FRIENDS send me photos, so it’s almost like traveling myself, by which I mean to say it’s not at all like traveling myself but it does keep me pushing through things that need to get done so that one day… one day…
The plan is as it has been: apply nose to grindstone in 2021-22, and in 2023 go find out whether I still have the road chops. I’m starting to think I might not but with any luck that’s the burnout speaking.
Our friend Robyn raises sheep in Wheatland County, Montana, one of my favorite places anywhere. She keeps me posted on how things are going in the wide open spaces.
Her parents’ house is in this photo, believe it or not. The house is hard to spot even if you have the image blown up to full screen on the biggest desktop monitor they make. A lone dot of human habitation on the horizon.
Robyn calls it a small ranch. Without trying I’m sure I could manage to get turned around on it and walk for two days before I ever found the house again.
She snapped this one a few days ago… thunderbumpers rolling in over the high plains at sunset.
Nice mountain views… five ranges visible from the ranch. The Crazy Mountains, the Little Belts, the…?
Haven’t been there for four years now, can’t summon the others from long-term memory. Again I cite burnout as the least alarming possibility.
The local roads, seen from behind the wheel of Robyn’s new Outback…
I’ve ridden plenty of gravel in Wheatland County on the iron piggy. Those roads would be more fun and safer on the 650 piglet.
Bob from Tete Jaune Cache, British Columbia, was here in the east recently, riding his DR650 in Maritime Canada. I followed his travels on the drriders site, as you can here, nine pages of it so far.
You might remember Bob; he and I rode together for a few days in 2019, in BC and the Yukon. This was on the thing where I was bound for the Arctic coast at Tuktoyaktuk, NWT and again at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska while ignoring that lump in the side of my neck. What do you want to do, buckaroo? Sit in doctors’ offices all summer or go riding?
The last I knew, Bob had cut short his Maritime travels over a transmission issue. His bike developed a bad vibration in fifth gear so he was laying off fifth and nursing the bike west across the continent in fourth.
Yesterday he was in Thunder Bay and the bike was still running. So far so good.
A few doorbell videos for you…
Here’s a healthy looking bobcat walking by D1’s door one night.
And a small coyote…
And here’s D2 helping a dad find his lost 2-year-old boy. The dad was keeping it together but I’ll bet it took years off his life.
You must remember Fabo Babo, an old friend from my newspaper days. She came by the house recently to show off the little bit of hair growing on her coconut. She looks good! And looks happy. Everybody who gets through chemo and surgery and comes out the other side generally is.
She came by to photograph the wildflowers in our front yard. Here’s a few of the shots she took.
The black- and brown-eyed susans have mostly gone by now. The prairie peas will be sprouting flowers next.
This was yesterday evening after a bit of rain…
The sideyard is pretty wild… no color but good habitat for prey.
It’s a tangle of woodbine, snakeroot, bittersweet, fox grape, blackberry brambles… Rabbits and groundhogs hide in there from coyotes, hawks, foxes, raccoons…
Ulf Granberg in Stockholm sent this pic of snow lingering on summer slopes in the far north of Sweden, up near the border with Finland. His family has a cottage there, a 12-hour drive from the capital city.
It looks much like far northern terrain over here… thin hardwood cover and taiga.
Speaking of the north, I made a materials run to Vermont Saturday in one of Jonny’s company trucks. The site engineer Jonny and Jenna hired was ready to dig their garage foundation but couldn’t get the right grade of drainage pipe locally.
I left the house around 5, was back here by noon. A nice drive in a brand new truck, a GMC Sierra with 2,000 miles on it.
I appreciate new vehicles but don’t want one in my driveway, thanks. We haven’t made a car payment since the 1980s. Very happy to buy used, pay cash, and not watch forty or fifty thousand bucks turning into depreciation and rust.
I know…. totally un-American. Worse than storming the Capitol.
We just bought a 13-year-old car to replace the 14-year-old car we totaled last month when we hit a deer on our way to Cape Cod. A fine car that one. We wanted to replace it with the same make, model and year.
We had our eye on one in Kent, Ohio. Our friend Chris Eck, a car guy in nearby Akron, was on standby to take a test drive. Then Mike Connelly found us one in Michigan that was in really nice shape, just one year newer.
It was somebody’s baby. Looks good, turbocharged, fun to drive, 75,000 miles on the clock, garaged in winter to avoid salt…
It’s on a car carrier as we speak. Likely to arrive here Friday.
With Saab out of business, a Saabist friend in New Hampshire was happy to see us not moving on to just another “soulless automotive appliance.” By which she means virtually everything that’s not a Saab.
Linnea owns 11 Saabs, all of which answer to their names, from Cocoa the ’77 99 GL to Agnetha the ’02 9.3.
Then there’s Emmy, Shelby, Astrid Roswitha, Edwina, Rosamund, Fiona, Saabrina, Roxanne, and Ruby Blixt.
Not a single one of the girls is a 9-5. So when I told Linnea about the deer strike, she said, ooh, not good… the only 9-5’s left out there are “too nice to drive, modified beyond all sense and reason, or too bad to lie about.”
Fortunately, Mike was able to find us the rarest 9-5 of all: the spotless daily-driver survivor.
AAA Insurance didn’t exactly rise to the occasion. For us to make a more or less even car-to-car swap, we had to put more money into the trade than they did.
They go by NADA book value, utterly meaningless when it comes to hard-to-find makes and models. It’s a blunt instrument for moving policyholders through the claims process. The minions doing the paperwork have lots of responsibility, likely not much authority, always under the gun to close cases, keep the line moving—STAMP!— Next!
They wouldn’t budge off the low-ball offer.
I took it because I know a losing battle when I see it. In this short life, how much time do you really want to burn debating an insurance company?
Here’s a little job I didn’t expect to be redoing so soon. I tore down the original side porch seven years ago and built a new one, and, seven years later, my new stair stringers are rotten.
I happened to find the rot while doing an overall inspection. I was out there mainly to tear off the wood railings so Jonny’s guys could match the composite railings they’d installed on the two new porches out back.
Treated lumber turning into compost way before its time…
Eduardo and Jesus came by to install a sheetrock ceiling on the upper porch…
They put up 12 sheets in two hours. It would have taken me two days working alone.
They put up the ceiling so fast I asked them to set the bottom post for the new railings and cut a new set of stair stringers out of treated 2×12’s.
They banged that out in no time as well.
They had to get back to the shop by 2, I said I’d take it from here.
I set the remaining stringers and rebuilt the steps.
Also replaced a couple of boards up top… Didn’t trust them… just a hint of rot starting to take hold.
Los muchachos came back another day, installed the railings…
And there you have it… the finished view in another rainy pic from last evening.
In closing, the great Mike Manley’s back on the job. We were worried about ya, Manley…
Many thanks to Bret Blevins and Scott Cohn for keeping the Phantom daily strip in business while Mike was on the DL.
The first strip Mike drew after his return will be published August 8.
Tony DePaul, July 19, 2022, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
Though not on the road, you do stay busy. House is looking great, reworked side porch, beautiful flowers out front, new double decks in back, new car in the driveway, wow…
What’s next?
Am planning another ride down to Cabo San Lucas in February, interested in a little Baja?
Next is building a 24′ x 24′ garage in Vermont with a studio apartment in the loft. Four of us are going the last I knew. I seem to think it’s Eduardo, Jonny, Adam and me.
About February, many thanks for the offer, amigo! But would this be two banditos to Baja or ten? 🙂 Three would be ok as long as the third was Iron Man Nestor from Bucaramanga. What’s he up to these days?
The 9-5 was delivered last evening, it really is a beauty. Better than advertised.
We’re in Brazil right now. I’ll send some pics when we get back. No jaguars this time around. Just birds and jungles.
Great to hear that you and Patty are traveling, Jim. Please do send pics.
Saw an interesting show the other day on jaguars hunting sea turtles on a beach in Costa Rica.
Love the pix of beautiful Montana and the wildflowers. Good luck with your new car, that’s a beauty, too. It reminds me of my 1995 Corolla that I had for 20 plus years, til I grew tired of the repair bills and bought a 2016 Chevy. Wish I could have kept it, though, it was a great car.
The gardens go by all too soon, don’t they? It’ll be Labor Day before we know it.
Hey Tony, your friend Fabo takes some nice pictures of the pretty flowers. It seems like you’re in an endless construction phase, but hey, somebody has to get that stuff done! I am looking forward to your road ramblings once you’re back on the road; you’re my version of William Least Heat Moon:>)
Glad to hear you didn’t get hurt when you hit the deer, and that you found another Saab to replace the wrecked one.
Lately I have found myself working daily to sort of restore a ’73 XL250 Honda I bought recently, revisiting my younger days when this model of bike was my daily transportation.
Regards,
Will
Thanks, Will. I’ll bet there were moments on the MABDR trail when you would have happily traded the 650 for the 250.
Yes, in fact that’s what I’m prepping this 250 for: a second shot at the MABDR!
My MABDR map is sitting in a box out in the shed…
I was resistant to GPS for many years just on principle. I had found too many interesting places and met too many interesting people by getting lost!
Did buy a GPS about two years ago (maybe three?) specifically for a MABDR run. Used it just once around the neighborhood to see if it worked, if the power source was good, the mount secure, etc.
I like those wildflower pix, but love the “thunderbumpers” one.
It’s a wonderful shot, isn’t it? Not color-corrected, either. That’s the way the big sky looked in Big Sky country that day.
Thanks for reading, Ed.
Loved your Saab story. I really should have purchased one when I lived in Connecticut in the 80s, just a few miles from their US corporate headquarters in Orange on the side of the Turnpike.
Vic! Hey, it’s great to hear from you. Until you said that I had completely forgotten about Saab being located there. It was a landmark on the drive between Philly and Maine. Pam and I lived at the south end of that drive in the 70s and the north end in the 80s, still have family in both places.
Hope all’s well where you are, Vic. Thanks for reading, and please do stay in touch!
House looks amazing! Glad to hear Mike is well and working on The Phantom. Thanks for the update. Robert
He got back just in time for the thing this whole story is about. Some tough stuff ahead. Mike’s the guy to handle it.
Hello I have to tell you I meet you on one of your long rides in a small MN town on your way back from I think it was Alaska I was hauling a old car and almost 20 years later I did my first Seattle sore ride I’m sure you know it’s 1000 miles in 24h we did it in 20 so I just wanted to tell you that you inspired me to do a long run.
Ha! I do remember you, Terry, and I seem to think I ran a photo of the vintage car you were hauling. Now I have to go back and check…
Glad to hear you made the iron butt run. My friend in Houston, CCjon, is big into that. I met him on the side of the road in northern RI once when he was doing the 48 states in 10 days thing. I brought oil with me, a drain pan, we did the pit stop and he was on his way to Maine for the night.
Great to hear from you after all these years, Terry. Ride on!
So glad you squared away the Saab situation. I very much enjoyed my ‘85 900 and ‘06 9-3!
Thanks, Chris. I’m going to be paranoid for a while about another deer running in front of us.
Actually, just before we hit the deer on I-195 there was a guy passing us in the left lane on a motorcycle, a Beemer R1200GS. He’s lucky he didn’t hit the animal. I don’t think he was all that far ahead of us when we did.
Just got back in Houston after a week in Aspen. Even though my great friends David and Nicole (she owns the gallery I help run) have a house right in town, they get out and hike or bicycle ride nearly every day. Well, I’m not fit for that but we did go up through Independence Pass, to Maroon Bells, and the top of Aspen mountain. Beautiful country, nice to cleanse my god-forsaken Texas-residing old heart. Love ya, brother. Brad.
Hey! So glad to hear you got that opportunity, Brad. And you missed some blistering Houston temps, I understand. Been reading about that.
I would like to email or text Bob about his trip thru Labrador. We ran across a guy in Stewart, BC who rode across Labrador on an Indian and took the ferry to Newfoundland. He left before I got much info but it sounds intriguing.
I am not a DR member and I lack advanced cyber skills. If you can get my contact info to Bob, I will be grateful.
Missed you in Dawson this year. Maybe in 2023.
Sure thing, Robert, I’ll be happy to put you in touch with Bob. I rode across Labrador in 2015, there are some Labrador/Newfoundland/PEI reports on my blog from September and October of that year.
Here’s one… https://www.tonydepaul.net/quebec-and-labrador/
Bob told me the road builders have really been through there in a big way in the intervening seven years. Just about everything west of Goose Bay is asphalt now. It was gravel when I rode it.
Oh, meant to say: you can read Bob’s travel thread without joining the drriders site, Robert. Here’s the link.
https://drriders.com/on-the-road-valemount-to-newfoundland-t28657.html