Tuesday, September 06, 2016

September Look Back

School has started up again, so it's time to obey the speed limit signs in the school zones. Summer is done.   Sort of.
 Here's a before photo of the Laverda along with a customer's Harley from back in the days of customers, and the scooter I failed to ride much because my knee felt too unstable.  Going was fun, right turns were OK, but stopping was not fun.  Alas.  Stupid knee.
 And here's the Laverda after, because it's so pretty.

Things have been getting in the way of the camping trip.  He took one failure of a trip on the 250 Ninja, but was miserable the whole time due to heavy rain.  I'm pretty sure that was the last heavy rain of the summer.  Anyway, he gave up and put a sneaky electronic ignition on the B-31.  It doesn't show, so it's sneaky.  He tried so hard and spent lots of money trying to get the original magneto and whatnot to behave reliably, but gave up.  Armature was one of the words he kept using.  I couldn't keep track.  Anyway, as soon as he's gotten a root canal (that's a tooth thing) and a club ride and the wedding of friends, he'll be ready to take the B-31 on a camping trip to Mt. Lassen.

Meanwhile, I get to see a very odd classical music production involving a local composer,  poetry,  small groups, singing, ballerinas, and the daughter playing viola.
We went for a lovely drive in the '57 Chevy for Labor Day.  He likes to tease me that I'll have to drive it.  I have, and I can, but I prefer not.  A road was closed so we followed a gravel detour that meandered between a hillside and a stream with logging on the left and farming on the right.
As you can see the sky was beautiful.  We guessed all sorts of things for the orchard, but couldn't really come up with anything.  Nut?  Fruit? Maybe one of those.
 Here's another old photo when he was still working on other people's bikes.  This is a ground up restoration of an old BMW.  It was almost as pretty as the Laverda when he was through.  I think the shirt came from Chicago, and this is the only time he wore it. 
 
This pretty sky photo has a stunt plane doing loops and other scary stunt plane tricks at the local airport.  The pilots went up one at a time and did a rehearsed routine.  They were all very nice and happy to answer any questions.  The weather was perfect for plane watching and since it was more of a competition than a spectator event, there was no admission and no crowds. 

We enjoy our quiet and calm valley.  Football season will come and things will get wilder.