Cliff's brother, Donald, called in the middle of last week to say he was going to ride his motorcycle (a Gold Wing) up here from his home in southern Kansas. Cliff told him to call when he was ready to leave and we'd meet him halfway. He called, we headed out. We rode and rode and rode. Finally we arrived at our meeting-place.
There he was, smoking and smirking. He informed us that his calculations had been a little "off", and we'd gone forty miles past the true half-way mark. Oh well, as we bikers like to say, "It's all about the ride!" We got home shortly before 6 PM and Cliff's sister, our next-door neighbor, had lasagna ready for us. Wow, can life get any better? Where are you going to find a renter who cooks supper for you?
And a delicious supper it was! Donald's wife wanted to be here, but she doesn't like to ride on a motorcycle. We've missed our old motorcycle-riding buddies, Charlene (Cliff's younger sister) and Pat, her husband. They're way off in St. Louis these days.
But today Rena rode with Don on his bike, so we had some people to ride with. Here you see Cliff, Don, and Rena ready to ride. It was a blast.
Here they are behind us. Oh, we took so many back roads and twists and turns, you wouldn't believe it.
If you'd like to ride along with us, here's a video. I originally put a Merle Haggard tune with it (Are the Good Times Really Over For Good) but YouTube's copyright cops caught it. So I did it over with an Iris Dement-John Prine song. One thing about folks songs, they are so little-known that nobody cares about copyrights. Enjoy the ride.
Cliff's Kansas brother, Don, bought a used Harley motorcycle a couple of years ago; he put a lot of work put into it. It was a good-looking bike.
This was taken when he first got the Harley, before he added a windshield. That bike was NOISY, even for a Harley. Of course, that always seems to be a source of pride for Harley owners. Whatever. Don found out that his hand went to sleep if he traveled far on the bike, and he began wishing he had cruise control. He starting looking for a Honda Gold Wing. He finally found one, a 1988 (I think) 1500. Cliff was dying to see it, so we agreed to meet Don and his wife in Fort Scott, Kansas, and picnic in the park. This would give all of us a two-hour-plus ride, one way.
When I went out to get in the hot tub yesterday morning, it looked as though a beautiful day was brewing. Checking the weather forecast, though, I found out there was a fifty percent chance of rain in our area after noon; not so at Fort Scott, where only clouds were forecast, no rain. I told Cliff, "Fifty percent chance of rain means we have a fifty percent chance it won't rain; let's go ahead."
We gassed up in Bates City, where lots of motorcyclists had gathered for a ride. Blue skies, nothing but blue skies did I see. (I sang that to Cliff as we headed south.)
We took a wrong turn in Kingsville. Cliff chose a shabby-looking blacktop road off this highway and I said, "This looks like the kind of road that will turn to gravel before long." He ignored me.
The road turned to gravel. Cliff found a place to turn around; we looked at a map and got back on course.
Cliff remarked on those huge grain bins. The words on that barn say it's a Hereford farm, but we saw no sign of any cattle; the farm was all planted in soybeans and corn.
We entered Kansas, and Highway 2 turned into Highway 68.
We had agreed to meet Don and Mary at the Walmart in Fort Scott; they beat us by a half-hour or so.
In spite of the fact that Don's 1500 Gold Wing is an older model, it has all the extras and looks almost as if it just came off the showroom floor. Wow! (To my St. Louis sister-in-law: I'm sorry I didn't get a better shot, but Cliff and Don were swarming all over it and this was the best I could do.)
Heading back home, we wondered what those huge smokestacks in the distance were about. Notice the blue skies have a few clouds in them now.
By the time we got past Harrisonville, Missouri, things weren't looking very promising. We were moving right along until we saw police cars with blinking lights ahead, and the traffic stalled.
Oh brother. This was not what we needed. As we sat there waiting to be allowed past the wreck, I felt sprinkles on my face.
As we were allowed to move on, I took this brief video. I know it looks as though night was falling, but it was 4:30 in the afternoon. It's the clouds causing the darkness.
I thought I was taking a video here, but the camera was set for "photo". At this point I put my camera away because it started raining pretty hard. Shortly after this we pulled into a gas station and put on our rain gear; by the time we got all decked out and ready for rain, it slowed to a sprinkle. The rest of the ride home was enjoyable. To make a good day even better, as soon as we got in the house Cliff's sister called and invited us over to eat with her and her son. So I didn't even have to worry about cooking supper!
We rode all morning and came back to the motel for lunch and some rest. Then we went for another ride, one that took us to a ferry across Table Rock Lake, through downtown Branson, and back to the motel. However, something happened along the way. In Branson. Where our motorcycles always break down.
Even from the back, you can tell Cliff is distraught. Here's what happened: We stopped at the McDonald's east of 65 in Branson to get ourselves a mocha frappé. When we got on the motorcycle to leave, Cliff started it up and I said, "This thing is making a noise I've never heard." "That's just the fan," says Cliff, who not only can't hear well normally, but hears even less this weekend because he left his hearing aid at home. "No, I have NEVER heard this noise," I said, panicking. Finally he turned the key off. But the starter wouldn't quit. It was stuck. "Don't you want me to get off?" I asked the question twice before he finally said yes. He got off, with the horrible noise still going on. He did this thing and that thing, and finally disconnected the battery. That stopped the noise. "Find that book with Gold Wing riders' names in it and see if there's anybody in Branson." I found three people, and he called one; there was no answer, but Cliff left a message. While he was doing that, I suddenly remembered that his Kansas brother, Donald, was camped out at Table Rock Lake, not a half-hour away. And he's a mechanic. "Cliff, you have a brother here right now," I told him. I saw instant relief on his face. "Oh, yeah; that's right!"
Never have two people been so happy to see my brother-in-law, Donald. He would have had it fixed in five minutes, but Gold Wings are horrible to take apart. So getting to the area he wanted to work on took awhile. However, once there, he fixed it.
The starter relay was stuck. Don hit it a few times with a pair of pliers and that fixed it. Cliff will need to buy a new relay once we're home; but for now, it's working. Our vacation will proceed as planned.
Cliff's brother was here today, and also his sister's son. They decided to tackle a hub on the Oliver that was "froze up", whatever that means. Here's a slideshow of some of the action.
And here's a brief video that will show you how noisy this sort of activity can be.
One of the first things that happened when we arrived at the campground where Cliff's brother had set up camp was a haircut. Yes, Don decided his hairline had receded sufficiently that the best thing he could do was have his hair cropped short. His sister, Rena, was just the person to do that.
This is the "before" picture.
Here's the "after".
Please notice the lovely Honda Gold Wing in the background.
Here's a slide show that takes you through the entire ordeal, right down to showing you a pathetic white clump of discarded hair on the ground.
As you may have seen in THIS ENTRY, Cliff's brother Don came to visit with two tractors in tow. Once they were unloaded, he needed something on the trailer to take back home to Kansas. Because after all, who wants to haul an empty trailer around... right?
It just so happens that a next-door neighbor had a Ford pickup sitting in his back yard that stopped running a couple of years ago; he'd just bought new tires and a new battery at the time. Don makes his living as a mechanic, and since he was able to buy said pickup for $700, he loaded it up and made use of his trailer. He'll figure out whether the engine can be repaired; if not, he can get his money back by parting it out. He's a Chevy man, so I'm not sure he'd keep the pickup for himself even if he got it running.
The guys had some doubts about how safe it would be, loading something onto a trailer that might be slick with snow.
Little Johnny (the smaller of our two John Deere tractors) looks mighty small to be pushing a big pickup up a ramp like that. (That's our renter's mobile home in the background.)
Push, Little Johnny! Push! You can do it!
All but the back tires are on the trailer.
Little Johnny has done the job once again. Such brute power packed into a small frame.
I have always said Donald, Cliff's brother, was a bad influence. So when I saw him luring my husband into getting high, I took a video for proof.
The purpose of the "trip" Cliff took was this: he wanted to see if these lights got hot enough to create a fire hazard; Don gave him a bunch of them... 400 watts, I think they are. Cliff wanted to take no chances of burning down his shop.
Just a note: When I loaded this video to Uncutvideo.com, they wouldn't accept my description; said it was inappropriate language, or some such thing. It took me about five tries before I finally figured out the word "hot" is inappropriate. Sheesh.
