Today is predicted to be the warmest day of 2009 so far, around 50 degrees! grab your short pants and Hawaiian shirts! OK................, so not that warm just yet.
Tonight is the FINAL episode of Battlestar Galactica. I agree with many that for most its run it has been one of the best shows on TV. I've got all the DVD's and am curious to see what exactly will happen. The Galactica is 'falling apart' from all of it's use, in the very first show it was to be a museum in space, much like an old aircraft carrier. And all of the crews are in such a great general despair, what to do since after all was said and done Earth when found, was a blown up nuclear wasteland much like what they'd all run away from. It will be interesting to see. And NOTHING like Galactica 1980 when it was tried and they'd gotten to Earth after the first incarnation of the original series from the late 1970's.
Don't remember them? You can see some of either show mentioned on HULU or Fancast on-line. I thought I'd remembered Galactica 1980 better than I had. WOW, was it BAD!!
I was talking with one of the kids the other day, and in listening to them it reminded me of my family trips and my very first motorcycle trip back in 1976. It was truly my first non family trip. When I was little family trips were usually once a year we'd all pile into grandma's red 1963 Chevy Nova station wagon and go for a long weekend trip to either; Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, or the San Diego Zoo. Now, grandma was working so family trips had to work around her schedule and her getting days off. She was the office of one for a heating and air conditioning/metal fabrication business in Redlands, Ca.
This is the late 1960's and very early 1970's I'm talking about. We went to Knott's Berry Farm most often, I remember because it reminded grandma a lot of her youth, at least I remember her saying that to me. And since grandma was paying the way for all of us, why not! Anyway, these were also the days when you paid so much to get into the park, then it was separate ticket booths and prices for any rides you'd want to go on. At Knott's the Log ride was the only "thrill ride" they had back then. At Disneyland they had more but still nothing like what there is now. "It's a Small World" was one of the newest then. I remember the long lines to go on that one. The old phrase "E Ticket Ride"? It came from Disneyland, the most 'exciting' rides were those "E" ticket rides. Didn't get to go on too many of those back then.
We ALWAYS stayed at Travel-Lodges on any trip, don't know why, but I remember that grandma was a steadfast AAA member so she probably got the reservations through them. Got used to seeing that 'sleepy bear' logo, another long gone icon I recall from long ago. We'd usually go to the also long gone Movieland Wax Museum and sometimes see some of the local shops on the boulevard.
We moteled it all the time, we never went camping and the closest I was to ever "camping" was on a trip in 1973 when mom was driving to Northern California in the '73 GMC pickup and two of us kids were in the truck bed and two in the cab with mom. No sleeping bags, just lots and lots of blankets to be bundled under because it was so cold. But being in the back made it easier to be all ready after dark when she pulled into a campground and we all slept in the truck.
Boy, all the things we did as kids that are illegal now! No seat belts were EVER worn, little kids would stand on the seats while on the road, and riding in the open bed of the truck!!
My first motorcycle trip was with my riding buddy Duane in late spring, 1976. He'd told me stories of some of his trips and I really wanted to go on a long trip too. So we planned out some roads to ride and some places to see and we were going to start on Memorial weekend that year. I was working at the family movie theater and still working at the airport also, Duane worked graveyard at the Southern Pacific railroad. When I was packing for this trip I'd bought a pup tent, it was all I could afford back then. The real nice tents like the Eureka I bought a few years later with its outside pole frame rain fly and room inside were around a hundred dollars back then. The pup tent was about twenty dollars. Now twenty can get a great tent! But I had the pup tent with its poles at the front and back and not enough room to really sit up in it. And no rain protection. Since I'd never camped I thought that blankets would be plenty warm. The settlers didn't have sleeping bags right? So I didn't get one of those. DUMB!
First night out we'd stopped at a camp along the Kern River in the Bakersfield area. I remember it was sandy ground and I set up the tent and thought in the sand it would be comfortable. Apparently up the canyon from our campground was a group of Harley riders camping out for the weekend. All night long, very loud straight piped Harleys were going back and forth on the canyon road. I didn't sleep much at all with the noise, I remember you could hear the loud pipes as they started and then ride all the way up and down the canyon to the small store. I also FROZE! Yes the sand was a comfy bed but blankets were NOT enough.
Our first real destination was to be the BMW '49er motorcycle rally at Angels Camp on the 49'er highway in central California. Now we were both on Honda's, my CB 550 four and his 750SS, and stopping in at an all BMW rally. For a first rally it was actually interesting, Duane really liked the VW car engines installed in some BMW motorcycles, for a long time, until the Honda Gold Wings became proven, he kept talking about getting one of those BMW conversions for himself.
While camping after that first night I was rapping up in my and Duane's mylar "Space Blankets" in addition to the regular blankets I had. That helped some but I remember freezing most all of the nights. Why I didn't just stop and buy a sleeping bag, I couldn't say. But I don't recall that ever came to my mind to do something as easy as that!
This trip became my first time out of California, we went to Duane's sisters place North of Salt Lake city and stayed a couple of days there with her family. We rode on to Wyoming and I saw Yellowstone for the first time. I remember it lightly snowed as we were climbing the road from the entrance to Yellowstone. My 550 was having a lot of trouble with the altitude of the area, poor throttle response and stalling often. Didn't make them like they do now!
We wound around Yellowstone and back towards Utah and then over to Nevada, and out I-80. This was my first experience of running out of gas on the I-80 portion of the trip. No where Nevada, and the 550 had a little over a three gallon tank. Didn't have CB radio's on the motorcycles yet so Duane realized I had a problem when I disappeared from his rear view mirrors. He back tracked on the shoulder of the road and then we did something he'd read about, I tilted the Honda over on its left side, almost laying it down on the ground to get some of the gas that was trapped by the design of the gas tank to allow the tank to go around the center of the frame. It worked! Got it started and slowly rode on. Luckily about three miles ahead was a gas station.
Can't do that anymore with the modern designs! Except for what's mentioned the trip itself was uneventful. For a first time out of California and seeing the country at 18 years old, it was a great experience. I learned so much from that trip! I NEVER again traveled without a sleeping bag. I eventually bought that nice tent and later in 1982 I moved up and got a Time Out tent trailer to tow behind the motorcycle and except for one trip where the trailer had to be used as a trailer and didn't have the room to make out the tent part, I never slept in a ground tent again.
13 days and 1,444 miles by the motorcycle's odometer for that first trip. I really wish I'd had a camera back then! The camera I took was a "120" snapshot camera and the few photos I took didn't scan well enough to be kept!
Well enough skipping down memory lane for this time.
Other family news;
Aunt Sister's (Camdin Classen) husband Chuck, passed away earlier this week. They'd been married for a very long time and live in Lucerne Valley. He'd been a cancer survivor only to have it come back years later and get him this time. Stacy and I are very sorry for her loss.
On the Goodwin side, congrats to Mike for getting a promotion, bad news for his wife Brenda, it seems like Mike travels almost as much as he did when he was in the military!
Sean's wife Brandy was selected for jury duty, in a three week long trial in San Diego. Sean said that she's finding it to be an interesting experience since she's never had to do anything like this before. As they only have one vehicle at the moment, Brandy has had to learn to take the local public transportation, and that also has been a learning experience for her too. Now Sean's hoping this will all give her the motivation to expand her own horizons in the area.
Laura has put in for a job as a dispatcher for a local police force. She really likes her current job but she really needs a job with better pay than $7.50 an hour and they need benefits as well as two days off and paid overtime. We hopes she gets it! She put in for a job a few months ago with the Border Patrol but hasn't heard anything and with the current economy she's going to go for anything she can that will help her and her family.
Sandy did a day trip for work to Las Vegas to check on her project with Caesar's Palace. She's mainly wanting to keep taking and learning about her photography. Sandy was asked to be the 'official' photographer for her cousin Stephanie's wedding in September in the area of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
Me and Stacy? Well we're doing fine, Stacy has another quilting class she's looking forward to tomorrow (Saturday), and I'm just doing "stuff" while waiting for spring. I looking forward to taking photos of more than snow and ice, going driving in the Solstice and to ride the Gold Wing again!!!
Till next time, Tad
Tonight is the FINAL episode of Battlestar Galactica. I agree with many that for most its run it has been one of the best shows on TV. I've got all the DVD's and am curious to see what exactly will happen. The Galactica is 'falling apart' from all of it's use, in the very first show it was to be a museum in space, much like an old aircraft carrier. And all of the crews are in such a great general despair, what to do since after all was said and done Earth when found, was a blown up nuclear wasteland much like what they'd all run away from. It will be interesting to see. And NOTHING like Galactica 1980 when it was tried and they'd gotten to Earth after the first incarnation of the original series from the late 1970's.
Don't remember them? You can see some of either show mentioned on HULU or Fancast on-line. I thought I'd remembered Galactica 1980 better than I had. WOW, was it BAD!!
I was talking with one of the kids the other day, and in listening to them it reminded me of my family trips and my very first motorcycle trip back in 1976. It was truly my first non family trip. When I was little family trips were usually once a year we'd all pile into grandma's red 1963 Chevy Nova station wagon and go for a long weekend trip to either; Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, or the San Diego Zoo. Now, grandma was working so family trips had to work around her schedule and her getting days off. She was the office of one for a heating and air conditioning/metal fabrication business in Redlands, Ca.
This is the late 1960's and very early 1970's I'm talking about. We went to Knott's Berry Farm most often, I remember because it reminded grandma a lot of her youth, at least I remember her saying that to me. And since grandma was paying the way for all of us, why not! Anyway, these were also the days when you paid so much to get into the park, then it was separate ticket booths and prices for any rides you'd want to go on. At Knott's the Log ride was the only "thrill ride" they had back then. At Disneyland they had more but still nothing like what there is now. "It's a Small World" was one of the newest then. I remember the long lines to go on that one. The old phrase "E Ticket Ride"? It came from Disneyland, the most 'exciting' rides were those "E" ticket rides. Didn't get to go on too many of those back then.
We ALWAYS stayed at Travel-Lodges on any trip, don't know why, but I remember that grandma was a steadfast AAA member so she probably got the reservations through them. Got used to seeing that 'sleepy bear' logo, another long gone icon I recall from long ago. We'd usually go to the also long gone Movieland Wax Museum and sometimes see some of the local shops on the boulevard.
We moteled it all the time, we never went camping and the closest I was to ever "camping" was on a trip in 1973 when mom was driving to Northern California in the '73 GMC pickup and two of us kids were in the truck bed and two in the cab with mom. No sleeping bags, just lots and lots of blankets to be bundled under because it was so cold. But being in the back made it easier to be all ready after dark when she pulled into a campground and we all slept in the truck.
Boy, all the things we did as kids that are illegal now! No seat belts were EVER worn, little kids would stand on the seats while on the road, and riding in the open bed of the truck!!
My first motorcycle trip was with my riding buddy Duane in late spring, 1976. He'd told me stories of some of his trips and I really wanted to go on a long trip too. So we planned out some roads to ride and some places to see and we were going to start on Memorial weekend that year. I was working at the family movie theater and still working at the airport also, Duane worked graveyard at the Southern Pacific railroad. When I was packing for this trip I'd bought a pup tent, it was all I could afford back then. The real nice tents like the Eureka I bought a few years later with its outside pole frame rain fly and room inside were around a hundred dollars back then. The pup tent was about twenty dollars. Now twenty can get a great tent! But I had the pup tent with its poles at the front and back and not enough room to really sit up in it. And no rain protection. Since I'd never camped I thought that blankets would be plenty warm. The settlers didn't have sleeping bags right? So I didn't get one of those. DUMB!
First night out we'd stopped at a camp along the Kern River in the Bakersfield area. I remember it was sandy ground and I set up the tent and thought in the sand it would be comfortable. Apparently up the canyon from our campground was a group of Harley riders camping out for the weekend. All night long, very loud straight piped Harleys were going back and forth on the canyon road. I didn't sleep much at all with the noise, I remember you could hear the loud pipes as they started and then ride all the way up and down the canyon to the small store. I also FROZE! Yes the sand was a comfy bed but blankets were NOT enough.
Our first real destination was to be the BMW '49er motorcycle rally at Angels Camp on the 49'er highway in central California. Now we were both on Honda's, my CB 550 four and his 750SS, and stopping in at an all BMW rally. For a first rally it was actually interesting, Duane really liked the VW car engines installed in some BMW motorcycles, for a long time, until the Honda Gold Wings became proven, he kept talking about getting one of those BMW conversions for himself.
While camping after that first night I was rapping up in my and Duane's mylar "Space Blankets" in addition to the regular blankets I had. That helped some but I remember freezing most all of the nights. Why I didn't just stop and buy a sleeping bag, I couldn't say. But I don't recall that ever came to my mind to do something as easy as that!
This trip became my first time out of California, we went to Duane's sisters place North of Salt Lake city and stayed a couple of days there with her family. We rode on to Wyoming and I saw Yellowstone for the first time. I remember it lightly snowed as we were climbing the road from the entrance to Yellowstone. My 550 was having a lot of trouble with the altitude of the area, poor throttle response and stalling often. Didn't make them like they do now!
We wound around Yellowstone and back towards Utah and then over to Nevada, and out I-80. This was my first experience of running out of gas on the I-80 portion of the trip. No where Nevada, and the 550 had a little over a three gallon tank. Didn't have CB radio's on the motorcycles yet so Duane realized I had a problem when I disappeared from his rear view mirrors. He back tracked on the shoulder of the road and then we did something he'd read about, I tilted the Honda over on its left side, almost laying it down on the ground to get some of the gas that was trapped by the design of the gas tank to allow the tank to go around the center of the frame. It worked! Got it started and slowly rode on. Luckily about three miles ahead was a gas station.
Can't do that anymore with the modern designs! Except for what's mentioned the trip itself was uneventful. For a first time out of California and seeing the country at 18 years old, it was a great experience. I learned so much from that trip! I NEVER again traveled without a sleeping bag. I eventually bought that nice tent and later in 1982 I moved up and got a Time Out tent trailer to tow behind the motorcycle and except for one trip where the trailer had to be used as a trailer and didn't have the room to make out the tent part, I never slept in a ground tent again.
13 days and 1,444 miles by the motorcycle's odometer for that first trip. I really wish I'd had a camera back then! The camera I took was a "120" snapshot camera and the few photos I took didn't scan well enough to be kept!
Well enough skipping down memory lane for this time.
Other family news;
Aunt Sister's (Camdin Classen) husband Chuck, passed away earlier this week. They'd been married for a very long time and live in Lucerne Valley. He'd been a cancer survivor only to have it come back years later and get him this time. Stacy and I are very sorry for her loss.
On the Goodwin side, congrats to Mike for getting a promotion, bad news for his wife Brenda, it seems like Mike travels almost as much as he did when he was in the military!
Sean's wife Brandy was selected for jury duty, in a three week long trial in San Diego. Sean said that she's finding it to be an interesting experience since she's never had to do anything like this before. As they only have one vehicle at the moment, Brandy has had to learn to take the local public transportation, and that also has been a learning experience for her too. Now Sean's hoping this will all give her the motivation to expand her own horizons in the area.
Laura has put in for a job as a dispatcher for a local police force. She really likes her current job but she really needs a job with better pay than $7.50 an hour and they need benefits as well as two days off and paid overtime. We hopes she gets it! She put in for a job a few months ago with the Border Patrol but hasn't heard anything and with the current economy she's going to go for anything she can that will help her and her family.
Sandy did a day trip for work to Las Vegas to check on her project with Caesar's Palace. She's mainly wanting to keep taking and learning about her photography. Sandy was asked to be the 'official' photographer for her cousin Stephanie's wedding in September in the area of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
Me and Stacy? Well we're doing fine, Stacy has another quilting class she's looking forward to tomorrow (Saturday), and I'm just doing "stuff" while waiting for spring. I looking forward to taking photos of more than snow and ice, going driving in the Solstice and to ride the Gold Wing again!!!
Till next time, Tad
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