Another good ride (and low-fuel adventure)

Last week when it was raining, we looked ahead at the five-day forecast and resolved to go for another motorcycle ride on Monday.  Yesterday Cliff told me, before he even got out of bed, where our destination would be.  "We'll ride to Clinton; The monthly sale at Cook Tractor is today."  
Well, that's fine.  It's a nice ride to Clinton on a lovely, spring-green day.  I mentioned that it wasn't a very long ride, and Cliff looked at me like I was crazy.  We went for our usual walk, I made a couple of ham-and-cheese sandwiches to take for our lunch, and we were ready.  It was around 10 A.M. when we left.  
Cliff said he didn't intend to watch any tractors sell; he just wanted to walk through the place and see what kind of tractors they had up for auction.  I'm in the process of reading "Little Big Man", a book on which one of my favorite movies is based.  So I took my Nook to read in case he ended up looking at tractors for a long time.  
At some point not long after we left home, I asked Cliff, "How are we doing on gas?"  
"Oh, we have half a tank," he answered, and kept driving toward our destination. 

I love this time of year.

Here's where we ate.  Unfortunately, the rest rooms were locked.  We ate our lunch; Cliff had his usual Diet Coke and I had a throwback Pepsi (a current obsession of mine, but I only allow myself one per day).  Then we had a piece of Jello cake left over from Easter dinner and some coffee from the thermos.  My bladder was already full even before I drank anything, so by the time lunch was over, I was in pretty dire straits.  Thank goodness the Katy Trail State Park was on our way to the tractor auction place; those rest rooms are always open!  Next time that's where we'll picnic.  
And then, on to Cook Tractor!

Of course, any time there is lots of blue sky in a picture, there's that smudge my camera insists on adding.
The sale had already gotten started, but Cliff didn't spend a lot of time looking at tractors.  I sat on the grass, leaned against the wheel of a combine, and read until he returned; he was talking on the cell phone to his brother, who knew about some old man who has some Oliver tractors who lives only seven miles beyond Clinton.  
"Which road is he on?" I asked.  "If he's on 13 highway, we'll be getting pretty close to Osceola cheese, and I've been craving some of their cheese for a long time!"  
Well, Cliff had neglected to ask which actual highway the old guy lived on, but he figured the chances were pretty good that 13 was the right road.  
He was wrong, but by this time we were only about fifteen miles from Osceola Cheese, so he decided to humor me.  At this point I looked over his shoulder to check the fuel gauge and saw the needle was below the "E".  We bought some overpriced gasoline at the first opportunity.  Wouldn't you think we'd learn to fill up before it gets to this point?  

Usually we just go in and eat samples until we're full, but this time I actually bought some cheese.  
Our ride home took longer than expected because we had planned to take highway 7 all the way through Harrisonville; it was closed, and we ended up on some county roads, trying to keep going in the general direction of home. 

This doesn't show the county roads we were on, but you get the picture.  We were surprised to ride past a huge Holstein dairy on the back roads; you just don't see a lot of dairy farms these days.  
Needless to say, by the time we got home at 5 P.M., we were very tired.  
It was a good ride.

Another ride, another adventure

Yesterday Cliff said, "I think we should go for another ride."  
That surprised me, since we had gone for an extended day trip two days earlier.  You know me, though. I'm always ready for a motorcycle ride!
"Do you have any ideas where we'll go?"  I asked.  
"I was thinking about Arrow Rock."  
I love that ride.  I threw a couple of cans of sardines, a roll of crackers, Diet Coke for Cliff, tea for me, two bananas and a package of cookies in our lunch boxes... and we were off.  
I was a bit confused, though, when Cliff headed south, because Arrow Rock is due east of us.  We do take a lot of back roads, so we don't always take the fastest route... but when we got to I-70, I said, "This doesn't seem like the way to Arrow Rock."  
"I thought we'd go to Warrensburg and browse the aisles of the farm store down there first."  
"Oh."  That's what I said, but what I was thinking was, "Are there enough hours in the day to do all that?"  
When we got to highway 50, Cliff saw how many miles it still was to Warrensburg and decided to forget that leg of our journey.  Here's more or less what the route looked like that he had planned. 

However, when you're on a motorcycle, it really doesn't matter if you get lost or change your mind about where you're going:  It's all about the ride!  I did mention to Cliff when we passed through Marshall that perhaps we should fill the tank with gas, because when we're cruising around in the country, gas stations can be few and far between.    
"Nah, we're all right," he said. 

We made it to Arrow Rock shortly after noon and rode around looking for the picnic area.

Since it was a weekday, we had the place to ourselves.  
As we headed out, I looked over Cliff's shoulder to see how much gasoline was in the tank.

Under the clock that says "1:00", the gauge on the right indicated there was very little fuel left.  There's no gas station in Arrow Rock, nor did we remember passing any after we left Marshall.  Rather than head back the way we came, we decided to ride to the freeway, hoping there was a station at the Arrow Rock exit.

Turns out there were two, thank goodness.  With a full tank, we turned and went back the way we had come.  We hate freeways when we're on the motorcycle.  
And now you know why we call our rides "adventures".  It's a real adventure to be in the boonies with an empty fuel tank.  You'd be surprised how often this has happened to us; so far we've always found a station in the nick of time.  I think I'm going to start insisting we take a can of gas along with us.  

What a wonderful weekend

Cliff's St. Louis sister and her husband spent the night Friday night and part of the day Saturday; it was good catching up with them.  Sunday morning Cliff and I awoke to a perfect day and decided we were past due for a nice, long motorcycle ride.  
We've taken day trips all over, so that there aren't many new roads to ride in any direction for a hundred miles.  We thought about going to Cliff's childhood town, Versailles, but we'll be going to a gathering there in a couple of weeks, so why go now?  
"What about that town with the big goose," I asked Cliff.  "That's a nice ride.  We could ride to Swan Lake."  

I should have looked up the information on the place.  Autumn is the best time to visit.  

Not that it matters, because we had a great ride.  We never tire of 24 highway going east, and 65 to Chillicothe is a fun ride too. 

We always stick to the back roads when possible.  It's a little sad to see buildings in the countryside and small towns deteriorating, but that's life.  Nothing stays the same; nothing lasts forever.

We found a great place to eat our picnic lunch at Pershing State Park.

  This is the park where I used to go to church camp as a kid.  Redbuds are in full bloom everywhere.  

It's amazing how good a tuna salad sandwich tastes when you're really hungry.  

  There wasn't a soul around when we started eating.  We were sitting there drinking our after-dinner coffee when two black vans and a black car cruised through the parking lot, left, and soon returned.  A whole clan of Mennonites got out, and one gentleman came and asked if we minded them eating in the shelter with us.  We told him we were ready to leave anyhow; he told us they had plenty of hamburgers if we wanted some, and strawberries for dessert.  We declined.  
I am assuming they were Mennonites rather than Amish, because they were driving vehicles.  They spoke with a strong Iowa/Nebraska accent, but I didn't think to look at their license plates to see if my accent-detection was working properly.  

Tribute to the mothers of the armed forces, circa 1944

We drove past the giant goose in Sumner that turns as the wind changes directions.  

The other time we went to Swan Lake there were eagles flying overhead, hundreds of geese, and lots of people pulled over on the side of the road, watching it all.  Yesterday the only creature we saw moving was a red-tailed hawk looking for lunch.  Big deal, huh?  

Oh yeah, and we finally saw some little ducks.  Don't visit Swan Lake in March. 

sign in the rest room at Baltimore Bend Winery

But it was a fully enjoyable ride.  On the way home, we stopped at Baltimore Bend winery to use the rest room.  There are always a lot of motorcycles in their parking lot there, and yesterday was no exception.  At our ages, it isn't always easy to climb aboard the Gold Wing.  Neither of us is anywhere near agile and we both have aches and pains, so we don't get on the bike in the conventional manner:  that would be Cliff first, then me.  Nope.  I get on first, then he attempts to throw a leg over the saddle without kicking me.  As we were going through this yesterday, I said to Cliff, "I wonder how much longer we're going to be able to climb on this thing," and a biker walking by said, "For the rest of your lives." 

Illinois river ride

We love visiting Cliff's sister and her husband.  It is amazing that a town the size of St. Louis has so many wonderful motorcycle roads within a short drive from the city; Pat and Charlene always have a new route for us to try when we're there.  However, we like to try and sneak in a ride to Mel's, wherever else we might go.

Once you cross the Mississippi River and get through Alton, Illinois, it's a perfect ride along the river.  You can make the ride as long or as short as you like, but we try to ride at least as far as Mel's, which is in the town of Hardin.

This is a bar we passed in Grafton, near the beginning of our river ride.  I personally think it's a bad idea to drive a motorcycle drunk, but I guess people do it all the time.  When we took our motorcycle safety course, we learned that a huge percentage of motorcycle accidents involve alcohol.
There are bars and restaurants all along this highway (Illinois 100) with bands playing and people enjoying life.  There are many places where you can take a ferry across the Mississippi back to Missouri.

As we rode toward Hardin, at least a dozen classic cars about the same vintage as this one passed us.

When we reached Mel's, those cars were in the parking lot.

Cliff especially liked this one.

Wrapping up our Arkansas adventure

Some of you are curious about some of the pictures in the previous entry, and I do intend to tell you all about them.  First, let me get everybody up-to-date on our ramblings.  
When we traveled to Arkansas, we took Highway 65.  It isn't the quickest way, but it's scenic.  When we first set out on a road trip, we are all about "scenic", and not at all worried about speed of getting someplace.  Once we set our faces toward home, however, we are usually road-weary.  There's just something about "heading home" that makes you want to get there as fast as possible.  So we took Highway 13 on our return trip; that highway has been updated and modernized so that we can really cook, as Cliff says.  

That's the mascot at Hub resort, sitting high and dry outside the office.   

 This is the bathroom available to us (when not using our travel toilet).  We used our own towels, since our $10 nightly hardly paid for laundry.   It's in a motel room that's being used for storage, but it was spotlessly clean.

 I took this shot just before we started taking down the tent and packing to go home.  
On the road toward home, I got a little hungry, and said to Cliff, "Hey, let's stop at that cheese place and eat some samples!"

 As you can tell, I was happy to be in a spot where you can get free samples.

 Don't we look all "tourist-y"?

There's always a crowd here because so many people use Highway 13 as a destination to various lakes:  Truman, Pomme De Terre, Lake Taneycomo, Table Rock, and all the Branson area.  There are countless flavors of cheese; my personal flavor this time was cool ranch.  All you do is grab a toothpick and help yourself to bite-size pieces of cheese.  Believe me, you can fill your belly with cheese at this place just hitting the hundreds of samples.  No, we did not make a purchase.  I wanted to, but my grocery envelope is looking pretty lean.  

We almost ran out of gas before we reached Sedalia; the tank only holds 5 1/2 gallons.  I think all that cheese affected our brains, and we forgot to watch the gauge.  
I'll try not to wait too long to tell you about those pictures you are curious about.

Riding the Arkansas Ozarks

Hub Motorcycle Resort is just off scenic Highway 7, so any ride we choose starts with that highway.  

That number 9 route (in purple) is never boring, and we went off 7 onto 374 and 123 to make our ride to Russellville even more interesting.  We've seen all this before, but it never gets old.  

It will be prettier when the leaves have turned.  They call this "the Grand Canyon of the Ozarks".  

Most of the wooded areas of Arkansas are National Forests.  

We saw load after load of railroad ties being transported.  At one point we were following a truck-load of ties that had been recently dipped in creosote.  Talk about a strong odor!   

These logs were almost dragging the ground.  I took this shot in Russellville.  


When we were planning our trip, I looked online at some state parks where we might camp.  Then we ended up at Hub and decided that's the best place to stay.  However, one park sparked my interest:  Mt. Nebo State Park.  It's just the other side of Russellville; when I saw the warning "trailers over 24 feet long should not  attempt to climb Mt. Nebo", I knew it would be a great ride up that mountain, even though it isn't mentioned on the above "motorcycle trails" map.  

It was SO worth the trip!

What a view!

After this, we went back down to Russellville and set our GPS to find a Walmart; we were determined not to sleep on rocks for another night.  It was 5 PM when we reached our home-away-from-home, and we were tuckered out.  It was a great day, in spite of the sleepless night before.

Suddenly, Arkansas!

I won't discuss the semi-traumatic event Sunday that made me decide to abandon everything and head to Arkansas on the motorcycle.  Of course, my going there required Cliff to take part in my plans, since I don't drive anything motorized.  He wasn't hard to convince, though.  Monday around noon we set out, pulling a loaded motorcycle trailer behind us.  We went down Highway 65 and arrived at Hub Motorcycle Resort.  It's a motel catering to motorcyclists, and our favorite place to stay when we're in the Harrison, Arkansas area.  There are scenic curves and hills with great views in almost any direction.  I always said that Colorado owns a little piece of my heart, and I guess I could say the same for Arkansas.  




I didn't edit this clip closely.  I've spent an average of seven hours daily on the bike for three days straight, and I'm tired.

Crooked roads

We were in Versailles at Cliff's Aunt Gertrude's yesterday when Cliff's cousin, Darryl, gave him a tip.  Now, he's had motorcycles before, and he knows what kind of road is perfect for riding on the Gold Wing.  
Over five years ago, he told us about a road near Eldon that goes past Burger's Smokehouse; he said it had lots of sharp curves and nice hills.  Aunt Gertrude heard him telling us how to find the road and said, "Oh, who would want to take that old, crooked road?"  
Cliff's younger sister and her husband were with us that Saturday on their Harley; we indeed found the road and enjoyed it to the fullest.    
The next day was Easter Sunday, and we rode our Gold Wing to church in Oak Grove.  
Two days later, Cliff was in the hospital for open heart surgery.  When Aunt Gertrude heard about it, she said, "No wonder!  He probably had a heart attack from riding on that old crooked road!"  
Anyway, we've learned to pay attention when Darryl tells us about a motorcycle road, so yesterday when he said State Road "D" was a good ride and was newly paved, that's the way we chose to go.  
I was sitting there enjoying the pretty sky and the hills and curves when I realized this would be a great video opportunity.  My little Canon Powershot takes decent videos, and that way we'd have a reminder of our fun day.  Plus I could share the ride with the Internet.  
Cliff and I aren't spring chickens (surprise surprise), and are pretty tired when we get home from a ride.  I was very anxious to get my video made, however, so I came in and loaded it to my computer and then used imovie to edit it.  I don't mess with editing enough to remember what to do, and I'm not at my best in the evening anyhow.  But I was anxious.  I wanted to remove the wind noise from the over-four-minute clip and add music.  
I have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of songs on my computer.  I opened itunes and started looking for a song that was between 4 minutes and four-and-a-half minutes long.  I saw one by Merle Haggard, "Are The Good Times Really Over For Good", that was the right length.  I added it, hoping against hope that the copyright police on Youtube wouldn't strip it off as soon as it loaded.  It's a pretty old song... that was in my favor... but Merle Haggard still has quite a bit of popularity.  
Sure enough, after all that work, Merle's song was removed.  I did not want a silent video; a song breaks the monotony.  I didn't want to spend my whole night finding a song the right length that would make it through the gate intact, so I just started looking at John Prine's list of songs.  I have more songs by him on the computer than probably any other artist, and he's not famous enough for Youtube to worry about.  The heck with four minutes, I decided.  I'd pick a song and trim the end off the video to fit the song.  Good grief, it was almost bedtime!  
And that's how I came up with the video in the previous entry.  First of all, I know that only about a third of the readers will bother to watch a video.  I realized some people would probably find the lyrics offensive, and I knew that 90%  of the folks who listened would wonder how anybody with so little singing talent ever made it to a recording studio:  That song was recorded at John Prine's first appearance after having surgery for throat cancer several years back.  His voice has gotten steadily worse since that time.  Why do I listen to him?  Because I love the lyrics he writes.  He makes me laugh, and sometimes he almost makes me cry.  
Anyhow, I got up this morning resolved to find the proper song and redo the video, one that was the right length and that might seem appropriate for my video.  Once again I went down the list and made a note of every song that was the right length.  
When I came to Moe Bandy's "Americana", I stopped my search.  I wasn't sure about the copyright thing, though.  But I hoped Moe might be enough of a has-been that he wasn't in Youtube's catalog of copyrighted artists.  
This time, my wish came true.  And here you have the amended video with a new sound track and a couple of things added at beginning and end.  

A good day indeed

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.

How my day went

I mentioned to Cliff last night that I'd like to go for a motorcycle ride.  
This morning I woke up and realized there was a load of laundry that seriously needed to be washed and hung on the line.  So I filled up the washing machine early on.  
Cliff got up and we ate breakfast (Cream of Wheat).  While he enjoyed his third cup of coffee, I did my therapy exercises.  As I was doing the last couple of them, Cliff got on the exercise bike for his daily five minutes; we're hoping that will be a good "warmup" before we walk, and perhaps his back will benefit.  
Then he accompanied me to the clothesline and helped me hang some wet clothes, and we walked.  
Now, I'm a little bit disgruntled that Bonnie's calf isn't taking more of her milk.  Her two previous calves were taking every drop by this age.  I want to be able to leave home for a few days, and until that calf takes more milk, we can't go anywhere.  It reminds me of something I saw on a sign in front of a church recently:  "If you want to see God laugh, show Him your plans."  
He must really be having a good laugh right about now.  We had all sorts of travel plans that have been put on hold.  
Cliff asked this morning where I wanted to ride, and I told him I really didn't care.  He suggested we visit a cousin of mine about twenty miles from here, and I told him that wasn't a long enough ride.  But then he started giving me other options, and when he mentioned Marshall, Missouri, I agreed.  It takes you through lovely farm country on roads that aren't too busy.  Because Cliff shared some of his junk money with me the other day, I told him we were going to use some of the funds in the "fun" envelope and eat out.  I figured there'd be plenty of places to eat in Marshall.  
When we got there, we did see several places:  Pizza Hut (no thanks, the only Pizza Hut we like is in Higginsville); Subway; Taco Bell; and a few others.  But, as I told Cliff, "None of these are ringing my bell.  Let's just save money and eat at McDonald's."  
That's what we ended up doing, to the tune of $4.25.  We ate off the dollar menu.   Two McDoubles, one small order of fries, two apple pies.  Water was our beverage of choice.  I mentioned to Cliff that the 25 cents tax was less than I expected.  
On the way home we stopped at our favorite orchard and bought a few peaches.  In Lexington, we went by the library and I got a library card in my name:  now I have both mine and Cliff's cards with which to check out e-books.  
I noticed it was after 2 o'clock, so I asked Cliff to go by Sonic; Happy Hour was on, and I wanted a large diet cherry limeade... Route 44 size, $1.  However, the tax was thirty-five cents, and Cliff insists on tipping those girls who deliver the order.  So it actually cost $2; had I known that was going to happen, I would have passed on the happy hour thing.  If only Lexington Sonic had a drive-through window!  Oh, and there's supposed to be a maraschino cherry at the bottom of the limeade; there was none in my drink.  I was ROBBED!
Cliff filled up with gas and we headed home (long way around because of road work, but I had my drink to help pass the time).  
It was a nice little getaway, so I'm going to forget about the $2 limeade WITH NO CHERRY AT THE BOTTOM.

We went out for ice cream

The forecast was a pretty good one, with highs not to exceed 90.  We haven't gone for a lot of motorcycle rides this summer because of the extreme heat, and it looked like this was a day for a ride.  We set out early this morning.

We were just going on a little jaunt, and I had ice cream in mind.

This place is in Versailles, Missouri, where so many of Cliff's relatives live.  Cliff says he remembers getting banana splits here when he was a kid.  So yes, I did get my ice cream.  
We visited with his Aunt Gertrude and then chatted with a couple of his cousins, Darryl and Dale.  It got a somewhat warm coming home, but it wasn't so bad as long as we were on the move.   Poking along through the towns and sitting at stop signs was a little uncomfortable.
It was a good ride.

A morning motorcycle ride

We've missed riding our motorcycle lately, but the extreme heat makes it miserable, as you can imagine.  Last night I told Cliff, "What we need to do is head out early in the morning, before it gets so hot."  
These days Cliff is up by six A.M. most days, and he agreed we'd try it.  
"Let's eat breakfast at McDonald's in Blue Springs, and then hit Blue Springs Walmart to get the stuff our usual little Walmart doesn't stock."

  We left before 7 o'clock.

Cliff likes to snack on chocolate animal crackers, and the closest Walmart doesn't stock them.  He also wanted to buy some suspenders, another thing we couldn't find there.  
At 6:45, the temperature was perfect for a ride, and it was great to be on the motorcycle again.    
I've never been a big McDonald's fan, but now that we're on a limited income, I'm learning to appreciate their prices.  You can get two senior coffees, a breakfast burrito, and a sausage McMuffin for $3.  This morning I made the mistake of ordering an orange juice instead of coffee, not knowing it was going to cost almost $2.  That won't happen again.  As we were eating, I looked around and noticed that 80% of the folks in there were our age or older.  And why not?  Two people can have breakfast for the price of a single glass of soda or tea anyplace else, and there's nobody to tip.  I know, the food isn't good for us.  But we don't eat there that often.  
I have badmouthed the Blue Springs Walmart many times; it seems to draw rude people like a magnet, and it's always overcrowded.  But we had never been there at eight o'clock in the morning.  What a treat it was, having the aisles mostly to ourselves!  
My Dave Ramsey envelope system gets a little tricky when I'm shopping at "the Walmarts".  We bought Cliff's suspenders, which took $10 out of the clothing envelope; cat food for a cat that visits our barn often, $3 out of the "critters" envelope; animal crackers and four peaches, $3 from the grocery envelope; the generic equivalent of Tylenol Extra Strength, $8 from the "Drs. and Meds" envelope;  and the cheapest telephone we could find, $6 from the "misc" envelope.  I pay for everything at once at the checkout, so I try to take the money from whatever envelope it's in and add it to the grocery envelope as I put the things in my cart.  Trouble is, sometimes the exact change isn't where it's needed; that's where it gets tricky, and I end up owing an envelope some change when I'm done.  For the most part, it ends well, but Cliff shakes his head a lot when I'm doing all this.  It worked a lot better today, with the store not too crowded to move.  
There's a reason I got a cheap telephone:  When you tell Century Link you don't want a home phone any more, they give you a different number that leaves you with a phone that other people can call.  The only number that works to dial out is 911.  Most people I know who have gone this route remove their home phone entirely, because they have unlimited calling on their cell phones.  Cliff only has 500 minutes.  It helps that he can call anyone on T-mobile without using his minutes, because several of his relatives are on T-mobile.  
Now that I have a prepaid phone, I don't answer my cell when it rings.  I have it in case of emergency, for instance to call Cliff if I had to, or so he can call me in a pinch.  So I've given our home number to people who aren't on T-Mobile who might want to call me.  
However, the fancy-schmancy cordless home phones we bought three years ago have done nothing but confuse us, and lately the one in the living room wouldn't charge enough to talk for more than five minutes.  Today we bought a corded phone that has no answering machine, needs no charging, and has nothing to confuse us. I love it, and buying it didn't break the bank.  I don't mind not being able to carry it from room to room; we don't get that many calls on it.    
We got home from our ride around 9:30; it was already starting to get uncomfortably hot.  Next time we might leave a little earlier. 

Still celebrating my birthday

The rain that ruined my motorcycle-riding plans yesterday was gone today; we left home before nine and got home after two.  Oh, we took time out to eat in Sedalia, and we did some shopping at the Tractor Supply there.  And then we stopped by a place out in the country that we've ridden by several times, a place that has some odd little campers.  

The thing is basically a covered bed with some storage space; it's too big to pull with a motorcycle and too small to stand up in.  And it costs $5,500.  So, no.  We won't be buying one; none of my Dave Ramsey envelopes has that much cash in it.  The guy we spoke with rents them out for $65 a day, so that might be something we would do.  Or not.  I'm thinking at least you wouldn't have to worry about bedbugs, the way you do with motels.  
Travis and Tyler, the neighbor twins, came over after we got home.  Tyler, the one with cancer, lost most of his hair and shaved off what was left.  He looks darned good!  I called him "Mr. Clean".  He has to go for another radical chemo session again this week, and he's dreading it.  
That's about all I have for today.  Several relatives are riding motorcycles here tomorrow, so it should be an interesting day.