Back Home to CO

On Wednesday morning I started my three day trek back home to Colorado. I was crossing the mighty Mississippi once again but this time in St. Louis. 

It had been a pretty hard mornings ride and HOT so mid-morning I reached out for an impromptu lunch with my friends and John Garrett, Steve Richards and Dan Klenke were able to join me around 12:45. I had only one beer that hit the spot and a great lunch and time to catch with old friends again. Back on the road by 2’ish I made a push for Sedalia, MO for a 420 mile day. 

I had wanted a 6am departure from Sedalia to get more riding done before the heat of the day but I woke to a large thunderstorm that delayed me until 8am.  By 2pm I was ready for a little time off of the bike and some A/C which I found just off of my route at the Motorcycle Museum of Kansas in Marquette.  

The had some really nice old motorcycles back to the early 1900’s and over 600 racing trophy’s all won by the sponsor of the museum  including 16 state and 5 national trophies.  Stan “The Man” Engdahl was his name and he  left quite a legacy when he passed in 2007. 

http://www.ksmotorcyclemuseum.org/stan.html

With only 35 miles to get to my destination for the night, Colby, KS, I found myself riding into trouble.  After checking the radar I turned back in time to find a carwash in Hoxie, KS to hide out from the very high winds and heavy rain. 

About an hour later I was able finish my 520 mile day into the setting sun. It’s amazing how the weather can change in just an hour in Kansas. 

I spent my last riding days home limping in on a rear tire that went from okay to bad due to the high heat (and perhaps my slightly elevated traveling speed).  I tried calling shops within 90 miles of Colby for a new tire but as my bike is a “classic” and they haven’t made motorcycle wheels that small since 2000 there was nothing in stock. Therefore my last days on the bike were spent going 5 to 10 mph under rather than over the speed limit. 

On Friday to beat the heat for both me and my tire I started riding at 5am for my last 280 miles to home. I had the pleasure of riding into the setting full moon over the plains as the sun rose behind me. It was a grand morning on US36 that I largely had to myself. 

Me and my tire made it safely and only slightly worse for wear back to Colorado and home by 10:30. It was a great trip seeing family and friends and having the sense of freedom and adventure during these trying times. I feel great. Hopefully Angela won’t quarantine me for 14 days!!

😷

The Boys Are Back in Town

Sunday morning I’m riding back home to old Indiana on a great day from Poplar Bluff across southern Illinois. 

Tom West (r) road his Harley down from southern Michigan arriving within 5 minutes of me to reunite with Dave Chastain (c) at his place in Bloomington around 4:30pm. Let the fun begin!

After a great grilled dinner on Dave’s deck and a bonfire Sunday evening into the wee hours we ride our motorcycles over to Columbus, IN to meet John Crofts (r) the next morning.  We have a socially distanced breakfast and catch up on old times. 

John is big time into Cummins history after his career there and also a bit of a history buff so he volunteers for walking tours highlighting the architectural history of Columbus based on the leadership and largesse of a few visionary leaders at Cummins who believed in creating a strong and vibrant community to attract and keep highly skilled employees. Many great and not yet great architects have enhanced their reputation on modernest projects in Columbus including Eliel Saarinen who designed the First Christian Church built in 1942.  It was a beautiful morning for our almost 3 hour tour and a great chance to reconnect before we left John to his visiting family and headed back the 30 miles to Dave’s house. 

It can’t be summer without one lane roads due to construction.  

5 years ago this month Dave, Tommy, myself and David Bonitz rode our motorcycles through Selma, AL on our way to Key West. At this location in March 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis led 600 people on a 54 mile march from Selma to the capital in Montgomery to draw attention to equal voting rights but they were stopped on the Edmund Pettus Bridge after only 6 blocks by police and brutally beaten back to Selma. The widely broadcast images of the brutality galvanized Congress and LBJ to enact the Equal Voting Rights Act later that year.  I haven’t caught much of the news on my trip but the beatings and protests seem to continue 55 years later as we struggle to be better. Can we be better?

Dave’s friend and neighbor Bill (c) who has recently gone through chemotherapy have got themselves a free, old Boston Whaler boat as a summer project to restore and go fishing in.  The needed our help to get the rather heavy (waterlogged?) fiberglass boat off of the trailer and upside down on saw-horses to allow the cleaning and repair of the hull to begin.  We had to put our beers down momentarily to strategize how to move the boat without hurting our carefully honed physiques.  It’s not easy to age so gracefully!

Tuesday morning we’re back in line for construction again as we head down to French Lick to meet Tim Williams on his way to spend a little time with us in Bloomington. 

We get back to Dave’s place around 2pm in what has become a very warm day. We assume  our places on the driveway, in the shade, besides our road machines to hydrate with beer and some moonshine Tim imported from down south, infused with tangelos, blackberries and strawberries.  It was very tasty and very powerful.

Tim should be completely worn out because he just finished 3 non-stop round trips from his old residence in Houston’s Woodlands to his other home back in Evansville. He left early this morning and hasn’t unpacked anything yet.  He often has to miss these little  college reunions we have every now and then because he’s running O&G drilling operations in fun places like Iraq or Angola but he made the extra effort to be here with us on our last day. We’re glad he made it and we’re glad we survived his moonshine too!

A Day With Dad & Bernie

That’s my Dad, Stanley Herman Ferdinand Brand. He was born May 5, 1935 in an all German community in San Antonio, TX.  Today was going to be a project day for his wife Bernie and I, Dad was going to assist and supervise. He’s searching the back of his pickup truck to find a stud-finder for me. He found lots of things but not the stud-finder. 

My first priority was to fix the ignition switch on my BMW which almost stranded me 120 miles to the west yesterday. On the second day of this trip it started once or twice a day to not turn on the power the first time. At first I thought it was my kill switch that had been bumped but today, after filling up with gas it was completely dead and wouldn’t do anything no matter how many times I switched it on-off.  Luckily I had studied electrical engineering at Purdue and new exactly what to do. I pushed the bike away from the gas pumps (I was turning into entertainment for the locals), I waited a few minutes and began thinking critically: how was I ever going to get home again, and when or where could I find a replacement switch in southern Missouri and why am I riding a 36 year old motorcycle across country, and then I banged hard on the switch. It powered up and I never stopped it again until I got to Poplar Bluff!  Ironically it worked fine the rest of the evening and the next morning....

Researching the internet I found a new switch for $200 in the DC area but they didn’t respond to my inquiries for immediate shipment. I studied YouTube and BMW forums until midnight last night and came up with a plan to build a “Hotwire” harness I could use in a pinch for the rest of the trip. Bernie took me shopping at the local “Do It” hardware store and after $18 I had a crimp set, 3 male connectors and a foot of appliance wire which I fashioned into a hotwire harness and it worked!!!  Peace of mind was mine again. 

My sisters Staci and Stana have been sorting through a lot of old family memorabilia since Mom passed away about 8 years ago. Staci recently found Dad’s 1952 Alamo Heights HS Graduation program which I brought to Dad this trip.  He loves to tell the story about how his Guidance Counselor Mrs. Throckmorten told him he wasn’t smart enough to go to college. He apparently was somewhere in the middle of his high school class.  The picture on the left is of him after his freshman year as a cadet at Texas A&M.  He graduated in 4 years as a 2nd Lt. with a BS Chemical Engineering in the top 15% of his class.  I think he just wanted to prove Mrs. Throckmorten wrong!

After a day of limbing trees, blowing of the roof, and failed attempts at hanging abnormally heavy flower pots Bernie’s sister Betty, on the right, joined us for hamburgers on the grill, potato salad, baked beens and a few cold beers. That’s two of their 4 dogs, Palen and Nelson, who are still hoping for scraps after dinner. We had a really nice visit and I’m very glad I came.