Milwaukee Trip - Day 6 - Miller Park

I took quite a few shots while at Miller Park, especially in the stunt zone so will post some pics.

Bruce Rossmeyer's Ft Lauderdale Harley Davidson Drill Team

I didn't get a lot of good shots of these guys as they were the first stunt we watched. They were quite impressive however.




ILL Conduct

Have seen these guys before at American Eagle. They are pretty good and today blew up a lot of tires!







Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Motorcycle Drill Team

Another drill team, also very impressive.







Seattle Cossacks Stunt Team

This was the first time I have seen these guys. They were a lot of fun and very impressive, they didn't seem to follow their script at least not to the letter, and did not use communication devices other than a whistle and voice, no mics or headsets.











Bubba Blackwell

We've also seen Bubba Blackwell before, but here in front of a large Harley lovin' audience, it was clear he was having a lot of fun. He blew up a couple of tires too!

Milwaukee trip - Day 6

Its a little cooler at night in Wisconson than in Texas. As a 1/2 inch foam pad is not nearly as comfortable as a mattress, but we made it through the night. The American Legion is hosting a great breakfast every day and we will certainly take advantage of that.

We leave and decide to hit Milwaukee Harley Davidson on the way to Miller Park for the HOG 25th celebrations. On the way we see both the Pilgram Road and Capitol Drive facilities that we will want to stop at later.

There is a massive party at the Milwaukee HD and they are set up pretty good for what they have going on. Lots of vendor tents and sharing a parking lot with a strip club, they have also set up a couple of entertainment venues. Traffic and parking is crazy. We don't partipate in too much of craziness but have a look around, we see the "fighters" getting ready for the midget wrestling bouts, the Bikini bike wash, etc. Next to the strip club was the set up for Strip Club Choppers. We stop by and talk to the guys, I had asked when then were going to be in Digby, which was supposed to be this weekend, for the Wharf Rat Rally, but they couldn't get their paperwork and visas cleared in time so came here instead. It was actually an ideal venue for them.





Off to the Headquarters facility on Juneau Rd. Its an older but quite large facility. Then off to Miller Park for the party. We hung out for several hours, talked to lots of folks, had a lot of fun. Several other Eagles were there but we never saw any of them. We watched all the acts that performed in the Stunt Zone, they were very impressive, some we've seen before. We saw a couple of bands including Billy Bob Thorton and his band, Sugarland played, a couple of others and closing the night was Kid Rock. We watched a bit of that, it was actually quite a good show but it was jam packed. Throughout the day there were other Harley and HOG activies and speakers, including Willie G and we watched comedian Lewis Black for most of his act.

Anybody see a black harley????



Getting out of there and back to the campsite was actually surprisingly easy.

Milwaukee trip - Day 5

After several long days and some hard riding, we have a shorter day, only 250 miles or so...

We stopped at Kegel Harley Davidson in Rockfork, IL where there was another Welcome Home party in progress. This dealership had a little cafe built in so we had lunch there and got some directions to avoid the tolls and construction that was happening on the interstate. While we were eating we saw the group from Mexico that we met with in Jackson. We did not get a chance to talk to them but they looked much drier than previous.

Once we got into Wisconson we got onto some state highways, and let me tell you, in these parts, these higways are a lot differnet than in Texas. In TX, you go 70 mph, about every 20-30 miles or so, there is a small town you slow down slightly for. In these other states, the speed limit is typically 55-65 mph, with towns every few miles and slowing down in some towns as slow at 25 mph, which greatly extends travel time!

We stopped at the Buell plant in East Troy for an ABC pic, then arrived at the campground about 3:30 pm so only about 1/2 hour later than I had originally planned for. That was the closest to plan all trip!

Of course at the campground we had to wait to get registered, but thankfully Harley riders and are friendly bunch and offered up some of Milwaukee's premier exports for us to quench our thirst.




We got set up and spent what seemed like hours looking for Len, Lisa, Paul and Lisa and meeting and chatting to a great many folks from all over.



That night we watched Lynrd Skynrd and helped Lisa Mathiason look for her missing lens cap............

Milwaukee Trip - Day 4

Finally sunshine! Trip today will take us to Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, via Xenia, Ohio. Looked at the route and plugged it into my trusty Zumo (Emily) and the distance looked reasonable.

The ride to Xenia was via US 68, which again was a great ride, particularly in Kentucky. Another time zone over, Eastern, and after the three days riding we took our time getting on the road as we were going to "make up" that hour.... or so we thought.

As I am trying to figure out my route, and re-route, I realized something. There is a Normal in Indiana, woops! I make my correction, which now adds about an additional 120 miles to the day. Well that pretty much solidifies that after Xenia we will be riding interstate rest of the way! Including throught Indianapolis during rush hour... Thankfully this part of the trip went very well with virtually no slow down in Indianapolis.

Time for a break, so we stop at the Harley Davidson dealership in Urbana, IL where there was a huge ride home party going on. I was walking around and Darlene snapped a pic of Willie G and his entourage leaving the dealership for their next stop on her camera phone.





We arrive at our hotel after dark again, but just so.

Milwakee Trip - Day 3

Not showers today, but rain! Wasn't supposed to be this far north, should out run once you get into Kentucky, just an hour or so north....

The rain let up to a moderate pace when we got to the Kentucky border so we stopped for pics. The truckers and other drivers must have thought we were nuts. Actually when we were stopped we could see fairly well....



We took a couple of scenic roads and got off the interstate around Bowling Green. After a slight detour, which ended up not being so slight, to get a National Park sign, we eventually ventured up into Bourbon Country. Along the way, on KY 31E we drove through a small town where there was a barrel factory and there was a fantastic image of an open factory door with barrels stacked high, then further around the bend was an Evan Williams truck being loaded with barrels. It would have been a great picture but we were not prepared and it was still raining. We eventually got out of the rain when we stopped for gas in Bardstown.

In Bardstown we had a treat as there are a host of distillaries in the area, including my favorite bourbon, Makers Mark. So we took a detour, spent some time at the distillary then were back on our way to Lexington. We took some very rural roads, small one lane curvy paved roads, that were great to ride, rolling hills. Throughout the roads, tobacco was being harvested and hanging in barns to dry. It was very cool. Kentucky is my new favorite state to ride in!





Once we got to Lexington, we decided that was far enough as it had been a long wet day. Thankfully we got a large hotel room to hang our wet gear throughout.

Milwaukee trip - Day 2

Showers, oh joy. Fay has decided to provide us with a little precipitation and some moderate winds for our ride today. At breakfast and loading the bikes we has a brief chat with the group from Mexico. They looked somewhat underprepared for the rain as we watched one of the guys wrap his leather luggage in a green garbage bag. Some of the group appeared to have a fair amount of riding experience while some of the others did not. I think there were 6 - 8 bikes in their group. They were heading to Memphis, and I think they were looking at worse weather than we were.

Thankfully we were going to be riding the Trace for pretty much the whole day, another 355 miles or so in addition to the 100 or so we rode on Saturday. The rains were pretty constant for the first 250-300 miles, with a couple of breaks and some fairly significant downpours. The ride was great, with again, little to no traffic. We saw a little bit of wildlife, not nearly as much as I expected given that the route is pretty much wilderness. We did see a couple of deer, including a very small fawn, and quite a few turkeys, including one flock that we pretty much had to stop on the road for them to clear.






We continued on a few miles past Nashville and arrived at a hotel sometime after dark, making for a long day.

Milwaukee trip - Day 1

Day 1 started off with overcast skies and the threat of rain. We got off in a timely manner to a good start and had good weather all the way to Natchez with just a couple of small showers along the way. Somewhere between Natchez and Jackson though we hit rain and had to ride in the rain for the last hour or so. From Natchex to Jackson we were on the Trace. Fairly narrow road, slightly rolling, little to no traffic and gentle curves. Lots of history along this road and just off it though.b

When we arrived at the hotel there were other bikes already there. We came to find out they were a group up from Mexico on their way to Milwaukee.

States visited

I have updated my states visited map, from our Milwaukee trip, we rode through 14 states of which several we had not ridden before. These were Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Alabama, Wisconson and Iowa. We also got ABCs of Touring pics along the way and have a good start this year with both the states and Harley plants that we visited along with Xenia, OH ("X" city).



create your own personalized map of the USA
or write about it on the open travel guide

I still haven't figured out how to widen my blog page, I guess I should see if Ryan can help me.

HOGs from all over

Haven't seen any official attendance reports for the celebration but I did see published numbers as high as 125,000 for Saturday. Based on what we saw on Thursday and Friday, I would believe it. At the HOG 25th, one of the Harley executives stated that there was representation from 16 countries. I tried to capture Chapter rockers from the foreign countries that I saw, I missed a few but got several. We saw some foreign plates as well, but obviously a lot of folks used the Fly and Ride program. In addition to the shots below, we saw riders from Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Australia, Sweden and likely some others I am forgetting. We spoke with most of these folks where we were able to. Saw lots of Canadians too, but looking at my pics I didn't get many from Canada.

Welcome Home, and back again.

First the stats. HOG 25th anniversary, Harley Davidson 105th anniversary. Several ABCs of touring points.

3160 miles round trip, in 9 days. Slight change from original route, in that we did not spend 2 nights in Nashville, but added miles to our trip.

14 states including Texas. Included 8 states I have not travelled before on mortorcycle. We skipped Arkansas as we will be there later this year, and would have added even more time to a very long ride home

Day 1 - Home to Jackson, Mississippi - 492 miles some showers then rain the last hour or so

Day 2 - Jackson to Goodletsville, TN, just north of Nashville - 417 miles, rain for most of the Natchez Trace, probably about 1 hours south of Nashville.

Day 3 - Goodletsville to Lexington, KY - 250 miles short mileage but long day as we had rain, rain and more rain. Rain stopped just south of Bardstown, KY, bourbon central! Kentucky is officially my new favorite state to ride in!

Day 4 - finally no rain. Lexinton to Bloomington-Normal, IL, 469 miles the long route via Xenia, Ohio (for our X city in ABCs of Touring).

Day 5 - Normal to Campground in West Bend, WI - oops didn't record but original route was about 253 miles but we had a couple of small detours and parties along the way.

Days 6 and 7 - Milwaukee area - about 28 miles each way back and forth to the campground to party grounds.

Day 8 - return day one from West Bend to Jefferson City, MO, 561 miles

Day 9 - return day two from Jefferson City to HOME!!!! - 554 miles.

Three days arriving in dark, only really one day, the campground arrival did we arrive before supper.

Long days but lots of fun and lots of sights. Will post lots of pics as I sort through them. I shot about 600 or so, but there are a lot of bursts from the Stunt Zone.

Countdown!

Bikes are packed, GPS is loaded up. Boys are prepped.
We hope to hit the road about 7 am tomorrow, shouldn't be a problem.

Tomorrow is a fairly long day, with chances of rain, although I think we can stay pretty dry until we get close to our destination, Jackson, Mississippi.

Sunday will likely start out in the rain, it will be a nice leisurely ride up the Natchez Trace to Nashville Tennessee where we plan on spending two nights. I think we will get some effect of tropical storm Fay on this travel day.

After Nashville we will make our way to Bloomington, Illinois, and along the way we will get a rare "X" in Xenia, Il for our ABC's of touring.

Then its from Bloomington to 3 nights tenting in West Bend, Wisconson, just north of Milwaukee where we will use as our home base for the 25th HOG and 105th Harley Davidson Anniversaries.

Departure is Saturday after three days of camping on the ground with a nearly 500 mile ride to (hopefully) Jefferson City, Missouri.

Finally the last day, almost 600 miles, into home. Once we get home, with the mileage in around Milwaukee, we should have pretty much travelled approx 3000 miles.

Monday Labor Day will be a day of rest hopefully, although it does provide a buffer if we cannot complete the 1000+ miles in 2 days.

Here is the approximate map of our route.

Trip Preparations

Less than one week away. My bike is ready to go, changed my fluids on the weekend, didn't really need to, but fresh and I know what's in it after it being in the dealer. Running my preferances, Mobil 1 V-Twin, Mobil 1 75-90 Gear oil, and ATF. Shifts smoother, runs a bit cooler. I should probably lube my cables if I get a chance this week.

Tough part is going to be packing, as we are tenting 3 nights. I have the mid-size tent and 2 pads. Darlene wants to take sheets/blankets instead of sleeping bags. Weather should be warm enough we shouldn't need too heavy a jacket, but rain is a concern any time of year. Actually though, long johns may make good pjs in <60F nights. Time to start laying it out tonight and making it all fit.

I was thinking we could do laundry maybe twice, night before, and maybe after tenting if necessary. Laundry would potentially mean less clothes to pack. Need a towel as well. Not a lot of room on these bikes! Especially since I have to bring my camera. Would really like to bring my zoom lens since my 28-105 is broken but that takes up quite a bit of room.

Routes are planned as are accomodations till our return leg, but I want to leave that open as I the two return legs are 500 miles each. Not sure after camping that a 500 mile day is likely.

Minesweeper game

You all know the classic Windows game, Minesweeper, right?

I received an email today with a bunch of humourous military photographs. This one in particular almost made me fall out of my chair.



Would that be considered cheating?

Measureable rain and coat hangers

What do measureable rain and coat hangers have in common? Absolutely nothing. But I'll get to each of those points in a bit.

Haven't posted in a while, not that we haven't been busy, but no real riding. We finished up summer hockey last week, for the first time in many seasons, possibly since we have been playing at Richardson, neither the C or D team made the playoffs. Not a bad thing I guess, I can probably use the rest, although I felt like I needed it more at the end of the fall season than this past season. Maybe in part because I had a good final game on Saturday. My slapshot was on and I got an assist of our first goal, slapshop off one of our players into net, and the second was a rush from behind our net after stealing the puck with a blistering slapshot after crossing the offensive blue line into the top right hand corner. Mike K said Hate got the assist. Ha!

We finally had some measureable rain yesterday. Enough even that our kickball game got cancelled. According to the Hippy Dippy Weather Man (George Carlin any one remember that skit?) we had 0.25 inches of rain. Woo Hoo. This on the tail of roughly 28-30 days of +100 temps. I think we set records on at least one day if not two. But it was only 107 that day! We could use some more rain however, as my lawn is taking a beating even with some watering and I need to kill some crabgrass.

I felt like a criminal this morning. Ryan couldn't open his drivers door on his truck. The passenger door has been that way for some time. So effectively he was locked out and vehicleless. I had a look, the key turned but did not move the post. No slimjims here and I don't have a clue how to make one but fortunately he had knobs on his post and a very small gap when we pulled on the door to fish in a coat hanger. I don't think I've ever successfully opened a car door like this but within about 2 minutes success. Now getting the door fixed was another story but after about an hour, some zip ties and beat up arms (unibody construction) we have a working door lock. Will tackle the passenger door another time, as its likely the same issue and would be nice for Ryan to have an alternative other than a coat hanger if it happens again.

The end is also near for the fence project. Yay! One more weekend, we did some this weekend, last corner, and it was quite hot. I was able to re-use some of the damaged panels so that helped out quite a bit, although they did not line up exactly, but its in the "far" corner so is essentially un-noticeable, especially from within the yard. Basically just 3 panels left to build, another 8 hours or so over a weekend.

No riding of late, Darlene got her bike ready for our trip this weekend, I need to do my fluids, etc this week. I have everyting I need just need to take the time and body fluids to get it done. Also need to get the gear down to figure out what to bring and how to pack it all. Me thinks laundry half way through might be needed to save on space....

Big screen TV

Forgot, we finally broke down and bought a big screen tv. A nice SAMSUNG LCD, 52 incher.... Looks great, we'll get it calibrated in a month or so. So part of that is to set it up upstairs, on the wall and finally I can set up a real home theater. I hope to set up the sat speakers this weekend, at least in temporary mode. I was up in the attic to see about coming down through the wall and its not going to be an easy task as that wall is basically under one of the AC units and its greatly built up. I am not sure I can actually access the header of the wall.

Am swapping out our cable box to HD today as well, still need to figure out all the options on this beast in order to get the best picture out of it. I must say, that so far the XBOX 360 looks and sounds incredible on it!

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

Sixteen days over 100F in July, and August is starting off with a bang. At least the first 3 days over 100, and likely many more to come. The lawns and trees are starting to show the heat stress as well, and its not worth the water and cost to maintain. Will keep watering a couple of times a week but am not going to worry about keeping a green lawn, the real downside is that I have not been able to fertilize and weed and feed to kill the weeds that are notoriously drought tolerant!

The girls are off for their weekend this weekend. A 3-4 hour ride tomorrow. They are taking off a bit late so their portion after lunch should be quite toasty, however they'll still reach their destination fairly early in the afternoon. The ride home Sunday shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I have a bit of yard work tomorrow, would like to sod a couple of patchs, but don't know if they'll take with this heat, and I have some yard trash to clean up. If I can get all that done before lunch that will be about all that can be done in the heat, then its basking in the pool time.

Diva Ride Pre-ride

Success, finally got my working. Checked the fuse on Friday, sure enough, it was blown, replaced it and it worked. So we went on a ride yesterday and had a good test. I used a splitter and hooked up both my ipod and the zumo audio. It takes a bit of juice out of volume to do that, and you get overriding voices, but unless I want to put audio files on an SD card this will work, and it will still allow me to use Sirius radio if I want.

So the pre-ride was for the girls weekend. Darlene and I were joined by Tracy and we rode to Pine Creek Lodge, near Nacogdoches, TX. We put on about 385 miles round trip. It was pretty hot, easily reaching triple digits by the time we made it home. We tested the Traditions Tyler restaurant as well and it certainly met our standards!

Felt good to get on the bikes, that was my longest ride since May I believe as we missed a couple of rides in June while my bike was in shop.

Zumo woes

I've been struggling trying to get my zumo hooked up to power on my motorcycle. Have had the wires run for some time and used the standard slicing connectors but that didn't work. the wires from the zumo are very small, not sure if that is part of the problem with the small diameter wires. So last night tried again, tried hardwiring and soldering to the cig lighter wires which worked for a bit but then stopped. Disconnected and reconnected, still not luck so gave up on that and tried some different splicing connectors. Now the cigarette lighter won't work so I must have blown a fuse.

Rode to work this am, noticed a couple of other electrical components out, confirmed online its a fuse so hopefully when I replace that, my zumo will get power. Need to try to get this fixed tonight as we have a ride tomorrow I really wanted to use the GPS on. Its a pretty straight ride but I haven't used it on the bike as much as I would like.

Oh, and its going to be hot tomorrow, triple digits.

Beach Report

Great weekend at the beach.
We got there about 3:00 Saturday, checked into the hotel and headed to the beach. Waves were a bit small, so the boogie boarding was a bit weak.

The beach was absolutely packed on Saturday. I have never seen that many folks there. We didn't ride too far on the beach and found a spot but they were relatively few and far between. I am sure that the whole beach was like that.

Sunday we got there pretty early got a spot and the beach did not get nearly as crowded as the previous day. We set up the shade canopy, great idea, have to remember to bring that when we come back. The waves were a bit better, quite a bit actually and we were able to catch some rides pretty consistently on the boards, even Darlene got in on the action.

SPF aside, several hours on the beach, sweating, water, its easy to get sunburnt. Corey got quite a bit of sun, mostly on his face. My shoulders and neck got burned, and pretty much every exposed bit on Darlene got burnt.

For a special treat we rented a couple of jet-skis for an hour and went out into the bay. It was a lot of fun. Those things can move pretty good. Corey came with me and Marc and Ryan went with Darlene. Both Corey and Ryan took turns. Apparently Marc wasn't all that thrilled with the experience. We both had a bit of seaweed get pulled into the suction so had to take care of that.

Our jetski was registering in km's, we pretty consistently rode in the low 40's. The water was a bit choppy but not too bad at all. I got up into the 60s a few times but not for long periods as Corey wasn't too comfortable at those speeds, but he kept it at 40+ pretty much for his rides.

Long ride home Monday but pleasant. This week there is a tropical storm in the gulf. May even turn into a cat 1 hurricane. The swells were about 2 feet when we were there, scheduled to increase through the week but with the storm are now forecast at over 10.5 feet. One of these trips we'll get some really good swells, maybe 3-5 feet!

Shop report

We picked up Darlene's bike from the the shop last week. She had it in for 35K checkup and some other things. She got her cam chain tensioners checked out and they were in great shape, so that's good and a relief. 2 bikes, both in good shape. She also got some brakes and probably the big upgrade was the easy pull clutch kit.
Big improvement in her clutch response. I used to find her clutch hard to pull, but now its better than mine, and I thought mine was pretty easy to pull.

I wired my Zumo, but something's messed up as I don't have any power, will try to tackle that again before this weekend as we have a pre-ride for the Diva ride. It does work good though as we have been playing with it in the car for a few trips we have taken.

I still have to do some work on mine before the Milwaukee trip. Can't find any reported problems on the K&N oil filter so I must have just got a dud. Not sure whether to try it again or not. Lots of folks swear by them, and they have the nut on the end for easier take off... Guess it'll be a spontaneous purchasing decision at the time.

Ride to Work Day

Today is the third Wednesday in July, officially Ride to Work Day. We have a fledgling biker community here at EDS and after a couple of false starts, today's organized activity went off very well. The official meeting spot was at Sonic in Plano, but that was a bit too early for me so I meet at the official EDS starting point. When I got there, there were a couple of other bikes and in short order the rest of the crew showed up. The official count came in at 33 bikes and we did a tour of the campus. There was a very wide variety of motorcycles, Harleys, Hondas, Beemers, etc., even a couple of scooters.

It was very well organized with support from EDS and Campus Security. There was a videotaping in a support vehicle, which will no doubt be posted soon.

Ride To Work Day

EDSBikers

RC Graduation

I have officially gone from a RCIT (Road Captain in Training) to RC (Road Captain). At the chapter meeting on Saturday, Holly promoted the rest of the RCITs. I guess its crunch time now, as for the past couple of months I'm not been riding a lot, for a variety of reasons, and have probably the least RC experience of the group. No worries though, just need to find the time.

There was a good turn out at the chapter meeting on Saturday, actually a very good turn out, which was suprising for the middle of summer. Got to catch up with a few folks, including Paul and Michelle, post wreck. Paul seems to be doing very well but is still moving quite slowly. I am sure he is anxious to get his bike back so he can truly assess the damage and get it back on the road.

Darlene put her bike in for some service, in preperation of out Milwaukee trip. 35K service, an easy clutch, and cam chain tensioner inspection. Hopefully it will be ready on Wednesday for the dinner ride.

We had a birthday celebration for Marc yesterday, lots of pool fun. They looked like they had a great time.

Independence Day

Back to work after a very relaxing holiday weekend. No riding but plenty of relaxing and a bit of work around the house.
Things kicked off Friday with a neighborhood parade. Several families and kids had a parade in the neighborhood and had bikes, etc decorated. Was cute.



We went to the fireworks at Craig Ranch for Red, White and Boom, which was the name for the new annual July 4 celebration that Mckinney will be having. The location was good for watching the fireworks. We got there too late to check out the festivities, but I think the planners learned a few things about the traffic patterns. I thought we would be in and out, no doubt the planners did as well, but I think there was a lot more traffic that headed north out of the park instead of to the 121. I would like to think that next year, there will be better “action” on the departing traffic with much more assistance from the police. It didn’t take long to get home, especially considering other events like KaBoom Town in Addison, but was worse than I expected.

Saturday Darlene and I went to downtown Mckinney to partake in the festivities as the boys did not want to head out. It was packed! There was a homemade ice cream contest but there were just too many folks for us to stay in line, so we did the touristy thing and hit the antique stores, and the pub.

Police "trike" in downtown Mckinney.



We got home in time to pretty much turn around with the boys and head over to Devils Bowl Speedway in Mesquite to watch Brad Lasater race. It was a lot of fun, a dirt track with localized racing. They also had a great fireworks show.




Sunday was back to (house) work. A typical Texas summer day, so that means that one must consume lots of fluids when working out of doors. Actually we had a very productive day as I built some high shelves in the shed while everyone else was working in the garage. We are finally getting our garage back. Not that a car will ever share it again with two motorcycles in there, but at least there is now walking room.

I had a ride planned, but Darlene really didn’t want to ride in the heat and my planned destination was one I want her to be part of so will save that for another day. We got lots accomplished however.

Shed

We finally got our shed. Easier to buy than build, given the other projects we have on the go, like the fence, and the heat of the summer. Bought it from Tuff Shed, not inexpensive, compared to building one self, but it was up in 4 hours and is very sturdy and well built. Hard to beat that. We need to paint and put up shelves and that is it.

Work in progress



FIN



Ain't it cute!

Rodents and assorted pests

We've been having a minor rat problem of late. Between getting spattered in the AC unit, making a nest in Darlene's car and just being the pests they are, we decided to take action. I have seen them during the day and they are not mice, but pretty good sized rats. We put a sticky rat trap out, and the only thing we caught were feathers, perhaps a bird swooped up a rat that had been caught. After the last A/C incident I figured poison was the only way to go. Sure enough when Darlene got in her car this am, there was a very sick rat stuck in the fence, and it was a big one. With the tail it had to be at least 12-14 inches long. The others I have seen have been a bit smaller than that. The bait is all gone so I'm gonna put a bit more out there.


Shot with D's camera phone...


The next pest report is a bit more tragic. And while not everyone may consider a deer a pest, a lot do. Several of our AE Family are off riding the GCR, or Grand Canyon Rendezvous. We received word that one of them, Paul M, hit a deer earlier today. He is hurt, apparently at least a couple of broken bones, but other than that should be fine. From what I hear I think he is worse off than his motorcycle. No word on the deer. Our hearts and prayers go out for a speedy recovery and safe journey for the remainder of the group.

Happy Canada Day, eh?

Ah, its Canada Day... Hot dogs, Fireworks, officially the first day of summer in Canada... Screechh... Wait a minute, I'm in Texas, summer started weeks if not months ago! Still though, its an important day.



Down here, we are fortunate to wrangle a long weekend out to the deal as July 4 is on a Friday. Mckinney is starting an new celebration this year, Red, White and Boom, with festivities Friday and Saturday. They are having the bulk of the celebrations both downtown, and then at Craig Ranch, which should be easy for us to get in and out of.

Million Mile update - well I only contributed 15 miles but I did contribute. I checked this morning, there is still time for some more folks to contribute, but when I looked they was over 2.7 million miles on the odomoter. I don't know if they'll make it to 3 million or not but it sets a good bar.

Later this month, July 15, is national ride to work day.