Snow again!

It's coming down in the huge flakes that pile up fast. My car is running as I type. I'm leaving an extra 15 minutes early today, we'll see if that is enough. I'll probably get stuck behind someone going 25 MPH. You would think people here would be used to it by now.....not that I go 55 on snow packed roads....but 25!?!?! Never fails, if they're out there, I'll get behind them. Well, I've put it off long enough, time to face the cold.

Snow, snow and more snow!

We woke up to more snow today. Will it ever end? It is so pretty on our Pines, and I know some places get allot more than we do, but I've seen enough already!

This is one of two Colorado Blue Spruce trees that we brought back from CO on one of our trips to visit Rich's dad. It was just a nine inch seedling when we dug it out of his back yard. We had the car that trip since he had terminal cancer and he was still at the point he could get around a little. We wanted to get there quick and be able to spend time with him instead of on the road getting there and getting back. As you fellow bikers know, when you are traveling that far by bike, your travel time can be unpredictable at times.

On the way home, we stopped at a motel and right after we had our showers we put the two potted trees in the tub and turned on the shower to water them. We nursed these trees all the way home and kept them in the house till they where strong enough to transplant to the front yard. These trees look so beautiful when they are covered in snow, but...ALRIGHT ALREADY!!!!! I've had enough of winter beauty, I'm ready to ride again. The temps are suppose to be in the low 20's all week. I keep thinking about the day when the housing market comes back enough that we can sell this house and get out of this frozen tundra. Last night I actually started looking at the job listings for TX. Not that it will do me any good right now. Just wishful thinking.

I am trying to think of a positive for this. OK, the only thing I can think of is....if it where summer right now, I would be in the house studying and hearing all the bikes go past. At least I'm not being tortured by the sound of rumbling Harley's passing by while I'm trying to study. I have a full load again this semester. I will only have three classes in the summer since they don't offer allot of summer classes. Then for the fall semester I will only have three classes left and I will have my Certification in Dec. Speaking of study.......

1st decade of the century part 2

2002: This year is a little sketchy. I was between a 35mm camera and my 1st digital camera and somehow lost some pictures in the transition. Since my memory is not as good as it used to be There will be some blank spots.

• January.....Rich's Christmas present for 01 from me was a week end away after the holidays. I made reservations at a Bed & Breakfast in a Milwaukee mansion. I took him to dinner at a Cajun Restaurant, then we went to a comedy club and back to the bed & breakfast, yada, yada, yada. The next morning we went to The Milwaukee Museum.
• February.....Christmas of 2001, I decided that since my kids were soooo hard to buy for I was going to buy them some fun. I got the oldest son and his wife a dinner certificate and tickets to Zanies Comedy Club at Pheasant Run in St Charles. Now for the catch, they had to use them with myself and my other half, which can be a real challenge to get everyone together. We finally made the reservations for Feb. By the time we had dinner and got to the show, it was apparent that the men were going to be the designated drivers for the night, since my daughter-in-law and myself was having way too much fun.....driving was entirely out of the question for either one of us. We started with a couple of drinks with dinner, then there was the 2 drink minimum at the show and of course, we had to stop at the hotel bar after the show.
• March.....We finally get a chance to get out for my youngest sons Christmas gift. Since My youngest sons girlfriend was not old enough to drink, I bought them tickets to Mid Evil Times Dinner Theater. We had a chicken dinner that you had to eat with your hands, (since there was no eating utensils back in that time period). Then one of the nights gave my sons girlfriend his victory sash during the show.
• June.....We decided to combine the family reunion with Niagara Falls this year. We rode up to Niagara Falls 1st, and then the reunion in PA. Seems like nearly every time we go to the family reunion, it rains. This year was no different but it was still beautiful.
We like to find old barns that still have advertising on them.
These are both in PA.

• July.....For the fourth of July, we rode up The Great River Road from Savannah, IL to MN with 2 other couples. I wish I could remember the name of the town we stayed in on the night of the fourth. I want to say it was a name with the word Rivers in it. We found a place at the river to watch the fireworks and they were the best I had ever seen.
• September.....Saturday of Labor day weekend we took the grand kids out for boating and camping. Nothing like camping to get close to the kids. We all had a great time. A friend of ours who has kids the same age as our grand kids came along. After spending all day Sunday on the river it was time to drop off the little ones and have some grown up fun at the neighborhood bar. On Monday we went hot air ballooning. A friend of ours, Finn has flown hot air balloons for years and promised Rich he would teach him to fly some day. The day for his first lesson has come. I fallowed in the chase vehicle with a promise for a ride sometime soon.

• October.....This is a busy month for birthdays. My oldest granddaughter on the 1st, my daughter-in-law on the 20Th and my son on the 25Th. For my granddaughters birthday they had her party at the roller skating rink/go-cart track. Believe it or not.....I didn't break my neck. It was a little shaky at first but it wasn't long and I was getting around pretty good.

Grandpa and Daddy teaching my grandson to do the Hoky Poky.

• Then on the track, I had my granddaughter with me and we lapped Rich and my son. All those spectator races I competed in finally paid off.This is Me and birthday girl on the right, just after passing Rich. We probably just had a faster go-cart but it was fun to gloat.....just a little!

• December.....On the 14Th we welcomed a new granddaughter. Unfortunately, not with out problems. She was breech and not turning so they had to do a C section. She was jaundice, had a hole in her heart and a hole in her lung. She was being feed by a tube going into her stomach. The best I can describe it.....the hole in her lung was inside the wall of the lung and allowed part of her lung to fill with air and caused it to collapse, they put a tube through her ribs on her side to release the air till the hole could close on it's own. She was in the hospital for 9 weeks. End result.....she is now 7 years old and no problems at all, the pediatric cardiologist gave her a clean bill of health at the age of 2.

At this rate I might finish my decade by the end of this decade; but, school comes first!

Rude awakening

Yes, we felt the earthquake! If you saw the map on the news, it showed the epicenter being in Gilberts and showed Sycamore and DeKalb. We are between Gilberts and Sycamore. It was enough to wake us out of a sound sleep. Both of us woke up and sat straight up. I thought another train derailed and was heading for the house. It was hard to go back to sleep after that.

We had nothing falling off the walls but we do have a few new cracks in the walls. Our house is so old there is no record of when it was built. There are pictures at the post office that shows the house being here in the 1910's. I doubt it would withstand a strong earthquake. One more reason to move to TX.....like the snow, cold and unemployment rate isn't enough!

A week away!

We decided to drive out to San Antonio TX to visit friends that moved there and to get a break from the cold. We left Fri afternoon and got there Sat afternoon.

Sunday.... we went up to the Hill Country and stopped at a few shops where my friend bought a pink plaster flamingo for her patio. Not my taste, but she really liked this tacky flamingo and who am I to judge? Then we went into a local bar for a beer and met some real cowboys who actually rode into town on horseback. I wonder if you can get a DUI on horseback. Later we went for some TX BBQ and just enjoyed the good company of our friends playing ping pong the rest of the night.

Monday.... we headed to the Gulf coast and drove out on Padre Island. This picture shows IL road salt meeting TX sea salt.

It's hard to believe how the wild life just pose for pictures.

Tuesday.... we explored town and

we went for fresh seafood. I got my first taste of oysters on the half shell. I can say I tried it, I can't say I enjoyed it. The rest of the meal was real good. After dinner we played dice.

Wednesday.... we took a drive up to the panhandle to check out the area. Not much for riding but the western area of the panhandle seems to be good weather year-round. The landscape is pretty flat and Baron, not much to offer for scenery. Looks like that is another place to check off our list of possible relocation areas. We are looking for the impossible, an area in TX that is not too humid or too hot, has work, and good riding. We have not found anything yet. The places we like are right in tornado alley and we get enough tornadoes here in IL, we're not looking to see more of them.

Thursday.... we actually washed my car and changed the oil. We had a good meal of crab bisque, bacon wrapped filet mignon, shrimp Dijon and twice baked potatoes that Amy fixed at home and then we played Yahtzee. Now all this game playing may seem boring to some but it's not at all boring in the company of good friends.

Friday comes and it's time to head home. We said our goodbye's and our I love you's, got our hugs and hit the road. On our way home we took the southern route through LA and stopped at the Bonnie & Clyde Museum in Gibsland. They have a stone to mark the death site. People came from miles around when it happened and tried to get souvenirs.......pieces of their clothing, locks of Bonnie's hair, parts off their car, some people actually tried to cut off one of Clyde's ears. How sick is that? The memorial stone at the site has been vandalized numerous times.

A little ways down the road we found a nice Cajun seafood place for dinner.

School starts again tomorrow so I'm sure I won't get much chance to do much blogging, so in the mean time I wish every one who reads this good things. Till next time....

For Chessie

These are the pix I told you about. He made the lift too. Pretty handy!

1st decade of the century

2000: A year of firsts!

• January.....Just getting used to my new office and all the responsibilities that came with it.
• February.....My very 1st Harley
• March.....My 1st year at Daytona Bike week. The 1st time R ever rode Bitch. His bike broke down when we rode down to a little Island near St Petersburg to visit a friend. He started to get on the front and I said oh no, this is my bike, you ride bitch. He has a good sense of humor. He just scooted back and said, "looks like I get to drink!" I can't believe we both rode on that little bike the rest of the trip. After the first ride I took the bitch position.
• April..... I took a trip to Phoenix to make a victim impact statement at the sentencing of the scum that murdered my brother.
• June.....Bike trip to Pa. for R's family reunion and to ride the area. I was on my 1200 Sportster for this trip and at that time I was about 110 lbs. I got blown around allot. I was already wishing I had bought a bigger bike.
• August.....Skeet shooting.....and yes, I am a good shot.
• September.....Camping in Wisconsin.
• November.....New addition to our Harley Family, R decided his old Shovel just was not dependable for road trips any more and he took possession of a purple 2001 Dyna Wide Glide. And guys, before you even think it.....that purple bike is a chic magnet. Everywhere we go the women gather around it, ooooh...I like the purple one! I have to keep telling the women, NO, you can't have a ride!!!! Then they want to get pictures of them sitting on it. After riding this, I now know I want a bigger bike.

2001: A year of seconds and some firsts!

• March.....My 2nd Daytona Bike Week.
• May.....Taught my grandson how to shoot a water gun. He had allot of fun getting Grandma wet.

• June.....Family reunion in Pa revisited.
• July.....House on the rock in Wisconsin. Stayed at the Don Q Inn. Pretty cool place. http://www.fantasuite.com/ They have an underground tunnel to the restaurant next door.
• August.....Sturgis. We rode to Needles and climbed to the top. Did some spelunking in Jewel Cave, http://www.nps.gov/jeca/planyourvisit/spelunkingtour.htm Which is supposedly the toughest spelunking tour in the US??? Went to Mt Rushmore, The Bad Lands, Custer Park and Devils Tower.
  
• September, a busy month.....Labor day we decided to pack the bikes and head west to the Great River Road and follow it south at a leisurely pace and see where we end up at the end of day 2. We got as far as St Louis Mo. The next morning we headed to Devils Elbow and had lunch at the Elbow Inn. It's a local Rolla Mo. biker bar. Then we checked into a motel and headed back to the Elbow Inn.
  http://http//www.theroadwanderer.net/66Missouri/elbow.htm m On the 8th, I won the wienie bite contest and the potato in the hay contest at the Northern Il ABATE party. Then 9-11. I'm sure we all know where we were. I was at work and we all sat around the TV in the customer lounge, we all had to leave the room from time to time just to get our selves back together. Very little work got done that day. Later in the month, I packed up my Harley and headed south to Campaign to visit a friend by my self. We went to watch a forklift rodeo....you read it right! This I just had to see. For what ever reason, it was at a car show. Strange thing to do at a car show.

That's it for today..stay tuned for more of the decade.