I thought that you might like to see that my beard is continuing to grow
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
Broom Broom
The big news is that I've purchased a car. A dark metallic blue 2002 Subaru Outback with 91,000 miles under its wings (now with an extra 600 after driving it from Seattle back to Montana today!). It loves driving on the highway, it loved it.
I have named it "delightful", and it may well be a female car.
I've also been to Walmart. More on this soon.
To purchase the car I want back to Seattle, where Finnegan made himself very comfortable...calling his froggy buddies....
....and checking out the extensive cable TV channels
Also while in Seattle, I happened upon a Vietnamese restaurant in the downtown area while I was making my way back from dropping the rental car back to the Airport (Thrifty weren't a pleasure to deal with), to the other side (of what seems to be a 5 sided) town via 2 hours of public transport (which is very good - they even have bike racks on the front of buses). How's that for a long sentence!
The rice paper rolls were excellent, but the stir-fried noodles were heavy, greasy and yucky. Luckily the veggies in the stir fry were great.
I have named it "delightful", and it may well be a female car.
I've also been to Walmart. More on this soon.
To purchase the car I want back to Seattle, where Finnegan made himself very comfortable...calling his froggy buddies....
....and checking out the extensive cable TV channels
....he likes to get up-close and personal!
Also while in Seattle, I happened upon a Vietnamese restaurant in the downtown area while I was making my way back from dropping the rental car back to the Airport (Thrifty weren't a pleasure to deal with), to the other side (of what seems to be a 5 sided) town via 2 hours of public transport (which is very good - they even have bike racks on the front of buses). How's that for a long sentence!
The rice paper rolls were excellent, but the stir-fried noodles were heavy, greasy and yucky. Luckily the veggies in the stir fry were great.
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Bike . Ride . Cheap beer . Expensive Sake
Wow, what a great day!
After a couple of disappointing days related to car shopping / inspections on Monday and Tuesday, today was awesome.
The team at Red Barn Bikes finished off my bike, and I went for an after work ride with Chad (owner of said shop), at Lake Como - see the last pic. More bike pics will be coming. The bike rides really well and it looks great, what more could a man want?
It was an easy and cautious ride, my first real ride since my elbows were injected with Cortisone 4 weeks ago - I didn't feel any discomfort or strange sensations during the ride - hopefully my elbows don't make themselves felt tomorrow.
There is a ~15km singletrack loop around the lake. One side of the lake has an "easy" trail, the other side a more technical trail. Well, the easy side of the lake is the one we rode, and it makes almost all of the trails around Melbourne look like highways. Rocks. Montana has a lot of rocks. Luckily I like rocks.
You may be surprised to read that I've had two beers today. Beer. Beer. I had one late arvo, then a cheap but nice beer after the ride with Chad. The next stop was a post ride dinner at a great Japanese restaurant. Nice.
I've attached some of the photo's that I've taken over the past few days.
After a couple of disappointing days related to car shopping / inspections on Monday and Tuesday, today was awesome.
The team at Red Barn Bikes finished off my bike, and I went for an after work ride with Chad (owner of said shop), at Lake Como - see the last pic. More bike pics will be coming. The bike rides really well and it looks great, what more could a man want?
It was an easy and cautious ride, my first real ride since my elbows were injected with Cortisone 4 weeks ago - I didn't feel any discomfort or strange sensations during the ride - hopefully my elbows don't make themselves felt tomorrow.
There is a ~15km singletrack loop around the lake. One side of the lake has an "easy" trail, the other side a more technical trail. Well, the easy side of the lake is the one we rode, and it makes almost all of the trails around Melbourne look like highways. Rocks. Montana has a lot of rocks. Luckily I like rocks.
You may be surprised to read that I've had two beers today. Beer. Beer. I had one late arvo, then a cheap but nice beer after the ride with Chad. The next stop was a post ride dinner at a great Japanese restaurant. Nice.
I've attached some of the photo's that I've taken over the past few days.
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Saturday, 20 July 2013
Chop
What a great day! I went to day 2 of the Darby Logger Days event in Darby, a small town just out of Hamilton.
The day was jam packed full of non stop logging events, from pole climbing, to log chopping, cookie stacking, choker race and log rolling. Pics are below - excuse the low quality iPhone pics.
One the best parts of the day was winning the chair pictured below. It was sculpted out of a pine log by a logger with a chainsaw - yes, a chainsaw. I won it because I was the visitor that had travelled the furtherest to attend the event. Some Germans tried to claim that they'd travelled the further - pah! Anyway, I offered it for auction (a bunch of items were auctioned off by a larger-than-life cowboy to raise money for different causes), and the gent below won it. He was happy to have won. On my way out he offered to give it back to me - even though he'd paid for it!! I couldn't take it though. The same logger had been shaping chairs for years, and the man's wife really wanted one...so cool though it would have been to keep it or even give it to Chad's family, I had to leave it with its purchaser.
The day was jam packed full of non stop logging events, from pole climbing, to log chopping, cookie stacking, choker race and log rolling. Pics are below - excuse the low quality iPhone pics.
One the best parts of the day was winning the chair pictured below. It was sculpted out of a pine log by a logger with a chainsaw - yes, a chainsaw. I won it because I was the visitor that had travelled the furtherest to attend the event. Some Germans tried to claim that they'd travelled the further - pah! Anyway, I offered it for auction (a bunch of items were auctioned off by a larger-than-life cowboy to raise money for different causes), and the gent below won it. He was happy to have won. On my way out he offered to give it back to me - even though he'd paid for it!! I couldn't take it though. The same logger had been shaping chairs for years, and the man's wife really wanted one...so cool though it would have been to keep it or even give it to Chad's family, I had to leave it with its purchaser.
Here's a live action pic from the Log Rolling - of the loser hitting the water.
Pole climbing
Yeah, cookie stacking. The competitors had to cut 3 slim horizontal slices from a log that had a jug of water on it. Not easy, few people managed it. But wait, there's more. Once they had 3 slices of wood under the jug, they had to move the 3 slices and jug to the adjacent stump. Very few people could do this but it was fun seeing them try.
Choker race - run across the water with a heavy metal "choker" that has to be thrown around a BIG log then connected back on itself, then the entrant has to run back over the water...and a good few fell in - but at least they had fun.
How's this, a post with no bike content, well, perhaps just a little *winks* The remaining parts for my bike haven't yet arrived, so it'll be ready on Mon or Tuesday this week. Chad invited me for a quick ride post dinner, up a local valley road that was absolutely stunning, can't remember how many deer I saw. He has a great collection of old and older bikes, so I grabbed one and we headed out with his son and father-in-law for a half hour or so.
I'll see if I can post some photo's from a proper camera tomorrow for ya'll
Friday, 19 July 2013
Wonderful Mid West hospitality
I'm now in Hamilton, Montana, home to Chad DeVall and Red Barn Cycles. Here are a couple of photo's ... one from the front of the 'Barn
...and one from the rear of the 'Barn, albeit looking at the same mountain range, that stands at 2500-3000m. The valley in which Hamilton sits is at 1500m elevation, the height of Mt Buller! You may notice some snow-capped peaks in the background.
I arrived mid arvo yesterday, and spent the rest of day hanging out at the 'Barn, then very kindly Chad invited me to dinner with his lovely family, to eat fish caught by his father-in-law. Nice. I met his twin daughters and one of their friends, who had a great time pranking me and making me say different words so they could hear my accent. It went down well when I pulled out the "g'day mate". I enjoyed the company of his extended family, smelling some delightful fragrances that no-one could identify, and watching the sun set over the beautiful mountains - though it wasn't fully set to 10:30pm!! Thanks Chad!
I've struggled to get to sleep at night at night (early morning actually), so I bought some 'erbal sleeping aids, which worked really well last night, I didn't have to fight to get to sleep.
Today I felt the most settled that I have for the 5 days I've been here. I headed down to the 'Barn early arvo, and Mike, one of Chad's men had started building my bike - nice! By the end of the day it was starting to look like a bike - we're still waiting on some parts, but some progress pics are below - I'm very happy with the black and silver colour scheme. Here's Chad
Note that the crank arms are parallel in these photo's...it's all in the detail. Speaking of detail, Mike spent a good amount of time making sure that the cable housings were cut to the correct length, and that these and the brake hoses were routed cleanly and wouldn't rub or cause issues.
I'm amazed that I've adjusted so well to the heat - every day I've been in the US it's been over 30 degrees, and the past 2 days have been over 35 degrees.
Tomorrow I'm heading to a nearby town, Darby, to see a logging festival. Competition events include:
:: Pole climb
:: Log roll (in water)
:: Chocker race
:: Axe throw
Should be good. I'll see if I can get some good pics for you.
I arrived mid arvo yesterday, and spent the rest of day hanging out at the 'Barn, then very kindly Chad invited me to dinner with his lovely family, to eat fish caught by his father-in-law. Nice. I met his twin daughters and one of their friends, who had a great time pranking me and making me say different words so they could hear my accent. It went down well when I pulled out the "g'day mate". I enjoyed the company of his extended family, smelling some delightful fragrances that no-one could identify, and watching the sun set over the beautiful mountains - though it wasn't fully set to 10:30pm!! Thanks Chad!
I've struggled to get to sleep at night at night (early morning actually), so I bought some 'erbal sleeping aids, which worked really well last night, I didn't have to fight to get to sleep.
Today I felt the most settled that I have for the 5 days I've been here. I headed down to the 'Barn early arvo, and Mike, one of Chad's men had started building my bike - nice! By the end of the day it was starting to look like a bike - we're still waiting on some parts, but some progress pics are below - I'm very happy with the black and silver colour scheme. Here's Chad
Note that the crank arms are parallel in these photo's...it's all in the detail. Speaking of detail, Mike spent a good amount of time making sure that the cable housings were cut to the correct length, and that these and the brake hoses were routed cleanly and wouldn't rub or cause issues.
I'm amazed that I've adjusted so well to the heat - every day I've been in the US it's been over 30 degrees, and the past 2 days have been over 35 degrees.
Tomorrow I'm heading to a nearby town, Darby, to see a logging festival. Competition events include:
:: Pole climb
:: Log roll (in water)
:: Chocker race
:: Axe throw
Should be good. I'll see if I can get some good pics for you.
Wednesday, 17 July 2013
Can I have flies with that?
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I'm now in Missoula, Montana, it's almost 11pm, and it's 25 degrees - welcome to Summer.
I'd hoped to organise a car by now...but I still have some work to do. Buying a van is no longer an option, i'm now looking for a Subaru Outback...and strangely there are almost as many (dealer cars) here in this small town as there were in Seattle...and here each dealer has quite a few c.f to the scattered distribution around greater Seattle.
The lack of ease of finding a suitable vehicle has been / is frustrating and annoying, but, I shouldn't be surprised given how long it took me to decide that Yuri (my Skoka Yeti at home) was the one for me *coughs*.
Back to Seattle, I only spent time in the South side of Seattle, which is a shame, but there's always later in the year.
Tomorrow is a big day, as well as looking at Subaru's here in Missoula, I finally meet Chad, my "dealer", who's an hour away in Hamilton, Montana. I purchased my visually and aurally pleasing green MTB wheels from him way back in 2008. The build of my new bike can also start. Chad has most of the bits for my build in a big basket at his store - Red Barn Bicycles - and I have a few parts to complete the build. It'll be nice to have someone else build a bike for me. Since the start of 2007 I've bought the frames and parts individually and built up 3 MTB's and done a bunch of swapping forks, drivetrains, etc, depending on whether I wanted the hard tail to be a single-speed (yes, a mountain bike with one gear, its a very pure riding experience) or to have gears.
I had a shower upon reaching the hotel around 9pm, and as I was exiting the bathroom I saw Finnegan talking on the phone. He was speaking to room service. I only heard the end of the conversation, which ended with "can I have flies with that".
On that note, 'til next time.
Cool phone, that's what one gets at Super8 hotels! I also have 68 cable channels tonight. So many channels, such little time - I check out tomorrow morning. I'm planning on spending at least a week or so in Hamilton..hopefully I have an excess of channels there - I felt somewhat limited with the 25 channels I had in Seattle.
I seem to recall saying that I was going. Bye.
I'm now in Missoula, Montana, it's almost 11pm, and it's 25 degrees - welcome to Summer.
I'd hoped to organise a car by now...but I still have some work to do. Buying a van is no longer an option, i'm now looking for a Subaru Outback...and strangely there are almost as many (dealer cars) here in this small town as there were in Seattle...and here each dealer has quite a few c.f to the scattered distribution around greater Seattle.
The lack of ease of finding a suitable vehicle has been / is frustrating and annoying, but, I shouldn't be surprised given how long it took me to decide that Yuri (my Skoka Yeti at home) was the one for me *coughs*.
Back to Seattle, I only spent time in the South side of Seattle, which is a shame, but there's always later in the year.
Tomorrow is a big day, as well as looking at Subaru's here in Missoula, I finally meet Chad, my "dealer", who's an hour away in Hamilton, Montana. I purchased my visually and aurally pleasing green MTB wheels from him way back in 2008. The build of my new bike can also start. Chad has most of the bits for my build in a big basket at his store - Red Barn Bicycles - and I have a few parts to complete the build. It'll be nice to have someone else build a bike for me. Since the start of 2007 I've bought the frames and parts individually and built up 3 MTB's and done a bunch of swapping forks, drivetrains, etc, depending on whether I wanted the hard tail to be a single-speed (yes, a mountain bike with one gear, its a very pure riding experience) or to have gears.
I had a shower upon reaching the hotel around 9pm, and as I was exiting the bathroom I saw Finnegan talking on the phone. He was speaking to room service. I only heard the end of the conversation, which ended with "can I have flies with that".
On that note, 'til next time.
Cool phone, that's what one gets at Super8 hotels! I also have 68 cable channels tonight. So many channels, such little time - I check out tomorrow morning. I'm planning on spending at least a week or so in Hamilton..hopefully I have an excess of channels there - I felt somewhat limited with the 25 channels I had in Seattle.
I seem to recall saying that I was going. Bye.
Monday, 15 July 2013
Here
I'm here in Seattle, safe and sound, excited but daunted and occasionally freaked out by what I'm doing.
From what I've seen of Seattle so far it's a beautiful city, there's a snow capped peak off the North West - stunning. It's nice but weird to have sunshine at 9pm, and shopping at the mall at 9pm on a Monday, cooling off from a 31 degree day, with a whopping (well largish) snow capped peak in the distance.
My dream of a van as my ideal vehicle may be just a dream, I had a look at some smaller and some larger ones this arvo, and the large ones are large - too large The small ones are not as long, but may be not high enough to easily fit a bike in (particularly if the bike will be sitting in a bike rack (likes the ones that mount to roof racks - nice and secure. They aren't too comfortable inside either, unlike the vans that Mark Mc and I rented in NZ a few years ago. I'll test drive one tomorrow to see how it fares. If it doesn't feel right I'll explore getting a SUV or a wagon...and mount the bike on top or on a rack attached to a tow bar (hitch). Finnegan would be more comfortable if he didn't have to trip round in a van.
I'm really looking forward to getting the vehicle purchase sorted so I can trip off to Montana and meet the parts that will form my new bike, or deciding to quit Seattle early and buying a vehicle in Montana (noting that there are next to no vans there, which is why I started in Seattle.
I did quite an amount of driving today - this wrong side of the road thing is really weird, really weird, especially when the GPS is talking to me, even if it's in a lovely voice, and my body clock is all over the place. Hopefully I can sleep well - it's 11:30pm, I think I can feel myself winding down - big day indeed!
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I'll keep linking to FB anyway.
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Tuesday, 9 July 2013
There was movement at the station...
...for the word had passed around
That Richard's US Visa was on it's way
Well, it's been approved anyway. It'll take a number of days to be sent to me. I'm hoping to leave this Sunday. Fingers crossed.
One of the destinations and riding areas that I'm really looking forward to going to is Lake Tahoe in Northern California. Witness:
Exhibit A: a lake
Exhibit B: a trail around the lake
Gosh. its like an everlasting gobstopper, but the lake is ~170 miles around, though only half that can be ridding on a bike.
Exhibit C: chuck in them there hills
Manscaped chunk
A LOT of chunk, freeform chunk in this case. Poor pic, but you get the point.
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Houston we have a problem
To quite a line from the movie Apollo 13 thats been on in the background while I explore colours and stuff in this bold new world of "blogging" - Houston, we have a problem.
To be more specific, I have a problem.
My travelling companion, Finnegan, has no problems at all. The US imposes no conditions of entry on stuffed fabric objects, no matter how good looking they may be.
I, however, need a Visa for my 5 month trip, and I don't yet have a Visa. I should have a Visa based on what the nice man at the US Consulate said to me at my interview, which by the way took place 2 weeks later than it should due to the inability of their "interview booking system" to sometimes recognise "receipt numbers" generated by their payment system (though that's a separate story), but i have no Visa.
Also, I dont know when I will have a Visa. It's not possible to speak to someone who knows more than the online tracking system, so one must email the Consulate. They do respond, though thus far not very helpfully.
So, instead of enjoying the comforts of an Airbus A380, 3 hours away from LA. I'm sitting on my couch, now watching the early laps of the German F1 GP - very nice start by Mark Webber by the way.
On Friday while I waiting to hear anything about my Visa, I became angrier and angrier. By Saturday that dissipated into disappointment, sadness and helplessness. I've postponed my flights and cancelled the accommodation and hire car that i organised in Seattle while I buy a van, but I don't know for when I should re-book...
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