cowpuc

bad

Indeed!! That T-Rex has been a favorite of my kids for years!! Somewhere I have video of it chasing Tippy too!! The "back yard" area at Wall is THE place to hang out when its 108 degrees - that water spray and free drinking water are a MUST have for survival out there!! We got caught camping on one of the ridges over looking the Badlands years ago, the Ranger who caught us was real nice about it,, just told us of a different spot in the park away from the tourist that we could camp at.. Have been tenting there now for many many years - tucked inside of the park area and dead quite at night - nothing but warm prairie breezes and coyotes!!

Isnt that a little backwards Venny? Shouldnt that read "2nd Gen owners are green with envy"? Lets see here,,, yep,, just looked it up in my official VR Dictionary and under "1st Gen Venture" it says "2nd Gen owners are green with envy"...

This is a really fun thread, thanks for posting this up Raggy! Tip and I wish all you folks nothing but the best in the process of this stuff!! Couple a thoughts that I am curious about.. Has anyone checked into the tax stuff about selling your home and capital gains taxes?? It seems like I had heard that you have 3 years to reinvest the cash from selling your house into another house or ya gotta pay capital gains on it?? I wonder if buying a Motorhome would be acceptable for reinvestment?? Another thought,, there is this place called "The Slabs" out in California.. Its an old Marine base that has been abandoned, buildings all torn down and nothing but slabs of concrete left there.. Lots and lots of hobo's, hippys and kids live there year around BUT,, there is also a HUGE community of snow birds that gather there.. The place is sectioned off in "communities" and TOTALLY free and off the grid.. There are even people who fly there own airplanes out there for the winter months.. If Tip and I disappear someday and go into hiding, that may very well be where you will find us,,, at least during the cold winter months!! It would be fun to have a huge "VR Geezer Meet n Greet" out there in the desert!!

r2d2

radio

Soooo,,, who wants to call Bongo's sister and ask if she wants to move to Oberlin so Bob can go visit his sister and we can all meet at Freebirds?

home...

They are sooo easy to fool before they turn into teenagers and discover that their intelligence is farrrrr beyond anything their parents can comprehend!! Sure am glad I was never like that!!

Cause you took the correct fork in the "Y" in the road of life and chose to stay young!!

State bird

Nice Visionary,,, REAL NICE!! I used to use my old tents for bike storage, ride er in and zip er up.. That bag you have is much more secure though as any tent in my possesstion for a summer leaked like a sieve.. LOVE the Stryker and that 1st Gen is PUURRRDY!! Thanks for sharing!

Bat

My oldest daughter, biker name is Awahoo, who is a School Teacher now out near Sacramento CA hasnt always been a full grown woman.. A number of years ago (yesterday in my mind) her and I were on a bike trip out west.. We were riding a 1984 Blonde Royale who the kids named "Beeg" (Beeg's Blonde side covers can been seen on our current bike "Tweeks").. We had camped out in Badlands of South Dakota the night before, packed up and went looking for breakfast.. The west end of the Badlands pretty much emptys out into a place many of you have heard of, a place called Wall Drug.. We drifted into Wall Drug, found breakfast and got to goofing off in one of their many "Cowboy and Indian" tourist area.. I lost track of her for few minutes so, of course, I went looking for her.. I found Awahoo standing next to one of those Music Displays with a set of ear phone muffs on, standing there listening to a song with tears running down her cheeks.. I walked over to see why she was crying.. She handed me the ear phones and said "listen to this Dad,, they wrote this song about you".. Here is what she was listening to: When we left Wall Drug and headed toward the Black Hills a trail of water followed our bike and it wasnt coming from a leaking water pump!!

"L"

I slept like tired little kitten with a tummy full of warm milk in our room at that little motel in Junction Texas.. What ever bug was pestering Tippy last evening had taken residence somewhere else by the time we woke up in the morning.. I was glad to see my riding partner and best friend smiling again and I knew by her smile that we were back in business and ready to cover some miles.. I was doubly reassured of this as I stepped out into the warm Texas morning air, looked over at Tweeks and saw her shaking off the morning dew.. A small glitter on the pavement caught my attention, I walked over and picked up the lucky penny that was lucky enough to become part of our travels.. My refusal to act my age came out and I took finding that little penny as a sign that indeed,, we were headed for a GREAT ADVENTURE!! Its funny how quickly the miles can disappear once your backside gets permanently molded to an old worn out familiar saddle.. Gallons of fuel can disappear thru those 4 little Carb bowls as time evaporates before your very eyes.. If your not careful and if you get as comfortable as I do on a bike - you can easily forget just how far you have traveled while taking in the beauty of our country.. Tippy has traveled with me long distance a few times now and had to help push Tweeks on a couple of those outings so she keeps a pretty close eye our fuel needs.. Tip knows that once I get engrossed in the movie that I am participating in and caught up with watching the people who are spectators to the movie that I tend to get lost in the endeavor.. I have come to depend on her, not only for navigational purposes but also as a trustworthy fuel gauge and assistant tow truck in the case of a breakdown in our communications.. While heading south across Texas looking for a National Park called Big Bend, I was in one of those moods.. The hot Texas air massaged my bearded face as my knees gently guided Tweeks along a desolate two lane road. Stretched out in the saddle, leaned back with my head in Tippys lap, I peered up over Tweeks dash and gazed side to side at the gorgeous Texas desert surrounding me... I was really getting into it when Tippy tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I thought we should go back to that gas station we had just passed and see if we could get some fuel.. When we turned around and pulled into the gas station a friendly old guy came out and greeted us.. He said he saw us go by and had hoped we would come back and get some fuel.. Initially I thought maybe he was just trying to make a quick a buck off an obvious pair of tourist (the stickers on Tweeks are a dead giveaway that we are tourist in the purest since of the word) but, as this kind old gentleman pumped gas into Tweeks tank he told me that the next closest station was inside of Big Bend N. P. and it was a long ways off.. He also said that since we were headed that way, we needed to be aware that the Park Station would be closed and not open again until the next morning - once we got there we would have no choice but to stay there.. Turned out this gentleman was a very nice guy, looking out for our best interest.. Just after I took the picture of him and Tippy below, I told him that I would tell all my friends about my buddy in Marathon Texas and that if any of them came thru there I promised they would stop and buy fuel from him.. He laughed as if he knew if my friends did happen to come thru here at buying fuel from him was a given - seems how he had the only gas within miles of Big Bend!! The flora in Texas is really interesting and quite beautiful.. One of things that caught my eye as we traveled south out of Marathon toward the Park was the big white mushrooms growing out of the asphalt.. I had never seen anything like it in all my travels.. I could see this mushroom way off in the distance. I reached down and squeezed Tippys knee and pointed at it so she could see it too.. As we approached what I thought was a mushroom, it occurred to me that what I was actually seeing was a white hardhat, probably from an oil field workers truck or something.. After we went by the hardhat and I could clearly see that the persons head who had owned the hardhat was not still inside of it, I turned around and went back.. Tippy knows that I usually stop and pickup unusual stuff I see along the roadways.. Other than rock here and there or a maybe a new/used Tee Shirt from Goodwill (I actually use second hand stores to replace dirty clothing and stuff along the way - why go to the laundry mat when replacing is cheaper AND funner!!), I get a most of my souveniers in this fashion (excluding stickers of course).. I have come home with some pretty cool stuff by doing so.. Tip did ask me what I was going to do with an oil mans hard hat as we stopped and looked at it laying there.. I reminded her that I had nicknamed our 8 year old grandson, who lives in California, "Earth Mover" because of his love for heavy equipment and I thought this hat would make him a great souvy.. Earth Mover's Grandma LOVED the idea and risked her life running across the road (not a vehicle for miles around) to pluck the white mushroom from its earthly connection. The shadow of the hard hat hanging on the back of Tweeks rear carrier made an ominous wave to the spot where it had been laying in the road before a sticker covered old Venture came CTFWing in its direction on that beautiful Texas June evening.. Even though its hilly country, the REAL mountains of Big Bend N.P. can barely be seen from the entrance sign marking the main gate.. You dont have to travel very far into the park though to realize that the terrain changes very rapidly.. Those changes combined with mountains, valleys and deep ravines create the nicest warm dry evening breezes known to man.. We drove deep into the park as the sun was setting and it cooled off into the high 90's.. As we pulled into the little gas station with Tweeks fuel gauge flashing its little red light I looked at Tip and commented about the accuracy of the knowledge that our friend back in Marathon had shown.. Indeed,, we were here for the night.. No need to panic though,, our bedroll was still attached on Tweeks back and we came here with the intent spend the night!! As we drove around the area we discovered a laundry mat, a campground and could even see the mountains of Mexico off in the distance.. As we were exploring Big Bend, something very strange occurred to me, as far as I could tell - we had ALL of this National Park to our very selves!! Not a car, not a sound, not a movement - just Tippy, Tweeks and me!! We rode around a little looking for the perfect place to camp.. We didn't want to be selfish and we wanted to leave plenty of room around us just in case the rest of the world decided that they were gonna join us as soon as the sun went down.. We rode over to the very back of the campground area, parked Tweeks in some Mesquite bushes, walked a very short distance toward Mexico, broke thru the bushes and the desert opened up to a gorgeous evening view of Mexico's mountains only a short distance away!! A perfect spot for another sing along as the brilliant South Texas sun draws to close another day of CTFW..

Awe!! Wishing all you folks a safe and FUN time down there!!! Hope ya bump into each other, even if the Capt N' dont care much for Love Bugs!!

syrup

Sorry about that Sys, my apology for hijacking - get to typing away and sometimes I forget where I am.. I bounce around alot too and "time out" a lot also.. I usually just log back in when I do.. Does your log in area remember you so you dont have to fill in the blanks everytime? Mine does and, as I recall, it does so cause I chose that function - exactly what Don was talking about.. I dont know about you but I know for me, a half hour of play time goes by really quickly - maybe time is just slipping away faster than you think and your just timing out??

Wow Randy,, talk about touching!! Thank you for sharing that bro!!

Awe,, thank you for the compliment on Olivia's story Rick and for your touching response!! Glad you are enjoying following her story and THANK YOU for your service in protecting our way of life Rick!! TOTALLY WITH YA ON THE WINTER THING - IT WONT BE LONG AND WE WILL BE RIDING AGAIN BRO!! Puc

I think he said he was down near "Vermillion"... Ever heard of that one Motiv? GOOD THOUGHT BRO!!! THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!!! If it flys and he is located near Dons I will try to weasel at least one show up down there as part of the sales agreement, as many Veterans as there are that are part of our family he may very well agree to it!! Here are a couple shots he sent me of what he is involved in!! AWESOME STUFF RIGHT HERE!! WOULDN'T OLIVIA HAVE A BLAST!!

I totally get that DJ,, I really do.. Me personally though,, I dont worry about it,,, if someones hunting for me and wants to do me harm - they dont need a dot on a map on the internet pointing to a firepit in my backyard to find me,, I truthfully dont worry about it.. If anyone of you are riding the west shore of Michigan, need a spot to drop your tent - even at 4 in the morning - look up my balloon on the VR map and follow it in, pull in and flop your tent... I worry more about being attacked by the Chipmunks that sneak into my garage in the summer time than I do about getting mugged by some gangster.. Another example of this same kind of stuff is I have a really close friend that carries his 9mm everywhere he goes on his bike.. He is legal and all that and is constantly bugging me about packing again.. I feel the same way about carrying anymore when I am riding.. I toted my 45 for years back when I had the kids with me all the time and always had the daunting question of - other than shooting someone who was flat out assaulting one of my kids (I would) - would I shoot someone over stealing my bike or robbing me?? I long ago decided that if someone wanted to steal Tweeks or wanted my wallet I would rather give the stuff to them before killing someone over something that is so easily replaced.. Honestly,, the more I travel, camp in crazy places across the country and get to know people - the more I think that I was wayyyy over zealous in not trusting my fellow man.. On the same token though,, I stay out of the biker bars and crowds of drunk kids (been there - done that) and THAT has solved a TON of my issues,, of course - weapons dont belong in those environments either... Funny story,, last year Tip and I went to cross into Alberta Canada up at Glacier.. Had our handy dandy "Enhanced" Drivers Licenses that were supposed to work as electronic passports for clearing the customs guys.. We were told that we would be able to just drive thru the gate.. Welllllll,,,, not so much.. The electronic transfer worked fine BUT - this nervous guard at the gate looked us over really really carefully and was having a hard time believing that a couple bikers on a motorcycle with a set of Antelope Horns on it didnt have some kind of a weapon.. I finally caved and admitted to having a weapon after being asked at least a dozen times.. I pulled out a key chain my grandson had given me that had one of those little key chain pocket knifes on it (3/4 inch long type with the little plastic tooth pic that slides out of the side) - showed it to him and apologized for misleading him.. It was than that he realized that I was telling him the truth that I really was not dangerous - unless you let me talk ya to death:big-grin-emoticon:

Ya gotta watch those gazoon's,,, never mind Bongo - YOU are a master troublemaker!!! willkommen