been to so many times before, but riding with coffee wouldn't work without a cup holder and I couldn't stand the thought of delaying myself any further for any reason, not as enticing as it was to rest my back and legs while I consumed a cloudy brown beverage.

I hit the road with a new found vigilance. The sun was setting and everything was starting to cool off (even though it was still in the 90's), so I played some more celebratory music while I sped up the hills into the pass. As many times as I've been over Snoqualmie pass, I've never once gone over in a motorcycle. For a short time the sun was directly in my eyes any time I was going up-hill, the visor and sunglasses together made everything just barely visible, but I managed to get through since there wasn't any traffic and I had four or five lanes to myself for most of the time.

The sun continued to set over the mountains until it was just a light shining from behind large hills of green trees and sharp gray rocks. Combining this light glow with the openness of riding a motorcycle made the pass more interesting than it has ever been before. The steep cliffs and hills which I barely noticed on previous trips made prominent impressions. I thought to myself how original and refreshing this view was, as inconvenient as the terrain might be, I hadn't seen a real forest since I left, I felt overjoyed to be back in my home where everything was overpowering and alive, it's a pleasant way to be reminded of how little we can control despite our best efforts, the green and living things simply cannot be destroyed, they will overcome any obstacle that man creates, they represent the slow and steady power that the whole world adheres to, man in a constant rebellion against it. The humidity here is extreme, compared to the arid heat I was in just an hour before, it feels almost hard to breath in this thick soup.

As the altitude drops the humidity does too, but not by much, I take the exit for Highway 18, the cutoff between I-90 and I-5. I had considered taking a ferry home, but when I thought about the schedule, it would have taken more time than it was worth, so I stuck to riding around.

Highway 18 took me straight into Auburn where I met a bit of a traffic backup. Being on the west side of the mountains, I was in partial sunlight again, and even though it wasn't hotter, the humidity was making me sweat a little in the slow traffic.

A car of teenagers was driving next to me as I idled along in first gear, I didn't notice them right away but they were trying to say something. Just before they pulled away I figured out that they were complimenting my motorcycle, to which I got in a thumbs up just before they were gone in the sea of traffic.

Once I got to I-5 traffic was dense but flowing smoothly, I was glad to get up to speed enough to dry out and cool down just a little. Driving through Fife was much too dense to feel comfortable, but luckily I didn't have any close calls that I can remember. I don't really recall much from the remainder of the ride other than an extreme eagerness to get home. The closer I got the longer it seemed to take each mile to pass on the roads which I knew so well.

It was a stark contrast when I pulled into the driveway and opened the garage, when it felt as though I had never left, aside from the nagging pains and overwhelming exhaustion. I took the bags off of my bike and dropped them inside to unpack on another day, I took out a couple of things that I needed and the two or three remaining food items which I didn't want the dogs to get into, changed my clothes, grabbed a beer and sat down on the couch to relax. I know that Brandy and I talked a lot about what had been happening to us both, but I don't remember the conversation at all.

I wish I could say that the journey was over, but as with most hardcore road trips, I had dreams about it for at least two weeks. One night in particular I had a dream that I was in Montana and I was feeling tired, my eyes drooped and I struggled to open them to find that my lights had gone entirely out, I couldn't see or touch my handlebars or gauges at all. The only thing I could make out was a large pillar from a bridge to my right and a large red LED billboard to my left. My eyes were burning and out of focus, but when they finally came through I realized that the billboard was showing the time in big red numbers, it said 11:41 clearly. Why, I thought to myself, would they need a huge clock billboard here in Montana by this large bridge. I strained to see if there was more around me, but aside from the bridge pillar and the billboard I could only see black. As my eyes cleared up a little more I found out that the billboard was just my clock and the pillar was just the light from the hallway shining through my bedroom door.

I had several more dreams like this, none of which I remember, aside from the feeling of being alone and worried. Even though most of the trip felt as though I were only lightly paying attention to the road, my brain was collecting all sorts of undefined information which it needed a lot of time and rest to sort through. Most people I know who have been on long road trips have confirmed that this type of dreaming is not limited to a me alone. What I find most interesting is that on all the trips I've taken, I never seem to dream about them at any point during the trip. Even when Brandy and I went to Nebraska and stayed there for a full week, at no point during the nearly two weeks of travel and visitation do I recall any serious dreams about the travel until I was back in my own home. It is as if your brain takes on a different type of purpose when you are traveling, something which it doesn't fully reconcile until it can move back into it's familiar and stable routine, when it then must go through a nightly task of sorting and filing.

I'm not sure if it was the UV exposure or the large release of stress, but the eczema which had been plaguing my fingers and hands for two years slowly healed up and has not come back with more than a mild spot since. I can't say that this trip made an impression on me in any specific way, but I can say that the adventure itself definitely had a huge effect in general. It hasn't changed my life or altered history, but I can't imagine what things would be like without it.

Looking back on it now and seeing people's reactions when I tell them about some of my favorite details like making 1,000 miles in the first 24 hours or napping in an open field beside the interstate in Wyoming, I got out of this exactly what I wanted, which was a story and another successful test of my limits. I find that the limits of human ability are almost bottomless, each time I find a new way to test myself, I find that I have plenty more to give. I can understand exactly how thrill seekers can quickly become crazed and take needless risk.

I'm not there yet, but my boring office-life is considerably more comfortable, but less fulfilling than my adventure. I don't know if I'll ever do another IBA certified ride, but I think I have many years to go before my days of long trips are over. I hope that I can share my future trips with someone more intimately, that is, sharing it with someone instead of only writing about it for all of you.

Patriotic Ice Cream with the Presidents, Adventures with Animals and a Place to Drink Freely; Part 2

2009-08-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

The first thing I did after putting away my gear was to lock up my pistol according to the wishes of Jon and Sheena which we had discussed prior to my trip. The last thing this world needs is anyone else feeling anymore uncomfortable about firearms in any way, so I'm happy to oblige anyone who has a specific request regarding their personal space. Some people ask that I don't have firearms in their house, or in Mike's case, tell me never to come to their house without one. With what little we are able to control in regards to our own lives, each person has the right to dictate the rules of their personal space and how they share it. I packed my Sig Sauer away in my duffel bag and changed my clothes (which I had not done in the last 36 hours), threw on some deodorant and we set out towards downtown Rapid City for breakfast.

Downtown Rapid City is a joke more than anything, I didn't see any vomit, urine, feces or hypodermic needles anywhere on the sidewalks. There were a couple of street performers but they were clean and at least somewhat talented. All that aside, Abby was definitely on edge about the suspicious bronze statues they have of various presidents around town. When Brandy and I drove through last June, Abby started growling deeply out the window, after looking around, we figured out that the bronze figures were what bothered her. She never behaves that way when people approach the car, so I guess that she sensed the evil which flows from every politician that can attain high offices.

We went to a place called Tally's for our late breakfast, along the walk Jon loaned me his phone so that I could call Brandy and let her know I arrived, my phone was dead from all of the standby time. I was disappointed to find that the staff at Tally's did not count much of anything, in my mind everyone should dress up as The Count from Sesame Street and count things fanatically. The Count has always been my favorite character because he knows what he wants and he'll go to any length to get it. On one episode he locks himself out of his own castle just to count the knocks before someone comes to the door, that is true dedication to values.

I started off with some coffee and we all ordered crepes of a different variety, I had apple myself, and I showed Jon and Sheena how to do half and half shooters with coffee. Even though I only slept 1.5 hours out of the last 36, I felt fairly alert. I asked about the legality of 190 proof everclear in their state, which launched a discussion about what everclear was and how liquor was made. Every time I start to explain the mashing and distillation process, people seem to glaze over, but I think that I was able to effectively describe the process, more or less. I won't go into great detail here, but everclear is an alcoholic spirit which is made of pure, uncut and unaged grain alcohol. It comes in two varieties, one of which is 151 proof (75% alcohol) and the other is 190 proof (95% alcohol). It is basically the commercial version of moonshine. Several states allow the 151 version, but have outlawed the 190 proof version, but most of the states allow both. Washington does not allow either, which is strange because they do allow 151 proof rum and, most recently, absinthe. In any case, everclear is a great novelty it doesn't have any redeeming flavor qualities and it burns your throat, but it is very inexpensive and has a label on the bottle which warns you about flammability and a note which indicates that it is not intended to be consumed unless mixed.

One of the nearby street performers began playing The Rockford Files theme on his harmonica, which neither Jon or Sheena had heard of. I was disappointed because it reminded me of one of my favorite moments on the mid 90's sitcom "NewsRadio" where they call the home of Jimmy James, the radio station owner, to find that the greeting on his answering machine included the theme song to the The Rockford Files. You will have to watch both shows in order for that joke to be funny.

After breakfast we walked around downtown Rapid City for a little while. One back alley is filled entirely with graffiti based art which people continuously paint over old graffiti art with new graffiti art. There were some good pieces there, though the notion of spray paint artists has always bothered me, if they spent as much time learning a mainstream art skill, most of these people could gain a reputation as a credible artist. One person didn't even make a picture, they just painted in random quotes of bad philosophy. If I were the person who's painting had been covered with that, I would be very unhappy.

We continued to walk around downtown a little, then went back to the apartment to get the car and drive up to Mount Rushmore. Jon gave me the front seat since their Yaris is very compact, but I found the interior to be surprisingly roomy considering it's size and silly pirate name.

We stopped by a nearby liquor store, I wanted Jon to try a good Scotch and some 190 proof Everclear. The store was just an old house that was converted into a store, but the guy working there was kind enough to point out a better deal on the Everclear which saved me a few pennies. As friendly as he was, I suspect he only ran a liquor store to get a good discount for himself. It's funny what you can decide about people based on very limited experiences. I liked him to say the least.

We got out on Mt. Rushmore Road and started heading up towards the park, we had to stop for fuel along the way, and the gas station was near a tourist attraction that had a big sign labeled "Crazy Horse."

Jon and Sheena had not gone to this particular attraction, so we spent some time talking about what it might be, I surmised that it was a horse with a tragic back-story..... You see, he wasn't always crazy, he used to be a normal horse, liked running on the plains and chowing down on grass like any other horse, but then these tourist attraction people showed up, looking for a new crazy horse for their twisted show. They made him watch as they murdered his family, driving him mad, driven even further into insanity by the crowds of people who come to laugh at his misery. They probably only needed a new crazy horse because their last one commited Equinocide after years of torment. The story has all the makings of a new drama series where the horse becomes an edgy cop and takes revenge. In any case, we didn't stop to find out.

We went to Mt. Rushmore because Jon and Sheena already had an Annual pass, last year when Brandy and I were traveling through, we decided that $10 was a lot to pay for something we could see just fine from the highway. It is an interesting monument, but the pictures are truly much more impressive than the monument itself.

I don't know what more you can do at the base of four giant heads carved into the side of a small mountain, so I guess it seems fitting that they have an ice cream bar at the entrance to the visitor's center. I would have expected higher prices, but I believe waffle cones were $2.75 and soft serve cones were $2.50, it made me wonder if the cost of the cones was subsidized by the federal government as so many other things are without reason. The design of the line and payment counter made it easy for people to walk off without paying, you ordered your ice cream, then collected it and had to walk around the corner and to the far end of the counter to pay, the station there was only monitored part of the time and in the large crowd, I imagine confused tourists must walk off frequently thinking their spouse took care of payment when nobody demanded cash for the goods they received.

We left the mountain of heads to drive deeper into the national park. Along the way we passed through a series of tunnels which had been designed so that you could see Mt. Rushmore through them when you were on the opposite side. Sheena seemed to enjoy honking the horn as she passed through the tunnels too much. The road was very windy going up and down steep hillsides, at some points narrowing to single lanes due to the steepness of the hill. We had a short discussion about Franklin D. Roosevelt as we drove, but the conversation was cut short when I noticed piles of dry tree limbs stacked in very close proximity to each other. I asked if the forestry service was planning to intentionally burn the trees, Sheena replied that they were made by land beavers, I laughed a lot and the conversation degraded as we all made ridiculous suppositions about land beaver shanty towns like this one.

We continued our trip through the park's "wildlife loop" which is a lot like traveling through a compact version of Yellowstone. Sheena brought along some old hot dog buns to feed to the wild Burros which congregate near a parking lot and get very fat doing so, but before we got there we passed by some Bison on the road side.

You can see two bison in the distance to the left of the road.

These pictures aren't up to my normal standard of quality, but considering how quickly they were snapped as we drove by, with little more than a second to take the picture, they aren't too bad.

We got to the Burros and fed them the hot dog buns. There are some particularly fat ones that tend to push the others out of the way to try getting as much as they can. In one instance the car was completely surrounded and Sheena wanted me to feed my last piece of bun to a juvenile who looked skinny. I began to call it over, but one of the larger ones butted it's head in, Sheena reached over with another piece to try to distract it, but took it away when it moved over. I gave my piece to the baby, but the large adult was visibly unhappy at Sheena's trick and began to look like it was going to scream. Sheena threw the last piece of bun at it and I closed the window quickly, then we drove off. I was glad not to have a donkey screech directly in my ear.

Here is a picture of one of the smaller Burros.

We continued on the "loop" seeing more bison and at another parking area, there was another group of Burros. At the end of that parking area two ladies were petting a donkey, and they seemed to be unaware of the fact that he had a massive erection, he apparently liked them a lot.

The last thing we saw on our way out of the park was something I had not seen before in person, and I'm glad that I can cross it off my virtual list now, which is Bighorn sheep. The disappointing part is that it was summer, so they did not have big horns, but they were definitely sheep, even though they look a lot more like goats.

Here is a picture of two that were running along the road side.

We left the park and headed toward Custer, where we were going to have dinner at the home of Jon and Sheena's friend Katie.

Custer is a very small town, not entirely unlike the place I grew up, aside from the total lack of sea-water. Just past the driveway we went up there was one of those "you are speeding asshole!" signs, which did more than just tell you the speed you were going, if you were going faster than the speed limit, bright yellow strobes would flash as well.

Katie made burgers, bratwursts, potatoes and corn on the cob for everyone and she had a large Weimaraner who was very friendly and playful, I've always liked this particular dog breed, but never knew the name of the breed. I had a bratwurst and a burger, which I had to convince Katie to allow me to take prior to the point when she thought it would be cooked enough. I've always enjoyed burgers more when they were just a bit less than well done anyway. After eating I didn't realize it but Sheena pointed out that I had not been talking much, which was in stark contrast to the car-ride where I was surprisingly talkative for someone who had taken no serious sleep in the last 36 hours.

I was feeling a little tired after the meal, though I was amused at the dog which kept checking the plate which I had set on the deck, hoping to find some tiny crumbs that he had not collected in the last three or four passes. Eventually I went inside to throw the plate away, when I came back out everyone but Jon and Sheena had gotten up to do something else. I suggested that we make a game of watching the speeding sign which we could see through the trees. I'm not sure exactly how it would work out, but it would involve some system of guessing and betting.

At this point I decided to call Brandy to wish her goodnight and let her know what I had been up to so far. I walked out to the car to make the call and noticed two large deer standing in the neighbor's yard. They watched me closely while Brandy and I talked. Eventually they decided that they weren't certain about my presence, so they left, I wished Brandy goodnight and grabbed the bottles of everclear and scotch I purchased earlier to bring inside.

Jon never had everclear so I convinced him to take a sip with me before I poured us some scotch on the rocks. Jon has never appreciated hard liquor fully, but I've been working on him for several years and to his credit he is definitely trying to embrace it. I went over the proper technique for drinking scotch, explaining that I liked to add twice the amount of ice that I do scotch, instead of mixing water in directly. I find that allowing the ice to melt gives you more time to enjoy the perfect blend of scotch, and the fact that you add so much ice keeps it colder so it doesn't change as fast. Every time I try to order whiskey this way at a restaurant they just bring me a glass of whiskey with ice in it. Maybe next time I'll try ordering straight whiskey and a separate glass full of ice. I instructed Jon to breath in before the sip, take a small taste, swallow, then exhale thoroughly to completely enjoy the flavor and to keep yourself from inhaling sharp fumes and coughing. He said it wasn't too bad and eventually did finish the whole glass, over time I think he'll come around fully.

After finishing those drinks we got back into the car and drove a few blocks to the center of Custer where they were having some sort of charity street party event. It was a BYOB event, put on by the local police department, so we stopped by a gas station to buy some alcohol for the event. After looking through their selection, Jon and I chose a six pack of Natural (Natty) Ice tallboys, which ran us a total of $4.50. Beer prices in central states are excellent by the way, even if they only sell the weakest watery beer in the country. Sheena was disappointed in Jon for stooping to the level of a hobo, but after a few exaggerated "aww c'mon" type exclamations, she relented to only telling Jon that he wasn't her boyfriend anymore.

The band just did lots of covers, a few of them were OK. I specifically remember a couple of CCR songs which weren't too bad, but on the whole they were a little too loud, so we found a far corner of the roped off parking lot to make our spot. It was still hard enough to hear that a group conversation was not possible, so most of the time it was just Jon and I talking about things over our six pack of Natty. Since talking about all sorts of things is what Jon and I do best together, it was a very enjoyable chance to catch up. Jon finished his first beverage before I did, probably because a lack of sleep and addition of alcohol tends to make me talk more, but I started my third just before he started his. At that point, I think we were just buzzed enough to enjoy talking too much, so when everyone else decided it was time to go, we were only about 25% done with our third drinks. We decided that we couldn't waste it, so since Sheena was driving, we drank them in a couple of minutes and were on our way.

We stopped at Katie's house to drop her off, then took a series of freeways on what seemed like an eternal drive to Wal-Mart. At this point it was around 12:00AM and we were going to Wal-Mart because in an earlier discussion, Jon and Sheena were talking about picking up an air conditioner for their apartment. I estimated that the smallest unit available would probably cool their whole place. There was also some concern about the lack of grounded electrical outlets available. I had volunteered to help Jon ground one to make it work, and also suggested that they could use an adapter as long as they didn't leave it unattended in case static electricity were to build up and have nowhere to go, coming out of the wires as heat instead. I guess we talked about it enough that they decided to go for it. Since a visit to Wal-Mart can't get any better than one you have at 12:30AM with a buzz, I was excited about the notion.

Though the trip seemed to take an eternity, the conversation was very enjoyable. I'm fairly certain that I spoke too passionately on a few subjects that bother me greatly when I'm less tired and intoxicated, but I think that everyone was fairly pleased with the discussions. I don't remember all of the specifics, but I know we touched on subjects of materialism and wedding planning.

When we arrived at the Wal-Mart, Jon and I needed to use the restroom, so Sheena went ahead to explore the land of air conditioners. I remember making lots of jokes and laughing a lot, but I don't think any of it was probably that funny. I can't say for sure since at this point I was beginning to feel very sleepy and couldn't think much beyond that. It took us a few minutes to find Sheena, the air conditioner section was divided up strangely and I guess Sheena was standing between aisles because we walked by a couple of times before finding her. After some deliberation, they selected a unit and after picking up some flour for tomorrow's breakfast, we were on our way. I carried the air conditioner out to the car on my shoulder, I'm not sure why I didn't use a cart, but I think it was because we didn't get one to begin with and I carried it through the store as well, but I'm not completely certain in any case.

We drove back to their apartment and were greeted by their noisy and young cat Pavel. The moment I arrived that morning, he started a non-stop meowing fit. He was mostly meowing at me, but also at Jon and Sheena sometimes, he didn't seem to want anything because he had food and water and was not eager for attention. It wasn't really annoying, it was just strange. We were all very tired by now, so we agreed that the air conditioner setup could wait until the morning and we all went to bed.

I found the couch much more comfortable than the ground or concrete table that I slept on the day before (It was around 2:30am by the time we went to bed, so it was Sunday). The only problem was that my arm would hang over the edge, which eventually led to my arm falling asleep. I woke up after a couple of hours with a cold, dead appendage where my left arm used to be. I rolled over and repositioned, but it took some time for my arm to regain feeling and functionality. I prefer this type of circulation loss much more than a minor one where you get the feeling of a thousand needles poking you at once.

Up until this point I didn't feel any real stiffness from the trip, but wasn't surprised to find that after a bit of sleep I was tense and sore. I went back to sleep and woke up about 4 hours later to Pavel going ape-shit on a plastic Wal-Mart bag that he found and liberated from the contents that held it down. I didn't recognize the sound at first truthfully, I was sleeping so hard that I woke up in one of those hazes where I just stared trying to figure out what was happening. After about 20 seconds of this, he finally came running out, dragging the bag with one of his front paws. His hobbled run/hop reminded me of the way that apes run when they drag something, keeping one paw in the loop of the bag with the other three jumping and twisting high to avoid stepping on the bag.

I laughed and he ran back into Jon and Sheena's bedroom. This was followed by something along the lines of a "What the fuck Pavel?" and the noise of the bag being taken away.

It was still early, so I fell asleep again quickly, but woke up what I estimate was about two hours later because the sun was completely out and very bright. Apparently sunlight was only enough to get myself and Pavel out of bed, so I spent some time working on my return trip plan. Instead of taking I-90 all the way back, I decided to follow 90 North until it went just past Spearfish, then head up US-212, crossing through only 20 miles of Wyoming in the very North East corner. This reduced the trip by about 100 miles, and I assumed that riding a country highway for a while would be much more enjoyable than the Interstate.

After I set my checkpoints for refueling and printed out my directions, I got up to make crepes, which I had promised to show Jon and Sheena how to make after discovering yesterday that they both enjoyed crepes but had never made them. They were both sleeping, so I decided to make them anyway in the hopes that they would get up before I was done, allowing me to demonstrate.

I started by making the blackberry filling. They bought frozen blackberries at Wal-Mart the night before, which turned out (unsurprisingly) to be very bitter. I put them in a sauce pan over low heat to defrost them. Once defrosted I added sugar to extract the juices. The juice came out very easily, but it was still quite tart, so I spooned in sugar until it was more bearable. In general, I think I should have made it sweeter, but after adding as much sugar as I had, I didn't want to go overboard and make it too sweet or simply use too much sugar.

After the blackberries and juice started to boil, I turned the heat way down and added flour to thicken it. This is where I think it tipped back over the edge of slightly too bitter, but the blackberries were just too juicy to use alone without anything else such as cottage cheese or whipped cream.

The filling was done and the crepe pan was hot enough (one of the keys to making crepes effectively is very slow heat), so I started ladeling the batter onto the pan, even though Jon and Sheena were still in bed. Pavel was keeping me company, every time that I opened a cabinet, he would rush in and hide in the far back. At one point, I didn't see him get into the cabinet and shut him in it, realizing a few minutes later what had happened because he was no longer circling and meowing. The same thing happened every time I opened the refrigerator, he was always perched and ready to slip in wherever I was.

I made some coffee with which we could have some irish cream, another something that I was astonished to find neither Jon or Sheena had tried, but I was mostly making the coffee for me since I knew neither of them had any strong affinity for the brew.

After I finished making enough crepes for both of them, I walked over to their room and woke them up by announcing the fact that their food was ready. I had one of my crepes "suzette" with butter, lemon juice and a sprinkling of sugar and one with the blackberry filling.

Once breakfast was finished, I took a long overdue shower and changed into fresh underwear and a long sleeved shirt. I had been wearing shorts from the moment I arrived until now, but had to change back into my one pair of jeans that I brought. They weren't smelly, but they did have a a collection of bug guts on them. Since they would only be collecting more, I didn't think it would matter much.

When I came out, Jon and I unpacked the air conditioner and put it in the window. Due to their odd style of window, and the fact that there were two sets of windows, made it hard to position the air conditioner. They didn't have anything else to use, so we put the air conditioner on some of the styrofoam that it was packed with. I told Jon and Sheena that they could get wood cut to custom lengths at most hardware stores for free, so they could set a 2x4 in place for the cost of the 2x4 (usually $1.99).

It was summer and we were in South Dakota, so it was already at least 90 degrees outside by that time, so I spent a few minutes cooling off in front of the air conditioner before packing up my things. Since I had been in and out of my bags frequently, I started by taking everything out of my saddlebags and duffel, then putting them back in the bag which made the most sense, putting things I would use frequently at the top of my saddle bags. This wasn't hard because I didn't need access to very much while I was actively riding.

I put all the bags on the bike, unlocked my pistol, reloaded it and placed it back in the pocket of my concealment vest. Since my Northern route would be taking me up and over Wyoming, I didn't need to worry about my CPL being invalid on the ride home. I said goodbye, made a last check to verify that I got everything, started my bike and rolled it out onto the sidewalk I rode in on just one day before.

This concludes part 2 of my story, part 3 will consist of my entire journey home. It took me a long time to complete part 2 due to the lack of time I could dedicate to it on my lunch breaks. I hope to finish part 3 in a shorter time frame so that I can go on writing about whatever else I fancy when I have spare time.

Myself, My Pistol and God; A Chronicle of Pain and Beauty Through Five States: Part 1

2009-08-04T13:20:00.001-07:00

I packed all of my luggage on Thursday night so that I wouldn't be delayed on Friday morning when I got up. I packed all of my clothes as well as toiletries into my duffel bag, which I attached to the back seat with a bungee net and two bungee cords. I didn't need that many bungee devices to hold the bag down effectively, but I used the extras because you never know when you might find something more you need to pick up. In one saddlebag I stored all of the rain gear that I wouldn't be wearing when I first got out on the road, in the other I stored some bottled water, food and my electronics such as my camera and various chargers. All of the electronics were in their own freezer bag to prevent any food spillage or sudden rainstorm issues.

I set out all of my clothes and gear that I would need to save time as well. Since I knew it would be cold in the morning, I started out wearing my zip up hoody over my long sleeve button down shirt, as well as my well as my leather concealment vest underneath my rain jacket. For my legs, I just wore my rain pants over my jeans. I bought chemical handwarmers to put in my pockets, boots and gloves to keep my hands warm. Even with heavy winter gloves, holding your hand in the same position when it is cold out reduces circulation and makes it hard to keep your fingers warm.

On my head and face, I wore my balaclava and my fleece neck warmer and I kept the face shield on my open-face helmet to break the wind. I thought I would take the shield off later in the day, but the amount of large insects I ran into convinced me to keep it on for the whole trip.

Here I am on Wednesday night, sporting my concealment vest (no pistol since I just got home from work). It was hot, so I only had an undershirt on beneath it.

I love my truck.

I went to bed around 10:00pm on Thursday night, later than I expected, which is why I got up at 3:00am instead of 2:00 as I had initially planned. It can be hard to wake up on only five hours of sleep, but it's just enough rest that I don't feel tired throughout the day. After showering and dressing, I had a breakfast of eggs and toast, it took a little longer than cereal, but the added protein meant I wasn't going to feel hungry so soon. I was on my bike and on the road by 3:45AM, I stopped at my local 76 station to top off the tank and get my starting receipt for my Iron Butts Association (IBA) certification.

I took four dollars out of my wallet and put it in the front pocket of my rain jacket for easy access when I got to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. There was no traffic on the first leg of the ride, and although it was a little overcast, I didn't run into any rain. I crossed the bridge, got through Tacoma and headed North on I-5 toward the HWY 18 Junction.

The traffic on the east side was obviously a little more dense, but there weren't any slowdowns or backups, so I didn't mind. The one problem I did have was that due to the density of trucks and the fact that I was paying too much attention to my podcast, I didn't notice the HWY 18 sign until I was on top of it. This wasn't a big deal, I just took the next exit and turned around. It probably only added two minutes to my trip in total, but it's annoying when you miss small things like this.

Now cruising effectively on HWY 18, there wasn't much chance of making another error on the trip since getting onto I-90 and staying there was the only technical detail I would need to remember for the next 900 miles, that made things very easy.

One thing I made a point of remembering and noting thoroughly was the towns I would stop in along the way, before my trip I spent an hour mapping out the distance between towns to ensure that I didn't run short on fuel. I stuck to my plan precisely, so my first stop was one of my favorite towns east of the Snoqualmie Summit, Cle Elum, Washington. I stopped at a safeway gas station and filled up, then used the hand drier in their restroom to warm up the tips of my fingers. I made my IBA log entries for my bridge receipt and my gasoline and got back on the road. This would be the last stretch between gas stations in which I would not take a short break in the middle.

As I headed out on I-90 towards Ellensburg, I got to watch the sun continuously rising over the rocky desert ahead. The Columbia river crossing was beautiful, as it always is, but unfortunately there wasn't time to stop and take pictures of everything on this trip, but anyone who hasn't been through this area should take the time to go there now and appreciate the mix of high plains and rock formations.

I don't know if this is new or if I just didn't notice it when I last crossed through Eastern Washington, but they have put signs on the fences to let you know what is growing in the fields. Some of the crops such as wheat and corn were easy to recognize, but it was interesting to find out what the more difficult crops such as potatoes were.

At about 8:30, I saw a sign for a rest stop and decided it would be a good opportunity to call some people up and snack on some donuts while I took a rest. I was far enough east that it was starting to warm up a lot, so it was time to lose the rain gear and heavy gloves.

I called Brandy and left a message, she was still asleep, then called Jon and gave him my first report on where I was. At that point, I was still running well within my expected time frame, but we'll talk more about lost time on a motorcycle later.

This is the first picture of my motorcycle, all packed up. I'm about 50 Miles away from Ritzville, which is my next fuel stop.

I tried to take a picture of myself with the bike in the background, but forgot that I still had the camera zoomed a little, so got a close up of most of my face instead.

This is more like what I wanted, but you can only see the very front of the fender behind my right shoulder.

I couldn't spend the whole day getting it right, so it was time to move on.

It was a little too soon to switch from my heavy gloves to my fingerless gloves since the temperature was still wavering around 60 something, but I kept my hands warm by resting them by the engine one at a time. This is the main reason I installed a throttle lock, I never used it for extended periods throughout the trip, but the ability to rest my right arm and hand without slowing down was very important. With my hoody, vest and jeans, the temperature was very comfortable for the rest of my body.

Since the speed limit was 75, and my average speed was about 80 getting to Ritzville, my fuel mileage dropped significantly. Instead of getting my average 50 to 55 miles per gallon, it went down to about 40. Since it's only a 650, and a V-twin 650 at that, I wasn't terrible surprised. I'm sure that adding the extra weight and wind drag of my gear also contributed to this in a big way.

I pulled off on the first exit for Ritzville, which consisted of an area mixed with industry and old town buildings. There was one gas station very close to the freeway, I drove past it because there was a sign that said a McDonald's was nearby, and it was about time to eat. I spent a few minutes driving around the old town area, but saw no signs of any type of commercial buildings, so I assumed that McDonald's was actually in the newer commercial part of Ritzville, which was just a little ways up the interstate, but wasn't hungry enough to justify another stop so soon.

I went back to the gas station and filled up, then propped my kickstand on a curb so that I could hold the bike level and check the oil, which was perfect. I had a peanut butter granola bar and got back on the road.

It was probably close to 70 degrees outside at this point, very comfortable with my sweater, vest and fingerless gloves. The humid, clean mornings of farmland like this is very refreshing, aside from the times when a farmer has just fertilized his fields with a mixture of manure and water (which doesn't necessarily smell bad, but isn't quite the same). I could tell I was getting close to Spokane because of the large forests of pine that started to crop up and eventually became very dense around me, comparatively speaking anyway. Spokane was crowded since it was now just about 10:00am. I hit a few patches of stopped and crawling traffic, but we were able to resume normal speeds without too much delay.

Spokane has always been interesting to me, it's a well balanced mix of industry and commerce. In that respect, and in reference to it's mix of old and new buildings, it's a lot more like a mid-west city than a western city, even though it's only a few hours from Seattle and it's subsidiaries, which are all extremely commercialized, coastal type cities. The difference between the two halves of Washington state makes it clear why some people want to divide into two states. In my opinion, the diversity is a big benefit to both sides, but in recent times I've heard more rumblings from people in Western Washington who think that the Eastern side of the state is dragging them down. Such a statement couldn't be further from the truth. All of the money we make by selling excess power alone is enough to negate that argument, but in addition the majority of our state's agriculture resides on the east side. It's disappointing that anyone woudl take our cheap power and food for granted in such an extreme way. The only benefit the West side offers the East is the large ports which they use to distribute their goods.

A few miles past Spokane, I stopped in Liberty Lake, Wa to eat and take a break at a McDonald's. I purchased a cheeseburger, fries and a small drink. When people go to a restaurant that offers free refills, then buy a large drink, it bothers me very deeply. Of course, this only applies to people who eat in, not drive through, but the point remains. I used my free refill to fill my empty water bottles some unsweetened iced tea mixed with a splash of lemonade. When you are on a trip, it's nice to be able to change the liquid you are drinking without consuming too much sugar or caffiene, both of which will spike, then crash your energy levels. This is the same reason I eat small meals on the road. I find that you are usually inclined to eat large amounts, but doing so will bring on unbelievable energy crashes. Usually a few minutes after a small meal, I no longer feel hungry, but still feel like eating. I've seen other people behave this way on road trips, I assume it's just a normal response to the monotony of hour after hour of driving. Even if you have great conversation, music and a fun road, your body wants to get out and do something.

I re-packed my bags, got out my iPod charger and plugged it into the newly installed cigarette lighter. It worked perfectly, and the cable wasn't in the way, although I did have to wait to plug it in until after I was already on the motorcycle, which made for a bit of a juggling act. I got back on the interstate and crossed the Spokane River, moving into Idaho. I'm now down to just my long sleeve button up shirt, vest, still wearing my fingerless gloves. I didn't stop in Coeur d'Alene, though it's a very pretty place, my next planned stop was Kellogg, ID. Coeur d'Alene was right in the middle of my two stopping points, and as an added downside, I know from experience that most of the gas stations aren't right on the interstate, so I intentionally worked around it for brevity. Even though I'm in the mountain passes right now, the temperature is starting to get very warm. With all the wind on the interstate, my clock/thermometer read a steady 84 degrees.

I made it to Kellogg without any other breaks, by the time I stopped at a gas station, it was pretty close to 100 degrees. My iPod was charged so I packed up the power cable and took off my black long-sleeve shirt so that I was down to just gloves and my vest. I put on some preemptive sunblock, I've previously mentioned that I don't burn easily, but when you are out in the sun all day like this, especially in the open air, it's much easier to burn and I didn't want to take any risks. A mild burn on a trip like this could become a huge drag.

This point in the trip is where the pain of riding for hours on end really began to set in. It doesn't stay in your ass, your legs get tense and your lower back begins to hurt. I found that the faster my average speed was, the sooner I would wear down and need to take a break. After I crossed the border into Montana, I took a break at a rest stop where there was a small river, about ten miles past the state border. I walked around a little to get some blood flowing back into my legs and butt. For the most part, however, the pains of riding stopped almost immediately after I stood up and started walking.

This is a picture of the river running next to the rest stop.

Here is my motorcycle shining in the midday sun.

I did some leg stretches and put my long sleeve shirt back on. The temperature was a little lower and as previously stated, I didn't want to risk getting any burns. I went around to the backside of a picnic table divider so that I could take my vest off and put it back on over my shirt without inadvertently showing anyone my Sig Sauer pistol. Even though Montana is an open carry state, it's best to avoid any unnecessary risks or time delays due to jumpy travelers who think anyone with a firearm is obviously breaking the law.

I had some beef jerky and got back on the road. The western portion of I-90 in Montana has been under construction for some time. I didn't' see any road crews, so I don't actually know what they are doing there, but there were many points where the interstate was reduced to two lanes and the speed limit was lowered to 55mph. I could see by the dust and debris accumulating on the closed lanes that it had been a long time since any traffic or road crews had passed by. Since I never saw any road crews working, I entertained myself with the notion of riding down the closed sections to see if I could figure out why they were closed. Of course, my limited time kept me from becoming involved in any side adventures of the sort.

Since there wasn't much traffic, there was no real delay, and it gave me a chance to see riders going the opposite direction up close for a while.

I got into Missoula at about 3:30 and stopped for gas at the first station I saw. My mileage had improved a bit due to the long stretches where the speed limit was lowered. I sat at a small table inside the gas station and drank a gatorade while I called Jon and then Brandy to let them know where I was. Jon was at work so I had to leave a voicemail. I informed Brandy that by this point I had figured out that I would need to come back on Sunday morning instead of Monday morning due to the added travel time. After this many hours, it's natural to feel a bit of remorse for taking such a long hard trip, but after traveling so far, going back is entirely out of the question no matter how you feel.

I hadn't hit any sort of wall, but I definitely had a few moments where I asked myself what I was doing, one of those moments where you look at the big picture and consider how completely insane and awkward the world is. This, however, is the reason you take these trips, this becomes your resolve to continue and succeed.

It is probably close to 100 degrees again, but it is a shady afternoon, so the sun does not feel so scorching hot. While I was inside, I left my motorcycle in the shade of the building to cool off for a bit since I was doing the same.

Here I am, just before getting back on and putting myself through another hour of torture.

My bandanna was affixed to my head almost permanently since my hair was not very manageable since it had been under a helmet for so long. Since Montana has no helmet laws, I saw many riders enjoying the wind, helmet free. Joining in was very tempting, but I had no easy location for stowing my helmet and the breeze would have tangled my hair terribly. I didn't bring a brush and was not prepared to spend the time trying to pull the tangles out with a comb.

As I pushed on towards Butte I could see a thunderstorm looming ahead. It was still bright where I was, but the dark overhead clouds and the blurry white smudges below them meant there was some serious rain coming on. You can tell that it's raining ahead when you can't see the horizon. I was pretty sore, so I stopped at a rest stop to rest for a little bit and to see if the storm was moving. I marked the location of the storm over the surrounding hills and laid down on a bench to rest my back. I listened to a podcast for about 15 minutes and got back up. The storm wasn't moving at all. There was no wind in any direction, so even though it was small, it was hovering due east and I wasn't going to be able to avoid it.

Here is a picture of one of the hills near the rest areas I stopped at.

You can see that a forest fire scorched a majority of the pine trees on the hillside, this was a common theme through all of Montana, I assume a lot of it comes from the large wildfire they had four or five years ago, but small fires are commonplace every summer. I love Montana's smooth rolling hills plentiful timbers and flowing rivers. It all comes together nicely. There aren't many places where you can see dense forest and sage brush on the same hillside.

As a side note, the sage brush smelled great through the whole trip, it was all in full bloom and I was able to smell it almost all day and night.

I was still about 30 or 40 miles away from the storm, so I decided to continue riding without rain gear until I got closer. Rain gear isn't something I want to wear because it's still well over 80 degrees outside. As I continued on the road, even though I wasn't yet under the clouds, I occasionally felt droplets on my fingertips. I stopped at the next rest stop, which was oddly close to the last rest stop (only about 39 miles) and got my gear ready.

I brought some trash bags for my duffel bag, but the saddlebags came with their own rain covers which just slip on. I got my rain gear ready, but decided to continue riding until I got closer to the storm before putting it on. Even this close to the cold front, it was warm and increasingly humid.

Here is a picture of the storm looming ahead. The camera didn't really capture the intensity of the dark clouds, but you get the message.

I tried to demonstrate this a little more effectively by showing the sun on the concrete and the motorcycle with the clouds ahead, but it still wasn't quite as powerful as it was in person.

Here is a picture of my low-tech rain cover over my duffel bag. You can see how bright the sun still shines in the background.

I pushed onward into the storm, the droplets on my fingers became more and more frequent, until it a point where it was almost rain. I took the next off-ramp, put on my rain gear. For some reason my iPod had locked up. I couldn't get it to reset or respond in any way, but the battery was very low, so I stashed it in my saddlebag and listened to the splashes of water instead. The rain became very intense and there was a good deal of lightning around. Under an overpass, a fellow rider was taking shelter from the storm and talking on his phone. I might have tried the same thing, but this storm was not going anywhere. One of the nicest things about Washington storms is their constant state of change. In the mid-west, however, storms tend to pummel one reason and hang out until they've got nothing left to throw at you. The intensity is powerful, but it didn't last long. The storm ended well before I got to Butte and the sun came out again, it gave my rain gear a chance to dry off before being stowed again.

I stopped at a combination gas station/Mcdonalds since it was close to 5:00 and definitely time for another meal. I didn't really stop for any type of lunch since I had jerky, granola bars and an apple to hold me over. I stripped off all of my rain gear, including the covers for my duffel and saddle bags and stowed them away. No sign of rain ahead now, so I might as well air out in the cool breeze. I fueled up the motorcycle and parked in a space in front of the McDonald's entrance. I had a quarter pounder meal, which has not only become disappointingly small and expensive, but the quality of meat at McDonald's seems to be getting poorer and poorer all the time.

I received a message from Jon saying that he got my last message, but that he was going to be at work and to keep calling him to give him updates, he'd be home later. I called Brandy and felt a little morose again. I've been riding for 13 hours, but it felt more like 13 days, I barely felt human anymore. After finishing my meal I felt a lot better, though I was disappointed that Mcdonalds only had sweetened tea and no lemonade. Their tea is too weak to be sweetened.

When I got back on the road, the lowering sun lit up the eastern hills I was riding through and made them all glow. I couldn't see much in my rear view mirrors, so I had to look way over my shoulder when checking my blind spot to make sure I was clear. I rode up the familiar hillsides, making a note of the curve which Brandy and I had passed over a year before, and slid the car on the blood of a freshly stricken deer in an attempt to avoid it. Riding or driving in Montana isn't too bad aside from the pass just east of Butte. The steep, blind corners make it very dangerous, so I was glad to be crossing it before nightfall. I knew that the rest of the trip would be relatively flat and straight with wide curves.

At the top of the pass I stopped at a truck parking turnout to put my hoody on. The sun was still up, but the shade was getting cooler. The sweatshirt had been warmed by the sun and felt very cozy warm. Going down the other side I took it easy. The truck speed limit was 25mph to prevent break failure from overheating. All other vehicles were allowed to go 60mph, but since there was no one around, I played it safe at about 50mph. Once to the bottom the roads straightened out and the hills rounded down to tiny nubs. I've finally mastered the art of traveling at lower speeds so that I didn't have to stop as frequently.

I probably rode for a full hour when I heard a type of flapping sound, as if one of the buckles on my saddlebags was undone. I reached down and felt that they were firmly clasped, so I was unsure what to make of it. Since the sun was setting I stopped at the next exit with a gas station since the light was soon going to fade away and make it impossible to pinpoint the problem.

Not that it made any difference, I checked everything on the motorcycle and couldn't find any thing that could be making that sound, so I am guessing it must have been my hood strings or something else. It was getting a little cooler, but was obviously going to be a warm summer night, so I put on my rain jacket to break the wind, but didn't wear my rain pants.

Before I left the gas station I had to take a few snapshots to record as the last pictures of my first day's journey.

Here are a couple of shots of my motorcycle in the setting sun.

The last rays of sun shining on the clouds overhead was beautiful.

Across the parking lot I noticed an interesting fellow who I would have liked speaking with, but judging by what I saw, I probably wouldn't be able to end that conversation in any time shorter than an hour. He had an old pickup with a homemade camper strapped on the back, which was nothing out of the usual, but towing behind that pickup, he had a flatbed trailer, on that, he had a trailered sailboat and an antique car of some sorts. By the looks of it, maybe a VW Carmengia.

My thoughts began to race at the sight of this. Where is this guy going and what is he doing with a camper, sailboat and an antique convertible? He has Washington plates, so I hope to see him again one day when I have time to dedicate to a long conversation with him.

I didn't notice it until I got home and reviewed the pictures further, but the strange wooden frame on top of his trailer is very odd too. I'm still having trouble imagining what that may have been needed for. The bent rear bumper and the angle of the trailer tongue tells me that he's overloaded the tongue of the trailer and the towing capacity of his truck, I didn't expect to see him again down the road, but was quite surprised when he passed me by at about 1:00AM. I thought to myself that he must have been going well over 100mph to catch up that much later, his fuel costs must be astronomical.

Time melts away at night, there is no scenery to pass through, just endless reflectors on highway markers until you spot the next town, a distant glow on the horizon. At first I had the company of lots of cars and trucks, but after about 10:00pm, I was basically alone on the road. Every 30 minutes or so someone would speed by, then I'd be alone again.

Half way to Livingston, I pulled into a rest stop to put on my rain pants to break the wind and keep me a bit warmer. This particular rest stop had forced heat hand dryers, so I was able to warm up a little before getting back on the road. The only problem with that was they also left a weather radio on just loud enough to sound like a radio was playing in another room of a large house. It was positioned over the doorway, very close to the hand dryer. It took me a few minutes to figure out what it was or where it was coming from, but after listening closely I made out most of a weather report which indicated that there were no warnings. I put on my fleece neck-warmer, and checked to see if my iPod had run out of batteries and restarted yet. It had, so I plugged it into the charger and was glad to be accompanied again by podcasts.

There isn't much to observe from the road now. My headlights will occasionally illuminate a bit of bare hillside or a few trees. Sometimes far off light would reflect on water showing me a distant lake. I would have loved some moonlight that night, it wasn't cloudy, but it was humid enough that the stars weren't showing up, and even though I could see my road well, sight distance seemed limited since nothing but darkness surrounded me on all sides.

Fortunately it wasn't too cold out, probably right around 60 degrees. The temperature is much lower on a motorcycle due to the windchill, so without cold weather gear, I wouldn't have been very comfortable if it were much colder.

I get to Livingston at about 10:00pm, I stop at a Conoco and fuel up, use the facilities and get going. I took a large Ibuprofen a couple of hours before and the soreness has faded. I've also been riding at slightly lower speeds with less traffic, which is helping a lot.

As I got closer to Billings, I could see the white strobes on a tower of some sort off in the distance. I remember seeing this on a church trip through Montana several years ago. I remember wondering at that time what the strobes were attached to and why plain red lights weren't sufficient. I still haven't figured it out and probably never will. The interesting thing about the strobes is that they flash at an uneven rate, there is no apparent pattern to their flashes, one flashes and then two will simultaneously flash. Then the middle strobe will flash, then the top, then the bottom. It doesn't seem like they are even on individual timers, it is very odd and when you can see it for many miles, it gives you plenty of time to think about it.

Just before midnight I pulled into a Chevron in Billings. I called Jon to check in, I wasn't going to keep calling Brandy at night since she was probably resting. Jon indicated that he was going to go to bed soon, but that I could keep calling with updates. We spoke for a few minutes about how much overnight road trips could drag on and how odd it was that I felt fairly energetic even though I had been on the road for 18 hours. He recommended using a five hour energy if I felt a little tired, I was already drinking some coffee at the time, warming my fingertips. After the call, I decided to try out the five hour energy, the cashier offered me some ultra extreme version, but I felt that a standard would be more than enough. They also had an alternative flavor, but I stuck with the standard.

Back on the road, the five hour energy slowly started to kick in. It was about what I expected, not a big buzz, but a bit of a manic awake feeling. It felt a bit like chewing nicotine gum, but much weaker overall and less like I was floating.

The Interstate turned south towards Wyoming and the temperature begins to drop a little more. At some previous point I had opened up a couple more chemical hand warmers for my pockets and gloves. They work very well and for the $7 I paid for 24 of them, I can't complain at all. They lasted hours and produced good heat.

At about 1:45 in the morning I began to feel tired, so I decided that I would stop at the next rest stop and take a nap. After this many hours on the road, I was naturally feeling a little lazy and paranoid. Luckily one of the biggest benefits to riding a motorcycle is that you can ride right onto the sidewalk at most rest stops. In this case, the rest stop had nice sidewalk leading right up to a covered picnic table. I parked the bike as close to the end of the table as I could, making sure that I left room to back up and turn around when it was time to leave.

Since I was getting close to the border of Wyoming, and for some reason Wyoming doesn't have CPL reciprocation with Washington State, I unloaded my pistol and stashed it in my duffel bag. I kept the magazines loaded and in my concealment vest, since most states require you to keep the firearm and ammunition separate and since a magazine would be the safest place to store the bullets. Furthermore, there is no law that prevents you from carrying ammunition, as long as you don't have a means to fire it. Although open carrying is permitted and I did bring my hip holster, I had no way to wear my hip holster outside of my rain pants, since the rain pants had no belt loops.

I set my alarm to go off in 25 minutes and, using my duffel bag as a pillow, took a rest on the picnic table. I couldn't help but think paranoid thoughts, There were very few people around and I thought about what I could do if someone stabbed me from behind. My pistol was now separate from the ammunition, but it would be just as hard to access if I had it in my vest, which was wrapped up under my rain gear, on top of that, if it were in my vest, it would not be comfortable to lay on my side. I had the presence of mind to brush it all off as tired paranoia, and managed to snooze for a few minutes.

Four minutes before my alarm I woke up and checked my clock. This is one of the parts of napping that I dislike the most, I never fully go to sleep and if I become consciously aware of the fact that I am sleeping, I wake myself up, worried that I might have overslept. I got back on the road at about 3:45 (Mountain Time) meaning I had just over an hour to make it to Sheridan and therefore pass the 1,000 mile mark, completing the timed portion of my journey.

Getting further south and further from the mountains, the temperature was changing from very cold to very warm frequently. It was more frequently cold, but occasionally I would reach the top of a low sloping hill and would feel a burst of warm air, which would usually fade after the top of the next hill. It's funny how much more you are impacted by conditions. In a car it doesn't matter if it is rainy, cold or warm, you are safe and comfortable inside. On a motorcycle, you have to constantly adjust your gear based on the changing conditions. As noted in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" though, traveling on a motorcycle really makes you a part of the scenery instead of just another spectator. Not only in the changing conditions, but in the overall experience of your journey. If I were in a car I never would have smelled the Pine forests, fields of sage and Cattle or the fresh clean scent of summer rain. When you are constantly looking through a window, it's more like moving through a painting than experiencing your travels. Riding by the base of cliff gives you a true feeling of awe.

After about 30 minutes of riding, I can see light cresting the southeast sky. I can see shadows of hills and mountains around me, and flat open spaces that represent lakes, but nothing well defined. The road is showing up more effectively which allows me to ride a little faster now, watching for shapes on the horizon. I'm not shivering from the cold, but I feel a little stiff and the idea of the warm day ahead makes me wish the sun would come up just a little faster.

The hills around me are illuminated by a pale blue, to my right are the impressive and steep Big Horn Mountains. I remember crossing them on Highway 14 last June, the switch back climbs what is nearly sheer cliff face, then levels out at about 4,000 feet and after a few miles, drops back down fairly steep cliff face on the other side. It's a beautiful drive and I'm glad that we took that route to Yellowstone instead of the easier Highway 16.

I pull into a gas station in Sheridan at about 4:45, just in time. I pay for my gas, get a receipt and ask the cashier if he would be willing to sign a witness form for my IBA certification. He barely speaks English and doesn't seem to understand, so he declines. I walk outside and ask a man with a horse trailer if he would be willing to fill out the witness form for me, with no questions asked he gladly accepts. My total trip to this point works out to about 1100 miles on my odometer.

Moving my motorcycle into a parking space, I call Brandy and let her know that I was in Sheridan, she was still asleep, so I let her go back to bed. I call Jon and let him know where I am and tell him about my experience with the somewhat rude cashier, walking around to warm up while we talk.

I cross the parking lot to a McDonald's and get myself a hot breakfast sandwich, which I eat while I walk around to continue making blood flow. My back feels a lot better when I walk around and stretch out, so I pace the sidewalk in front of the convenient store a couple of times. A drifter sitting near the truck stop next door asks me if I'm heading to Billings, I let him know that I just came from Billings a couple hours ago and that I just completed a 1000 mile ride in 24 hours from Bremerton, Washington. He said that he had some family in Bremerton and knew the area, we wished each other well and I get back on to ride to a rest stop a few miles up the interstate.

At the rest stop I took a picture of the sunrise, riding into the rising sun hurts the eyes, but it's very pretty.

Here is my motorcycle with the sun rising behind it (which is fairly faded out).

The sun coming up raises the temperature significantly, I take off my fleece neck warmer and balaclava, but I keep my rain gear on for now, the wind is still brisk.

I put on some music and got back on the interstate again, after about 30 miles I start to feel fairly tired. It's that swimmy head feeling where you feel a tad unbalanced and your eyelids are heavy, I know I'll have to stop.

On the side of the interstate a freshly mowed field on a sloping hill draws my attention, I've got the road to myself so I pull off into the field and park. I use my duffel bag as a pillow once again and take an hour nap in the shade of my motorcycle. No need to set any alarms since I've now completed the time sensitive portion of my journey. Occasionally a loud vehicle drives by and wakes me up a little, but overall I got a good hour of sleep in. The setting was very relaxing because I was across the interstate from a pretty lake.

Here is my motorcycle parked in the field. I'm only about 10 feet off of the interstate.

I take off my rain gear and switch to my fingerless gloves again, taking my time packing up, I feel very refreshed. I took a drink of some iced tea mixed with lemonade which was leftover from yesterday. It's already around 60 degrees now, but I keep my sweater on under my vest, I know it will be colder once I get going.

Listening to music again, the highway is empty. I love the red asphalt in Wyoming, though the poor quality patchwork creates some painful jolts at 80mph. I ride for another hour before reaching the next rest stop. I wanted to make a fast stop, so I leave my helmet on (and therefore my headphones in). I stop at the drinking fountain and start to fill up an empty bottle with water. A custodian is sweeping the floor and says something to me, but I can't hear him. I pull the headphone cord until they pop out and he repeats himself. "Have you tasted the water yet? You might want to taste it before you fill up on it."

I indicate that I haven't, but that all the rest stop water has been good enough so far. We talked for a few minutes about where I was coming from and going to, he warns me not to run out of gas out here and I assure him that I've planned out my stops carefully so that I won't run out. The conversation is beginning to end and I fill up the water bottle, he again asserts that I should taste it, I do and it's a terrible soapy flavor, he laughs and says that they have a shallow water table and lots of strip mines in the area. I fill it up anyway in case I need it, but don't intend to drink it unless I have no other choice.

At about 8:00 I pull into Moorcroft, WY for gasoline, I buy a 1 liter bottle of water and laugh to myself thinking about Super Troopers while I do so. It has a wide mouth, so it will be easy to refill. I end up keeping this for the rest of my trip. Having a good supply of water now, I dump out the soapy rest stop water and call Jon, immediately greeted by a "Where are you?"

I explain that I stopped for a nap on the side of the interstate and tell him that I'm probably about two hours away now. I suggest that we go to breakfast when I get there, if they can wait another two hours and they agree. Since I haven't been to their new home, I get the GPS out, mount it to the glass of my speedometer and program the destination. It's very warm now, I take off my sweater and pack it away then get back on the road. I have to look around my GPS to see my speedometer, but the mileage reading on the GPS and watching the estimated arrival time wind down was nice. I hit the highway and maintain an 85 - 90mph speed for most of the remaining trip. It makes me sore, but I'm eager to be done with this ride. It became very painful, but I pushed through to Rapid City without any other stops.

As I got closer to Rapid City there were a lot more insects since the forests had become fairly dense. Occasionally I get a feeling like a droplet of water on my fingertips, but it was only a very moist bug. All the bugs make me think back to an earlier point in the trip (I don't remember when) that I stopped in a rest stop and was surprised to find a bee hiding inside the end of my fingerless gloves. I managed to shake it out without being stung, but the paranoia makes me check my gloves every few minutes as I ride. One particularly large insect hit the corner of my mirror and then hit my fingertips, it was astonishingly wet.

I was glad to see that they were still working on the same improvements to I-90 that they were working on the last time I was there. The speed limit dropped to 45mph for a few miles, but went back up to 65mph as I got closer.

The last few miles to the exit seemed to take forever, after all of these miles, I was very ready to take a break from the road. I took the I-190 exit to head right for the center of Rapid City, I-190 is a bit of a joke, it heads North/South instead of East/West like it should, and it is only about 1 mile long. It looks like Rapid City simply did what many other cities do in designating a small stretch of freeway as an interstate so that the federal government will build and maintain it, much like Tacoma's I-705 or Portland's branch of I-405. After getting off the Interstate, it was just a few blocks to Jon and Sheena's apartment. Google Street View had pictures of Columbus Street, so I was already familiar with the corner where I needed to ride up onto the crosswalk about a third of a block into the front yard of Jon and Sheena's place.

Jon and I had previously discussed this, so I knew I could stash my motorcycle behind the hedge out front. I took my bags inside for safety, but motorcycles are easy to steal, so I was glad to have a secluded hideaway for it. Not to mention it was shady, so the seat wouldn't take a beating from full sunlight all day long. Having saddlebags that can be zipped off was never more convenient than this time. I was able to carry everything up in one trip, they had a convenient closet in the living room where I was able to keep all of my stuff out of the way.

I had arrived.

There is plenty more to say, but for the sake of keeping this digestible, I'm dividing it into three portions, next will be my short stay in South Dakota, and after that I will write about the journey home.

The Size and Shape of Corn

2009-07-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

Corn is a truly amazing annual plant. It grows at a rate which exceeds almost anything else you find in a garden, and one stock produces as much consumable corn in one season as a six or seven year old apple tree would produce.

In about a month and a half, my corn has grown from just over 12 inch stocks, to over 6 foot stocks on average. Almost every stock has tassels now and they are beginning to sprout the small buds which will become ears of corn.

Here is a picture of Coughlin and I standing in the middle of my corn rows, at the very back.

My current profile picture on facebook shows us standing further forward, which makes us show up better, but doesn't as accurately demonstrate the height and density of my corn.

Here is a picture of one of the stocks with tassels coming out.

Coughlin loves to grab plants and leaves and move them (sometimes trying to eat them as well), he's been especially fascinated with the corn stocks.

As far as my trip is concerned, it will be less than 40 hours until I depart for South Dakota. All my gear is together, I just have to pack up on Thursday afternoon and lay my clothes out for the next morning.

I'm glad that I've been riding to the Bainbridge Island ferry this week to work a different shift, it's given me a chance to wear in my tires. The newer rubber is a little more slick, but I truly put them to the test yesterday while making my way off the island. Just after the day road stoplight someone in a large pickup who was turning left (into my lane) from an intersection, crawled out into the opposite lane as I approached. I looked to him to make sure he wasn't going to run me over and as I turned back ahead I saw that a box truck which was also turning left into my lane, had pulled into the middle of the road (not a turn lane) to attempt to find a spot to merge with the traffic, the large pickup was apparently planning to muscle their own way into traffic around the box truck. If this weren't enough, as I looked up the road, I found that an idiot in a Kia Sorrento two cars in front of me had stopped abruptly to let the Box truck into traffic.

The small pickup between myself and the Sorrento therefore had to stop abruptly and I locked up both wheels for a moment trying to stop. I eased of the brake and rolled forward at a now slow pace, and we all began moving again.

I'll be very happy whenI'm out on the open freeway, far away from assholes who cannot drive. Of course I'll see some traffic around the urban areas I pass through, but on this route, those will be few and far between.

In any case, I feel well prepared for my trip.

V-Star Accessories

2009-07-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

I think I'm well prepared for my trip now. After getting new tires put on, I finished installing two key accessories, the "cruise control" throttle lock and the cigarette lighter.

I installed the throttle lock a couple weeks ago and have been testing it out a bit on my rides to work this week. It works great, it's just tight enough to hold the throttle over bumps and dips, but loose enough that if I grab the throttle, I can adjust it up or down with relative ease.

It tends go get in the way when I'm moving my thumb between the kill switch and starter button, but overall it's fairly out of the way and simple.

I installed the cigarette lighter on the handlebars, between the bar clamps, which is what it was designed for, though it could mount anywhere that there was a bolt and extra space.

The added width has made the bar clamp a little crooked, but once it was tightened in place, it came into full contact with the bar, so it should be fine.

I installed it by tapping into the light power line, which was located at the ignition, only a few inches away. I put in a 10amp fuse (which is what the book called for) with a simple fuse-holder I got from wal-mart.

I made the tap into the line with a T-Tap connector like these:
http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture13/uta/19-quick_spice_b-l.jpg

The benefit to this kind is that the connection is made with a quick-disconnect terminal, so if I want to take the cigarette lighter out when I am not using it, or if there are any unexpected electrical problems I can just disconnect and be on my way.

Here is a close up of the lighter.

And here is a slightly fuzzy picture showing the whole dash now.

Of course, the cigarette lighter won't be convenient for lighting my pipe, so the main goal with this was to provide power for my ipod, GPS and cell phone when it is needed.

It is just over two days now until I depart on my long journey. I'm a little worried about forgetting to get receipts for my IBA certificate. I hope Jon and Sheena will remind me when I arrive, if I haven't already picked up my end receipt.

Free Retaining Walls and Plants on Clearance

2009-07-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

We were at Wal-Mart on Sunday and I checked out the garden area to see if there were any vegetable plants on clearance. It's late in the season to be starting anything, but they had a surprising amount of plants available, many of which should be capable of maturing in time.

To be specific I purchased two pumpkin plants and two cucumbers, since the rows I tried to grow my pumpkin and cucumber seeds in this year were too cold and dark. I also bought a pack of six heads of red lettuce and two red bell peppers which both have a very short 30 day average maturity.

I immediately planted the cucumbers in the end of my row of beans since there was a two foot, space where the beans didn't manage to sprout up. This was also the easiest place to plant them, since I already made a small fence-trellis for the beans to grow on. The rest of the plants would not be so easy.

I knew that the two rows I had already tilled in the spring, but couldn't get any growth in, were not going to work, especially since there isn't much time left before fall (I'll need all the sun I can get). Expanding isn't terribly difficult since I have a tiller now, it would just be a matter of tilling in another section, that is, if it weren't for the invisible fence wire that was buried close to the garden.

It has been about a year and a half since we finished burying the invisible fence wire to keep Abby from going on adventures outside the yard, so the exact location was overgrown and very hard to see but I knew a few locations where the line would be and used those points as a starting reference. I used a small spade, and dug to expose the wire at about three foot intervals. It was only one or two inches under ground in most places, and the soil was dry, so it was fairly easy to locate at first. After making five or six marks, I was directly in front of the garden, where I needed to Till, and decided that I would have to move the line (at least eventually). I pulled up on the line gently in one of the exposed locations to see if it would budge at all to decide how difficult extraction would be and it snapped. This was no big surprise, since it was 18 gauge wire with a very thin rubber coating, but it meant that I had no choice but to lay all new wire in a new path now.

A few weekends ago, I found someone who was giving away telephone poles on Craigslist. They were in Belfair, and buy the time they got back to me and we could meet up on a weekend, they only had a few good poles left. I brought my saw and cut up 5 six foot lengths of pole. My intention all along was to make a small retaining wall about ten feet from the garden, so that I could expand my garden next year, and make my upper lawn healthier in the process. Of course, to keep Abby from digging in the fresh dirt of the garden, I was going to have to move the invisible fence wire anyway, I just didn't think I would have to do it so soon.

I got out a large digging spade and made a trench exactly where I wanted the lenghts of pole to be, then I tapped into the wire for the invisible fence on either side, at it's previous locations, spliced the wires and with a light covering of dirt, I rolled the pole sections into the trench. This made covering the wire very easy, and if I need to access it in the future, it should be much easier to locate as well.

You can't see it in the picture, but on the ends of the wall, I've left enough room for me to create a slope and fit the riding mower through. Before the end of the summer, I would like to till up the entire lower area, and shovel the excess dirt into the upper area. Depending on how much I get, I may need to make a trip out to pick up some topsoil so that I can raise the level all the way to the tops of the pole sections. Leveling out the lawn should help keep it healthier and greener for more of the year.

With the wall finished and the invisible fence active again, I was able to till in the addition to my garden. The soil I tilled up was fairly rich from some composting I did on or near it last summer, but it's not quite as good as the soil in my original garden space this year.

I planted the pumpkins on the far left, where I can allow them to grow out and over some lawn without interfering with the other vegetables.

I put the peppers in the middle.

And the lettuce took up the last three rows on the right.

This is a side view of the entire new section I tilled in, where the invisible fence used to be buried.

As you can see my corn is getting very tall. The tallest stocks are as tall as I am and most of the stocks are starting to sprout their tassels, which means that ears of corn are not far away now.

In a previous blog I mentioned some nectarine trees I planned to plant, but I called them tangerines. It's much more likely that I'll get a nectarine tree to bear fruit than a tangerine, but here is a picture of one of the two nectarine trees I planted on Sunday.

One is planted in the upper portion of the backyard, near the fence, the other is in the front yard between my driveway and the picket fence. Both of the trees are taking to the new-found space very well.

Almost Time

2009-07-10T13:19:00.001-07:00

I am amazed that my trip is in two weeks. I ordered a new set of light rain gear which will serve to keep me warm in the early morning and dry in case of any storm, but won't take up as much space in my saddle-bags.

I also ordered my leather concealment vest, some small hand warmers and an AC power outlet that I can mount on my motorcycle to charge my ipod and cell phone with.

I'll be picking up my motorcycle from Burton tomorrow, and will need to install my cruise control before the weekend is over so that I have ample time to test and adjust it.

The week that I leave I will be working an earlier shift at work, which will require me to ride to the Bainbridge terminal every day. That will give me an excellent chance to test out the new tires and gear thoroughly before the real trip.

I started a batch of beer last Saturday, it was a great way to spend my Fourth of July. No traffic, crowds or firework worries to speak of, just a quiet Saturday.

The recipe I chose was a revisit of one that I tried to use as one of my first all-grain beers. It's called Miss America Pale Ale, and it's taste is supposed to be similar to Mirror Pond or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, it has a strong hop flavor, with a bit of sweet richness to the grain flavor.

The first time I made this, it turned out more on the bitter side, since I was not as good at sparging my grain and getting all the sugars out. Subsequently it didn't have as many sugars in the fermentation and therefore had less sweetness to balance out the hop flavor. I still liked it, but it wasn't what I was aiming for, which is why I'm giving it another shot to mark the improvement of my skills.

At this point, I feel confident in saying I should definitely hit my mark this time since the gravity came out at a perfect 1.51, showing that I extracted exactly the amount of sugar I should have from this batch. When I tasted the wort after the boiling process, it had the bittersweet taste I would expect, wheras the last time I tried this recipe it had a puckering taste.

I have to transfer it to it's secondary fermenter this weekend, at which point I'll save the yeast slurry at the bottom and have plans to make a batch of porter or stout, since it is that time of year.

More Talk About Plants

2009-07-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

One of my fellow commuters, who lives a couple of miles away, gave me two tangerine trees yesterday. He had grown them from seeds that sprouted in his compost pile, but decided that he didn't have the space for them in his back yard.

Since I have plenty of space in my yard, with lots of sun exposure, I picked them up. It seems like they should be able to bear fruit here at least every few years after maturity, but even if they don't, they are neat looking trees which I'll enjoy having around.

My favorite thing about fruit trees is what little effort they require to maintain and how much fruit they can produce with that little bit of effort; for those reasons, I like vines a lot too. My grape vine is very healthy this year since I cleared out the blackberry bushes which it had been competing with for several years prior. This year it grew up into the branches of a large old maple that had a low hanging bough nearby. Grape vines are impressively tenacious, this one managed to take over a 10x10 section of this bough with only three vines leading up into the branches.

I don't want the vine to waste it's nutrients producing fruit I can't reach, and I don't want it killing the maple tree, so I cut the three vines leading up to the maple. Over the weekend I noticed more buds shooting out of the remaining lower section. Next spring I hope to cut the grape vine all the way back so that I can repair the fencing it has overgrown, take out the remaining blackberry bushes that are competing with it and allow it to grow back with a fresh start.

You can see the healthy, happy grape vine behind me in the picture below showing my happy, healthy corn.

This picture was taken on Friday, but over the warm weekend, the largest corn stalks have actually grown to chest high on me. This year has been unbelievably good for corn in Washington.

For those who don't know already, all of the large trees with pretty blue sky behind them are located on my acre. Those trees in particular are at the bottom of the ravine, where the creek crosses through the corner of my woods. Right behind the grape vine, however, is a shallow slope without any trees on it, I'm thinking about putting in a chicken pen in this location when I finally get chickens. The area in question is full of stinging neddles during the summer, and chickens are particularly good at clearing out small vegetation.

Here is a picture of my beets, just before I pulled the weeds around them. Since this is the first year I've had my garden in this area, weeds come up frequently, hopefully this will slow down next year as I continuously till the area.

Here are my carrots, which are doing particularly well.

And these are my beans so far. They are in the shadiest spot, so they aren't growing as quickly, but they generally have a long season, so they should still produce something for me before it's over.

My last two rows, which included cucumbers, onions, sunflowers and pumpkins have not produced anything promising. The spot was just too shady to get good results. Next year, I'll move my garden over and start with the row my beans are in, since that seems to be the last viable row for growing.

On a side note, my motorcycle is at Burton's now getting new tires put on. I went with a Kenda 671 for the rear and a Kenda 657 for the front tire. They are similar models, but Kenda didn't make any lines which had both tire sizes I needed. I had Kenda tires on my first motorcycle and they are pretty good. They gave me no problems, in fact, one of them picked up a nail once that was bent at a perfect 90 degree angle. It went through one of the treads perfectly, without rupturing the tire.

Since the old tires are still in decent shape, I'll keep them around in case I have any problems down the road and need a tire that's good for a couple thousand miles.

I'll pick up the V-Star on Saturday, then it will be time to check everything thoroughly to make sure it's ready for the trip, now only three weeks away.

The Plan for South Dakota

2009-06-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent my last break mapping out the towns I plan to stop in for refueling.

In the western part of the country it isn't necessary to make such defined plans since towns are generally closer together, and when we traveled this route in our car last year, our range was more than three times that of the motorcycle. On a motorcycle, you really don't want to ride for more than two hours without a brief break anyway.

Since I recently learned exactly what the range is on my cruiser, it made planning the stops fairly easy. I'm refueling on the extremely conservative side since I don't know whether my highway mileage will be better due to the consistent RPMs or lower due to the extra gear, so I chose refueling points no more than 150 miles apart.

The first picture shows my overall trip with planned stops and the second picture shows the name of each point, with the details of the start and end addresses whited out for good measure.

If for some reason you can't see the second photo, the towns I plan to stop at, in order, are Cle' Elum, Wa, Ritzville, Wa, Kellogg, ID, Missoula, MT, Butte, MT, Livingston, MT, Billings, MT, Sheridan, WY, Moorcroft, WY.

From Moorcroft it should only be about 120 miles to Jon and Sheena's home.

According to Google Maps, the respective stop times should be about as follows:
A. Depart 3:00AM
B. 5:00
C. 7:00
D. 9:00
E. 10:45
F. 12:15
G. 1:45
H. 2:15
I. 4:00
J. 5:45
K. Arrive 7:30PM (8:30PM Mountain Time).

I actually expected the trip to end closer to 8:30 Pacific time, 9:30 Mountain, but for the most part, I usually beat any time estimated by Google Maps, so I'll just have to see how it turns out in the end.

I would love to be able to take more time on this trip, drive some backroad highways and make a couple of stops, but unfortunately this trip will have to be more business-like so that I can maximize visitation time.

I've been looking at JC Whitney's rain suits, I think I might get a lighter rainsuit for this trip and use that instead of my winter gear, since it will offer better rain protection and also take up less space in my saddlebags when I get into the desert. For warmth in the morning, I'll just wear long underwear pants and a sweater under my rain suit, since I need to bring a sweater anyway, this will save me even more space, and keep me relatively warm.

Since all of the states I'll travel through, except Wyoming oddly enough, have CPL reciprocity agreements with Washington State, I've also been considering a leather concealment vest from www.sportsmansguide.com. It's a good leather vest that I can use for riding any time, and it will help conceal whatever I take with me. Since Wyoming allows Open Carry, I'll just bring an extra hip holster with me for the three hundred miles I'll travel through the corner of their state.

Moderate Sunburn

2009-06-29T13:37:00.001-07:00

I spent the majority of the day splitting wood on Saturday, so far I've chopped about 190 cubic feet, which is about a cord and a quarter. Only two more cords to go before I'm done for the year. Last year I didn't finish splitting all of my wood in time, so I stacked the rounds on pallets and split them as needed throughout the winter.

Although sunburns are practically impossible to get in the winter, the downside to winter chopping is that you need to wear a sweater and the moisture in the air usually makes the wood a little harder to split.

For those reasons, I hope to have it all split before the end of July this year. Then I can spend my time enjoying fires rather than cutting wood for them. Splitting it sooner will also give the split chunks of wood more time to dry out in the summer sun, which means they'll burn hotter and more efficiently.

Saturday, being the first long day of sun exposure I've had, I managed to earn a sunburn on my upper and lower back. Since my arms and shoulders got plenty of exposure on Memorial Day at Brandon's trailer in the desert, they didn't burn at all, just became much more tan. The thing about me and my skin is that I rarely burn seriously, no matter what I do, and after my first burn of the year, I am tan enough to not burn on the same spot again.

What usually happens, and what seems to be happening this time as well, is that the burn is red for the first day, but by the end of the second day it's mostly tan with a hint of rouge. After four days, I usually have a nice, dark tan. It rarely becomes second degree and starts to peel.

The last time that I burned myself badly enough to cause peeling was several years ago at Lake Ozette. Mac, Brandy and I borrowed Ron's boat and spent the whole day on the lake fishing at the beginning of a very hot August. We literally went out at about sun up and came in at dusk, Mac and I were shirtless for the majority of the day without any form of sunblock. I knew that night that a bad burn was coming since my skin was very warm, as it usually gets the night you burn. Interestingly enough I only burned my back and shoulders that day.

We stopped at a Swain's department store on the way home the next day and bought some Solarcaine burn relief and helped each other apply it liberally before hopping in the car. We didn't get out of the parking lot before the "instant cooling" agent actually intensified the burning sensation to an extreme degree. When we got home, we all took a cold shower right away.

At another point in my life, I thought that perhaps it was just a fluke that we ended up having such a terrible experience with something that advertises relief, but when I've tested it on burns of varying levels of intensity, there is still a resulting burn intensification. I don't doubt that the gel is good for your burned skin, but I feel like they should probably say something like "Agitates and intensifies" rather than "Cools and Soothes" on their bottle.

I've found that a heavy moisturizing lotion works the best for soothing and healing, and drinking plenty of water. Although it's expensive, I usually use Cetaphil, which my doctor initially prescribed for the excema I occasionally get on my fingers.

In any case, my burn is turning into a nice tan, and with the melanin factory running, I hope that I can avoid any burns on my upcoming trip to South Dakota.

On that topic, I've ordered my tires and I'm taking the motorcycle in to have them installed on Friday the 3rd.

Combustible Supply Critical

2009-06-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

I ran out of fuel yesterday on my way back home from the Bainbridge ferry terminal. In preparation for my upcoming trip, I was testing the limits of my V-Star to see how much I could get from a tank before I would run out.

Of course, this plan doesn't make a lot of sense to everyone, you might wonder, if I was trying to run out, why didn't I have extra gasoline with me so that I could refuel when it ran out. The piece of information you are missing is that, since it isn't easy to put fuel gauges in motorcycles, they have a reserve switch which keeps you from using the last quarter to half of a gallon in your tank until the switch is engaged. This usually gives you 10 to 20 miles to get to a gas station if you manage to run out inadvertently.

Not only was I testing my range, I was also testing to find out whether my reserve worked or not. My original plan was to run the tank down to the reserve, then head for the closest gas station. Since I know Bainbridge and the 305 corridor very well, I know that I should be able to reach a gas station from any point on my trip.

When I first started the motorcycle, I turned the choke on full, then when I got on to leave the parking lot, I turned it to half. Just as I left the parking lot, I accelerated slightly and felt the bike lose power a little. I should have known better, but I attributed this to the choke being on and turned the choke off, to which the throttle seemed to return to normal. I suspect that it was low on fuel and the choke was simply making the draw a little too aggressive for how much fuel I had left, the pump probably couldn't keep up with the demand.

So I continued down the road about three miles, passing the intersection to turn for fuel without giving it a second thought. The bike began to bog down again and I knew it was about to run out of gas. Not to worry, I flipped the switch to the reserve position. The motorcycle continued to bog down on power, just barely moving itself forward.

If you have ever run out of fuel, it's not the feeling you would expect. You don't suddenly stop without warning, you usually try to accelerate and notice that the engine dies as you push the accelerator harder. If you have a manual transmission, you downshift one gear at a time as the engine slowly winds down after each gear. By the time you stop, the engine stalls and you are out of fuel completely.

I pulled over at a gravel turnout on Madison, about a mile from the Valley Rd. intersection, got off my bike and checked to make sure I had the switch in the right position. Since I knew that this was a possibility, I had already been mentally prepared to call one of my friends or family members from the nearby area. First I tried Peter, who did not answer, but was able to reach Ron who came promptly with a full gas can. As it turns out, he wanted to stop by Burton Motorsports soon, and I was on my way there at the time.

I put about half a gallon in the tank, fired it up and rode to the Shell station in Suquamish. I filled up my tank there, and also Ron's gas can, so that I could see how much fuel I used. It came out to about 4.6 gallons, since my tank only holds 4.5, I obviously put a little extra in Ron's gas can, but what this tells me is that unless I greatly overestimated the amount of fuel initially in Ron's can, my tank ran itself entirely out of fuel, which means that the pet cock may be broken or leaking.

If I was mistaken in my fuel reckoning, then the pet cock is just clogged. I'm not sure that the problem concerns me enough to worry about replacing it before the trip since I got the information that I really need, being that I know 200 miles is the cut off point for my range, so if I always refuel at or before 150 miles, I shouldn't have to face any problems.

As an added safety measure, I may keep a small bottle of gasoline in the central storage compartment of my bike, but generally speaking, in many of the areas I'll be travelling through, the extra 20 miles that a reserve will get me or an extra 1/5th of a gallon in a spare bottle will probably not be the difference between making it to a gas station or not making it to a gas station. If I run out, I'll just have to push it and hope that a kind motorist pulls over to lend me some fuel. In any case, I usually drive on the extremely conservative side with fuel, I usually refill with plenty of fuel to spare.

I got to Burton's before closing time so that I could pick up my new cruise control for the throttle and talk to Burt about my replacement tires and still managed to get home an hour earlier than my normal arrival time.

Gearing Up

2009-06-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am planning a motorcycle trip to Rapid City, SD to visit my friend Jon. Ever since he moved away, then back, then moved away again, we've generally visited at least once per year. Last year it was easy to get to Rapid City, since we were already driving to Nebraska to visit Brandy's family and Rapid City was just a few hours from Hastings.

This year, we aren't making any trips since Coughlin is so young, but I've decided to make the trip myself. I've wanted to make a long distance motorcycle trip since I started riding, but every time that I tried to team up with a friend to make one, something would come up and the trip would fall through. Now that I have a reason to travel solo, I'm taking the opportunity to visit a friend and also get my IBA certification, which one of the afore-mentioned ride-mates, Malachi, already went on to get without me.

For those who don't know, IBA stands for Iron Butts Association. They are a group who offers certification on a series of endurance rides that are both grueling and practical to complete without breaking laws or putting anyone in extreme danger.

Before you can go on to complete any of the more advanced rides, you have to complete one of their two preliminary rides which are the SaddleSore 1000 and the BunsBurner 1500. The SaddleSore, which is the ride I plan to complete with this trip, requires you to ride 1000 miles in 24 hours. The BunsBurner is 1500 miles in 36 hours.

http://www.ironbutt.com/ridecerts/getdocument.cfm?DocID=1

Even if there was no certification involved, I'd be doing this ride just because it's the type of thing I enjoy doing. I love road trips, especially the kind which boast ridiculous proportions for relatively short times. Such as the time that Brandy and I went to Sacramento to have dinner with Mac and Malachi, then came back home.

I'm planning to leave at about 3:00, which is a pretty standard departure time for road trips. I think I'll start out wearing my rain gear becuase it will probably still be fairly cold, and it would be smart to keep my rain gear handy in case I run into any of the frequent western summer storms along the way. The only problem is that it's just one more thing to store when I hit the hot tempuratures on the other side of the cascades. If it's warm enough, I might just bring some trash bags and push through the cold morning in the name of packing lightly.

My plan is to arrive at Jon's house before 9:00, so that I'll do the majority of my riding while it is light. Since I'm staying close to the 45th parellel, I think it should be light until well into the late evening.

In preparation, I've already ordered a throttle locking "cruise control" kit for my V-Star, it should be very useful in all the vast open spaces I'll be travelling through. In addition to that, I plan to get a new set of tires from Burton Motorsports, since the current tires appear to be stock. The concern for me at this point is the age of the tires and not the miles on them. On average, motorcycle tires last around 10-15,000 miles, because they are made with a very soft rubber, unlike car tires which usually last around 60,000. In this case, the tread is still just legal, but after ten years the tires are showing some minor signs of aging, including some very small cracks. I plan to replace them with a stock size.

I'm very excited to be on the road again before the end of the summer.

Changing the Oil on a 1999 V-Star 650 Classic

2009-06-17T12:28:00.001-07:00

I have been working from 7:00 - 3:30 this week to cover some absences at work, and in order to make it to that shift on time, I have to take the 6:20 ferry from Winslow. I had a little extra time Yesterday so I went by Burton Motorsports on my way home to pick up some oil and a filter since I hadn't changed the oil since buying the V-Star.

Changing the oil on a vehicle is nothing special, but I noticed a few quirky things about the V-Star which I found interesting.

Since the 650 doesn't come with a center stand, the oil drain plug is located on the bottom-left side of the oil pan instead of the bottom center. Because of this location, you can fit a socket on the plug, but there isn't enough space for your wrench between the plug and the frame, even trying to use a universal joint proved unsuccessful. When I inspected the plug, it was obvious that the previous owner had problems with this, since the plug showed signs of stripping and trauma. In the end, it looks like someone used vise-grips to get the plug loose and subsequently tighten it again. This wore down the edges, but also pushed the metal from the worn edges on to the flat portions, making it very difficult to fit.

In addition to the problem with sockets, crescent wrenches are too wide to fit into the space between the plug and the oil pan. This means that the only way to remove the plug is with a special short socket or a spanner.

Being a less-destructive mechanic, I went down to wal-mart and bought a set of cheap Stanley spanners, since the 3/4" spanner that I needed was one of the few that I didn't already own (most of my motorcycle tools have been metric since I've owned only Japanese motorcycles).

At first, you might think this is an odd design, but in reality, most motorcycles have a toolkit which include spanners for all of the motorcycle bolt sizes that you might need to use, and most motorcycle bolts are made to work with a spanner. The fact that sockets generally work as an alternative is just a matter of convenience.

The spanner set was only $7, I bought one for Metric and one for Standard sizes, I think I'll use them on some upcoming long trips, so I'll get my dollar's worth out of them.

Anyway, with a few gentle taps from my hammer, I was able to get the 3/4" spanner on and remove the plug without any trouble. The oil drained out quickly, and it looks like the motorcycle was just a little overfilled (3.5 quarts instead of the 3.2 it needs). The oil didn't show any signs of abuse such as extreme age, dirt or water intrusion, and while I was on the underside, I cleaned up the pan and made sure that there were no leaks.

I cleaned off the plug and took it over to my bench grinder where I was able to trim down the stripped portions of the bolt enough so that my new spanner could fit comfortably, without any hammering required. This should buy me a few uses, but eventually I will need to replace the plug with one that hasn't had such a hard life. At least for now the plug threads smoothly and evenly without any snagging, and it seals without leaking too, as you would hope for.

I flushed the oil out with a quarter of a quart of leftover motorcycle oil I had on hand and let it drain thoroughly, then went about the task of locating the oil filter.

After a little reading online, I managed to find it in a location that wasn't expected, but is at least easy to access.

In the picture below, you can see the oil filter cover. it is a round circle just above the lower exhaust pipe and right below the large, round, air filter cover. It's held in place with three allen bolts. After removing the three bolts, the round portion of the cover comes off, exposing three more bolts underneath. After you remove these three bolts, and two more on the outside, the whole cover assembly comes off and the oil filter is exposed underneath. Simply pull out the old filter and slide in the new on in it's place, then re-attach the cover.

It's not the simplest oil filter cover I've seen, but I've also seen worse. It's ridiculous to remove 8 allen bolts to get to the oil filter, but it's not a complicated task by any means, and the fact that the oil filter is well protected from rocks and road debris is a good thing. With the common modern oil filters that attach outside of the engine, there is a small risk that some projectile from the road will puncture the thin-skin and cause a leak.

Due to the proximity to the oil pump, a hole in any oil filter will deplete your oil supply very quickly, in most cases, probably so quickly that you wouldn't notice until you had already damaged your motor.

I refilled the oil, carefully measuring the 3.2 quarts specified, with Bel-Ray semi-synthetic 10w40. In the Bandit, I used to run Bel-Ray fully synthetic superbike oil, but at a retail price of $17.99 a quart (yes you read that right), the performance difference on the V-Star would be negligible. The semi-synthetic blend has made the engine noticeably smoother and quieter, and it will take more heat and time to break down. Since I hope to make at least one long road trip this year, it will be well applied, not that I need any special reasons to run semi-synthetic oil.

Ideal Spring: The Gamble of Vegetables in Washington

2009-06-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

As previously stated, I managed to pull together a Garden this year, which I haven't been able to do for several years.

I tilled in my compost and planted all of my seeds in the same day, the first weekend after the last frosty morning. There is a calculated risk involved with planting so close to the frost, but most seeds won't be damaged by freezing temperatures, you only have to worry about that after the sprouts actually come up.

Usually to avoid this risk, but still get your garden started in time, you can sprout your vegetables indoors, or in a greenhouse. However, the potential for shock when you transplant your sprouts is high, so it's imperative that you keep the same soil and light conditions in both your sprouting location inside and the future home outside. Some vegetables, such as corn, are temperamental, even with very careful transplants. Others like beans will thrive no matter what condition changes you put them through.

Anyway, this May turned out to be perfect for sprouting seeds, the morning frost disappeared instantly, as it usually does in Western Washington, and we experienced record rainfall in the first two weeks of May. In order to sprout, most seeds need even temperatures above 50 degrees and a lot of moisture. Normally, the moisture of the soil when sprouting occurs is so high that an adult plant of the same species would be unable to survive. After the rain, we had two very warm weeks, with overcast nights, keeping the temperature higher. By Memorial Day, all of my corn, beans, cucumbers and onions had sprouted. Two weeks later, the beets and cucumbers came up too. I haven't seen any pumpkin sprouts yet, and I don't know if I ever will, because the last row, in which I placed the pumpkins, is just a little too shady.

Next year I plan to expand my garden and move it over a few rows to increase the amount of sun I can absorb.

I placed the three rows of corn on the side of the garden that receives the most sun, since corn thrives on bright, hot days, as long as it has an ample water supply. There is a saying to help you track the progress of your corn which goes "Knee High by the Fourth of July" of course, meaning that if your stocks are knee high before the beginning of July, they should mature in time to provide a good crop in the fall. If you don't reach that goal, all is not lost, but you probably won't get much produce before it is too cold in the fall.

A clear indicator of how unusually good our growing season has been this year, is that most of my corn stocks reached knee height in early June, and are continuing to grow. If the moderately warm weather can team up with a few good rainstorms, I hope to be able to get a couple of harvests in before it's too late.

The next row is cut in half, filled with beets and carrots, being tubers, they also like the light and heat. The carrots are doing very well, and the beats are coming along at a fair pace. You can't see the beets in this picture because they are beyond the two rocks at the end of my carrot row.

After that I have my cucumbers and beans, which prefer to have a little cool shade. They all sprouted very quickly, but have not been very fast to grow. I put up some wire fencing to use as a trellis to keep them from trying to take over the whole garden at ground level. The cucumbers are hard to see because they don't start out as leafy as the beans do, so they are currently just leafless stocks, sticking out of the ground.

In addition to the vegetable gardening, I've been sprouting apple trees since sometime last year. I love gala apples (but only before they turn pithy), so I've been germinating and growing their seeds. My yard is more than large enough to hold a large orchard, so I would like to get a few more fruit trees. Not only do they provide fruit, but they provide shade for the grass to grow in and fertilizer, both from the leftover fruit and from the droppings left by the nearby bird population.

Last year I was able to get two prominent seedlings. I placed the larger of the two in the back yard near the garden, and have planted the smaller tree in the front. I have them both protected by tomato cages right now to prevent any accidental damage while they are still in their first year. I have two first year seedlings that I sprouted last winter which I hope to be able to plant next year and I already have a batch of new seeds germinating for next year. If I can pull it off, I'd like to have several in my front yard, because the direct sunlight tends to bake the grass unless I water it a lot. Since I hate to waste potable water on something as vane as a green lawn (as much as I like having a beautiful green lawn) I'd rather avoid doing that, so growing some fruit bearing trees is an ideal way to improve the whole situation.

Since taking this picture, this larger seedling is almost to the top of the pictured tomato cage.

As part of clearing out my garden, I was able to take out a majority of the blackberry bushes that had overgrown that section of my yard. In doing this, I also uncovered the grape vine shown behind me in the first picture. Last year the vine produced a lot of grapes, but because it was so overgrown by blackberry bushes, it did not get enough light to ripen. I'm hoping that the new-found freedom will give it enough light to ripen this year.

Next year I plan to cut it all the way back and tie it up to help it out some more and finish off the last of the blackberries.

For anyone who who hasn't had a garden before, but is thinking about starting one, I know how daunting it seems, but let me assure you that after the initial set up, the two or three hours per week that you give to your garden will yield you the best fruits and vegetables you will have in your life. If I had the time, I would till up most of my backyard just so that I could consume and share more of the fruits of my own labor.

Composting: Experienced and Exceeding My Expectations

2009-06-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

I have missed out on gardening entirely for the last couple of years due to time restrictions or lack of space to do so, but this year I finally got everything together in time.

I started composting more officially a few months before tilling in my garden. I've got a large lawn in the back, so I've obviously been composting since we moved in, but now I've actually set up a bin, which breaks everything down faster and more effectively.

There were four short steel fence posts in my yard because the previous owners had used them to support the crappy picket fence that was in my front yard. Since my neighbor and I agreed to take that down right after I moved in, I kept the steel posts, guessing that they would come in handy down the line.

I drove them into the ground with my sledge in an approximately 5x6 foot rectangle. A few months ago I picked up some free chicken wire that someone posted on Craigslist, so I folded that in half and wrapped it around the posts, using the pre-fabricated tabs on the posts to secure the fence to it.

I have a lot of grass and some other yard waste like leaves and brush to compost. I generally produce as much as you see in the picture below in a two week period during the spring and fall time of year, and in my new bin, it only takes about one week to reduce the pile to a layer only a couple of inches thick.

You can see Abby in the background sniffing around at stuff as Beagles often do. The invisible fence keeps her from getting into my new garden area, which is one of the reasons I chose the specific locations that I did.

The new bin makes it much easier to turn the compost effectively and since more air gets in through the sides, everything breaks down very quickly. I turn it just about every other day and during the cold spring mornings it would steam very actively.

I always knew that compost piles were warm, but I've been studying this recently and have found lots of interesting information about exactly how hot compost can get. I read one article in which a man buried a hot water heater under a 10x10x10 patch of compost and got the water up to 170 degrees. Apparently there are some homes which utilize a compost based heating system and it has been used to heat greenhouses for centuries. Working in my own compost pile really drives this home when I turn it over and the pile is actually hot to the touch.

The heat is caused by bacterial activity from the invisible friends that break down the nitrogen and carbon in all of the items. Everything breaks down most effectively when you have a good balance of nitrogen and carbon, so my pile is usually hottest when I add grass clippings that include a lot of maple leaves from all of the nearby trees.

We recently canceled our curbside trash service because Wal-Mart had a sale on 45 gallon trash cans (of which I purchased six), and I can take the trash to the Olympic Transfer Center for $10 per metric ton myself. Since my truck is a half-ton pickup, it will never cost more than $10. I bought six cans, and we only use about 1/3rd of a can per week, if that, so I'll only have to make the trip ever few months. We've been doing this for two months now and haven't even filled two full cans yet.

I kept the curbside recycling at $5 per month, even though I can recycle items for free at any transfer station. The reason is that in order to recycle at the transfer stations, you have to pre-sort the items and store them until you can make the trip, the $5 per month charge is well worth the time I'll save by simply having the truck come by every two weeks without requiring any sorting or storage.

Anyway, I say this because we have started composting the portion of our trash that can be safely composted to save space in the cans and to keep down the amount of rotting going on in the cans between trips to the transfer station. It's also pretty good for my garden soil, so it's a benefit all around. We keep a small container on the counter in the kitchen, and empty that into a larger plastic bin which we keep on the back porch so that I don't have to walk all the way down to the compost pile every day.

It's been really amazing to see how quickly things will decompose and the impact on my soil quality has been remarkable. I made my initial compost pile on the spot that my garden now sits, and the black, rich soil is hosting some very healthy corn stocks. Since then, I moved my pile to the side of my current garden space, to a location that I plan to till next year when I expand my garden.

At that, I purchased a roto-tiller from my neighbor to help speed up the process. I like doing work manually whenever I can, as many of you know, I split wood with a maul and sledge every year, but my current commute definitely doesn't allow enough time for me to manually and effectively till in a garden, so the addition of a tiller to my compliment of tools has been very handy. I may get to use it for more than gardening, since I have some very packed sections of lawn that could use a good tilling, and it also works great for removing blackberry roots since the tines pulverize the soil and pull everything even remotely solid out of the ground. As a point of the matter, my whole garden area was previously overgrown with blackberries, and the tiller pulled every root out without any problems.

This brings the end of my lunch time to a close, I've had a lot of things to write about recently, but no time to write them in, I hope I can post some more pictures and stories soon.

Motorcycles Are Cool - 10/27/2005

2005-10-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

I put my motorcycle back together with it's new tires, chain and sprockets on Saturday. I rode it around a little and it is like a new motorcycle, at least it feels that way.

The last body part will arrive sometime this week, at which point I make the motorcycle look as good as it was before, maybe even a little bit better..... Then I finished reading the ultimate hitchiker's guide.

Sunday I went to rocky brook falls, ate dinner in port townsend and went home to watch scary movie 3 again, it just never gets less funny.

I've officially decided that things used to be cooler when you could live on some land somewhere and just had to worry about living.

I've also officially decided that we should either require all voters to take a pop-quiz on the voter's pamphlet before allowing them to vote OR we should ban all people who watch TV from voting. The reality of this is that it doesn't even have to be true, just that if you payed for a TV ad telling people that they could not vote, most of them wouldn't vote because they saw it on TV.

Another alternative would be to ban campaigning all-together. All campaign signs, posters, TV or radio ads should be disallowed. They allow people to make un-informed decisions because they saw something about it once and decided to vote about it.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing my grassroots movement to decrease voter attendance. I've commissioned several people to convince two other people not to vote. If everyone convinces two people not to vote, then we will get rid of most of the voters. The logic is simple: You can barely run your own life, don't try to run everyone else's.

Clearing Things Up - 10/22/2005

2005-10-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

OK, let's think about what happened last night and remember the real story.

The Maple Leaf: A trashy bar that consists of mostly older people. It's a quiet place with nice people and x rated pictures all over the bathroom walls. The floors are spongy and uneven in a funny sort of way. One end of the pool table comes up to just above my knee, the other, is up to your chest.

Lenny: Man at the maple leaf, one of those people that you like instantly because they are just so forward and pleasant. Not to mention that he plays a very graceful game of pool, he's not the best player I've ever seen, he just never makes terrible power shots that send balls flying everywhere.

Rainier beer: One pitcher for three people, combined with the graceful games of pool and other friendly people. This was a good idea. Went home, dropped off the car and went to another bar.

Amirato's airshow bar and grill: A fairly nice bar with no apparent floor problems at all. Airplane engines and parts are scattered all around, and most of the people there are pretty nice, but they aren't that good at pool.

Mack and Jack's: Two pitchers of Mack and Jacks between three people. Combined with bad pool players attempt to act good. This was also a bad idea. Our friend drove us home from the red apple (it's only two blocks).

My house: A place with yellow walls, wood floors and nice, comfortable leather couches; one of my most favorite places to be.

Old English HG 800: HG stands for High Gravity; interestingly enough, gravity feels like spinning, two forty ounce bottles of old English HG 800 for two people. There is only one purpose in this type of alcohol, unfortunately, nobody can be told what the purpose is, they have to experience it for themselves.

This is where everything went wrong.

Long Ride - 10/15/2005

2005-10-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

My friend was up to visit from California for a couple days and he left today. So Nick and I decided to ride out to HWY 101 with him and see him off. It poured rain. It wasn't so bad for me because I have a foul weather suit, but Nick kind've got frostbite on his fingers. I loaned him my foul weather gloves long enough for us to stop by a place and get him some cheap ski gloves.

We stopped at the red apple in Shelton and some kids on bikes asked us to do wheelies when we left. I told them that only people who want to die to wheelies. They were loud and annoying children, the only thing more annoying than them at the time, was the fact that I know lots of dumb riders do wheelies for young kids because they ask them to (I get asked all the time) and the kids think it's the coolest thing, never realizing that the rider is probably going to end up dead on the freeway (and if not, they deserve to). My fellow riders dissapoint me in their stupidity, but this is nothing new. Either way, the red apple had no gloves, so we went to the Wal-mart and rode home through Union and Belfair.

The road through union is one of the best rides in the state. It was miles of marsh-lands, then miles of waterfront on the south end of hood canal. It was a beautiful ride home, very much out of our way though, considering it added about 20 minutes to our ride back.

It was a good way to spend most of my day. I came back and started doing some more repairs on my motorcycle. I replaced the starter cover and changed the oil (You have to change the oil when replacing the starter cover). No more nasty scratches from being backed over on the starter cover. Soon enough the bike will have no more damage from the incident. Just waiting on some backordered body parts to arrive. Once that was done, I came in and shared a beer with the cat.

Kitty Cow loves beer.

Trucks Are Cool - 10/14/2005

2005-10-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

I am officially, at this point in time, $6.29 away from owning my truck.

I made a $1006 payment this month to pay off everything, and the bank still charged me the $6.29 finance charge for the month. I hate them. It would be fun to not pay them and let them reposess the truck just out of spite. But that would also be stupid..

I would like to take this chance to point out that when it is cold, trucks frequently switch from having an anti-lock braking system to having a super-lock braking system.

One Easy Steps to Getting Rid of Hornets and Wasps - 10/13/2005

2005-10-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

If you ever need to get rid of hornets, burn them out with a mix of gasoline and styrofoam, it's a poor man's napalm and it burns good and hot. Of course, don't do this in your house, I'm only talking about if it is outside in your yard somewhere.

The best part is that, because of the stickiness of the styrofoam and gasoline, the hornets can't get out and attack you before they are already sticky and on fire. If any are left outside, just burn them with a lighter when they get near you. A note: the fumes are still just as explosive as pure gasoline, stand clear when you drop the match and NEVER pour more on top until you are sure the fire is out.

Midnight Revelations - 10/12/2005

2005-10-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

I hate when you have something really profound to say just before going to sleep, and forget all about it before you wake up.

Left only with the knowledge that you had a thought, and it was profound and that you really wanted to remember it.

Other People's Insurance - 10/10/2005

2005-10-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

New parts for my motorcycle are now leaving San Diego. Soon it will be restored to it's former glory (not to mention a few extra aftermarket things I'll be getting thanks to the fact that I know how to replace the parts myself and saved $600.

I think I might consider having people run over my motorcycle more often, but I'll make sure it's at the end of the riding season next time.