gunkylump

There is a smaller "circle route" that you might want to fit in....Soo to Wawa, over to Chapleau, and down to Thessalon. This route, Highway #129, follows the Mississagi River watershed, a few single lane Bailey bridges....beautiful scenery, not quite as picturesque as from the Soo to Wawa, but much more intimate.....(can you hear the testosterone talking here) There's a few gas stations in Wawa, but you have to go in to town, which is off of Highway #17. Kakabeka Falls just past Thunder Bay is a nice little jaunt, grand waterfalls. There is a restaurant in Soo Michigan which is located very close to the locks...I just can't for the life of me remember the name of the place.....you can enjoy a pretty nice meal and watch the lake freighters travelling the locks...you're that close to them. You're probably going west....around Superior? but if you're heading east, take a jaunt up into Elliot Lake, there's a new Hampton Inn there....the former site of 13 working uranium mines at one time. The road north of Elliot Lake can take you back around to Iron Bridge on Highway 17, it's now called the "Deer Trail", and it is gorgeous. The latter part of the trip follows the Little White River. As mentioned above, the trip from Espanola to the Chi Chi Maun ferry from Manitoulin Island to mainland Ontario has some absolutely great roads and scenery, Highway #6 through Evansville and onto the island is a must ride if you're in that area. I've probably gone way too far east for you....but if the weather is cold around Superior, you might want to go east. It can be a cold run around Superior, even in August. As far as Ontario goes.....the ride from the Soo to Wawa ranks in the top 3....keep your camera ready, and watch out for moose..especially at dusk. They come out to the roads to get away from the flies and satisfy their craving for salt at the same time. gunk:happy34:

We'll make plans to head over on Sunday then, the earlier the better. Will be great to see you folks again! The couple across the street are wanting to go as well, not sure which day, but we'll make it Sunday for us. gunk:happy34:

I'd love to join y'all..but I'm on afternoon shift this week, dang it all. Gonna miss the big chat session, gonna miss the Canadian juniors kickin' some Ruski butt on Wednesday night live from Buffalo....geesh! Anyone ever say that shift work sucks? gunk:hihi:

Best wishes to yourself and Mary, Gary! Travel safe and well, keep in touch, love the updates and pics of your progress. gunk:happy34:

Well, yesterday started with a bit of a bang.....I was working on the garage door opener...again.....had to change the plastic gears, they were stripped. Son and I got that done, then the door wouldn't lift or close.....something screwy. Unfortunately, while poking around, I touched the motherboard and shorted it out.....lol...time for a new garage door opener. Last night we had some friends over.....a 6 course meal, each couple brought a course....appetizers....scallops and champagne grapes seared to perfection....then a beauty bowl of home made german meat ball soup.......caesar's salad with my special home made dressing(you have to love garlic)....then....ah yes, then, it was the curried chicken korma...and wow, was it ever good....then.....steak done on the barbie......paired with tiger shrimp the size of a telephone. Each course was paired off with a fresh wine that complimented the food......and last but not least.....I'm pretty sure we had dessert.....but after starting into the beer early in the day while fixing/wrecking the garage door opener...dessert just doesn't stick out in my mind...at least not as much as my stomach is right now. Still full! And the couple that made the curry were kind enough to put a roll of toilet paper in the freezer before they left early this morning! Good thing that! So, we had a awesome night, a great way to send off 2010, and bring in 2011~! gunk:big-grin-emoticon:

Merry Christmas to all! After our trip to Texas in September when the Crockett hotel in San Antonio wanted to charge us by the minute to use the hotel computer..... We bought a 15.6 inch HP laptop, trip processor and a whole bunch of other computer geek language I don't understand....no talk of horsepower, cams, carbs, or the like. So, now we can have computer access pretty much when we want it. I got a new pair of Vibram shoes....you know, the ones with the toes that look like ape's feet....they are so dang comfy!!! And they look cool as well. Beth so far has some new jewellry, the costume type...the real stuff comes January 15 when we celebrate our family Christmas....this is a second marriage for both of us, and it makes it hard for our kids to celebrate with everyone, what with boyfriend's and girlfriend's parents and families and all that goes with it.....so last year I suggested we have our Christmas in January when all our kids can make it....except for my youngest who lives about 9 hours away....it will be great to have everyone here, stress free...and just think of the bang for the buck that all will be getting on the boxing day sales The end of February, we are booked on to a southern Caribbean cruise, departing from San Juan....yeah baby...I am so looking forward to some time off work. OK, time to put this saga to rest...... gunk:thumbsup2:

Hi Doug! I'm no expert...but if the carb wasn't seated in the boot properly....it will definitely affect performance in some way. You probably wouldn't have the vacuum needed to pull the gas in to the carb as it should? I have the k+n air filter in my 96, and I did not rejet the carbs, and it always ran fine, in fact gives me awesome gas mileage. Were the floats set in the proper position, and the carbs clean? If so, I would suspect that now you have the carb seated properly, your issue will either disappear or be gone altogether. Are the carbs synched? That's my two cents.....I'm sure a real techie will chime in shortly. Merry Christmas my friend! gunk:Laugh:

That was awesome.... a great reminder that there is so much to see.....so little time! gunk:clap2:

Now that's the perfect gift Kregerdoooooooooooodle! And the Squidmeister waiting silently in the shadows just waiting for installation day....and probably Gunboat....and David......sounds like party time!! Happppppy Anniversary buddy! gunk:happy65:

Beth and I usually run about 5 mph over the posted in the U.S.A., here in Canada about 10 k over the posted. See more that way.... This bike will run all day long at 75 or 80 mph no problem....it does like fuel at those speeds. I very seldom downshift to pass, even riding two up. Never had the need, but I "time" my passing, and don't take chances. I'm usually not in any rush to get where I'm going when I'm riding, it is my "mental release" if you will.....just the way I am, not in a hurry on the bike....when I'm driving my G35....sometimes it's a wee bit different... I know the car will top out at 158 mph.....I don't know what the bike will top end out at. You'll get a feel for the bike...if you're cruising along in 5th at 80 kph.....you may want to drop a gear....depends on how/when you pass. I enjoy a smooth, calm ride. I don't enjoy white knuckle tours anymore..like I once did. gunk:happy34:

Thought I'd bump this up... gunk:thumbsup2:

This is a wonderful story ... Be patient & please read it until the end .... I promise you'll enjoy it ....it was sent to me by ibents.... This is a story of an aging couple told by their son who was President of NBC NEWS. This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes ... My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it." At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull ****!" she said. "He hit a horse." "Well," my father said, "there was that, too." So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together. My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first. But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once. For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow." After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored." If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. "No left turns," he said. "What?" I asked. "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn." "What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it.. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights." "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count." I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again." I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked. "No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week." My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died. One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said.. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet" An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns. " Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance,take it & if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it wouldmost likely be worth it." ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE! gunk:smile5:

Glad you and the rest of your travelling friends are ok Dale! The 401 is one heck of a piece of road, no doubt about that. The car can be replaced, but your health is a different story. How did you end up getting to the airport? gunk:thumbsup2:

Is that the Grand Saleine mine?

Dang it, I miss all the fun! Wish there were mines in Texas...and y'all would let me work down there! gunk:cold:

About an hour east of the Soo, Canadian side, is a town called Thessalon. Take Highway 129 north out of Thessalon to Chapleau, make sure your gas tanks are full before you leave, gas is available but very pricey....then from Chapleau across to Wawa. In Wawa, head back east to the Soo...what a trip that is!! The scenery from Wawa to the Soo is just amazing, Lake Superior and it's splendor. Watch out for moose! And I second what Squidley said! gunk:thumbsup2:

Any chance of hooking up a compressor and blowing the lines out? Add some anti freeze to the traps and toilets..... Glad your kids are ok Monty! Everything will be fine with time! gunk

I'll check this out as well Gary, thanks for the tip! How's the healing coming along? gunk:thumbsup2:

Ok, that gives me a great start! We purchased adapters late this fall so that we can use ear buds instead of the speakers we have with our headsets we purchased from Sierra. Looks to me like an either-or set up, but neither Beth nor I were happy with the sound quality....she being buffeted on the back seat due to the Chrome Shield lower windshield, and my hearing which suffers due to toiling in heavy industry(mining) all my life. So, we're going to drop the speaker set up, which is much too warm in the heat of the summer anyway, use the ear buds, and probably add the xm....should be much better, we hope! Not too sure of what else to do. We currently use the J+M elites.... And so, the saga continues to grow.....once again, thanks for all the tips, I'm pretty sure we'll be putting them to very good use. gunk:Laugh:

Thanks very much Don, that helps a lot. Where did you mount the xm30?

How much a month is the music only Don? I take it you have this? gunk:shock3:

Once I have the antennae hook up.....can I use any satellite company....ie Sirius.ca? They have it on sale right now for 7.49 a month for the first six months....I'm pretty green on this one Don...... gunk:scratchchin:

What do I need to hook up xm radio to my Zumo 550? gunk:shock3:

Welcome to the site! gunk:crackup: (the only reason I'm here.....is because I'm not all there....)

Nope, couldn't do it. I just can't imagine wearing the same helmet, sunglasses, boots, pants, t-shirt, jacket, gloves and probably underwear as my passenger. And I'm not in to teddy bears on my rear rack. gunk:rotfl: