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My tank started to leak again so I went back to the body shop and had him re-weld it. He really welded it up this time as well as put on a layer of something called Fusor 114 which is a new product that is a two part epoxy type material that stays flexible. It sure looks good and should do the job of protecting the weld. Looks like one of the cops had a little difficulty with his BMW and ended up here too. I really like that guy that welded the tank and they didn’t charge me for this fix.

I stopped at the motorcycle shop and asked if they could give the Ozdog a quick oil change. I didn’t need the filter changed, only dump the oil and put in new. NOPE. They couldn’t do it until Monday. So I bought a four liter bottle of motorcycle oil and about fainted when it cost $62.50. I have been a little pissed when they have charged me sixty bucks for oil when I have had it changed before. Damn oil is expensive here. The dealer said they had some oil that cost $125 a liter. What kind of oil could that be? Jeez….

They had a KTM out in the yard and they sure are tall bikes with a fast reputation.

Here is one of those V-strom bikes that Suzuki makes. My buddy Colorado Ken just bought one. I sure don’t like the looks of all that plastic and the motor and all that plastic sure looks vunerable to even a blow down in the parking lot. Ken likes it because it has a low seat and has about twice the HP of a Kowsucking KLR. It is going to be interesting to see how he likes it after putting a few miles on it. There isn’t much time for riding motorcycles in Colorado this time of year. The price was A$11,500

They had this new KLR on the floor for A$9,000. This is another bike that is just asking for some protection for all that plastic and the motor and radiator seem totally vunerable too. After looking at these big plastic pieces of wonder, I am sure glad I have this little Ozdog. The roads I went on today were tight twisty little two lane and that little Ozdog sure is feisty when you twist the throttle. I scrapped off some of the side of my boot a time or two today.

This little apple stand was selling apples for three dollars a kilogram. I didn’t want two pounds of apples so I put fifty cents in the till and went over to the tree and picked one.

The trees were loaded and I can see why. The apple was really shitty and I threw it back on the ground. Yuck.. It seems like apples need a frost to make them good. It is a long way from frost time down here.

Swamp log. It sure is too bad they have to cut these old ones down just to put them along side the road.

I was riding along and noticed an oven and had to stop and see if I could take a look at it.

This guy came out to meet me. His name is Peter and he invited me over to take a closer look. We walked by his car and I noticed this sticker. “Are you a Dead Head?”

We walked over and he opened the door and looked inside at the oven. The thing is made out of stabilized adobe or cement/dirt and it seems to be holding up well. He bought the property with the oven in place. This place used to be a hostel but it burned down and nothing but the oven survived. He builds a fire inside and lets it burn for a few hours and then just pushes the embers to the rear and pops in the bread to bake. He says it works great!!!

He invited me into his kitchen and made a cup of coffee for us to visit over. He and his wife just bought the property and have been enjoying the rustic life. It gets a little chilly down here so it isn’t a year-round camp, but they do have a small trailer here for when it gets bad. They are both on a yearlong leave from their ‘real’ jobs. His wife is a physic nurse and he is a cook. They have a regular hose too but for now are really enjoying living here. I asked if he knew of a place where I could change my oil and he offered to let me do it here. That was nice and it was a real enjoyable time visiting with him. I really liked the kitchen, it reminds me of Arizona and the outdoor lifestyle down at Dripping Springs. All of a sudden I am homesick for Arizona and my friends there. OK, I’m over it now…….

Really nice little pond out back. They live on the road that goes to the furthest south you can drive.

As I was leaving to go his little Queensland Red heeler had to bite my tire to get it to go. She did a good job and the Ozdog leaped into gear and off I went to the far south. They little dog was really a sweetheart and liked to play chase the ball. She even went in the pond to retrieve one for me. She keeps looking and always finds it.

Here is as far south as you can go in Austraila. I scratched my name in the back of the board for good luck. Peter says that there are cars going by his place all day driving down to the end of the continent and back. You would think that with this being THE END OF THE ROAD there would be some sort of sign like they had down in Terry del Fuego. There was a little ranger station that I stopped by and see that they want to charge $11 for going down the road but I just hopped back on the bike and made this quick trip but I didn’t take the whale walk that Peter recommended because I sure didn’t want to have to deal with a park ranger. I figured I could get away with just riding down to the end and back without buying in.

I also had to put up a BMWDOG sticker and the only metal sign was this speed one leaving.

This is the last part of the road going back I had to stop and take a photo. What a really nice ride today and I just loved meeting a new friend, Peter.

OK, I heard enough noise from Keith about TOO MANY FLOWERS and not enough TRAINS. So, here ya go Keith…….

There is a little train that makes a loop through the woods but it was on a ‘toot’, so I had to take this photo of a relic in the yard.

I read a blog by George Ure at www.urbansurvival.com and I like a lot of the things that he writes. This was in response to someone writing him and asking George if he thought he should cash in his 401k. George always says he doesn’t give investment advice but doesn’t mine giving advice. I though it was spot on….

Details, details: All of which won't get you any closer to the point of supreme enlightenment on the matter of whether to cash in that 401(k) and pay off what you can and be ready for come-what-may.

But, it should serve as a reminder that most financial advisors think inside the box, in that most would not advise you to buy a collectable car, buy a hunk of farm land, or invest in a good vacation, or take off on some unbelievable life-altering adventure.

Most are compensated for their sale of something to you. So, if you want an advisor, try to find one that you can buy hours of their time from - and tell them up front that you won't buy anything from them - you want their opinions only on how to proceed.

That kind of advisor is usually hard to find although in fairness, some loaded mutual funds perform better than some unloaded funds - some of the time.

What's rare is finding an advisor who understands that the real investments - the kind you can take with you to whatever follows this life - are the ones between your ears. It's the memories of great times, solid family, good friends, a well-aged Anjeo, the right cigar at the right moment, the sunrise while at anchor, or that time you made yourself sick doing aerobatics, climbing a waterfall in Jamaica...all those things are durable in ways paper can't match. Standing on the bow of a cruise ship coming up the channel into Key West.

To be sure money's nice, but commitment to the adventure of Life may be much more important. That's one of the reasons I lived on a sailboat for so long; sailors tend to be a little more committed to the adventure of it all and a bit less worried about paper.

I knew a fellow named Tom, for example, who I used to bump into at the Sloop Tavern in Seattle once in a while, who lived on a 32-fsooter a few docks down from my boat. Interesting guy. He'd work at part time jobs for anywhere from three to six months and then he'd disappear for three or four months, only to reappear on one of my fish-chips-and-beer runs to the Sloop.

"I'd never been there before...so I went. Spent three months walking all over the place - nice people, too. Interesting food, great climate..." and that led into a half-hour/two-beer travelogue of his wanderings about Zanzibar.

They key thing was that here was a guy who was committed to adventure in his life - which for him was walking, biking, and taking public transportation all over the world so he could soak up the sights, the flavors, the music, the languages... just all of it --- every bit he could find.

Few people seem to have that deeply rooted a sense of adventure, wanderlust, but the little bit of it I've done has set very well with me. Makes me appreciate folks like my brother-in-law who used to lay on the bottom of Lake Gatun in the Panama Canal as ships transited overhead, interrupting his diving adventures picking of pottery tossed of ships and what-have-you that's found on the Canal bottom.

I'm writing Peoplenomics this week about the possibilities of living on a boat - something many folks dream about, but the nitty-gritty of how it's done - that's another matter.

Not that I hold anything against cruise ships (I like NCL), but driving your own boat down the coast is a little different than playing slots in the casino while steaming to a tourist-oriented port of call. In a sense, cruise ships are at the exact opposite end of the experience scale compared to my friend Tom, who occasional even worked as a seaman to get passage to exotic ports. One's a packed meal, the other's ala carte.

I've been blessed to meet a larger number of people who have 'taken on Life' directly and on their own terms, and these people never fail to impress me. The fellow in his 70's we met in California who rode his bike around the world. Years before that, I interviewed Ted Simon, the author of Jupiters Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph and again, the same directly engaging of Life shined through. James Michener, Louis L 'Amour, Ernest K. Gann...and the list goes on.

I haven't met a financial advisor yet who starts with the 'inside riches' and sort of works their way out to superficial stuff...but to my way of thinking it's how the job should be done. Those that encourage 40-years of 'buy & hold" thinking are too shallow for my tastes, which is why I decided to 'roll my own'. I haven't stepped in front of a bus, but if I had, there'd be plenty of fine memories at most points along the way.

My life isn't completely 'live hard, die broke' but I assure you that standing in the observatory at Machu Pichu watching the sunrise is a much fonder memory than brake lights on the freeway heading for work. And and the view toward Machu Pichu's north tower is far more majestic any a flat screen ever built.