Y2K Thoughts

Aside from the maiden voyage with the Big Gal in late April, my thoughts return to the Yosemite ride in August. The ride was great, the weather was great, the scenery was great and the people the G-R-E-A-T-E-S-T. The few weeks leading up to it were exciting with the Connecticut Yankee traveling cross country…Mosa & Dragbars talking each other into going for a short ride just so they wouldn't miss out on the action… Tigger coming in from Texas running on that infamous Maypop brand of tire. Talk of Valkcabbie's pending nuptuals that was kept a secret to the lucky lady…The subsequent wedding party procession down Main St. and touring the area for 3 days. It was a great time to meet people and put names to faces…StevieD, Harpo & Marty Rood, to list a few of many. With all this weekend riding going on, my yard-work chores suffered. Who has time to do yard work when we can go for a ride? Day one of the Yosemite ride is just 3 days away. The yard hasn't been mowed in a month. The wife-unit says I ain't going anywhere unless I cut the grass… "Its embarrassing to look at this place"! Okay Honey-Bunny, I say, but I have to clean the bike first! I'm not going to Yosemite on a dirty bike! I get home from work on Friday to find the wife-unit has washed and waxed the bike to showroom condition. Maguires swirl remover, Collenite wax & Mothers polish on the wheels! She greets me at the door and states that I have NO EXCUSE for not cutting the grass! Darn! Now I HAVE to cut the grass. I never liked that lawn mower cause it went TOO DAMN SLOW and had that safety junk on there that killed the motor when you let go of the handle bars. I eventually figured a way to bypass the automatic kill switch but still had to disengage the self drive mechanism when I needed to let go to move an obstacle (…or grab another beer). Saturday afternoon I psyche myself into mowing the grass (…took two beers to get psyched). I make a few passes on the dead and dying stuff I call grass when I realize the dust from my labors is blowing into the opened garage… all over the C-L-E-A-N bike. Pre-occupied with thoughts of how I could be riding AND fearful of the wrath of wifey if she sees the dust blowing in the garage, I pull up near the garage and stop. I walk over to the garage…go inside to push the button to lower the door…go out the side door…go back to the front yard where I left the mower… and Wa-La! Who took my lawn mower? It was here a minute ago? I'm standing there passing gas through my ears (with ear-muff style of hearing protection) thinking that wifey was nice enough to keep mowing for me… when I look up and see the self propelled lawn mower propelling itself across the yard… and headed right for the highway! This may not seem like a big deal but when the yard is 200 feet across to the highway and the mower has a 100 foot head start… and there's traffic on that highway! Now its been awhile since this bald-headed beer-bellied duffer has participated in any track & field events, especially with out having done warm up exercises or using starting blocks… but me sprints across the real estate with my flip-flops sandals just a flip'n and a flop'n like a real athlete. The lawn mower is, strangely enough, going around all the trees and headed directly for the driveway where there is no fence. All I could think was this S.O.B. seems to be going faster than it ever did before! I did the 50 Y.D. dash in record time and saved the motoring public from an encounter with my runaway lawn mower. I look around to see if any of my neighbors are watching all this unfold… I think I got away with it.

With all the good times & rides this season, most of my thoughts are centered around the Yosemite ride, but the run-a-way lawnmower is what I end up thinking & laughing about the most. The wife-unit got me a new lawnmower for Christmas. A bigger and brighter one so I can keep up with my yard work chores on a regular basis and still manage time to enjoy a weekend ride. It's still a walk behind mower (trying to work of that beer belly) with 4 gears forward and a reverse gear. This is my 500cc Kawasaki V-twin mow'n machine. To answer your question… NO, I'm not gonna bypass the dead-man switch.

Sheets & 2 Sheets
We be 2 sheets to the wind.
VIVA 'la VRCC