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Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Near Miss



There was fresh snow just to the north of us, to the west, and at slightly higher elevations. Outside of a little tiny bit of mixed precipitation it was all good. As you can imagine it wasn't all that warm. Cloudy wet weather continue, but there's no sense worrying about stuff I can't change.

The bears are back, and they are hungry. They mistook my sand barrel for a garbage can and tipped it over. They did the same thing last fall. Actually, I'm starting to think that the bear knows it is just sand. He's feeling mean.

Really really really miss living the life of a nomad. Spending the winter in the North Country was hard on me. Between being sick or injured most of the time didn't help at all. I've had some seriously itchy feet. I ran into a friend of mine at the coffee shop the other day. He's looking for a second driver to make a road trip ending at his sister's in Florida. That might be just the thing I need.

I've been a bit frustrated with my motorcycle project. It's not nearly as far along as I wanted it to be by now. Of course, being injured set everything back. There have been a few good riding days and I just plain missed them. No doubt I'll miss a lot more before it's done. As much as I'm in a hurry to get on the road, making sure the old KZ 900 is safe is a priority. Might even break down and have the local motorcycle mechanic double check a few things for me.

I've done the math and even if everything that might need to be fixed gets fixed, it will still be cheaper than buying a second hand bike in good condition. At least I know where the problems are on this one. That doesn't mean I'm not tempted when I find a good bike way below book value. It turns out my lovely wife rather do things like fix the deck and pay down debt rather than go riding. Then there's the sailboat fund to consider. Slowly building that up.

Well, at least I'm no longer bored.

-Sixbears

10 comments:

  1. Wow SixBears - I'm just catching up on your adventures after taking a break from reading blogs myself. You've really had a time of it, haven't you? Glad to hear the leg is recovering, and hopefully the budget will be, too. You and the lovely wife do seem resilient though. Have to admire a fella who can always find the silver lining ...

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    1. This hasn't been fun, but I've had much worse. That gives me perspective.

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  2. Could you make a carrier for the back of the van big enough to carry the bike?

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    1. Indeed I could. It would have to be something custom, but I've some really talented redneck welder friends.

      The bike is about 550 pounds, but the van is extremely well sprung so it should handle it.

      Tempting to have it along when camping. Then we could leave the van set up when running errands.

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  3. You'll get there. It may take a while but you'll get there.

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    1. One day at a time. Sometimes one hour or one minute at a time, but we are moving on.

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  4. I envy you having a wife who is ok with paying down debt. About every three months my wife and I have that discussion. She doesn't see the point, but I want to stay debt free. It usually comes up when she overspends the budget without giving up something from another part of the budget. She wants to just carry it over for a month, but I think that's the slippery slope. So I just pay any overages off quietly and she's pretty good about not going over (for awhile.)

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    1. Sounds like you actually have a pretty good handle on it.

      Our lives have been pretty crazy. We've been in debt and out of debt a bunch of times. There are some things that are worth going into debt for, even though it's hard to climb back out of the hole. Family is the big one. You do things for your kids that you wouldn't do for yourselves.

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    2. That's absolutely true. I'd sell the gold out of my teeth to help my kids if I had to. You wouldn't be much of a father if you don't help your family when they need it, no matter how old they are.

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    3. They are always your kids.

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