AS GETAWAYS go it was a brief one, the annual family reunion at Aunt Roberta’s. We were in Maine for 44 hours, from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.
Everybody else was up there, too, it seems. The drive home was a 330-mile traffic jam moving at 80mph.
The weather was lovely. Sunny and 75 during the day, gorgeous sunsets, down to around 50 at night, breezy. Perfect outdoor sleeping weather.
We stayed at a primitive campsite a few minutes’ walk from the house.
After breakfast Saturday we hiked up the shoreline to Aunt Roberta’s, at low tide. Stopped to scale a boulder just for fun.
That’s D2, Jenna.
She camped in the travel van with her mom. I set up my tent not far away. D2’s husband, Jonny, tented nearby on a shady knoll of spruce and pine.
Iron Piggy, alas, stayed home this weekend. After being sidelined by the old one-two (chemo, covid) I was daunted at the thought of finding all my traveling gear and loading it up. Too much work.
Too bad, because piggy’s roadworthy now. I had taken the wheels off the previous weekend, broken down the tires and replaced the unsafe valve stems.
Worked in the rain, often a heavy rain, bike tipped forward, slid off the jack, whoops…
Got the rear wheel back on. A precarious effort, but it stabilized things enough that I could lift the front end with a floor jack and reposition the motorcycle jack where it needed to be.
And then this little piggy stayed home. Oh, well…
When it comes to two wheels this summer, everybody’s on the road except me. The last I heard from Will he was somewhere on the Mid Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Route, riding off-road from Pennsylvania to Tennessee and back.
After motorcycling in Alaska, Steve, Doug, Robert and Bruce got safely home to Idaho, California and Washington. They had flown north this time, rented bikes in Anchorage. There’s no getting across the border on your own bike this year. Not yet. And if the no-vaxxers keep spreading disease, there likely won’t be.
Caribou scattered by Steve’s band of Arctic wanderers.
Tony, the big-miles Wing rider from New Brunswick, Canada. He was on the road in the Maritimes with quite a crowd of friends. They did a couples’ run up to Northern Quebec. More pics on that below.
Bob from British Columbia got home to Tete Jaune Cache this past Wednesday. He had ridden all over BC. Spent a little time up around Port Scott on Vancouver Island, on the Inside Passage. Or I guess the passage is more on the Port Hardy side of the island. I sailed by it in 2013, with Ol’ CCjon and Keith Hackett. We were coming south on the Alaska Marine Highway.
One of Bob’s pics from Vancouver Island. Sound advice even off the island.
“The fires are bad in BC,” he said, in a note from the road. “Lots of road closures and evacuations. Much smoke in the interior.”
He rode days and days of smoky gravel. Came off his DR650 at one point. Fortunate not to get hurt while riding solo out in the middle of nowhere.
About smoke, I heard the same from our rancher friends in Montana, Robyn Lode who herds sheep, and Annie and Jed Evjene who herd cattle. Drought conditions there are persistent, temperatures high. On top of all the smoke blowing in from California and the Pacific Northwest they have local fires burning in the Crazy Mountains, the Castles, and the Little Belts.
Everybody everywhere can see with their own eyes how the naked ape is altering the climate at an alarming rate. Exxon and Shell knew it in the 1980s and suppressed their own research. Denial still blares from MAGA media, but the turnaround’s coming. It’ll get here when the business model demands it.
Then they’ll be in the business of denying the denial, as in the recent non-turnaround turnaround on Covid.
A hoax! A plot! Be a man! No mask!
Then it’s, whoa, don’t these people know show business when they see it? Covid’s killing our viewers, who’s going to buy the MyPillows?
The writers’ room sends up a new script: As we’ve said from the very beginning, please take this seriously and get vaccinated.
I’ll guess this is one of the ferries across the Seaway, most likely the crossing at Matane.
Backup guess: maybe they crossed via road near Quebec City. In that case, it’s the boat across the Saguenay Fiord.
Will count on Tony to write in with the bona fide information.
I’m a solo rider by nature but lots of riders enjoy traveling in a group. Probably most do. For them, the social aspect is a big part of motorcycling.
Wives and girlfriends on the ride…
More Alaska here, courtesy of Steve.
The anonymity of the crash helmet… Someone on the Arctic trek…
Robert and Steve confirm that no one has ever frowned while riding a motorcycle in Alaska.
In closing, two videos: The first is the little girl’s latest favorite in the Irish music category. She’s still into all things Hibernian, but her developing taste in music at 2 years 4 months of age can only be called eclectic.
Last week she told me, apropos of nothing: “I’m a smooth jazz baby.”
And just a day later, I think it was, she told me she “digs” bossa nova.
At 2:16 she always says, “That girl have hair like me does.”
If the visual arts are more your thing, here’s a video Mike Manley uploaded Saturday. Mike’s my partner on the Phantom daily strip we produce for King Features Syndicate.
Here, he uses software to ink his pencils on an image set to be published August 14, in newspapers around the world and online.
The Phantom’s springing Savarna from Gravelines Prison, Rhodia, the fascist state on Bangalla’s border. Savarna’s been awaiting execution for knocking off some of the regime’s top military officers.
A question we’ll get to at some point: how did the Rhodians ever manage to capture Savarna Devi alive? She’s not the type.
Tony DePaul, August 2, 2021, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
I really enjoy your stories. Lately it seems they’ve gotten more politicized. It’s so easy to point a finger at the left or the right and decide who is right and who is wrong. So much disinformation out there from all sides. The vaccine is not for everyone and careful consideration should be taken before you decide what is right or wrong for your body. As time goes on, it’s shows us that often times, we are wrong about many things. Lately, the news reports that vaccinated not only can spread the virus, but also can still catch it. And the promise of no masking for the vaccinated quickly became masks must be worn again. So is it really about who is right or wrong and dividing society with these new “norms”, or is it our responsibility to decided individually what it best for ourselves and our families. I realize you have had your run ins with health issues, and I’m sure that it’s great for you to be able to have the vaccine. So I take nothing away from anyone who chooses to go that route. I’m sorry for the long rant, but I usually am refreshed reading about your adventures. It’s an escape from the grind. Lately, not so much for me. But hey, that’s why it’s your blog and not mine. Still love your content!
Thanks for following the scribble, Matt. I’m glad to have you as a reader. I agree entirely that the individual is in charge of their own body, come what may. That said, it’s hard to read stories about people who zig when they should have zagged and end up begging for the vaccine just before they’re put on ventilators. My comments were aimed at moneymaking enterprises that preach vaccine fear to the masses. I doubt that the bigwigs in the boardroom and in front of the camera personally buy what they’re selling. Not with million-dollar-a-week paychecks at stake.
Sounds like a good time was had by all and well worth the horrible traffic jam, and you look like one happy camper. I love your little darling’s choice of music, Jazz and Bossa Nova, and I got to hear one of my favorite Irish songs, Wild Mountain Thyme.
Thanks, Ellie. Pam’s officially on daycare as of this week, I’ll have to get the stories from her now.
I’m so envious seeing you sitting around that woodfire!
Thanks for reading, my friend. At dinner yesterday Pam said, “I wish Vincent lived closer and we could see him more often.” She said she thinks of you every time she hears that “Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.”
Toto’s high on the Spotify list I’m always playing around here.
Family is where all learning starts, and never really ends… My siblings are gathering later this month in New Mexico for their first time. Looking forward to being taught…
Lesson time: sidecar rigs don’t fall off of jacks, or stands or 2×4’s. Just saying…
BTW Harley sold sidecar rigs before they discovered there was more profit in building trikes for ageless riders. They also don’t tell you trikes will always have one wheel on the worst part of the road.
Congratulations on Pam’s retirement and starting a new adventure.
When that 49th parallel really opens, Warthog and I are heading north, is Iron Piggy smelling the draw of that open road perfume?
Haha!… good laughs here, amigo. Especially the trike wheel perpetually on the greasy middle.
What’s your route up to the Arctic coast? I wouldn’t mind seeing the Dempster again. I can’t say the same for the Haul Road to Prudhoe.
If you’re going up the Dempster I could break the piglet out of moth balls. The Haul Road, I’d consider riding the Iron Piggy up and goofing around the Kenai until you got south of Fairbanks again.
Such a treat to talk to you in person on Sunday. That jam on the way home didn’t sound fun. I was on Rt. 1 yesterday and as it slowed down, I watched my meeting-someone-for-lunch time get pushed out. Then I got on I-95, and felt myself tighten up, and realized, “I can’t wait to get back on Rt. 1. Prettier.
Going out to explore. Glad you and your companions were there this weekend.
It was great fun, Cynthia. Not the turnout we used to have back when the old folks (the old, old folks) were still alive but I thought it was good, 40 or so. I hadn’t been there in such a long time, and almost didn’t make this one. We’ve got the house so torn apart for construction I thought I couldn’t spare the time. Glad that Pam gave the frown that says “be there.”
Tony,
I was looking at pictures from the last time we met, Trans Lab Highway, Labrador. Great memories and thinking how lucky it was to run into you. I am off to CO for three weeks of riding and will keep you in my thoughts in early September. Looking forward to riding with you soon.
Hey! Someone else I know who’s out there riding. Have a great time, Duncan, and go safe.
Funny, I was just thinking about the Trans Labrador the other day. If the kids don’t mind us beating up the travel van a bit I was thinking of taking Pam up there in the spring, do the same loop: north from Baie-Commeau, up past the impact crater, then east to the Labrador Sea, ferry over to Newfoundland, I think she’d enjoy that.
Great memories from that ride and so many others… Three years ago this past Saturday I was changing oil on the iron piggy at a friend’s house in Chicago. Was westward bound to meet up with CCjon and Iron Man Nestor from Colombia. They were riding from Houston to Prudhoe Bay, I met up with them in Wyoming, we rode together through Montana, then I headed west when they crossed into Canada. Met up with them a few weeks later in WA after they ferried south on the Alaska Marine Highway, we rode down to New Mexico… So many good miles that I wouldn’t mind doing all over again. Hope to get the opportunity in 2022.
That rendition of Wild Mountain Thyme is wonderful. That is one of the songs we’ll use at King Richard’s Faire to close out the day.
Those kids are great, I love their music. When they couldn’t sing together in the same room they started singing together from their houses. Not an ideal situation, clearly, but kudos to them for carrying on.
Say you captured an amazing group of lives in your blog! Now is the BEST time in our lifetimes! Being present now is precious! 💕💕
So true! As Ronny Cammareri says in Moonstruck, “The past and the future is a joke to me now. I see that they’re nothing, I see they ain’t here.”