cowpuc

After our Friday afternoon banquet had came to close, having a full belly and having met so many great friends, we all thanked the folks at Cousins for hosting the Rally (they did a GREAT job) and headed out to the parking area to get some pictures and just have fun sharing stories. Tweeks came up with this idea of posing herself in a no parking area at Cousins front door with Tippy and I laying down beside her, I love that picture!! We met and chatted with a variety of folks from all over the United States and Canada. Two of our new Canadian friends told us that they each had followed our ride stories in times past and both wanted to say hello (I was honored to meet these fine gentleman). Their VentureRider.org names are @divey and @Dale124. Tip and I had a short chance to sit down with them both and, though it was way to brief, got to learn where they were from and hear about their family's and lives. I am not sure about this and certainly would never purposely want put words in any ones mouth, but I sure got the impression that these two champion Canadian friends of ours totally understood how much Tip and I love hearing about people from around the world and that these two gentleman totally appreciated our effort to be out making new friends and meeting new people by CTFWing. I made a short video to give you, the reader, an opportunity to also meet one of these gentlemen, this is "Divey" - one heck of great guy!! In this same video you may notice people willingly giving of their time to "scratch" Tweeks back. I am always amazed and thankful for those willing to take the time to sign Tweeks, every time this happens it touches my heart to know how from the day of signing and going forward, Tip, Tweeks and I are taking a part of our really special friends every where we travel.

After we finished eating, LoneEagle (our Rally host) settled our chatter down by announcing that he had acquired some donated gifts that he intended to award to certain people. I was amazed at this because after I had crawled into my chair and sat down earlier I had noticed that each place setting had a pile of biker gifts (really neat ear plugs, windshield cleaner and stuff), no one thought there would be more. I lost track of who was awarded what during this time, I can say that BikerJohn received a beautiful set of handlebar fringe leathers (those things that proudly now hang from the front brake and clutch lever on his gorgeous black bike). These beautiful works of leather art were made by a fellow VentureRider.org member by the name of @Luvdaleather. Nanci (Luvdaleather) is a very talented individual who operates a business called "Ace High Leathers" out of California and her work is represented on many of the beautiful motorcycles that will be found at many of the VentureRider.org Rallies operating around the world. I was admiring Johns award for taking second place in "those who had traveled the farthest to get to the Rally". It was during my gloating over our Texas Hero's award that I heard Lone Eagle start talking about the 1st place winner. As soon as he mentioned that the first place winners bike had (in his words) "been ridden in with a set of Antelope horns mounted on it for crying out loud". It was at this point that Tip and I knew we were in trouble. We were awarded a gorgeous "Venture West" poster that now hangs beautifully in the living room of our home in Muskegon. Our dear friend Condor mailed the award to us so we would not have to carry it back to Michigan adding weight to a, already picking up road obesity, worn out old Tweeks.

The fuel gauges of our tummys bouncing on "E" from a long day of exploring the State of Washington exponentially increased the wonderfulness of the smell of the dinners that the staff at Cousins were preparing for us. As my nose took over control of my body and I found myself being magically moved into the banquet room, it suddenly dawned on me that I had somehow gotten separated from Tip. Tossing aside the steadily increasing "feed me" squeal from my now empty fuel tank, I focused my visual search on finding that lovely lady of mine. I soon noticed that she had been captured by a group of fellow CTFWers on the far side of the "U" shaped pattern our banquet chairs had been perfectly arranged in. People were seated around the outside edges of the "U" and were, inadvertently, blocking any successful path to the chair that Tip had saved for me to her right hand side. After crawling under the tables while carrying my camera and the Burger King Crowns I had acquired back at the Burger King at Mount St Helens and having made my way up into my chair, I thought I could hear laughter as some folks apparently found some sort of humor in my solution to the dilemma that had presented itself. I am still not sure if they were laughing at me, my taped up old camera or those cute Gold Burger King Crowns that nobody had a clue of what I was planning on doing with them. One of the amazing things that happens to me when I am out CTFWing is how time, space, travel and location just seem to run together. Its a lot like making a really good cake, the combination of all kinds of really exciting ingredients can get mixed together to create something very special and unique. Not that I have done a lot of baking in my days, but I do know from the few times that I have cooked a cake that no matter how careful you plan, they don't always come out perfect, sometimes they are astounding though! As I sat there taking in the main ingredients of the cake mix called Venture West that had gathered around the banquet table, I noticed something unique. It had not occurred to me how close to the Canadian border this Rally in The Dalles (I could make song here, sung by the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell",, The Rally in The Dalles, The Rally in The Dalles, hi ho together we go to the Rally in The Dalles) was located. Due in part to its location, this gave Tweeks - Tip and I the chance to meet some International Riders - talk about icing on the cake!! On top of that, our host - @LoneEagle, had invited some members of another organization known as "Star Riders" (Yamaha changed their name to "Star" a few years ago so I still think they are Yamaha Riders). There were also people from several other states represented too. Our evening cake mix was absolutely perfect!! It was so much fun listening to these marvelous people explain where they were from and have them share some of their motorcycling backgrounds. After our time of introduction in the Banquet Room, the staff at Cousins brought out our pre-ordered dinners. The food that they had prepared was absolutely delicious. Tip had ordered Salmon and I had ordered Prime Rib. As usual, I helped her find room to finish her Salmon so we wouldn't have to haul a doggy bag back to our tent with us. I also helped @kevin-vic-b.c. finish his potatoes and @bikerjohn finish his salad (Kev gave me his potatoes and I had to sneak some of Johns salad). As we ate dinner, I pulled the Burger King Crowns out from under my chair, grabbed a couple of ink pens, wrote LoneEagle on the top of one crown and Condor on the top of the other. I then handed them to the people sitting next to me and asked them to sign them and pass them on. I also asked that we be careful and not let Condor or LoneEagle notice what we were doing. We than presented the two signed Crowns to our two hosts - TWO OF THE MOST REGAL KINGS TO EVER HAVE BEEN CROWNED!! If you watch this introductory video to the end, you will notice the Crown on Lone Eagles head, he kept it there for the rest of the Rally!!

That young whipper snapper Coff and his super cornering Exodus held back and allowed Tip, Tweeks and I to run lead on the way back. We were in somewhat of a hurry because we all knew there was a banquet planned for the night back at the Venture West Rally HQ, Cousins in The Dalles Oregon. Tweeks did a great job keeping up with the flow of traffic heading down from Seattle and going into Portland. She did have one little interlude with a car that had a person inside who was suppose to be steering the vehicles front wheels but was busy talking on their cell phone. Another one of Tweeks attitudinal problems that I am very aware of is her ability to backfire at will. I could feel her plastic covers tightening up as we started to go past this inattentive driver. I also knew what was coming far in advance of watching the drivers cell phone bounce off the ceiling of his car right after Tweeks loose righthand side exhaust pipe rang out a tone that even a demolition expert would be proud of. As the five of us closed in on the exit that would put us almost directly in front of the Cousins restaurant parking area, I looked in Tweeks mirrors and noticed that our ride group had grown by 2. I would learn later that another VentureRider.org member by the name of @Rainbow Rider had zeroed in on our travels and chosen to follow us into the party that was brewing for the evening. After a brief discussion sitting at the stop sign in front of Cousins, he gave me the honor of video interviewing him and I learned that RainbowRider had become one of the members of VR a couple months before this Rally and had ridden down from his home (located within an hour or so from Cousins) to see what all the ruckus was about. The three of us had made yet another great friend!!

The five of us coasted a short ways down the Mount St Helens overlook, taking a number of hairpin corners and successfully navigating some sheer cliff area's all while under no engine braking assistance, we stopped at another side road viewing area to get some pictures of St Helens from a distance. We than ran a pretty good pace down to the official National Park Gift Shop hoping that they would have the sticker that Tweeks had been hounding me about all day. The gift shop was considerably busier with people than the actual mountain itself had been. I heard something mentioned about foul weather keeping most folks off the mountain side, I looked at Tippy and our good friend @CMCOFFEY standing their with their snowmobile-bike mountain clothing on, shrugged my shoulders and mumbled a word of thanks to myself that we didn't stop here on the way up and ask permission to ride up to the viewing area. Looking at the smiling faces of my two riding partners and knowing how much fun our bikes had while chasing each other up and down those twisty roads, I just could not have imagined riding all the way from west Michigan and not have at least tried to go up there!

After we had spent some time exploring the viewing area, we made our way back to where we had left Exodus and Tweeks. We were walking across the parking area intending check on them to make sure their hooves had not frozen to the pavement when we ran into a person who appeared to have a serious love for taking pictures. We stopped and chatted with this artistic individual and found out that he was from a small town in Illinois only a couple hours south of our home in Michigan, a place called Chicago. After we chatted for a while, I got his permission to make a short interview video and it was during this video that I learned that his name was the same as mine - Scott,, well bust my buttons!! Like so many great people before him that we had met on our travels, our new friend from the Windy City obliged us with his signature on Tweeks.

The viewing area on the west side of Mount St Helens provides a remarkable image of the now healing landscape that was severely injured by the Volcanic eruption back in the 80's. As I mentioned earlier, Tip and I had explored this area a year after the huge explosion and were amazed at how much things have changed. There are massive area's here that had been replanted with tiny trees which now were full grown forests. High up in this elevation though, the landscape was still very vacant with an occasional massive Douglas fir tree trunk or log left in the place where the apocalyptic blast had left them many years ago. Were it not for the cool temperatures and extremely high winds, Tweeks, Tips and I could have easily been convinced to claim a spot and spend the night on this Mountain overlook because we were sure that the elevation would have made for some unbelievable star gazing. I did not mention that to Coff or Exodus though because I had the strange feeling that they would have stayed there in spite of the coolness or wind!

After chasing CMCoffey and his 2001 Yamaha RSV named Exodus all over the coastal region of western Washington, the 5 of us (Coff, Tip, Tweeks, Exodus and I) found the trail that we would CTFW our way up to the Snow blown dome of Mount St Helens. We gassed up and choked down a quick burger at a Burger King before we headed up the hill. Exodus and Tweeks were really hitting it off well when the three of us human types finally came out of BK. The two bikes were sitting there staring at us with that questioning look of a couple of young kids wanting to ask what took us so long as we approached them. While I was exiting Burger King, my eyes had caught a stack of those "'Burger King Crowns" that kids, and grown people who sometimes act like children, can often be seen leaving their local Burger King with one sitting on their heads - giving them a KINGLY look. Coff and Tippy looked at each other and Tweeks groaned her usual "I have had about enough of this joker" groan as I announced I had to go back inside and get 2 of those Burger King Crowns. When I came back out, my two riding comrades asked what I was up to. I smiled and told them that I had a surprise in mind for a couple of pranksters I had met earlier during the Venture West Rally. PLEASE NOTE - IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING THIS STORY YOU WILL WANT TO PAY ATTENTION LATER AS I WILL REVEAL IN BOTH TEXT AND VIDEO WHAT BECAME OF THOSE CROWNS!! Knowing it would be cold up on the mountain, we pulled every bit of warm clothing we had out of our clothing departments, yanked balaclava's over our faces, stacked sweatshirts under our leather jackets, tugged on old snowmobile gloves and struck out to spend the day letting the bikes chase each other on the twisty mountain roads leading up to the viewing area that overlooks St Helens damaged landscape. This roadway system is perfect for both the inexperienced rider as well as people who have found their thrills on such places as The Tail of the Dragon or Iron Mountain Road in the Black Hills of South Dakota (the corners make wider sweeps BUT the complementing scenery is amazing) - that's my opinion of course.

thats looks like,, keywest? Nice you wily rascal!!!

that you can milk and than you can make goat cheese to put on your

Kids today, I tell ya bro, they never cease to amaze me!! Its to bad Cannondale doesnt still make the dirtbikes they were producing for a while, you could have wrote her back and said, honey,, if your gonna get me one I want a new 14k dollar Cannondale!! Just gotta try and stay one step ahead of those off springers Goat!!

Yea,, what da heck,, a Rooster with a broken crowing device?

I know Jonas, how about just having one of those rubber stamps made, you know what I am talking about,, the kind you put in ink and than go around stamping stuff.. That way, you can just stamp all of us and our bikes and Bobs door!! Tell ya one thing,, a guy could have a lot of fun with one of those at Dons!! Watching our International friends try to cross back into their home countries with a tattooish ink stamp that said "I AQUIRED BLACK DEATH" stamped on their foreheads would be a HOOT!!

I had an old Shovel head that did that,, found out it had some burned ignition points, changed them out and that ol Harley went right back to "Potato Potato Potato"...

Jonas, I was just downstairs talking to Tweeks while doing a little measuring. She is kind of upset with me with what I am about to explain but, she has learned thru the years about the code of conduct that I strickly enforce with her and this sticker business.. She only gets to wear stickers that she has earned and, therefore, I prefer to wait till we meet at Don's (PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS AS ME NOT BEING APPRECIATIVE OF THE OFFER OF MAILING THEM THOUGH!!) - I have to maintain some kind of control over her addictive sticker behavior. On the right side of her windshield is a really neat 1 3/4 inch wide x 3 inch tall Flag sticker from Australia that Aussie Annie and Quickstep gave to her at Vogel one year after her tired old motor made it safely down there (she treasures it), there is an open spot near their Flag for another sticker of the same size. Also, she has an open area of 2 3/4 inches tall x 5 inches wide on her fairing, this is right below her Bonneville Salt Flats sticker that Kick Shot sent to her because the three of us couldn't find one while out there - talk about spoiled! I had to quit drinking years ago when Mr. Vodka and I got into big trouble so I wont be able to actually experience the wonderment of Black Death, about the closest thing that I partake of now is Mountain Dew pop and even with that stuff - I gotta be really careful because the caffeine makes my heart go nuts . I do still have a tendency to dance on tables and howl at the moon with people who are having near "death" experiences though so a copy of the Black Death label will certainly not got undeserved on my part! Is it the end of May yet? CAN NOT WAIT!! Puc

Did a LOT of winter riding/ice racing a number of years ago. I used Kold Kutter screws in my tires (still got a couple bags of them somewhere). A known fact with screws was that if you happen to get on pavement with the screwed tires it was as slippery as black ice.. As a result of this and having had experienced the adrenaline filled feeling of having a scoot squirt out from under me with no way to save it a number of times. I can only say that now, in my older years, when I see people out in well below freezing temps on these great big heavy touring bikes that instead of the old yeeeeee hawwww - I find myself cringing at the thought of that one little spot of black ice under a bridge that the rider cant see.. Maybe it's just cause now adays it seems like I hurt all the time (sucks gettin old) and I cant stand the thought of another biker getting hurt, regardless,, if you do venture out in this stuff, please be really really careful!

AWESOME JONAS!! As with many many others, Tweeks and I can not WAIT to meet our Icelandic friends and VR family IN PERSON:happy34:!! If at all possible, Tippy would like to be there and have the chance to meet you and your lovely wife too but its gonna be pretty crazy around here as our youngest is getting hitched, her and the girls got all this giddy girl stuff going on so we will have to see. All three of us are still miffed that we didn't get to make that crazy New York party last year and missed out in meeting you guys (and MANY easterners too) - I AM GONNA MAKE THIS MD!! P.S. - if there is such a thing as Icelandic Indians - please ask them to start doing their Sundance:dancefool: for this one so it is warm at Don's!! P.S.-P.S., Tweeks asked me if you would mind making sure that the bottle of Black Death that you are hand carrying from far off shores, has a good label on it so we can remove it from the bottle and glue it to her side covers? Talk about a bike with a weird sense of whats cool.. Your friend Puc

I know Dan, thats why it is definitely gonna take a double wide, I done growed a couple pounds worth cause of alllll this hiberrrrnatin..

Rusty, my oldest went to school and worked in Greenville SC for several years. Did a LOT of touring and exploring down there with her because of that. I hope you folks enjoy that area as much as we did - it is beautiful down there!! FYI - There is a Yamaha Shop on Wade Hampton in Greenville that I used to hang out in alot while waiting for her to get out of class and stuff. I am not sure about now but back than they had some great guys working there, pretty knowledgable with our bikes. I hope everything goes well during your move and the area is all you folks are looking for!!

Arrgggg,, I dont usually use the word hate but I HATE when that happens!! Wish I could give ya a magic fix Mike..

The glass exterior walls and floor of the side car could be insulated like the wall of a cooler, a narrow space could be preformed between them and the lighter weight plastic interior wall and floor area. This space could be used for water storage and have an access to it where bag ice could be dumped into the water jacket to provide a cheap source of cooling of the sleeping quarters if needed. This would also help with noise control for parking/sleeping in truckstop area's and would assist in being able to remain sealed up in the event of rain even when it hot and muggy out side. Narrow airway passages could be formed into the water jacket with a couple silent 12V fans mounted into the small plentum of this passageway providing air circulation if needed. I think we deserve JOhnsonville Brats for this one Eckster!!

@Flyinfool could get out of his Wisconsin White Wash Machine because whoever owns that thing can control the weather, I would go public with its ownership and eventually I would also control Wall Street and

Most of us, like you and me, who live on this thing have stuff moved around from time to time Dan, its all part of the web experience. I too have stuck stuff in the wrong place and watched as it was moved into the area that fits it better. I dont know the boss personally, nor have I ever ran a website, but I do know from my years in management some of the frustrations that come with keeping things organized and beneficial for the largest part of the group that is being served (that would be us in this case). That said, I am sure that wasnt a case of Don not wanting us to chat bro, more of a trying to keep a handle on things as part of the administration side of it all. I think we should just keep on keepin on, chat away and all that and be thankful that it aint us running around with a broom trying to clean up after the likes of a clown named Cowpuc or a champ named YammerDan:big-grin-emoticon:!! I was thinking more along the line of a DOUBLE WIDE sidecar having room for 2 of us sleeping inside there!! Pass me the hot dogs will ya:big-grin-emoticon:

or seen a sidecar whose seat would fold down into a bed? Was just reading over in our sidecar forum area about a really cool looking Hannigan sidecar someone has when I had this epiphany - "if that double-wide seat would just fold down into a bed, how cool would that be"... http://www.venturerider.org/forum/trike-and-sidecar-talk/92541-hannigan-astro-2-2-car.html

NICE Jonas, really NICE!!