Heading South-2010

January 27, 2010

Going South-The Prelude

It has been a long cold wet winter and it still is. But I have not been wasting my time worrying about the things I cannot control like the weather, and have been putting all of my effort into things I can control or at least have a delusion that I can control, like my health and my toys.

The health thing is good. The docs say I should last a bit longer than originally anticipated. I have become a gym rat during this rainy cold winter. An old, slow moving gym rat but a rat nonetheless. I have lost a few pounds, forsaken most of my drugs, and I am feeling good about myself. I eat so many vegetables these days I am starting to lean toward the sun

My Spyder has been on the operating table for three months. What started out as the minor irritant, an oil leak, eventually escalated into the equivalent of a complete engine tear down and reassemble. At the end of that I had oil leaks that were worse than when I started, oil pressure problems, and a motor that did not run very well. Through a lot of days, money and phone calls the bike is back together pretty much in the same condition as when I started out three months ago but with the addition of an oil pressure problem. So factory service goes into the same bucket as the weather I suppose. It is uncontrollable.

Now I have made a couple of worthwhile changes to my scooter. I have spent considerable money hardening up some internal parts and I have added some creature comfort things like hard saddlebags. The bike has a complete set of new tires, some new brakes and some new oil. It should be good to go. I think I am also.

Do these bags make my butt look big?

So tomorrow I am heading south. I had grandiose plans of going pretty far south but those are now on hold until I find out how my machine will behave. I have one commitment in San Diego to meet up with my sister Belle, aka the Crab Queen, and brother-in-law, Lou. They are traveling from Louisiana to San Diego by train. It has to be a safer choice than flying.

And I have a breakfast date with two special young ladies in San Diego: My godchild Megan and her sister Kelly. I always look forward to seeing these two as they are two of the finest young ladies I know. Well I don’t know that many so there is no reason for them to get big heads.

After those semi obligations I have several other options. Weather and bike reliability will have something to do with where I go and what I do.

So once again I am off like a State of the Union speech. SOCAL here I come.