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Sunday, 28 September -

The overnight temperature here at 10,800 feet was a surprising 43 degrees. I tried the Buddy Heater this morning but it only ran for about five minutes. I also tried our little butane cooking stove but it too went out very quickly. I could understand why the Buddy heater wouldn’t run (it has a low-oxygen cutoff valve) but not the butane stove. As I put away the stove, I noticed the butane canister was very cold. Using it had dropped the temperature of the cartridge which affected butane flow or flammability (or some combination thereof).
We had fog in the tops of the mountains at the 12,000 foot level and it descended as I watched. We packed up and drove to nearby Towner Road, a 4x4 road, and tried it but had to turn back after a mile or so because of an obstruction--- an exposed drainage pipe-- blocking the road and too steep to cross. We tried another road and made it back to the Brooklyn Lake area, enjoying a slow drive through the alpine tundra.
We then drove west on 130 through the Medicine Bow National Forest recreation sites and on to Saratoga. There we had a late breakfast/early lunch at the only restaurant in town.
We continued to Rawlins and then up the Chief Washakie Trail toward Caspar. We soon had rain and strong headwinds and I noticed the van seemed to be stuggling more than it should. I couldn’t maintain a speed over 55 miles per hour into the headwind. And at one point as I climbed a short upgrade, speed dropped to 35 miles per hour.
It occurred to me at that point that I’ve seen this before. The fuel filter must be clogging again.
After stopping along the road, the problem seemed to disappear-- again a symptom I’ve seen before when the filter is getting clogged. We continued into Casper and found the Wal-mart where I started looking for garages for tomorrow and we did some shopping for supplies for the next few days.
We then had supper at nearby Silver Fox Restaurant, a very nice upscale restaurant. We had appetizers, a black-and-bleu burger, ‘bacon knots’, ‘beef maki’, and mushrooms and loved the tastes. Very nice! Thanks to Yelp for helping us find a good restaurant nearby.
Back at the Wal-mart, we settled in for the night. I caught up the blog and Labashi worked on editing a video from our visit with our Boulder friends as we listened to rain on Mocha Joe’s roof.

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Saturday, 27 September -

We woke this morning to overnight temps around 30 degrees. Again the Buddy Heater took off the chill but only ran a few minutes due to the higher altitude. We dressed quickly and got on the road by 0730.
We continued up Route 125 to Walden, a quintessential high-plains western cross-roads town. We bought a few supplies and then followed the GPS to Lake John, a gin-clear bass lake about 15 miles away and out in the rolling fields frequented by pronghorn antelope.
After lunch overlooking Lake John, we took Country Road 7 north and then 7B up a very steep dirt road to find some tree cover. We took bush showers and enjoyed the sun in a picture-perfect glade of yellow and orange aspens.
We then went east to Cowdrey and turned north, very soon seeing our first coyotes of the trip. Two of them were following a small group of antelope, looking for a break and perhaps a meal.
We continued on to Laramie, Wyoming and took a turn through the town. I was surprised to see such a nice, upscale area in the historical center of town. I bet it gets crowded on weekends.
We turned west to Centennial, stopping only at the National Forest visitor center. We had planned to camp at a nearby campground but learned it had recently closed due to a nuisance bear in the area. The nice lady behind the desk suggested we might want to camp at Sugarloaf Campground. “How often do you get a chance to camp above 10,000 feet?”, she asked.
We made it to Sugarloaf around 1700 and had a quick supper and then hiked for an hour as darkness came on. We took the trail between Libby and Lewis Lakes and up to Klondike Lake and returned after sunset. What a spectacularly beautiful and different area. Flag spruce, arctic cotton and gin-clear lakes everywhere.
Though it had seemed cold and windy when we arrived at Sugarloaf, the wind dropped as the sun set and we had a pleasant evening of around 50 degrees.

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Friday, 26 September -

The temperature overnight was 37 last night. We were happy to see the Buddy Heater worked after I opened the van doors to let the accumulated CO2 fall out. We only needed the heater for a few minutes to warm up the van while we dressed and to make a few ounces of warm water for wash-up.
Rather than take off right away, we hung around the campsite and did a few cleanup and organizational tasks with the van. Around 1100 we left but as we drove through the campground loop we were flagged down by a family of campers from Wisconsin. Their battery was low and wouldn’t start the car. This gave me an opportunity to try my little Micro-Start jump-starter battery and it worked great. The campers gave us a jar of home-made applesauce as a thank you.
We drove to the nearby Monarch Lake trailhead and walked the four-mile loop around the lake. When I first saw the trail, I thought it was going to be a stroll but it turned out to be a good hike. Again, the GPS disagreed with the published distance of 4 miles. It said we walked 5.1 miles, an inexplicable difference.
We then drove in to the National Forest office in Granby to pick up a new hang-tag for my Senior Pass and to buy a forest map for the Medicine Bow National Forest.
We gassed and iced up in Granby and then drove up 125 about fifteen miles to Denver Creek campground for the night. We had the place to ourselves once again.
Tonight we had a campfire from wood left behind by previous campers.... our first camp fire in quite a while.

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Thursday, 25 September -

The temperature was 43 overnight but we were quite comfortable. As the sun warmed up the day, we walked from our campsite to the top of the hill overlooking the elk-viewing meadow and watched a few elk from there. We then drove to the next valley-- Upper Beaver Meadows-- to check out the trailhead. There we met a couple who were interested in Mocha Joe’s layout. They had recently moved to Colorado from Ohio and had nothing but good things to say of their decision.
We continued up the Trail Ridge Road, stopping often. We visited the Hidden Valley sledding park and the Alpine Visitor Center, then looked for ptarmigan and long-tailed weasels (stoats/ermines) at the nearby Medicine Bow turnout trail.
We descended the switchbacks to the Colorado River trailhead and took a short walk and took photos (and let out overheated brakes cool off). Next stop was a drive back to the Never Summer Mountains hunter access at Bowen/Baker Trailhead.
At the Timber Creek campground we talked quite a while with Larry, owner of a new Nissan NV2500 van which he had converted to a camper. He had a layout similar to ours but was carrying a ten-foot kayak under the bed. He takes the kayak out when he gets to the campground and turns his east-west oriented bed to a north-south orientation to have enough length for his six-foot frame. That’s the first time I’ve seen that one!
Larry was also interested in Mocha Joe and wanted to know more about our Buddy Heater. He told us he was considering trying a home-made heater powered by three tea-candles at a time but it sounded impractical for travel since it used an upside-down flowerpot over the candles. I think I’ll stick with the Buddy heater.
We then stopped at Kawuneeche visitor center and there met a very interesting older woman traveling by herself in a first-gen Toyota pickup with a truck-cap as her camper. She had selected one with a higher roof so she could sit up in bed and she had two solar shower bags on the cab’s roof in a luggage rack. We were parked beside her rig and I merely said I liked her shower setup as she returned to her truck. A half-hour later we were still talking about travel and camping. She’s a retired school teacher from San Francisco. I love those little encounters!
Labashi and I continued south and checked out Stillwater campground on Lake Granby but it seemed too civilized, though it had nice views.
We drove back the nine-mile dirt road south of the lake into Arapaho National Forest campsites on Arapaho Bay. We selected a site right at the foot of the lake in the Moraine Loop and spent a perfect evening watching the late-evening rays of the sun paint the rocks above us and then fade away.

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Wednesday, 24 September -

This morning after breakfast we drove to the nearby Discovery Center and talked to a ranger about our moose encounter. He asked us to fill out an incident report since moose are not very common on the east side of the park.
We drove down Bear Lake road intending to find a campsite at the campground there but it was closed. We turned back to last night’s campground but our site had already been given away and we were lucky to get another, even though it’s mid-week.
We headed back the few miles to Estes Park to get a wi-fi connection at the library. We stopped at the Beaver Meadows visitor center along the way and there I checked out another Four Wheel Camper-- this one a Granby-- in the parking lot as we ate lunch. I talked with the owner who has had it about two months and is happy to report there have been no surprises with it.
At Estes Park we did some provisioning at the Safeway and then went to the library for wi-fi. Afterwards, we drove to the Park-and-Ride lot and took the shuttle bus up to Bear Lake at 9500 feet.
We took a quick look at Bear Lake and then hiked up to Nymph Lake, then Dream Lake, then Emerald Lake, a vertical rise of 850 feet in 2 miles. There were quite a few steps to climb in that two miles and we paused often to catch our breath at that altitude.
After a few photos we hiked back down and that gave me another mystery with the GPS. At the far point or the hike (at Emerald Lake) the GPS said we had hiked in 2.3 miles. But back at the trailhead the trip computer said we had only walked 4.0 miles. How could it be 2.3 miles in and only 1.7 miles out? We had simply retraced our steps. That doesn’t make any sense.
We took the shuttle back to the van and headed back to camp. As we approached the turnoff, though, we saw a long backup of cars waiting to go elk-watching. So instead of getting in line, we drove up to the Discovery Center parking lot which overlooks the elk-grazing area. Labashi made us a wonderful supper while we watched elk from our excellent vantage point.
At dark, we drove to our campsite and hit the hay by 2100.

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Tuesday, 23 September -

This morning we left our campsite at the Fairgrounds and drove into Longmont to look around--- just curious to see what the town looked like. Nice little town. It seemed to have a small-town vibe but still had the services of a larger town.
We then drove on to Estes Park. I had looked up map dealers for the 4x4 map book I wanted and it suggested an outdoors shop in Estes Park. They had no 4x4 map books but did have a great discount on high-quality Royal Robbins hiking pants with zip-off legs. I also found two good overview maps made by Latitude 40 for good prices.
We had an early lunch in the parking lot behind the main shopping drag and then drove on to Rocky Mountain National Park’s Moraine Campground. We easily got a site and readied our gear for a hike.
We chose the Cub Lake loop which was supposed to be a six-miler. After an easy walk through a meadow with giant elk bulls lounging about, we started a steady climb up to a pristine alpine lake. We took an energy-bar break along the lake and set off a SPOT transmission. After an easy walk along the lake, we had a short climb to the top and wonderful views into the next valley.
As we descended the mile-long trail to The Pool I noticed an odd sight ahead. It was a bull moose blocking the trail and obviously standing its ground. We didn’t understand what was going on at first and merely sat down to assess. We knew we didn’t want to pressure the moose but also couldn’t figure out why the moose didn’t move off the trail or down the trail away from us. After a while we noticed a hiker way down off trail and coming up and two more well behind doing the same. They had been on the trail below the moose for some time and took the only way around him. I don’t think I would have even considered that. We had a steep bank above us and below us, as they did. After the leader struggled up to us, he said the bull had a harem of cows in the little valley above where he was standing. I asked how he knew that and he said he had seen them. When the other two hikers finally struggled up to regain the trail we were surprised to see they were older and I believe they may have been the young guy’s parents. That was a heck of a thing for them to have to do.
After the three departed we decided we’d have to do the same thing. It was either that or retreat back to Cub Lake and down to the van that way. We dropped down off the trail and were immediately struggling to maintain control. Any rock we touched would go tumbling down the slope. Fortunately the ground wasn’t slippery-- just steep.
Right then we heard a voice above us on the trail and it was a guy we had passed at the top. Apparently he had gone that way to the lake and was now returning. He said he might be joining us any second but slowly advanced on the moose. After a bit of a standoff, the moose gave out a bellow of sorts and was almost immediately joined by a cow and calf. The three then turned and went off down the now-clear trail at a trot.
We climbed back up to the trail (we had only gotten down about 30 feet before the guy came along) and the three of us walked slowly down the trail. We kept seeing moose tracks as we went but then saw them go off-trail as we neared the river below. And down there in the meadow were the three moose. We saluted the moose and took photos and continued to The Pool and then on to the trailhead.
The GPS said we had covered 7.5 miles so I re-checked directions on the trail guide and map and, yes, the loop was supposed to be 6.2 miles. I don’t get why that happened.
Back at camp Labashi and I had spam and rice for supper and I worked a bit on catching up blog notes. Around 2000 we drove down to the elk viewing area and watched stars. The Milky Way was clearly visible and we worked on picking out the constellations with the help of Go SkyWatch on the iPad. Beautiful!
We then went back to camp and to bed around 2130, which seemed late to our east-coast adapted bodies.

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Monday, 22 September -

This morning we had breakfast with Shilla before she went to work and then we were off on our own. What a great visit we had!
We first went looking for the Boulder Map Gallery since I was looking for a 4x4 map book I had read about but hadn’t ordered. We also looked for another set of mini-binoculars since we keep finding we left them in the pack when we needed them up front in the van or vice versa. Unfortunately, it turns out nobody stocks them and I’ll have to get them off the web.
We had a few other errands to run and tried out Smashburger for lunch. We then drove up to NCAR-- National Center for Atmospheric Research-- and toured the visitor galleries. After, we walked the Weather Trail which gave us a spectacular end-on view of the Flatirons.
We then followed the GPS to Longmont and the Jax :Outdoors store. I picked up a copy of the book I had been looking for.
By then it was time to find a campsite for the night. We drove to St. Vrain’s State Park but they wanted $29 for a night of camping. We moved on a few miles to the Boulder Fairgrounds where we found a spot for $15.
We settled in and had leftovers from our Vietnamese restaurant excursion and then slept like kings.

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Sunday, 21 September -

This morning we got up early for a hike. We drove up through Nederland and on to Caribou Ranch, a Boulder County Open Space.
We had cool but pleasant weather and very early on saw a massive moose lying down just a few yards into the woods from our trail. We circled around through the ranch and up to the mine buildings and back, a total of four miles.
Back at the house, Labashi and I tried our hand at preparing apples for the dehydrator. I operated the Apple Master peeler and coring machine while Labashi arranged the cut pieces of apple on the dehydrator trays. We very quickly filled both machines.
That evening the four of us went out to a Vietnamese restaurant, Chez Tuoy (‘twee’).
As bedtime came around we said our goodbyes to Moth, who would be up early and off to work.

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Saturday, 20 September -

We again spent the morning talking and then went on a theater-hike at nearby Chatauqua. The theater hike was quite interesting. The players put on three Edgar Allen Poe pieces, “Fall of the House of Usher”, ‘The Raven’, and ‘The Telltale Heart’. We the audience gathered at the pavilion behind the Chatauqua building and were led by a hike-leader about a quarter of a mile up the trail to the first setting-- an open field along the trail. We had brought our chairs so set up in front of the leader as the players positioned themselves. They did a ten-minute stylized scene from ‘Fall of The House of Usher’ and then the players moved on as we gathered up our chairs.
We did this twice more for ‘Fall of the House of Usher’, then started back down the trail to a setting for ‘The Raven’ and twice more for ‘The Telltale Heart’. We were accompanied in our hike by a violinist who also provided haunting music for each scene and a few sound effects.
Labashi and I were in the perfect mood for this and the day couldn’t have been better. Weather was sunny and bright and the settings were chosen well. The actors did a wonderful job and I was surprised how much I liked to watch them when they were ‘off-stage’.
After the play, the four of us had drinks on the open porch at the restaurant below the Chatauqua building.
We then drove up to Panorama Point and then on to the top for views over Boulder. We could see to Denver, to Long’s Peak, and the Twin Sisters.
That evening we had a grilled pork and roasted veggies dinner and a glass or three of wine.

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Friday, 19 September -

Today Moth had to work and we hung with Shilla all day. While the ladies chatted I caught up blog notes and worked quite a while on an email recommending places to see in West Virginia for a buddy headed that way soon.
Shilla made a fantastic potato soup supper and the four of us chatted away the evening and made plans for the weekend.

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Thursday, 18 September -

We were awakened at 0530 this morning by a pickup truck nearby us in this zombie-land of an abandoned state park. The truck had driven in and parked with his headlights shining on one of the apparently-abandoned outbuildings and kind of toward us. I figured he was there to pick up some tool or supply stored there but really had no idea who it was or why he was there.
I quickly dressed and retrieved a gun from the safe and waited out the visitor. We saw his shadow in front of the headlights as he did whatever it was he was doing in that building and then he drove off.
We couldn’t get back to sleep and by that time the sky was light so we got up to move on. We drove across eastern Colorado in light fog for awhile and then a heavier fog. But in an hour or so the fog lifted and we enjoyed the rolling plains with all the ranches and farms until Denver.
Below Denver we met US70 and in wasn’t long till we reached Thornton. I had set the GPS to go to the address of the Thornton Cabela’s store but it took us to a school more than a mile away. Thank goodness we had the iPad with a cell phone connection. We used it to find the street and the actual location of Cabela’s and route us there.
We spent an hour or so at the Cabela’s picking up a few hard-to-find items and having lunch. I was surprised how good our lunch was at their little deli.
We had a few hours before meeting Labashi’s friend in Boulder and I realized we were only 20 minutes out of Arvada--- location of Rocky Mountain Four Wheel Campers. I’ve been wanting to get a tour of these pop-top pickup campers so we spent a couple of hours with Chris doing just that. We were in and out of several Hawks and a Fleet and watched them load a Hawk shell model onto a guy’s pickup. We chatted with him while the loading and tie-down process went on and he told us about his plans for it.
We then drove on to Boulder and used the GPS to find the local Best Buy. Labashi has been wanting to play music from the iPod as she prepares supper so we looked for wireless speakers. We settled on a JBL Clip speaker which is good-enough in quality and doesn’t take up much space.
We then tried to find San Francisco Soup Company via the GPS but learned it had closed. There was a Native Foods restaurant across the complex so we tried that. It’s a vegan restaurant and we had some interesting choices. I don’t think I’m going to turn vegan, though.
We then drove to our friend’s home and parked Mocha Joe in the alleyway behind their house. We spent the evening catching up and had a wonderful reunion.

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Wednesday, 17 September -

We arose early this morning and were driving by 0800. We had a rainy morning so we bypassed St. Joseph’s attractions and continued another 100 miles into Kansas.
There, in the little town of Marysville, we visited the only remaining Pony Express Home Station. We learned the history of the Pony Express and its existence for 19 months.
We toured the museum for about an hour and a half and then had a quick lunch at a Hardee’s before heading west again.
We drove the rest of the day across Kansas and into eastern Colorado. There we found an abandoned State Park--- Bonny State Park-- but our guide said we could nevertheless camp there in the old campground.
We found the campground thanks to the GPS and had supper and a short walk to look around this zombie-apocalypse setting.

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Tuesday, 16 September -

We were back on the road by 0815 and continued across Illinois and crossed the Missouri River at Hannibal. There we took a break and toured the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens-- Mark Twain. We toured the Clemons home, the Becky Thatcher home, the justice-of-the-peace office of Samuel’s father, Henry, and an excellent museum with Norman Rockwell illustrations of various Mark Twain novels.
The town of Hannibal should be very proud. The tourism sites are very well maintained and are interesting and well thought out.
We then walked down to the Missouri for a look before circling back for an ice cream cone on our way to the van.
We then continued driving across Missouri to Wallace State Park outside the small town of Cameron. We arrived just at dark and quickly settled in and went to bed.

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Monday, 15 September -

We had said our goodbyes last night so this morning our hosts were off to jobs and school early and we had the driveway to ourselves (we were camped in the driveway in Mocha Joe).
Labashi and I left around 0830 and drove south to connect with US 36-- our backroads way West to Denver from central Ohio.
We only drove for two hours until we saw a sign for the National Bicycle Museum at New Bremen. We were too early for the museum by then but spent the time fixing a nagging problem with Mocha Joe. We keep having problems with one of the blackout curtains staying in place. We’ve replaced the hook-and-loop fasteners several times and no luck. But this time I had a secret weapon--- a new glue. This one resists both high and low temperatures. While waiting for the museum to open we re-mounted the hook-and-loop fasteners to the window with the new glue.
We very much enjoyed the Bicycle Museum. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the history of bicycle development but this brought it all together with good, thorough explanations and many rare bikes, many of which failed in their engineering or marketing. I’d say the most intriguing item we saw was a pair of wooden walking legs operated by a bicycle crank assembly. Somehow the operator sat on a unicycle-type seat and cranked away at a conventional set of pedals and bicycle crank and chain to make the wooden legs under him walk.
After the museum we drove through the little towns going west but ended up having lunch in a church cemetery in Palestine, OH. We then continued west into and through Indiana, bypassing Indianapolis. We had supper at the Thirty Six Saloon in Rockville, IN and then continued across the border into Illinois and Walnut Point State Park for the night.
Rain started right after our arrival but we were snug in the van and had a good night.

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Sunday, 14 September -

Another big breakfast today--- scrambled eggs and massive plates of pepper-bacon and applewood bacon.
We then went on another geocaching expedition. Our first attempt was a DNF (did not find) back an old railroad bed and that was very frustrating. The container is supposed to be very unique and I was really looking forward to finding it but that didn’t happen. It was one of those caches where you’ve looked at absolutely everything and still came up empty.
We then did a cache-and-dash (easy one) at a local baseball field before going to lunch at a ‘Penn Station’ restaurant. After, we went back to geocaching on the campus of Bowling Green State College and again nearly got skunked by a nano-cache.
That evening we were exhausted and after pork chops on the grill we sat around watching a ‘Spiderman’ movie.
All in all the geocaching went well in that we all learned a lot and our hosts swear they are going back to the DNF once the leaves are off the trees to bag that one once and for all.

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Saturday, 13 September -

This morning we had a long and lazy pancake breakfast and then got organized and went geocaching. Our hosts hadn’t been geocaching but were quick studies and soon had apps download to their phones for the little adventure.
We almost got skunked at our very first cache and that was probably a good thing-- it made us think though how to take advantage of every little clue when things aren’t going well.
We had a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then went geocaching some more. We learned we were struggling a bit with our GPSs showing the caches at different positions. It took a bit of research on the web to learn that an automated login was failing so geocaching.com would return an approximate position rather than the actual position.
After geocaching had exhausted us, we returned to the house and took a break. I caught some sun just sitting in the driveway behind the van and then pulled out the bikes and took each for a ride to more thoroughly check them out. I then went for a short ride with my nephew and was surprised to see how well he did with a new bike and at that one with a different gear-shifting system and different-feeling geometry. These little folding bikes are very quick to turn and you almost feel like you’re going over the handlebars if you turn a bit too sharply.
After a scrumptious supper off the grill, we did a slide show of our Botswana trip for our hosts.

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Friday, 12 September -

We were up at 0630 this morning and on the road by 0815. We took the PA Turnpike across PA and much of northern Ohio to the Toledo area. We arrived at Labashi’s brother’s home by 1615 and relaxed with the family all evening.

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Thursday, 11 September -

Today we dug in hard on the van prep for our trip. I vacuumed, gassed up, prepped the windshield with Rain-X, bought spare wipers and packed, packed, and re-packed (actually it wasn’t all that bad).
We shuttled the F650 GS to storage and then relaxed with a movie before going to bed early.

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Wednesday, 10 September -

Today I mowed the lawn for the last time before our trip. I then walked up to the garage to pick up Mocha Joe with his new inspection, alignment, and (unexpected) front-brake job-- a $350 bill.
I then rode the F650GS down to Freedom Armory to pick up some gear I ordered in and was disappointed to have a technical glitch-- a computer was down and I couldn’t get my stuff. I decided to hang out at the local Starbucks to give it an hour and while sipping remembered the nearby state store is a premium one. I browsed and picked up a bottle of hard-to-find Willamette Valley pinot gris and by the time I returned to the shop all was well and I wouldn’t have to return tomorrow.
That evening we finished ‘Nostalgia for the Light‘ and a ‘Parenthood‘ episode.

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Tuesday, 9 September -

Today I readied the generator for winter storage. This is a matter of draining the tank, carb, and fuel pump after giving it a function check and then cleaning and packing it with the manuals and log book so I don’t have to go looking for anything when it’s needed and I don’t have any doubts about when it was last used.
We then shuttled two of the motorcycles over to the new storage unit and I later rode the third over and re-arranged things to ensure they all fit in the new space. It’s amazing how much space a motorcycle takes up. We had traded in our 10x10 storage unit for a 10x20 unit just so I can keep the motorcycles there out of the weather over the winter. I’ll winterize the 3-season bikes and keep the winter bike there when there’s a storm coming and when I travel.
That evening we watched a Chilean movie, ‘Nostalgia for the Light’. It’s a bit of an odd combination of astronomy and Chilean politics but very interesting.

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Monday, 8 September -

This morning I had to run a few errands in preparation for our trip and work on our sink drains. The latter slow down after an extended time and just need a little attention to get cleared up for another year or more or service.
That evening we finished the ‘Happy Valley’ series. Highly recommended.

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Sunday, 7 September -

Today Labashi went off with her buddies to tea and I went to the Harrisburg Gun Show. I’m not a big fan of gun shows and this one didn’t change my mind. I was looking for some admittedly harder-to-find hunting and bear-defense ammo but there was hardly even anything in the caliber I need, much less high performance stuff. I did manage to pick up two boxes of target ammo I need at a little bit better price but then again I paid $10 to get into the show and had to drive there. I didn’t even break even if you figure that in but of course I had to go to the show to learn that.
That afternoon I walked five miles at Rocky Ridge Park. Labashi returned around supper time and we watched two ‘Happy Valley’ episodes and a ‘Parenthood’ episode.
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Saturday, 6 September -

This morning I did some shopping for gun accessories and ammo for the trip. Last time I had used an el-cheapo gun case for the shotgun and it was way too long. I picked up a proper one at Gander Mountain and made sure I could stow it in a better place in the van.
That evening we watched ‘Happy Valley’ on Netflix. It’s a multi-part police series set in England with a female lead officer. Good stuff!

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Friday, 5 September -

Today I took the little folding bikes to a shop in New Freedom (one of the only Dahon dealers in the area) to get them ready for our trip. Mine was not shifting at all and Labashi’s was shifting hard. I finally realized what had happened. We had taken them along to the Outer Banks last September and had left them in the breezeway under the house for more than a week. Each morning I had washed the salt off of our car but never even thought of washing the bikes. I had tucked them under the stairs and thought they were out of the breeze. Obviously that was not the case.
That little lesson cost be two afternoons sanding and painting but I couldn’t get the derailleur to shift without tapping it on the side (which is hard to do while riding!). In any case, the bike shop guys fixed them right up and the bill for service on both bikes was only $27. After service I took them for a quick ride down the block.
Back home I put in an order with GPSNation for topographic map chips for our trip. Though the GPS came with 100K topo maps, I wanted the 24K for the additional detail on waypoints and trails.

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Thursday, 4 September -

This morning Walmart called first thing to tell me the tires were in. I drove in around 0900 to have them mounted and they finished up about 1100. After lunch at the nearby Five Guys on the way home I got back to work on the folding bike.
The painting had gone well yesterday and today I cleaned and oiled the chain. But then I found the derailleur isn’t working. I loosened it up with WD40 but I think the shifter cable is corroded tight in its sheath. I can only change from 6th to 5th gear. I spent an hour or so with it but made no headway. I’ll have to take it to the shop.
I then brought in Labashi’s Dahon folder and spent a couple of hours cleaning up and painting the spokes and various rusty nuts and bolts. It seems to shift fine.
That evening we watched the movie ‘End of Watch’. I was wondering how it would compare to Southland and did indeed see many similarities. I think I like Southland better, though, perhaps because of a longer development of the characters.

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Wednesday, 3 September -

This morning I ordered tires for Mocha Joe from Walmart. I ordered Michelin LTX Mud and Snow tires because of the excellent experience I had with the current set. They should be in tomorrow.
I then put my little Dahon Boardwalk folding bike up on the stand and went to work on the rusty spokes. At first I thought I’d be able to use some Flitz metal polish on it but realized that wouldn’t work. I’d have to sand the rust down and then paint with a rust-inhibiting paint.
I jumped on the GS and zipped over to the hardware store for paint but there was little selection there. I rode on in to Lowe’s and found the selection even worse. I finally ended up buying a spray primer at Lowe’s and then returning to the Ace hardware store for a small can of aluminum-color paint.
I spent the rest of the afternoon sanding and painting and by supper time was happy with the result. The aluminum paint is a perfect match for the bike.
That evening we watched the last two episodes of ‘The Killing’- Season One.

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Tuesday, 2 September -

This morning after web-patrol I took Mocha Joe over to the storage unit to pick up our little folding bikes. I was very surprised to find them in poor condition. They were okay when I packed them away in garbage bags but now I find the wheel spokes are badly rusted and theres rust here and there all on the fittings. This is going to take some work to get them ready to go again.
I zipped over to the bank and the state store on errands but mostly it was just an excuse to ride. Weather has returned to being very hot and humid but it’s fine on the motorcycle.
That afternoon I thought I’d ride down to the park for a walk but by then it was so sticky I thought better of it. I instead went to the gym and put in an hour on the weights, elliptical, and strider.
That evening we watched another Jim Jefferies comedy special, this one called ‘Jim Jefferies: Fully Functional’ . His comedy is hilarious but does take some getting used to. We loved him in ‘Legit’ so had a good idea what we were in for.

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Monday, 1 September -

This morning I sharpened the lawn mower’s blade and adjusted the height of the deck back down a bit. Labashi keeps adjusting it back up under the theory that it’s better for the grass in this dry weather. I’m not convinced of that, however, and feel like the higher deck isn’t lifting the grass as well, resulting in a poor cut. Between the deck height change and the sharpened blade, the upper lawn looks much better than the lower. That section already looks like it could use another mowing just two days after the last cut.
After resting up from the sweat-fest of mowing in very hot and humid weather, I jumped on the Thruxton for a ride to Starbucks. Funny how the weather is so miserable behind the mower but very pleasant on the motorcycle. Huh.
That evening we watched a documentary called “Gideon’s Army”. It tells the story of three public defenders in Georgia. Good one!
We then finished off the night with a ‘Parenthood’ episode. Sappy!

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