Thread: 2018 Journey

Yesterday I landed back home at the Boars Nest after a 14 day ride across 9 states (WA-ID-MT-ND-MN-WI-SD-WY-OR). During the ride I was blessed to be able to meet 5 of our members face to face.

I left the Boars Nest on Monday the 9th and after riding over LoLo Pass reached Missoula MT. After a night in a motel I headed out across MT to ND.

When I landed in New Salem and called Joel (Benz) as he wanted to guide me in as the road crews had been working on various roads. Turns out that my GPS would have taken me the right way hehehe. When Joel and I first started communicating it seemed that we had a lot in common and meeting him I felt a kindred spirit. We talked family, bikes, cooking and recipes (he shared some of his mothers that were special to him) and also machining. While my father was a machinist we never did much together but way back in '68 I worked for a machinist named Bert Lewis. I was kind of a flunky but I did do some turning under Bert's guidance but I'd forgotten so much! Joel took care of that! With his guidance I got to turn a piece on one of his lathes. The tooling was new and Joel wanted to see how it worked on brass. Here's a couple of pics of our 'Project'--

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Here's Joel cutting the piece off;

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And here I am holding the project;



And here's a closeup of the finished piece;



It's a handle for a cast aluminum lid for a cast iron dutch oven that will be a birthday present for my youngest daughter this September.

After four wonderful days with Joel I headed further east to Randy's (randydance062449)

The GPS took me right to his place where I found a young man watering plants. He said; "Randy?" I said yes, is he here? To which he directed me to the back door where I found him. We enjoyed getting to know each other under the shade at a table outside. While we were there I saw something I'd never seen nor heard of and that was a white squirrel-----See inside the black circle---yes it's REAL!



While at Randy's I got my first taste of Japanese Ramen and NO IT'S NOT THAT PACKAGED CRAP FROM THE GROCERY STORE! Randy took me out to a cozy restaurant and I followed his lead on what to order and it was wonderful. The dish is based on a stock made from pork bones and along with the noodles are some finely minced veggies and thinly sliced pork and that pork was oh so tender! While there was soy sauce and other asian condiments at the table I wouldn't have changed a thing the way the ramen arrived at the table.

Randy made arrangements for me to meet Tim (32T) at Randy's home. It was a great time just shooting the bull. The next day Randy took me to meet Richard (Geezer) at Richards home. We went out for lunch and then back to Richards place and checked out some of his collection and how he's been able to make some workspace after downsizing and I must compliment him on it!

Randy has collected so many things related to razors and related projects it's unbelievable. I really should have taken pictures of it all but I didn't think about it at the time. And Randy wanted to share. Let's just say that I left with more than I arrived with and more will be arriving in the mail.

Ron (Utopian) had wanted to meet with us but because I thought that I'd have to cancel riding to MN he scheduled his workload and couldn't get away--more to come.

My time with Randy was his 'vacation time' away from sorting out things at his two homes and he needed to get back to 'work' so it was time to ride on.

My next stop was at Dave's (rolodave) and once again the hospitality was outstanding! Dave's wife Bonnie took me on a short tour of their town including the beach area of Lake Michigan (something I hadn't thought about being able to see)

Supper that night was grilled chicken which was Dave's endeavor and Bonnie fixed the side dishes which included tomatoes and green bell peppers out of their garden along with a slew of other veggies. Dessert was a rhubarb pie which Bonnie has reservations about--Not only did I give it two thumbs up so did Dave!

After a good nights sleep in the 'Cubs Room' which is decorated top to bottom with Chicago Cubs decor we were talking over coffee about the local sites which included the Harley Davidson Museum which I wanted to visit. However there was a big storm coming and Dave and Bonnie offered to put me up for the weekend so I could be pretty much guaranteed of good weather I felt that since it was heading East and I would be riding West that it was better to ride out.

The timing was near perfect as I only got piddled on a bit--in fact several miles down the road I'd put on my rain gear and it wasn't worth it as I only had rain for 4-5 miles max.

Well since Ron (Utopian) lives in Rochester and due to my changing plans I felt it was only right to see if we could get together in his home town so I got a motel room not far from where he works and sent him a text and left a message on his phone.

Lo and Behold! We got together at my motel room and had hours of getting to know each other and sharing stories about our lives. I couldn't believe that at around 11:30pm or so Ron headed back to work!

The next morning I continued homeward. To make a long story short I headed across WY and then rode through the Grand Teton National Park and toward home.

I not only saw some amazing landscapes I got to meet some Wonderful People!

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all that took time out of their busy lives to not only meet me, house and feed me but to make me feel welcome in their homes. :