Leaving Kansas USA

In our last blogs I said we are in farm country out here in Kansas. Our son has a place out here with cows, chickens, a pet goat along with his dogs and cats. The wildlife is great out here too. Deer, pheasant even braggers but some wild life will choose if they want to live on your farm are not. There is an old building on our son’s farm we need to make a shop out of to paint trucks and equipment but in this building there are barn owls along with a lots of junk. Some of the owls are young and can’t fly well yet so making them leave is not so good and it is their chose as I have said where they want to live. Every one doesn’t have barn owls. We all want the owls to stay but if you have ever been where owls nest you know what they eat ends up on the floor after it has gown through the owl. So how do you keep the owls and not the mess. We built a owl box and hung it on the barn next to the shop to be and now we will have to see if they like it. I built hinges to make doors on the end of the building we are making into a shop but we decided to wait on the baby owls to grow some more before we start cutting in to the building.

Young owl, can’t fly good yet.

New owl box. Hope they like it.

We are running out of time anyway and maybe will be on a plane headed back to our boat in Guatemala when you are reading this. Maybe we will be back out in Kansas for Christmas and the owls will be grown and gone and maybe some of them will be nesting in their new owl box with there dropping going to the ground on the back side of the barn. We will just have to wait and see. As far as what our son wants to do in the new shop is paint and our first job if we are out there to help is paint his 1949 Dodge truck and put it back to work.

1949 Dodge farm truck

There is a lot of old cars and truck out here. Maybe if we come back for Christmas we will load it down with kids and drive it in the Christmas parade out here but for now it’s getting back to our boat in Guatemala and our life in the Western Caribbean. Getting back or going to some where is always and adventure in it’s self.

Car Races

After the sail back to Guatemala from Belize on our old sailboat, the bus ride to the air port in Guatemala City, the flight to the US in New Orleans, the bike ride from there to here in Kansas that was all great but now it’s life in Kansas. It’s hot out here but with low humility you don’t feel it like you do in Central America. This is farm and oil country. The wildlife out here is incredible, Jack rabbits running looking like a cartoon with there big ears flopping. Lots of deer and turkeys but it’s peasant that brings the in out-of-town hunters here ever winter but as any one would know it’s still summer here and summers out here, it’s car racing. We went with a friends here to a dirt round track they race at and went with them down in the pits. Some how it was like a big family affair with cars of all kinds. Everyone seemed to have food, cold drink and folding chairs. Everyone seemed to know each other even if they race in different classes. During the National Anthem it made you feel really patriotic maybe because they all seem to take it serious. No kids playing, everyone standing. There was diffidently no one keeling here protesting something about this country. This is truly the heart land. Maybe another thing that makes you feel like it’s a family affair is the kids. Down in the pits kids were there with the family racing. Little kids wearing ear muffs to block out the noise but they were there. Our friends race a car in a class where the driver steers and another person rides with him changing gears and working the throttle. It’s called cruiser class. It’s fun to watch but I wonder what it would be like if it was Pam in the car with me steering and her standing on the gas. Remember we had to get off the road one time when we drove big rigs cross country when we were younger with her always having to be out front. Her long red hair and smile wouldn’t work on all the cops and the tickets piled up so we had to get off the road but maybe in a way it’s always been at least in the last 54 years maybe I have been steering and she has been on the throttle. If you read our blog you know I have put in our blog before she ask me to marry her when she was 15, I was 17 and she has been on full throttle ever since. Being out here it’s easy to be on full throttle with something always happening ,rodeos,truck pulls, races, but with us, it’s still riding our old bike around to see what we can. Packing in as much as we can before next week and we head back to our boat in the river in Guatemala.

Some cruiser class cars in the pits

Drivers getting ready to head to the track.

Take the baby to the races but she has to wear her ear protection

Enjoying USA

If you are keeping up with our trip to Kansas (we made it and we are here.) Our bike is old. We are not as young as we once was and I now have a strange tan. We both wore a long sleeve white dress shirt to ride in. Sun screen on our noses and the top of my hands but my hands tanned back to my shirt. The bike ride of this trip stared out on the north shore of New Orleans. A friend was keeping our bike for us there and it needed work. The gas tank leaking and remember it had been setting, always bad. He’s a top notch mechanic and fashioned a new tank meant for another bike because our bike was only made a year and a half back when the Fonz was riding one on Happy Days and now it is getting hard to get parts. On the trip we had the usual criticism from Harley riders that our bike was to small. Most people would ask us how old we are and occasionally why we were riding on the two lane roads going so far. Pam and I did over a million miles in big rigs when we were younger and even then we were criticized for running two lane roads maybe cutting hundred of miles off a trip. In the US we have 3 road systems, the Interstate highways, State roads and country roads. Interstates are built for speed, state roads are most of the time great roads well kept and interesting. They go through towns by lakes, water falls and what makes the US great. County roads will sometimes take you straight to something great but sometimes can be a little ruff and less kept. Leaving south Louisiana with food like craw fish and alligator it’s big tree country. Big trucks hauling logs from big trees but as you get deeper into Oklahoma you run out of big trees. Most trees as you get in the middle of Oklahoma are just big bushes maybe 20 feet high. There are some trees but nothing to go to a saw mill.

Open road in Oklahoma

From south Louisiana all the way to Kansas the people out in the country are super friendly. Every where we stopped they wanted to talk to us and tell us how they would never ride that far on any bike. They always wanted to know if we needed anything and in upper Oklahoma we stop for gas and added a little oil. We gave the oil we had left back knot wanting to carry it with us and the man there wouldn’t let us pay for it saying “You didn’t take that much.” In Jena, Louisiana a lady gave Pam a tee shirt with all the town’s businesses on it. The biggest problem we had was me wanting to stop and eat. I couldn’t stop eating, remember we stared out trip to Kansas in Belize. Taking our boat to Guatemala then a bus ride to Guatemala City then a flight to Louisiana before we stared our trip across the US to Kansas on our bike. Some people call the West Caribbean where we came from paradise but it’s not for the food. There it’s mostly beans and rice.

Enjoy

Here we were cooking in our motel room Pam micro-waving Snow crab legs, canned cream corn, bake potatoes and making a salad with round tomato not roma tomatoes. Hard to find round tomatoes in the Caribbean .just roma tomatoes they cook with more than eating raw. In early morning we were hunting McDonalds for sausage biscuits. They don’t have biscuits that far south in the Caribbean but my big problem is steak. There is no steak in the Caribbean like a good steak in the US even if it’s imported. I’m slowing down on eating a little now and were headed back to our boat in a couple weeks but we will miss Kansas and sadly we will miss our old bike we are leaving here.

Maybe our next bike ride will be from Kansas to South Dakota to the bike rally there. For all you bike riders out there maybe we will see you there. Who knows but for now it’s live to ride and ride to live.