Moab to Dog house
4-9-08

I just had an urge to head north and once I got that thought in my head, it wasn’t long before I was out on the road.

I camped for a night at Canyon de Chelly. I noticed a woman looking at my motorcycles at the campground and went out to talk with her. It turns out she and her husband are from Salida, Colorado. I talked with her husband later and found out that they are good friends with Cactus Jack and Linda. He actually did the sheetrock work on their house.

I made it up to Moab and it was the week before Easter, which is Jeep Week in Moab. The parking area for the dealer show looked rather cramped and I hate to pull my little train into something that looks like I might not be able to maneuver around in so I pulled into the new housing tract that I camped in last year. Wow, they had built several houses in there now but I pulled in anyway figuring that I might be able to park there for a little while as I looked for a guy I met last year and needed to talk with again. As I got out of my pickup this guy came over from across the street and I thought he was going to kick me out of there. It turns out he has a BMW GS and came over to see my R80GS’s and talk bikes. He bought one of these houses this year as a second home as he lives in the rain infested northwest and needed a place to see some sun. He only has this KLR down here now and it is good for town trips and trail rides around the country. He was saying that a couple of the houses were for sale because the people that were going to buy them backed out of the deal. He said I could probably pick one up for $300,000…….. oh, yeah, I could buy a lot of motorcycles for that amount of money. Lets see, thirty of them at $10,000 each. Heck I could have a bike a day for a month…..and have extras and a few over at Bob’s for service….

Lots of fancy jeeps and odd parking arrangements.

There were several of these type rigs available. They seem to be new and popular.

This is Mark and he is the guy I wanted to talk with. Last year we visited and he told me he had a Dreyer Flexi sidecar on his BMW motorcycle. We were talking about a lot of things, one of which is the jeep pictured here that he built on a Dodge ¾ ton frame with a Cummins diesel 6cyl engine. He cut two jeeps apart and added them together to make this rig. He has Goodyear tires on it and that is why it is in the Goodyear show area. What I needed to talk with him about was how that flexi flyer sidecar was driven. It turns out it is really different to drive from a regular sidecar rig. Hard to explain here but the sidecar wheel and bike are linked together and when you go around a corner with it the bike and wheel on the sidecar lean. It is a real learning experience to get to be able to handle it he said. I would sure like to go down to his place in Prescott, AZ and take a ride in it sometime. It has always been to damn cold to go up there when I have been in southern AZ. I will just have to make a special effort to go down there sometime. Mark is getting tired of building special jeeps and it thinking of turning his artistic talents to motorcycles and sidecars. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with.

I really like these jeep camping trailers. They are made for getting into the back country and camping in style.

It turns out that it was still winter up north…

I stopped in Flaming Gorge Park and was talking with the gal at the desk who turns out has gone down to South America. We visited quite a while and then she asked if I wanted to take a tour of the damn. Well, that sounded good and then I learned I had to go through this metal detector to be sure I didn’t have any ??? that could be used to take over the damn or blow it up? Not sure what but I  had to take everything out of my pockets (I had to give the girl my pocket knife) and go through this thing. It continued to beep every time I tried to go through. They finally had to call the deputy sheriff that was parked in the parking lot (they have to have law enforcement there for home land security) to check me out. Well I had everything out of my pockets and I still set off the alarm. I was wearing carhart pants with rivets and he finally decided that is what was setting off the alarm. I told him I would be glad to take off my pants but I didn’t have underwear on. He let me through with my pants on. It turns out I was only able to walk along the top of the damn dam and not go on down in it as I thought that what we were going to do. No, they didn’t take tours down in the damn dam until later and with a bigger group than just one…. Oh, well it was a nice visit I had with the lady. I charged out of there and went over a big pass on my way north.

It started out nice.

It started to blow pretty hard and got pretty slick.

I made it up to the freeway and pulled in near here where they have piles of oil well pipe in storage. I had a little lunch and was just about to take a nap when I realized that the girl didn’t give me my pocketknife back. Damn, dam girl….. I had to drive all the way back which was about a hundred miles to get it. damn…. Two hundred miles but I got the pocketknife that was my dad’s back in my pocket.

There were some nice winter time views on the way home. I will have to say that Wyoming is the windiest dam place every time I go through it.

I made it up to Bob and Anne’s place the day before Easter. We had a wonderful meal on Easter and latter Dr. Bob came over from Billings on his little 250cc Ninja. It is always nice to see Dr Bob and this time he had his grandson with him. We all decided to ride with Bob half way on his way home.

Here is John all dressed up in Anne’s ridding gear and helmet. John is a long time serious Harley builder and rider. If he wasn’t in such a good disguise I don’t think we would have been able to get him on my R75/6 BMW that bob had worked on for me. This is the bike I bought down in Nevada last year and brought up to Bob to service. It had been in storage for over 20 years after the original owner died. I think this is the first time John had ridden anything other than a Harley and he did pretty well even though it didn’t make lots of noise. I rode the bike on a short trip with Bob the day before and it is a nice smooth bike.

Dr.Bob’s grandson wanted to go for a ride in Bob’s sidecar.

Down the highway we went.

When I got back to camp and spent the night I got up in the morning to this view of the doghouse. A nice welcome back spring snowstorm. Well, I hope it is spring…..

The black dog was still on guard duty. The dog did well, everything was just fine.

I cranked up the old Yellow dog and thought I would take a quick ride to town but found the heavy wet snow was pretty darn slick and I just came back and waited for it to melt off. They put that darn chemical on the streets in town and I don’t want that shit on my motorcycles. I don’t wash the bikes and that stuff makes things rust really bad.

I was telling Sheila about the project of putting up the 1”x6” tongue and grove boards for ceiling and walls. She said she was going to send me something to help with the job.  I thought maybe some nice cookies or some high-grade licorice. Holy Cow!! She sent a professional cast iron contractors miter saw equipped with 60 tooth carbide tip finish blade….!!!! And this was sent to me by a woman?? Yikes, someone must have told her all the secret carpentry stuff or something. Gads, you don’t suppose she knows the secret handshake too??? This is a super high-grade woman for sure!!!

Here it is after I mounted it on a plank and made a table for the boards to sit while I cut them to length. It is important to get them near perfect square cut and this saw does great job. It is better saw then I am a carpenter.

I had to trim the excess foam from the surface of the bottom of the rafters. I used a Sawsall and that made it very easy to do. I leveled off the top of the peak of the ceiling.

First board is up.

After about a thousand trips up and down the ladder I finally got the ceiling done. I like the visual ‘texture’ the blue pine gives, which I think is much nicer than plain knotty pine boards. I am tired and sore from working overhead and well, just working!!!

I made a deal with the neighbor to bring in his cows and calves to eat my grass. I haven’t grazed the property in several years and there is a lot of grass that I am sure the cows will enjoy as they are almost out of feed over there. This should help on the fire danger too. These fields of dry grass can really take off and do a lot of damage. There have been several grass fires already this year. I got out some of my fiberglass posts and popped them in the ground around camp, attached the spring clips that hold the wire at about knee height and strung up a poly wire (this has nine strands of stainless steel wire woven into it) and hooked up my old fence charger. That old fence charger when it was new used to put out 7,000 volts of juice but for only 0.003 seconds. I can tell you from experience that that is long enough to get your ATTENTION!!! Man that baby HURTS. I am not sure if it is putting out that much anymore but when I dropped the gate wire on the ground, the SNAP, SNAP, SNAP sure sounds like I wouldn’t want to test it. That should keep the cows from moving into my new dog house while I am not looking.

This is snip from todays article by George Ure on his http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm blog/webpage. It hits a lot of buttons for me and maybe you too? Rx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lessons from Jericho

An email from a colleague, who's been watching the TV series Jericho (I don't have time for such, but the episode summaries are here) offers this sobering forecast:

"When an abrupt climate/pole shift strikes simultaneously between 2010-2015 (best bet 2011-2012), it won't really matter. Any way you slice it, high tech is toast, along with all the rest of civilization's associated trappings.

At least as far back as 1900 era technology the best I could project and only then if we're very lucky and events do not transpire as Kunstler predicts in 'The Long Emergency' or even worse along the lines of Chew's 'The Recurring Dark Ages." Should that occur, no one knows how far down the collapse of civilization and ensuing chaos will descend.

That, in the end, is the objective lesson of Jericho. Not certain if CBS intended it that way, but......"

The piece last weekend in the NY Times ("Duck and Cover: It's the New Survivalism", in which a Dallas-area exec and US reader was interviewed, has, in my view, missed the point.

At the risk of sounding a little too woo woo, some of those of us who have fled the big cities and the corporate treadmill are doing so because we see that the problems brought to our attention during the Hippies 1.0 period (in the 1960's and 1970's) have not been solved, and if anything, they are now likely to arrive with no mercy for the lazy.

When we notice the increased frequency of terms like "shortage" in the news, or we read how "Food riots could spread, UN chief warns", or how another $50-billion is being pushed into the banking system, the question pops up: Is it correct to label people who are actively constructing work-arounds to keep their own lives independent and free as "survivalists"?

True, a person with a few acres, a well with a hand pump, and a garden or greenhouse and a way to survive heat and cold without relying on Hugo Chavez's country sending us oil might indeed  may have higher odds of survival when TSHTF, but "Survivalism" has been morphed by the mainstream into a pejorative term.  It's not a compliment.

If you ever do decide to click out of the HOV lane life and get back to the country, which is closer to a Hippy 2.0 lifestyle, consider doing so under a different banner to ensure you don't become the target of ridicule.

Farmer NOT Hippy 2.0 or Survivalist

The way to avoid the labeling as a 'survivalist' is to actually do something in agriculture which make you a 'farmer'.  With headlines like "Rice shortage may continue until August" and "When wheat shortage hurts bakers, it hurts everyone" being a "farmer" will no doubt be a much more acceptable label going forward than being a "survivalist."

I bet if you were to ask someone "What is a survivalist?" they'd answer with things like "People who store guns, food, medicines, and what have you and expect the world to end."

On the other hand, if youi were to ask "What is a farmer?" the answer might be "Oh, they're people that grow some crop or raise some animals, I guess."  But, upon closer inspection, you'd find that most farmers and ranchers have a gun (or three) to keep down the local populations of rats, coyotes, and other vermin, and they're also know for canning and storing foods.  Independent in thought and deed in the main, too.

Yet MainStreamMedia doesn't attack farmers with the same vigor that survivalists are cast and paranoid people who worry about the theft of the Constitution and other such issues, widely trivialized.  Nope.  Farmers are level-headed, common sense endowed people.

There are some who call it the "Modern Patriot Movement" but again, seems to me like that's way to easily spun into something pejorative.  But to me, it sounds confrontational.  There would be little cognitive dissonance in a hypothetical headline like "Homeland Security surrounds Modern Patriot leaders..."  but a hypothetical headline like "Homeland Security surrounds group of farmers..."  has a much different feel to it and would be harder to spin.

Our on small scale agricultural operation here in East Texas is being converted from tree farm to raising registered Boer goats.  There herd is now 10-animals, but the way goat procreate, we will be up to production levels within 2-years.  Why goats?  They're easy to raise, eat all kinds of brush and can turn even wild/overgrown property into a golf course-like setting.

More important, however, is the idea that as the shortages of grains continue to increase, I've written for Peoplenomics.com subscribers about how the "Coming Protein Shortage" in future years is really an opportunity for someone with a longer view of history.

You may not read the Seattle PI, but there's a story in there this morning about how with the collapse of Pacific salmon stocks and the fishing agreement reached earlier this week, how wild salmon is already being sold for $30 a pound  by the legendary Pike Place Market fish mongers, and there's speculation that salmon prices could go to $40 a pound or even more!

If you ever get on the topic among your friends, before opening your mouth about wanting to have stored food, a gun for personal protection, copy of the Constitution, and a good source of water, consider that there are three groups that could loosely be defined this way.

·         FEMA, which stores food and water, but seizes guns (as we saw in the KatRita episode)

·         "Survivalists" which 'don't get no respect' (even though they will likely be right in the long term)

·         Farmers who are the salt of the earth, hard working, common sense-filled backbone of the country.

Not a particularly difficult choice, is it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~