cowpuc

Did ya tell em ya weren't shoppin for toids,, you is lookin for decent scoot? Fear not Cha, they are out there - just gotta do the leg work!! So,, what was stinky about it? Obviously not low mileage - maybe 121k? Oh well, glad ya made it safely over and back!

THANKS YOU GUYS FOR THE KIND WORDS!! Glad you are enjoying the ride along!! Thought we may as well sit back and enjoy a cyber ride with all this White Wash stickin around.. Its not as good as the real thing but its far better than counting the fibers in the carpeting.

Prayers Up for that 79 year old buddy of yours Bird,, those injuries make my bones ache just reading about them - OUCH.. Please let him know our thoughts and prayers are with him!! Maybe time to hang up the balancing act and jump on a SlingShot or something.. Growing old is definitely not for cowards! I can soooo flippn relate to all this stuff you guys,, and that 79 year old has got almost 20 years on me,, arggg.

See, now that looks totally different than the rails on my 87,, I wonder if the backrest and mounts off an 83 would fit it? Did you have to take the mounts off KICs bike to put that on yours Dave? The way that rest is mounted to mounts is different than both my 87 and the 83..

:photographing::thumbsup:

Never did really find out for sure David, is the backrest you are using now the type that slides into a couple slider rails that run along the seat bottom or does it bolt on and is adjustable by placing the mount bolts in a different set of holes?

Dont feel bad Cha, I missed it too!! Eusa, be sure and tell your daughter AWESOME job on the art work - I LOVE THAT SHIRT!!! We can all use MO of that stuff!!

Oh yea, have fun out there and protect that arm!!! Wish I was with you fellers,, I love and :stickpoke:with dealers, its a lot of fun!!

For sure Cha, I only brought up the gasket routine as a means for you to do some negotiating on the price. IMHO, a lot of dealers will crumble on their older used bike prices when they are faced with a knowledgeable buyer cause they dont wanna have to deal with it all.. Just pointing out and being able to show them that the gaskets havent been changed so the valve maintenance has not been done might be worth 4 or 5 hundred bucks to them.. Ya never know till ya ask!! As far as riding it for the summer,, I would probably ride it out to 250k myself just like it is:big-grin-emoticon:

ALRIGHT!!!!!! I sure hope our paths cross this year Annie - my stickers need to be re-signed by the two of you, been far to long sister!!!

I totally see where your coming from Rand but, I cant tell you how many bikes I have taken in thru the years that have fallen victim to what this 21k bike may have fallen into.. I KNOW its a horrible thought but there are a lot of people out there who get involved in this sport that you and I treasure and get out as quickly as they got in. They buy a bike, ride it for a few miles, dont really care for the inconvenience of having messed up hair, dirty clothes or facing the dangers we face and the bike ends up sitting under a tarp. I know it sounds NUTS but I am telling ya bro,, I have seen it over and over again!! I always had a big problem trying to explain to owners of such bikes why I couldnt give them top dollar for their 30 year old bike when it looks like brand new BUT the motor hadnt been turned over in 30 years and the air cleaner was filled with a mouse nest!! Dont get me wrong, I think your warning about being suspicious around this type of purchase is rock solid for many reasons!! It is real easy to buy into a really good looking bike that can turn out to be a money pit,, this can happen even with one of our beloved Ventures..

Tip returned with some awesome cloths she had found for me at Goodwill.. After I washed off a few pounds of desert dirt and PW 80 grease, I slid into the new cloths Tip had purchased for me and told Tip that I hoped the previous owner of the outfit didn't show up at the graduation service and ask for his clothes back, we were off to my Daughters graduation.. My second born daughter, who also has ridden many cross country miles with me and has earned the biker name of "Cappy", had ventured to Sacramento a couple years ago after finishing her Medical Degree program at Cornell in Manhatten.. Cap would now be moving on to what Doctors call a "Fellowship" to complete the training she needs to secure full time employment in the medical field. On the other hand, Awahoo, her big sister, chose to pursue a career in Education and became a school teacher.. Ironically, both of them ended up in California and currently live within a half hour of each other which makes it very easy for Tip and I to keep track of them. We all gathered at this really fancy place called Scotts Seafood On The River, it is located on a river in Sacramento, this is where Cappies graduation ceremony was being held.. The place was packed with some pretty high end Doctors who I overheard talking about their sports cars, I even heard mention of Ferrari's and Vipers. I leaned over to Tip and told her I wondered if Cappy had ever told these wealthy people about life on the road with her ol pappy, living out of saddlebags and all that. A short while later, the Medical Examiner for Sacramento County came over and shook my hand. She told me how out of the 4 graduating Dr.'s that had worked under her during their residency programs, no one had the stories that my Cappy had shared with her about our travels across our great country!! She thanked Tip and I for raising such a wonderful daughter and for instilling in her an amazing ability to reject fear and the deep desire to explore. I thought deeply about that comment later as I was tightening the bedroll down onto Tweeks back in preparation for the short jaunt the Tip, Tweeks and I were gonna make to a place called "The Dalles", in a land called Oregon.

Thanks to our friends, those GREAT Texas Cowboy Heroes back in Texas, Tweeks, Tip and I made it to California in plenty of time to make it to my other daughters graduation service that she was partaking in because she had completed the residency program as a Pathologist at a big hospital in Sacramento. We had arrived at Dead-eye and Earth Movers campground with just under 24 hours to prepare for that service so we had plenty of time.. Another part of the code between Grandsons and Grandpa's has to do with the Grandson making sure that they have something broken on their motorcycles for Grandpa to repair upon his arrival from Michigan. In an effort to abide by this established code of Grandfatherdom, as we were eating breakfast - Dead-eye announced that the brake on his dirt bike was not functional and the throttle seemed to have taken to sticking in the wide open position. Dead-eye and the rest of my daughters family had an outing they were attending and they would be gone all day. Tippy announced that I was not going to be allowed to wear my smelly biker cloths to the graduation service for my second born that evening and she needed a few things too, she was going to borrow my daughters car, go into a place called Elk Grove and see if the Goodwill there had any decent dress clothes that would fit me.. I stayed at my son in laws by myself and commenced to repair Dead-eyes PW80. The nice thing about a Yamaha PW 80 dirt bike is that they are very light in weight. I suppose this is a good thing when you stop and think about it cause not to many parents would appreciate seeing their kid outside trying ride a 1st Gen Yamaha Venture like Tweeks around their homemade motocross track, dont laugh, Dead-eye asked about it. I also found the PW's light weight to be advantageous for another reason too. Dead-eye does not happen to have a motorcycle lift table in his tool portfolio and, my aching old back always appreciates it when I can get whatever it is I am going to work on, up off the ground. Eyeballing one of the shade trees that add comfort to the boys campground, I pushed the little bike over to the tree and hung the PW on a branch. I then commenced to do the repair work.. After I finished repairing the bike, I purposely left it hanging in the tree,, it kind of looked like a Christmas ornament.. Matter of fact, I liked it so much that I walked over and got Earth Movers little Z-50 Honda and hung it in the tree too!

Having experienced the vast open beauty of our country for the last few days, riding her endless trails that perhaps my Native American ancestors had used to track game on or to connect with other tribes. Having partook of the deep sleep that comes from a long day in the saddle coupled with snuggling into the bosom of mother earth while she gently rocks you to sleep while your laying on your back with nothing separating you from her heart beat but a thin piece of nylon tent floor and a sleeping bag. Knowing that this part of our journey was now coming to an abrupt end as we could clearly see the densely populated area on the west side of the California Sierra's was disconcerting in a strange way. The sadness only lasted a moment though as my thoughts short shifted to my two who now call that populated area on the west side of that mountain range home. We arrived in the area where my oldest daughter resides shortly after the sun had given up for the day. Not surprising to me, my grandsons - a couple of real characters that I lovingly refer to as Dead-eye and Earth Mover - who knew we were coming, had their personal campground, an area that their father wrongfully believes is his front yard, on the outskirts of Wilton California all prepped for their grandpa to spend the night with them.. Being very intelligent young men in the their own way, they knew that their grandma and grandpa would highly prefer staying with them in the campground they had prepared as apposed to sleeping in the air conditioned, freshly cleaned bedroom that my daughter (this is our oldest child - she has ridden many miles with me over the years and earned her biker name of "Awahoo" years ago) had prepared for us.. The look on their faces was beyond explanation as their dad suggested that they give their grandparents a night to recoup from all the camping they had done in the effort to get to California and have them sleep in an actual bed.. We had a big family discussion about the matter over some Pizza that my daughter had mustered up for a late night dinner snack. Later as Tip, Earth Mover and I were laying in our tent and were talking thru the tent walls to Dead-eye who was sleeping in his tent, we all laughed about my son in-laws inability to under stand how important sleeping outside with the spiders and other bugs is when grandparents are trying to reconnect with the grand kids they hadn't seen in almost a year.. Parents were a pain when I was growing up and they still can be if your not careful. After Tip stabbed me in the side a half dozen times during this discussion, I finally caved in and explained to the two youngens that they have WONDERFUL parents and that they simply had not been Grandparents yet so they didn't know about the code between Grandpa's and his grandsons.. I earned three more jabs over that one..

After the hiker lady told me about her weight loss, it occurred to me at how skinny both these young travelers were. Tippy walked back over to Tweeks as I was digging into the left saddlebag where we always keep the junk food that keeps me alive at night. The look on the faces of our new friends was priceless as I pulled bags of candy out of the cache that was secretly hidden in the clothing department hanging on Tweeks side and handed it to them. They smiled as I told them that hopefully it would help them both regain some of the energy they had lost in dealing with the snow.. Then the two agreed that signing Tweeks was a fair price to pay for the treat of coming into possession of a couple pounds of candy. They asked if we would mind hauling a small bag of garbage down the mountain for them which we stuffed into the netting that wraps around the top of our bedroll.. After saying our farewells, Tip, Tweeks and I watched as our two new friends from Vermont walked off to continue their 2600 mile walk.. Tip and I laughed as the last thing we heard from them was the voice of the skinny young girl demanding that her boyfriend give her the grape jolly rancher he had pulled out of the bag of candy we had given them. We started our free flowing coast down the mountain while heading west off the summit on Sonora Pass. The day was finally starting to warm up into the kind of temps I really prefer. The warm coastal dry air coming up the mountain from mainstream California that is located along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada's was succulent. The spectacular views along this western part of the past was the same and breathtaking in every way. We stopped a number of times to enjoy a small river that seemed to be in competition with Tweeks in a race to see who could get down the mountain first. I felt sorry for the river cause I knew first hand of how crafty Tweeks could be toward any opponent that lured her into a race. Besides, the river had way more obstacles to overcome, with all the boulders, bends and waterfalls that it had to contend with, it just didn't seem like a fair race to me. One thing I hadn't factored into my perception of the race Tweeks was in with the river was exactly how distractive the beauty of the rivers race maneuvers could be. Tip and I found this distraction to be so alluring that in the end, Tweeks lost the race solely due to my causing her to stop for extended periods of time so Tip and I could stand around, take pictures and gawk at the rivers royal demeanor.

Another word used in mountaineering is the term "Summit". To summit a mountain pass simply means that you have successfully made it thru the hard part of going up the hill, are still alive and now you get to relax because you are gonna start going down the hill, pretty easy to understand. As Tweeks, Tippy and I turned the last sharp corner at the very pinnacle of the Sonora Pass Summit we were greeted by two very special people who were sitting there enjoying the relaxation they had earned by summiting the mountain too. This adorable young couple had traveled all the way from Vermont, came out to the California/Mexican border during this past April to begin a summer hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. The "trail" they were hiking would eventually take them to the Canadian border up in the state of Washington, a total of 2600 miles of foot travel!! Apparently, unlike CTFWing and motorcycle tent camping adventures like Tip and I do, foot travel into these regions requires a permit and, once you have the permit - you have a certain time frame of which you have to begin the trek. The main reason for this has to do with the weather and the snow pac up on the mountians. This couple had just come down from a mountain peak off in the distance and they told us about part of the adventure they had experienced the day before. Apparently they had gotten involved in a severe mountain storm that dumped a bunch of fresh snow on the them causing them to lose almost a full day of travel.. As we chatted with them about that storm it occurred to us all that it was probably the same storm that forced Tweeks, Tip and I to seek shelter in that ghost town back in Nevada.. They were very intrigued with the bedroll on Tweeks back and the fact that Tip and I prefer tenting in obscure places over motels.. They both could totally relate to the sense of freedom that one seems to earn by surviving in the great outdoors in a minimalist kind of way. Of all the folks we have met in our travels, this lovely couple who were taking the summer to hike,tent,camp and live free up on the Pacific Crest Trail seemed to really understand why we choose to CTFW in the fashion that we do. It seemed we had made two more like minded friends. Tippy had noticed some snow on the ground not to far from where we had pulled off and started talking to the hikers.. Being the nature lover that Tip is, she had to walk over to play in the snow. The girl hiker lady asked if I was gonna join Tip and I told her that part of my marital job description included a phrase about handling snow removal and that I had just spent an entire winter chasing over 10 feet of the nasty stuff back and forth across our yard.. If I recall,, I actually said something like "after wasting all my energy trying to get rid of over 10 feet of snow in our yard last winter, I wouldn't touch that stuff for love nor money".. The girl than told me that she knew about expending energy in dealing with snow, she said she had lost 15 pounds during the last week of hiking mainly because of the snow they had to deal with in the mountains..

I have done a fair amount of touring on the west coast and had heard about Sonora Pass and its treacherous terrain with cliffs that seem to reach out and grab unsuspecting travelers who had lost focus while maneuvering their motorcycle or car as they tried to navigate one of the Sonora's many hairpin turns. I had also heard that our Military uses this area to train advanced repelling and mountain patrol tactics and they do so because of the area's shear ruggedness.. Tip and I decided we just had to go experience it for ourselves. We are now able to verify that everything I had heard about the passes rugged terrain is true and, the Military indeed does use the area for training personnel! They even have a small base up in the area! If you take the time to watch this short video, keep a weathered eye open and you may just see some real US Military people headed out on an excursion. A common disability of the early Ventures like Tweeks is their tendency to get tired of the design of there gearing and to toss out their transmissions second gear early in their otherwise bullet proof existence. Like 3 of my earlier Ventures, Tweeks shed her 2nd gear many miles ago and, as I had done with her siblings who had been fortunate enough to become part of our family, I short shifted her thru the many miles of adventures we have shared. About the only places that short shifting or, shifting from 1st to 3rd has ever created a problem for Tweeks and I has been in defending her honor while drag racing some smart alec youngster that didnt realize how capable of a bike Tweeks really is or, mountain riding.. The drag racing issue is one that a a rider can get around pretty easily - its amazing how fast you can shift from first to third with a little practice. Mountain riding on real narrow hairpins with inclines of 8 percent and above can be a whole different story though.. In the end, Tweeks, Tip and I found that the leisurely slower rate of speed while crawling along in first gear would result in our lives having a more promising immediate future. An outcome that was a whole lot better than risking a missed shift into third and ending up as a spec in the bottom of one of Sonora Passes cavernous cliff bottoms that would appear in a set of some rescue searchers binoculars as a pile of camping gear with the Historic plate of an old antique motorcycle sticking out of it.

As with any mountain range, if a person is out in the Sierra Nevada's and has the intention of crossing to the other side, it is kind of important that they pick a trail that they pretty much know is going to actually go all the way across.. In mountaineering, most of the trails that serve that function for human travel are called "passes". Having suffered the result of not understanding that rule when I was very young (did my first bike trip to Colorado at 16, got lost and spent a couple extra days getting out of the Rockies) and being much older now, I pretty much stick to previously discovered passes thru mountains and leave the process of discovering new passes and laying out new roadways to the younger generation. Tip and I were searching for one of these previously discovered passes over into mainstream California and noticed a sign that said "Sonora Pass" ahead on it, PERFECT!

Continuing westward with the mountains of Yosemite getting closer and closer, I had just mentioned to Tip that I hoped we could find fuel for Tweeks before we attempted to locate a way thru the mountains, that's when a little town appeared. The name of the place was Lee Vining.. I will never forget this particular stop because, not only did they have fuel of both the human and vehicle types, but, apparently someone had left a barn door open on somebodies Hot Rod man cave and all the critters had escaped. Fortunately for the farmer who was on the process of raising this particular breed, the live stock had not ventured very far, all those gorgeous Hot Rods had meandered into the gas station we had stopped at to feed. I have been involved in the restoration of antique motorcycles for many years now. I also have friends who have been involved in different levels of automobile restoration. One of the things that I had learned many years ago has to do with the licensure of antique vehicles. My home state of Michigan allows the owner of an antique vehicle to license the vehicle as such and even offers special license plates for those vehicles. In Michigan, these plates are labeled as "Historic" plates. A person can also take any license plate that matches the year of the birth of the vehicle and permanently register it to that vehicle, this plate can be from any state in the Union.. I have had many bikes thru the years that I have purchased antique plates for from places like Ebay and always thought my machines looked pretty spiffy with their birthday plates hanging on their backsides. Motorcycles have to be at least 20 years old to qualify for antique status. Having been operating 1st year Ventures (1983) for some time now, Tweeks is not my first Venture with Historic plates.. She does lend herself more to the appearance of an Antique vehicle with all her stickers and stuff than any of the other Venutres I have owned and, personally, I think she is downright attractive with her little "Historic" plate. One of the few rules about licensing and operating a Historic plated vehicle (at least in Michigans rule book) is that you either have to be headed to or coming from showing someone your bike or working on your bike (we named Tweeks Tweeks cause I am ALWAYS Tweeking/working on her).. Tweeks historic plates serve a vital purpose on our road trips as they are an open announcement to any and all fellow antique vehicle owner that he/she and I share a common interest. This aspect of Historic Plateism is a huge benefit to we poor souls that suffer with the disease of Gearheaditus.. Tweeks plate had been glistening in the sun while she was standing there at the fuel pump in Lee Vining before the first nibble of our trip occurred by one of the Hot Rodder guys who happen to be walking past. It wasn't long before this gentleman and I were knelt down next to Tweeks and she felt the brush of him signing his name on her fairing near the Shelby Cobra Group sticker that a Shelby Cobra owner had placed on her a couple years ago while she was showing off at another impromtu car/bike show in Sacramento.. Soon after this, I watched as my feet started carrying me over to check out my new friends gorgeous antique Hot Rod. One of the great things I have always enjoyed about CTFWing is the freedom to waste time goofing off wasting time and I am usually amazed at how much time Tip and I do exactly that when we are out on a CTFW run. The amount of time a person is able to stand in one place, chewing on a piece of red licorice and listening to the owner of some jacked up Hot Rod tell of how much time he had spent getting the "Tuck n Roll" interior on his piece of art just perfect could boggle the mind of even the most patient person.. Thankfully, Tippy has never been one to complain (she has a way of making instant friends with other females who happened to be there with the other gear heads). The impromptu car and bike show we had there in Lee Vining was a ton of fun. I made friends with some local California gear heads who thought the world of Tweeks and admired Tip and I for taking the time to travel all the way from Michigan to share Tweeks with them. They invited us back to the area anytime we wanted to show up and promised that there would always be a car/bike show there waiting for us to fulfill Michigans established historic vehicle licensure requirements!!

When we awoke at our Sage Hen camping spot it was so quiet and peaceful we could hear the prairie grouse doing their drumming off in the distance as the fresh smell of the Mountains of Yosemite filled the air we were breathing. The invitation to get up and explore region spoke to us with overwhelming tenacity. We tossed the gear on, threw our legs over Tweeks back and headed out on the two tracks to find out what kind of treasures were in store for the three of us.. A couple hours later we rejoined a hard surface road and landed in a California ghost town called Mono Mills.. There wasn't much left of this particular ghost town. It had been a haven for workers during the days when they cut down the big timbers.. There was some evidence of a saw mill that once stood on the grounds and some railway remains but we never heard from or felt the presence of any ghosts at this particular ghost town.. The area surrounding Mono Mills is very pretty, it is located not to far from Mono Lake which adds to its desert desire..

Indeed Cha,, Prayers Up and Blessings Down my friend.. I know its hard but pay careful attention to those Doctors while dealing with this surgery heal time.. Better to go thru a brief easy down time then to spend a summer trying to force it to heal!!

Dont take any chances with road salt guys,, if it were me I would hit a quarter car wash and not stop until I KNEW there was no chance of any salt being left on it.. That stuff is nasty!! Maybe even take some WD40, wash it, spray it down with WD (except for brakes of course) and wash it again.. I know I sound anal but living here in Michigan I have seen my fill of bike damage from salty roads!! By the Rbig, CONGRATS - THAT IS ONE GORGEOUS MACHINE!!

Wonder how many times that thought went thru your mind :fiddle:as you were on the way back to the with a bad guy sitting in the back seat

WOW Z WOW WOW WOW!! THAT IS PURDY!! :dancefool::dancefool: