Kira’s first camping trip and were doing it in November!! :)

I’ve been waiting for the day when things work out to take one of the kids camping with the motorcycle. As luck played out we had great weather for the first week of November. 70 Degrees during the day and they said only 50 degrees at night, so they say!

This is Kira my little wild nine year old. Getting her out of the house for a little will give the wife a huge break. For the ride we used a little cheap communicator I bought fifteen years ago when the wife would come along for rides. It still works as good as it did before.

My biggest fear of riding with a little one is her falling asleep and falling off the bike. The communicator would let me keep her alert and be able to point out things along the way.

This is a good pic, me nervous and serious and her happy and excited to go. Nice huge smile out of her. :)

We showed up to the campgrounds at Starved Rock to find the park ranger gone but the sign stating there is vacancy. As we rolled through the grounds the only spot open happened to be a RV spot but someone had there blue reserve tag in for the spot. My understanding is your reservation is void if you don’t show up by 3PM. We rolled in at 4:30 so I took it as fair game.

The bikes and the camp. Kira is popping out of the tent looks like a ground hog checking things out..

Pretty funny because around 8PM a RV rolled in and a lady jumped out and said she reserved the spot earlier. Jim and myself just said OK and moved the bikes off of the graved spot for them to park. They seemed a little ticked off but I really didn’t care, but they said we could still stay by the fire we had going. Gee thanks lady! I wasn’t going to move anyways!

We turned in for the night before 9PM, which is really early for me. I have a hard time going to bed before midnight. The nights sleep was a tough one. The forecast I read said a low of 45-50 degrees and man was that off. It was cold and I was scared for Kira getting Hypothermia. We had sleeping bags good for 50 degrees, so we wore our pants and shirts with a hat to bed. I think I may of slept a total of three hours. Constantly checking Kira and putting her hat back on. My temperature gauge read 38 Degrees when I came out of the tent in the morning. I couldn’t wait to see the Sun! :)

It was a rough night but the good side was hearing all the animals doing their thing. Some of it was Coyotes, a lot was one or a few Owls calling all night into the morning.

I heard some of this too.

These bird were SO LOUD. I think they were Starlings going south. It almost sounded like a engine running even before you could see them by a lot.

Sorry for the poor video as it’s from my crappy Kodak camera. This was about 6AM. After the birds went through I realized it woke up all the tent folks.

Kira and my tent.

Jim’s bike and set up.

On the way home Kira’s said her legs were numb so I pulled off in Newark Il to see this truck I noticed on another ride.

I made her run a few laps around the truck to get her legs going again.

This ten foot Elvis is down the way from the truck. It’s been there forever so I also let her get a pic with it.

This is the Elvis nut shot I told her to do as a funny. My son thought is was great when I showed him at home.

The trip was good despite a bad sleep and nothing a nap at home didn't cure. ;) I’m looking forward to next riding season with Kira since this year is almost over for riding.

A little repeat for me!!

Technorati Tags: Goldwing,bugs,klr,princeton,covered bridge

Today my Buddy Jim met me at The Serena Cafe and the game plan was to see the covered bridge in Princeton IL. I was here earlier in the year before anything started growing. When I was their I promised myself to come back in the fall to see it when the leaves turned in the fall.

The only thing is we had some heavy rain and strong wind earlier in the week and that stripped the trees. :( It still looked nice with what was left.

Looks like a very old advertisement for maybe cough medicine!?

box elder bugs coming out to sun themselves from the crack of door.

These little wannabe bees were the story of the day. They were all over our bikes and us. I just had to make sure to get them out of my helmet every time we geared up.

More fly's wanting a ride.

A lock on the Hennepin canal.

Finally hitting the 10K on the KLR

Tech-day at my house with some folks off the web.

 

I follow a few forums on the KLR 650 and the one had a few people asking when the next Chicago area tech-day would be. I have everything  needed besides parts to get most work needed done. My bike is mostly done with modifying it so why not help out other that need some tweaking.

Today was the day and I have to say it was a ton of fun getting one bike up to par and another set up for a better ride.

It’s always nice to put user names to real names and faces. Also creating more opportunities for more friends and riding buddies.

Only two bikes to work on but plenty to get done in a few hours.

Thanks to John jumping into Adams engine, I was able to mostly say on Jim’s bike.  Adam looks really happy for having a broken Doo, but it was only in two parts. That’s worth smiling about!

This is the dreaded Doo. Basically  this one failed due to a weld didn’t even penetrate into the round section. Thankfully it didn’t hurt the motor but I’m surprised the adjuster shaft didn’t rotate.

New Doo in place and ready for the torsion spring to be hooked.

Working the spring into the Doo was a small challenge.

Avoiding the garage troll was a constant challenge!! :)

Getting Jim’s Doo done. His was in good shape, in one piece and a lot of spring tension left. We also installed the torsion spring.

So all together we did two Doo’s, rear raising links, front springs with fresh fork oil, fork brace, 22 cents carb mod, front and rear sprockets with a chain.

I want to thank everyone for helping out.

Breitbachs and the Crystal Lake Caves

The plan for the day was to get some people together and ride out to Breitbachs restaurant. The place has burnt down twice in the last, I think two years. I never had a chance to go there before and My friends say it was pretty cool.
For the ride out we had six bikes which is the largest group I've had behind me in a long time, was nice.



Chilling out after riding pretty much non-stop out of Elgin to Hanover.



Riding the ferry over to Iowa - cost for one bike $7 one way!! Ferry is out of Cassville WI and the perfect way to roll out onto C9Y.


Thats Tom above pondering getting home fast to catch his dinner date back home. The view behind him was awesome and dummy me didn't go down there for a shot.
I wonder what Breitbachs looked like all the way at the top of the hill on fire, had to be crazy!
As the name states below the CAVE!! It's a little odd and interesting here but rolling up to this building you would never think their is a cave here. Also if your claustrophobic don't go down as we had one friend who was not happy and went back up. The kid doing the tour said a guy four hundred pounds and seven feet tall got stuck down in one part. Yikes!!!


^^^ looks like T-rex...

The pic above is thy crystal cave. It was used as a wishing well years back but they stopped that. click the pic and you can see the coins breaking down.





Very nice day ride and it was ALL DAY. Rolled out of the house at 7AM did 430 some odd miles and got back at 9PM. Yep all with Bronchitics but didn't feel too bad till I got out of the cave.