Friday, February 29, 2008

Lanny and I must be "real men" I ride a scooter, and Biglefti drives a pink truck to work! Ya gotta be tough
Lanny has some cool signs inside his "new" work truck!
Cactus Jack and Lanny (Biglefti) . We had dozen AZ VROC and one PNW VROC people show up at Sugar Daddy's on Thursday night . http://www.sugardaddysaz.com It was a beautiful warm evening. Outside temps were in the 70's. We were a little early for the "night time" crowd, so the service was fast the the food was good. I think I got at least one picture of everyone that was there, sure hope I didn't miss anyone. Let me know if you don't see yourself I think EVERYONE rode their bikes..oh...except Kevin, who is "between rides" right now.
Teresa and Annie. It was nice to see Annie and Dawn again. Last time was over a year ago in a Mexican restaurant! Time flies.......... And, it always adds a lot to the group when Teresa accompanies Tony D.
Diane is getting around a very nice looking salad........
Dawn and Mel share a mile of smiles!
Steve, a very experienced motorcyclist, and who works with Mel in his accessory shop, and Cactus Jack, a Phoenix vroc member.
John and Diane. Nice to see them again. This couple used to be "Snickers and Mounds", now they're "Slick and Diane" Whatever you call them, they are a fun couple.
Lanny (biglefti), Jim Lohman, and John (Slick) I remember when John used to be such a nice "clean cut" kid with short hair......I think he's spending all his change on gas instead of going to the barber
Tony D. and Kevin (Zfreaky1) In deep converstion. BTW Kevin, I think you need a new nic! You're NOT freaky.....sure enjoyed the visit and the info on your studies!
I passed these flowers, there are blues, yellows and pinks coming out in the desert. While taking a picture, an old shovelhead Harley Bagger pulling a small cargo trailer, turned around and came back. I thought he was doing it to offer assistance, but his passenger just wanted to take a picture too. When I pulled out I smelled oil, and figured it was the Harley. About a mile down the road, I noticed my left boot was covered, the whole left side if the bike was covered, and when I stopped, there was a huge puddle under the bike in a few seconds. I won't go into the whole story, it's sort of long, and sort of funny, but it was my fault. The fill plug was gone. A piece of cactus skeleton with some Kleenex wrapped around it did the trick to get me to a quick stop for some oil (light hadn't came on) and a call to Tony D. found a Suzuki dealer in Anthem, AZ got me a temporary plug. All's well
I left plenty early so I could have time to stop and take pictures, and, work on my gas mileage.
From Kingman to Wickenburg, I averages 60.2 miles per gallon. Traveling speed probably averaged 60 or so.
A Saguaro this size is several hundred years old.
A Saguaro forest. Hwy 93 has many kinds of cactus, and huge Joshua trees.
The "Bergie" had been eating up the desert today. It's a real pleasure to ride.
There is a nice Ice Cream shop in Wickenburg that used to have WiFi, so I stopped to check in. They no longer have it! Well, a Light Lemonade at Burger King was the second best choice.
The leaves are just starting to "bud out" on the old Jail Tree in Wickenburg. The temp gage just hit 80 as I stopped to take this picture.
Rocks and cactus on Highway 93.
Ed and Carl, VROC members and neighbors, are giving me an Arizona instruction on how to not have water spots. Ed used to have a mobile detail shop several years ago in California..They have all the right stuff and the "know how" to make a vehicle shine like new.
Finished! Many thanks to Ed and Carl for making the little truck look better than new!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Monday, February 18, 2008

I never get tired of taking rock pictures. This is one of my favorites, on Hwy 68 over Bullhead City/Laughlin area. We're leaving tomorrow for Lake Havasu, and a VROC weekend of fun and food and good company. And, to see the Annual Fireworks show. There are a couple pictures down the line that you may want to click on for more detail.
We couldn't find ANY RV park spaces that were open in the whole area around the City. So, we came out here to "Desert Manor" and set up for the night. It's very comfortable, about 7 miles from town, and we were lulled to sleep by the coyotes at night.
The moon and some palm trees along the river at Lake Havasu.
A very strainge tree along the London Village in Lake Havasu. Dave and Romy, Pat and I just finished a nice dinner at the London Bridge Buffet. It was good, but not as good as we expected. There are better places in town but, it was fun, and we had a good visit, and had some excitement when Romy poked her finger on a crab leg. The owner about panicked, but they brought band aids and anti crab disease medications very quickly
The first flowering tree we've seen this season. In Coos Bay, the trees start busting out in early February, but we're down here in the country that still has some pretty cold nights, so the flowers are a little later than at home. This was taken in the dark, using a long exposure on the camera.
London Bridge at night. We had just finished eating with Dave and Romy, and decided to stroll the river front. I held the little camera on a stair rail to take this shot.
Saturday afternoon, Jack and Barb arrive, and Chunk rolls up.
There are lots of "year round" ducks that live here along the shore. This little stage is where they gather occasionally to put of their special "duck shows"
There are lots of pretty beaches along the shores of Lake Have-a-sue.
We think this is a cherry tree. It could have been called a "bee tree", it was loaded with a bee for every blossom!
Jack (phone in ear) 4E, and Chunk..London Bridge in the background.
The very intrigueing London Bridge has a history back to 1831. I'm sure Jack the Ripper, and other famous people have been over it many times. It's been here across a channel of the Colorado River (Lake Havasu) since it's completion in 1971. It was purchased from the City of London for the price of $2,460,000, and cost almot twice that much to have it disassembles, shipped and set up here. The original London Bridge was built over 2000 years ago, this was the 3rd one. It was sinking into the Thames River ( London Bridge is falling down) is the reason they sold it.
Didsbury Dave and Romy. We've seen more of them this winter, and a lot of the locals! And we all enjoy their compay a lot. It's a long cold flight from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Jack and Barb just rolled them off the trailer. They had a foot of snow over Flagstaff pass this morning. Little warmer down here by the lake. I forgot they still have Vulcans! Last few times we've been together, they were on those funny little suzuki's
Kelly "Shoeless" Sprankle, with his new Mean Streak. He got a real good deal on it, since it was still just in primer. Good seeing you again Kelly!
"All South Africans that live in Canada to the back of the truck, please"
Didsbury Dave, Romy, San Diego Rogue, Kelly Sprankle, Barb, Chunk, Jack and Pat.
We were able to get this spot not too far from the fireworks. This annual event bring in 80 to 100,000 spectators in the 4 days of the show. There are many manufactures here to show their wares to people that buy this sort of thing..cities, casinos, race tracks, fairgrounds, etc. I've seen a lot of fireworks in my short life, but this was probably the most impressive of them all. And, we didn't even stay for half of the show. We about froze to death, even though we had blankets to wrap up in. It was fun despite the cold desert night. Official start was 8 PM and ended at 10:30. We left about 9
The park holds 20,000 people. The fireworks were suppose to start at 8:30, we got there a little before 6 and couldn't get in because it was full. You couldn't park along the Highway, but you could park on the little dirt roads on top of the hills on the other side. We had trouble even finding a place to park there.
Finally Sunset! These mountains are across the lake on the California side. They have been shooting off a lit of fireworks already, even before dark.
This hills on the East side of Hwy 95 were all covered for a couple of miles on both sides near the Park where the fireworks were. .
I took over a hundred pictures with the little hand held Lumix camera. Most of them came out reasonably good. I'm going to post too many, but only a sampling. You'll have to scroll through them go get back to the good stuff (there's 15 of them)