We done got Hitched!

This past weekend we celebrated our re-marraige. It certainly wasn't a traditional marriage, and was a heck of a lot of fun. It was a Biker Wedding which I guess even in itself has no specific form, so I guess even more so it was "Our" wedding, very much so.

We will update our other blog with pictures, etc.
Davidson - LeBlanc Wedding

Lewis Kaulback

I just spoke with Mom and Dad. Dad told me that Uncle Louie (Lewis Kaulback) had passed yesterday. Louie had been sick all winter and when he finally went to the hospital he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer (I believe) although it had also spread significantly and had a short time left. From what I understand he spent the last few weeks at home under care with family attending. Dad and the girls went up this past weekend and knew the time was close.

There are a few very special people in my life and he is one of them. In fact the whole family is. Angelina is Dad’s sister and I have always considered their home a welcome extension of my own. Their homestead, in Middle Stewiake, will always be one of my favorite places on earth, as is Bear Cove. With the exception of times like these I have no bad memories of my times spent there. The farm, the woods, the river. The animals, yes, even the memories of the barns, of course I didn’t have to work the animals, but that was all part of my upbringing. And most of all the people, the food, the stories and the great times, of which there were countless.

Uncle Louie, you will be missed by all those whose lives you’ve touched, and especially mine.

Lewis Kaulback 1936-2008

Maintenance time again

Turned over 31K this past weekend, time for some maintenance. Right at 5K since my last fluid change. Our next big ride is April 18 weekend, the Wildflower ride. I'll probably log about 1000 miles that weekend as I really want to do the Three Sisters loop in Hill Country.

We've been busy getting ready for the wedding so haven't done a lot of riding per se, and haven't focused on my road captain training. I need to do a couple of pre-rides and dinner rides to get some feedback. I have two routes already under my belt with 3 more to go. I have a couple of routes in mind, not exactly dinner rides, more like lunch rides.

This past Friday was Good Friday and I had the day off work. Took care of a bunch of stuff throughout the day then took a quick ride up to Oklahoma and back. I wanted to check out a little something that piqued my interest. It was the single lane bridge at Carpenter's Bluff and was definately worthwhile. There's a couple of restaurants in the vicinity and isn't so far you even need to stop at a restaurant, but that seems to be out group's motto, Ride to Eat, Eat to Ride...
Fairly quick trip, about 130 miles, FM120 is a cool little road and Denison has an interesting looking downtown that is likely worth checking out.

This coming weekend of course will be a lot of fun, I guess we can call it a biker wedding, even though I'm a bit uncomfortable with that image. Stay tuned for pictures!!!

Wildflower Pre-Ride

This past weekend there was lots of riding. Darlene and several LOH ladies took an overnight trip to Granbury for wine-tasting and other debauchery. Actually it ended up being quite a bit of debauchery as the ladies decided to turn it into a batchelorett party for Darlene as well....

My ride was to Fredericksburg as the official pre-ride for the annual Wildflower ride. Dave Barnes planned the ride and I thoroughly enjoyed the route. We had several road captains and road captains in training. I was wing for Paul (Whiff). We are expecting upwards of 100 bikes, I think last spring we had +60 and there are more active members this year. Lunch and gas stops have become challenging but I think we will be good to go.

As its still early in the year, I think the deer are still quite active. I was surprised at how much road-kill we came across and on FM500 we had a bit of a thrill as 3 deer crossed the road directly in front of our pod. With that group was another 3 or 4 behind the fence that stayed to our right and did not cross. On the way home I saw a couple of other deer and a turkey.

Overall the Sat night was pretty mellow as far as these things can go, which is not a bad thing. The actual ride will be quite different as it will be at a different hotel and we will have a barbeque there.

On the Saturday of the actual ride I am planning a route to do the Three Sisters, or the Twisted Sisters, or the 100 mile loop as it is sometimes called. Down into Leakey and Frio Canyon. Those roads are supposed to be some of the best roads in Texas.

Sunday I rode home with Glen and checked out a old Harley he was looking at in Hamilton TX. It was a 1965 police edition, the last year for the panhead and first year of the electra-glide. The bike has supposedly been dormat for 18 years and while it was in surprisingly good shape for that aspect, it does need quite a bit of work. The lady who owns it (dead husband's bike) is a bit misinformed to its value, especially in the state it is in. I believe Glen is interested in it, but does not want to offend the lady with a good offer if she is truly not aware of its value.

The guy who was selling the bike on the lady's behalf was an interesting character. Ken French I believe was his name. He used to ride in the 40's and 50's and had some great pictures of him and his crew. He also rebuilds old cars and had a couple of great ones in his garage.

Oh, about 670 miles. Getting time for oil change, may do that this coming weekend.

Going's on....

Whew, lots going on. This past weekend we didn't put on a lot of miles. Saturday was the Chapter meeting, and I had some concerns about the drive over. Thursday we had some more snow, can you believe that! Two significant snowfalls in one week, in Texas! But typically each lasted only about 1 day. I was concerned because there was 9 inches of snowfall in Denton on the Thursday, I figured there must still be some snow on the ground and certainly the roads would be wet from the melt if nothing else. Also it was about 22 degrees when we left Saturday morning, so any water on the road would likely be frozen.

We left early as Darlene needed some service on her bike, otherwise we may have considered taking the car. Anyway we stopped for gas close to the house and Darlene's hands were already cold. We switched up gloves and carried on. We took the south route, along 121 instead of 380 due to potential issues on the road. Not sure it was any better as once we started hitting intersections, we also started hitting ice. The worst one was probably the first one, we had a red light and on the other side was about 15 feet of ice that we had to drive over. Its very slippery.... We hit a few more patches along the way, but none as bad as that first one. By the time we got to the dealership, Darlene was pretty stressed out and relieved.

We hung out and didn't ride anywhere that day. Sunday was the ride to Windy's Catfish. I would have liked to have gone, but with my hockey game Sat night, and then the time change, plus the group shower and helping Corey with school, if I figured I better skip that ride.

So now this weekend coming up we should both be putting on a few miles. Darlene and quite a few of the girls are going to Granbury for an LOH overnighter, and planning on picking up a lonestar point on the way home on Sunday, adding about 500 additional miles to their trip! I am going on the wildflower pre-ride to Fredericksburg with several of the road captains and will likely put on about 800 miles or so. Will be time for oil change after that.

Wedding plans are in full swing, getting house in order, etc...

March break is next week for the boys.

Snow in Texas?

In March?
It was 80F on Sunday, a cold front came through and by Monday night it had dropped to freezing, about 32F. We had some pretty significant storms Sunday night with the front and it continued to rain throughout Monday, by Monday night we had a change to snow. I took a few pictures Monday night, which are not easy to do as the flash lights up the flakes directly in front of the lens, but then got up to a beautiful sunny morning a took a few more pictures.





We had upwards of 5 inches of snow here in Mckinney, I think the only place with more reported snowfall was Sherman with 6 inches. It probably stopped snowing around 2 or 3 am so it started to compress as it was very fluffy snow. I think by the time I got outside this morning it was still about 3 inches thick.

Road Captain Training

This past Saturday was our road captain training class. We had a good group of 9 riders taking class. For me a lot of the stuff I had already had exposure to, either by riding with some of the RCs already, some of the early training I have already been exposed to this year, as well as a lot of the stuff that Darlene had told me based on her riding experiences and exposures from the other RCs while she was a newer member and learning a lot.

Its all about responsibility, with of course the primary responsibility being the safety of all the riders. Other key areas are communication to the riders and of course the planning of the rides with focus on both safety, and comfort.

In addition to these things, the RCs truly represent the chapter and are very visible. Its important to learn the who the members are, including their names, and to recognize that once in this position, people will expect you to always be "on", so to speak.

In the words of some, if people see you getting on your ride, organized ride or not, you will likely have other riders following you!

After the class, which lasted about 3 hours, several of us went on the pre-ride for the Fallen Eagles ride on April 5. The Fallen Eagles ride is a memorial ride for American Eagle members who have passed away, including most recent Karen Riley. This ride will be to the Hard 8 Barbeque in Stephenville. Unfortunately we will not be in attendance as Dale and Peter will be down and we will be attending the races that weekend.

The ride was fun and was through a couple of interesting small towns. Total miles on Saturday was around 370 miles. Long day, left the house at 8 am and got home about 8:15 pm.

HOG 25th

Its time to start putting firmer plans in place for our big trip this year. The plan is to ride to Milwaukee in late August for the HOG 25th / Harley 105th anniversaries. We are not going on the rendezvous ride and doing this instead. I've done some initial route planning and have a pretty good plan, albeit a lengthy one with quite a few miles and for the most part staying off interstates.

Some of the highlights, which of course may evolve as we get closer and planning firms up.
Aug 23 - 31, which gives us an extra day, Labor Day, on the back end if we need it.
We want to be in Milwaukee area on Aug 27 as the events start early on the 28, and leave the party on Saturday the 30 so will miss that days activities.

Current route is 2640 miles, not counting incidental miles at stops, etc.
Six travel days, averaging over 400 miles per day, and 3 "rest" days. First day and two days on return are 500 mile days.
Natchez Trace from start to finish.

We will have 3 nights camping at Hog Haven in West Bend with several thousand of our closest friends.....

We plan on doing some ABC points, right now have opportunity for 15 states, although we have other opportunities for 3 of those states. May even get the rare and difficult city that begings with "X", which unfortunately is our easternmost point.

One travel option I am looking into is the Lake Express Ferry, a high speed ferry accross Lake Michigan that will allow us to avoid Chicago and lot of other populated areas on the south and southwestern shores of the lake. It may be very worth it, but unfortunately restricts us to a tight schedule on that day.

Lots of time left but there will also be a lot of riders heading in that direction from all points so will likely need to start making reservations sooner than later.

HOG 25th
Harley 105th

Regional Chili Contest

The weather was fantastic this weekend. A bit cool Saturday, but not too bad. Our road miles were quite minimal though. The regional Chili Competion was this Saturday, at the Allen dealership, so we had about 6 miles to travel to the dealership! We had 2 teams entered, out of 10 or 11. There were lots of folks in general, at least a couple of hundred bikes. A group rode in from the dealership and a few others showed up so we probably had representation of 20 or so members, maybe a few more.

Unfortunately our teams did not finish in the top, neither the judges choice or the peoples choices. Personally I think that the judges would have had a difficult choice to make. To be honest however I think were far fewer good chili's than bad chili's! Some interesting tastes and textures. From the "sawdust" filler of one, to another deperately needing some filler, or perhaps some paper towel to blot some of the fat (use lean meat people, or drain the fat!) My personal favorites tended to be the blandest samples as at least they did not contain any questionable or unknown flavors!

It makes you wonder how some of these recipes had won their club competition, but bear in mind that chili is typically different each time you make it. Just look at our "Too Hot To Handle" team. Mind you only one of the original team could attend this weekend. In my opinion, it was a bit too smokey flavored. A little too liberal with the fire roasted tomatoes.

Sunday was a beautiful day and was spend around the house, doing lots of chores, etc.

Pictures?

I haven't taken a picture in weeks. I probably should have taken one or two of downtown Granbury last weekend as it has a pretty cool historic downtown square. This weekend is the regional Chili cookoff at the Allen HD. We are supposed to have 2 teams entered so we will go down and check it out and show our support. Will get some pictures there.

Darlene will probably get a new back tire, she needs one, can go a few more miles but not too many. Her front time is getting a bit wore too. I'm nearing 5K, actually 4K on my oil so time to start getting supplies. Would like to try a K&N oil filter, they are roughly the same price as an HD filter but have a nut on the end for easier removal. I don't think there's a lot of difference between the two.

I am also past due on my truck for an oil change. Should probably do that this weekend. And of course all the vehicles need a good washing and waxing. That's not likely to happen anytime soon! It just takes too long with everything else we have on the go. I guess I should look at putting that cabinet up in our bathroom as well, maybe Friday night so it will free up a tiny bit of room in the garage.

Granbury Take 2

There was originally a lunch ride scheduled to Loose Wheels in Sherman, which is a biker friendly establishment, but unfortunately with the rains yesterday and the loose gravel parking lot, the ride was cancelled/postponed for the sake of safety. So we decided to head out to Granbury and pre-ride the revised route we planned.

This ended up being a better route we felt. Only real area of concern on this route was in Weatherford. Cool town, building (City Hall?) is smack in the middle of the road so there is a roundabout around it. Gotta love those roundabouts....
Then worse is the area around the mall/stores and I-20. Its on a hill, with a very rough road, and too much traffic for the roads.

We ate at the Nutt House hotel and restaurant. Had a very good buffet for only $9. For a Sunday Buffet. Took a very brief walk to check out the Devine Wine place as well. The girls will have a great time.

Ride home was pretty much a straight shot, took FM-51 (sweeping turns) back to I-20 them interstate the rest of the way.

It was a bit windy and cool but not cold. Didn't get a good count about 250 miles today.

Almost forgot, saw a couple of other Eagles on the route, totally unrelated. We saw Cowboy in his truck in Justin, very close to his home, and we saw Garred doing an ABC point in Northlake.

I am now a skilled rider....

Yesterday was the Riders Edge Skilled Riders Course. It was also the day the rains came.

I had to be at the dealership at 8 am so I woke up about 6:15 to get ready and head out. I woke up to a tremendous thunderstorm, including rain. Fortunatley it was a fast moving storm so by 7 am, the rain had tapered off somewhat. Radar showed that 380 was probably not a good idea so I took 121 and managed to get to the dealership on time as the rain was not so bad to impact my travel time. Only two crashes of lightening in the Colony area and one minor downpour.

We had 9 riders show up, with 3 no-shows. All 9 of us were from the club. Paul Martin didn't make it and Holly didn't know the other two. I don't think there was a moment the whole day that it didn't rain, although for the most part it was relatively light. We actually got caught indoors in what was probably the heaviest shower during the class, except for perhaps at the end when we quickly finished up due to a storm cell that had lots of lightening.

The rain made for interesting challenges, starting up with having to wear bulky clothes do deal with both the cool temperatures and the rain. Then of course most of the training was slow riding, so googles and shields were fogging up. Cold, wet hands. Finally of course were riding conditions. Rain makes for slippery conditions. The course is new, a back parking lot that has seen little traffic except for riders edge classes, and the lot has painted lines, so those lines were very slippery, both underfoot and under tire.

Everybody passed and no one had any signicant issues with the conditions, a few brake lockups (myself included) and a few slippy slides on the lines. Also myself included. But scarier was off the course.

When we went for lunch (also in the rain...) I accellerated out of a turn on a yellow line and got a tiny bit sideways. And on the way home, on Mayhill, there was a very slippery spot coming into a stop sign that I had no traction at all. Quickly recovered with no issues, but just highlights the dangers for motorcyclists in wet weather.

Total rainfall for Mckinney, 3.61 inches, total rainfall in Denton, where I was, only 2 inches. Oh the rains stopped around supper time....

Advanced Rider Training

I am scheduled to take the Riders Edge - Advanced Riders Training this Saturday. Well the weather scheduled for this Saturday is probably the worst forecast we've had yet this year. Last update as of this am, forecast is 70% rain, although most of that in the wee hours of the morning with gradual tapering off through the later morning and day. And... High temps in the high 30s and low temps in the 30's.

Which means, aggressive driving in far from ideal weather conditions and wet roads, and bulky clothing to keep warm.

I have a query in to the instructors to see if they will cancel due to weather but not sure if they do or not. Could be an interesting day....

RCIT

Road Captain In Training. Kind of funny. Saturday's ride was one off my submitted rides for the Road Captain training. Got some very positive feedback so that was cool. It was 74 miles I think, just over 1.5 hours riding. We ended up at Yesterday's restaurant in Bridgeport. The restuarant did a great job seating and serving us but got messed up when it came time to get everyone their checks. No big deal it all got sorted out. We split a chicken fried chicken sandwich, and the chicken was most excellent.

The ride there was relatively uneventful. I saw a couple off deer bounding over the roadbank. Darlene's pod had a very tight turn and some brakes locking up, but everyone made out ok.

After lunch we did a partial pre-ride to Granbury for the LOH Spring Fling Ride. Its another relatively short ride, only 95 miles from the shop to the hotel. It will be all ladies and some of them don't have a lot of riding experience so I selected a route that kept them off the interstate for the most part. I guess it was ok. Fairly well populated areas with traffic, but for the most part, good spacing between lights and traffic stops and should be easy to keep pods together. Granbury has a pretty cool downtown square and it looks like it stays quite busy.

This weekend was pretty awesome weather wise and there was a lot of bikes and groups on the road.

Sunday was a honeydo day, got several items ticked off. Essentially finished the boys bathroom, hung the mirror and cabinet. Put the light in the powder room and got up on the roof and glued down some of the shingles that were lifting in the last big wind. I bought a bundle off shingles but since there was only technically one (partial) missing, I didn't open it yet and will likely return it. BBQ'd some steak for supper. Good day overall.

This Saturday is my advanced riders class. I'm looking forward to it. Its my first riders training since I got my license 25 years ago!

Oh, 310 miles on Saturday. I took my camera but never took it out of the bag so no pics.

Polar Bear Ride?

Tomorrow is our LOH Polar Bear Ride. Good thing its not the Snowperson ride. Its supposed to get up to 70F tomorrow. Those polar bears will be looking for cool frosties off. This ride is one of the routes we submitted for our road captain training. I will probably claim this one.

After this ride we will be doing the pre-ride for the LOH Spring Fling to Granbury. That is another ride we have submitted.

I figure we should put on 250 miles easily tomorrow, if not closer to 300.

The Easyriders Show is in downtown Dallas tomorrow. I had been thinking a bit about going but I don't necessarily know that its worth the price of admission. With the pre-ride that pretty much takes care of that as there is no way I'll even have time, which whould have been short at best anyway.

Sunday will be honey-do's and home repair. We had a bit of wind last week and I have to get on the roof to repair some shingles.

Viva Las Vegas

Shift Linkage

Well it finally happened. My shift linkage let go. It was actually a couple of weeks ago, we had just left the gas station on 380 and 377, on our way to the dealership for the Blanket Ride. I went to shift into second gear and no go, just a loose shifter peg.

We stopped, I told Darlene to keep going, since it was her ride and I rigged a couple of zipties and was back on the road in no time.



And wouldn't you know it, I had bought a set of heim joints from Paul Martin at the Christmas dance, and they were sitting on the shelf waiting to be installed. I coulda installed them over Christmas break with the rest of my add-ons I installed, but no, I decided to wait.

Actually the zipties worked surprisingly well. I have now installed, and lubed the new heim joints. Its a nice tight fit and it seems to shift better.

Beads, Beads, Beads

A good time was had by all. All in all a fairly quick weekend, we put on just over 400 miles round trip, pretty much a straight shot there and back, mostly on secondary highways. That was my first time to Shreveport and while it looks like it could be a happening place, most of the action seems to be confined to the casinos. The square downtown were we ate, was pretty much dead, and this being a fairly major weekend for the city. In talking with some of the folks, the current mayor seems to have shut down most of the pedestrian activity in favor of the big money in the casinos. Which is really too bad, they is a nice downtown area.

We arrived in time to eat lunch, go back to hotel to check in, then head on down to the parade, which started at 4:30. It was a lot of fun with several floats, I think I had read somewhere 20+ floats were to run. This was the Krewe of Gemini parade. The sides of the road for spectators were all "reserved" by folks who got there earlier in the day and set up. There looked like there was lots of space available but it was hard to find a spot, we eventually found a spot and almost took it over with our group but fortunately we got a spot directly accross the street as well. Thanks to the folks who shared their spot!

The parade here is very family friendly and does not have the raunchiness and debauchery of New Orleans. While there was lots of jostling for beads, there was absolutely no flashing, etc, nor later in the evening. Apparently further down the parade route, it tends to get a bit more carried away, perhaps its out of the downtown, "tourist friendly" area.






The casinos were packed. And very smoky. I didn't even bet 1 quarter, it really doesn't appeal to me. Intersting sights though, watching the folks. But I got tired of it pretty quickly. Some of our crew had fun participating, from the slots, to blackjack to roulette. I don't know if anyone played craps or not.

We got home by noon on Sunday, we avoided the rain, or perhaps the rain avoided us. A couple of drops at the outset and some damp but not wet roads, sun breaking through as we pulled into the driveway.

Of course it was Superbowl weekend as well. We all watched the game to a big spread of junk food. Classic. Hooters wings, jerky, fries, chips, crackers, etc., etc., etc.
Giants won in what was actually a very exciting game!

Mardi Gras!

Well, maybe I will start getting a bit excited. This weekend we have an overnight road trip to Shreveport for the annual "Mardi Gras Upriver" ride. I've never been to a true Mardi Gras parade. On Saturday is the Krewe of Gemini parade. It about 240 miles but we are leaving at 8 am so should get there in time for the parade but won't have lots of time to spare.

Shreveport Mardi Gras is apparently not nearly as wild as New Orleans but is also apparently a very large event. Hopefully we'll be able to obtain some beads and maybe even get some opportunities to throw our own....

Other Notes... Superbowl weekend, Go Giants! We'll be back in plenty of time for the game and no doubt several hours of pregame activities.

Also, just posted, Hooters is having their 25th anniversary this year. They have their passport and associated wing parties. We have attended several wing parties over the past two years so it would be nice to be able to host one for a change. I thought it was limited to Texas Hooters but the rules state 25 stamps globally so with our trips that may make it easier.

Blanket Ride

This past Saturday we had a charity ride for the Denton State School. The Denton State School is a residential facility for people with mental and developmental disabilities. It is very close to the dealership and has over 600 residents. For this ride we collected blankets and the like for residents, many of whom are in wheelchairs.

We had 28 bikes for this January ride which was an excellent turnout as well as a couple of support vehicles. After our stop and donation, which we had a couple of exuberant and excited residents show up, we took a ride to the Prairie House restaurant. Darlene and I had configured the route, roughly 45 miles which was a nice ride north of the restaurant, along the lake. Got some positive feedback on the route, which submitting was part of our Road Captain training.

After lunch we popped over to Larry and Holly's to check out the "chapel". Then we went down to the new North Texas HD facility. Its a very large showroom with tons of parking. The upstairs lounge area was a bit small however.
We missed some of the festivities, but were in time to see Bubba Blackwell doing some stunts, which included doing wheelies on Buells and HDs, including a V-Rod and an Ultra Classic, yes, and Ultra Classic, with a passenger. After all that he jumped several bikes set up in the parking lot. Quite impressive overall.

Sad Day

Even with all the fun of the Chili cookoff, there were more serious matters to take care of. Yesterday evening was Karen Riley's funeral. Several of us rode from the dealership to the funeral home as one large pod, with our lights flashing. It was quite the sight. I would estimate there was at least 35 bikes.

We arrived in Lewisville and lined one side of the street. There was a tremendous turnout and the funeral was packed beyond capacity. It was a very nice service. When the floor was opened up, Bobby Mims probably best captured how everyone was feeling. Don looked like he was holding up well, I am sure that he had had several difficult times before this, and will continue to do so for some time.