Kansas

For all that follower our blog . We are still in Kansas. For someone that is looking at our blog for the first time. We are on a little adventure We normally live on a home built sail boat we built that is setting in the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. We came back to the states to see our son in Kansas. We are calling this a vacation from cruising around on our boat. Some would see this different. Some people say we have lived our life more are less on vacation. This little adventure stared in Mississippi where we picket up our old 1987, 450 Honda motor bike after flying back on a cheap flight from Guatemala City. We left Mississippi in cut of jeans and a tee shirts. In New Orleans we tried to fix every thing we found wrong with the bike. From there we headed on to Kansas in blue jeans and a tee shirt. In north Louisiana we ran into thunder storms. We bought more clothes and rain gear. In Oklahoma we bought more clothes as it got even colder. When we made the Kansas line we stopped to buy even heaver clothes as the wind stared to blow. “Hard” On all good adventures there is some discomfort. What you can see from a bike is wonderful even if it’s cold windy and raining. On the way we saw things we have seen before but times are changing. One thing that’s different is wind generators. They’re big. A lot bigger than I thought they would be. You see them on ridges turning slowly a lot out here.

Here comes one of the blades

closer

beside us

leaving maybe 100 feet long

 

When we made our son’s farm we found more than we expected. It’s what most people would call, “Far out.” It’s on a dirt road. There are a lot of dirt roads in Kansas. So many they post where the school bus will pick up kids on dirt roads on TV if the weather is good or where you must bring you kids to a paved road for pickup. Pam and I have always lived close to nature and I was raised on a working farm. Here we found so much we had forgot about. Like we found some barn owls with new babies. Look at this and tell me if this is a face only a mother can love?

Baby Owles

 

Our son has chickens and a duck setting so when they stared acting up with the duck even leaving her nest we went to see why they were upset. There we found a raccoon in the chicken house. We caught him in a box and carried him miles away before we let him out. Look at this and think about living here. On TV out here there a dating serveries to find women for farmers. This is about as far as we have got from living on our boat. We haven’t slowed down enough to get home sick yet. There so much we have to write about. The next few blogs we may have a lot more pictures. Remember pictures can tell the story better than words a lot of the time but pictures are not like being here.

Bike Ride In USA

When I hear someone say something profound today, most of the time I just laugh. When I was young I listened closely and tried to learn. But not today. Things like trust in yourself. Where there is a will there a way. Have you ever tried to will your way some where. Does the person that stared all that know people like me? Maybe the profound statement that applies here is. Make your life and adventure. Most of my life I have tried to do that but mostly I have just made more work. Now that Pam and I are past retirement age. We know by now we will never do anything “really” great. There will never be a great adventure in our life but we have manage to go on a lot of little adventure. What we do now is just see what we can do at our age and as its has always been. What can we do with so little money. We are on one of the little adventures now. We left our old sailboat we built ourselves and live on setting in the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. The best place in the Western Caribbean to leave a boat and flew back to the US on a budget flight. “No luggage” to ride our old ’87, 450 Rebel Honda motor bike from New Orleans to Kansas and back before we go back and on south in our boat. We have a budget of time and maybe enough money to travel across the states for a month. It’s working out to be a real “little” adventure. Being back in the land of alligators and good food. I didn’t know how much I miss the food here until we were back and being here there is one more thing. No one here has said. Not one time. We talk funny or where are you from. We were born in the deep south and you will know that as soon as Pam says two words. Even if she is talking to a passing ships at sea they ask where she is from. What is it like to ride a old bike cross country? First our bike is chain drive. This means we need to oil the chain often. It has a small gas tank but this is great too because “I need to stop 0ften”. We “are” taking the road less traveled. This means it’s slow going. Each little town has its’ own personialty and the weather has been awful. This too has added to the adventure. You just never know what will happen next. They’re having tornado treats here in Oklahoma. Riding a bike into a tornado is more of adventure that I want. In North Louisiana we were caught in a bad thunder storm and stopped under a roof at a gas station. As the storm raged we went in and told the people our story and where we were going. Every one there were laughing. When we were going to leave a woman came running out and gave us a 100 dollar bill. Said The boss said we needed to go get us a room and wait out the weather. We did. In Oklahoma we were lost and stopped to look at our map. A bike stopped and the man and women riding it lead us to the right highway and invited us to stop at there house on our way back. Said we would cook ribs and we will if we can work it out. Tomorrow there’s a break in the weather and we are going on. Riding the two lane roads through Kansas. What will happen tomorrow? I wish I could say something profound. Maybe tomorrow we can try to cease the day but to tell the truth, I don’t really know how to cease a day.

Gator beside boat we stayed on in LA

LA people love gators

Making supper in our room. Ironing board table, cooked in microwave

A beautiful site “Sunshine”

Busy Week

Sorry for not keeping up our blog last week but life is life and as we all know life can turn and twist some times. We have been planning a trip back to the states for some time now. As it came time to leave I was late posting our last blog. Then as we landing in the US our computer would not work and our Guatemala phone wouldn’t work either. So how do you take care of that? You don’t. Not in an airport. So we just took care of our most pressing problem. If you keep up with our blog you know the food in Central America is not to my liking. I miss a good steak. This was the problem wanted to take care of first. When we landed in Fort Lauderdale we went straight to an Outback Steak House. “A 45 minute ride, on a city bus.” Bus riding is always an adventure. There I went for a 21oz steak with all the trimming. Back at the airport we spent the night trying to sleep on a bench and wait for our next 7:00am flight to New Orleans. There the phone problem increased. We couldn’t call our friend who was to be there to pick us up. We bought a phone card and used the phone that hangs on the wall there. No luck. Finally over the intercom came Mr. and Mrs. Pennington your driver is waiting on you at gate one. Now where is gate one? When we got to gate one we were told we need to go to the lower level. There we didn’t see our friend or his car. Finally he walked out from behind his car and we saw him. You never think that in all this time we have been gone our friend would have traded cars. From there we went to his job site. He is working on a mega yacht, one of those multi-million dollar beauties. There we got our first real sleep in the master bedroom while our friend and the rest of the crew worked. Adventure is what it is and always has surprises. The yacht is a custom built 105 foot long sailboat. From there we went back to the boat yard on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain to sleep on a boat there of a friend that’s in Alaska making money and of course it not the money always it’s the adventure of going there. We lived there at the yard for some time and worked there so being back there was like going home. Walking in the boat house there brought back memories of the two hurricanes we rode out there in our boat where Pam marked the high water mark on the boat house door. There I worked on my list of things to do like go to Hardy’s and eat all the buttered biscuits I could hold. From there we went on to get our old 87 model Honda Rebel 450 motor bike. It had problems and the parts that were ordered didn’t come in so we spent the night with the parents of our friend’s best friend. It’s like that some times when you’re out here going and now we have new friends. There I worked on my list of thing to do like eating crawfish more steak and fresh made sausage. The parts still didn’t come in and we needed the bike back at the boat yard. If you lean the bike over the carburetor would leak gas down on the hot motor so I road it back 48 miles cutting the gas off before I stopped or turned in to a parking lot. I put a rag under the carburetor when I stopped so hopefully no one would see the raw gas dripping and call the fire department. You don’t have to think about things like that in a 3rd world country. Today we are still waiting on the right parts and maybe tomorrow we will leave going on to Kansas. Riding and old motor bike cross country can be an Adventure. We hope to go see our son in Kansas. Come back here and do some more visiting and then fly back to our boat in Guatemala in less than a month now. There it may be even harder to come back here if our plan works and we go on south. We are hoping to go on way south but for now I am working on my list of things to do. A few things left are fried whole catfish. Maybe boudin, gumbo, Beignets down in the French Quarter maybe some gator. “The list is long.”

Crawfish Feast

Grill Masters

getting the bike ready