Gummiente's Blog!

[Gummiente]

For a last ride of the season, it went pretty well. It was still snowing (!) and 1C when we left at 10:30am but the roads, although wet, weren't slick. We headed in the direction of the Husky Restaurant about halfway to our destination for brekkie, taking the quiet secondary highways to get there.

Had a close call along the way with a fisher, a small but vicious member of the weasel family. He came barreling out of the weeds from the left ditch and ran across the road, then turned and ran along the shoulder towards us before suddenly making a dash back to the left ditch - right in front of me! Angie said it was really close and the fisher took off like a rocket after I passed by him.

We made it to the restaurant without any other incidents and had a nice brekkie before heading out for the final destination. Rode through the city of Kingston, getting many surprised looks from the cagers, and stopped for one last fillup at the Sunoco before arriving at Motosport Plus. Our bikes were ushered into the warmth of the service dept and after a quick paperwork session we were done.

My parents showed up on cue a few minutes later and gave us a ride home, after which we all walked downtown and watched the local Santa Claus parade. It helped take my mind off the fact that my beloved Bluebird is hibernating, but as I type this the remorse is already setting in. Long range forecast has changed... again... and now they're calling for sunny skies and temps in the 8C range for the whole week. Sigh. Typical.

Anyway, the Ural has now been bumped up to "A" bike status and we're waiting for the first heavy snowfall to arrive. Bring on the winter!

[Gummiente]

Last night at a little after 6:30 pm, I bundled my lovely Angie into the sidecar of the Ural, plugged in her electric vest and wrapped a blanket around her legs and headed out to view all the Xmas lights displays on local homes and businesses...


This was HER request, btw... normally we do this in the car but this year she wanted to go in the Ural instead. She said it would be way more fun... and it was! We cruised through the streets of Gananoque, stopping every now and then to get a better look at some of the more elaborate displays. A lot of homes were decorated, many more than last year, but obviously everyone had bought their lights and lawn ornaments from the same store... this year's theme seemed to be reindeers made from little white lights surrounding huge inflatable clear domes with Santa inside. These domes have some kind of blower in them that tosses bits of white confetti around to make it look like it's snowing inside. Very neat, but after the elevety-hundredth time we saw one it was starting to get boring. Angie was toasty warm and quite willing to keep going, so we headed off into the country to see what the rural Xmas scene looked like.

More white reindeer lights and Santa domes. Boring.

Until we passed by one particular farm. I could not believe how many lights they had strung up and I just had to get a picture of it. Unfortunately, my night photography skills are not all that great and even though I took several shots none of them turned out as well as I'd hoped. But this one will at least give you an idea of what it looked like - keep in mind this photo was taken from the roadside, the house was approx 200m away...


They even had their friggin' motorhome parked in the driveway and covered with lights!

We carried on into the village of Lansdowne and motored about there for a bit and although most of the homes were decorated, a lot of it was the same old reindeer light/inflatable Santa dome theme. We stopped at the Rapid Valley restaurant at the intersection of Reynolds Road and HWY2 on our way back for some hot chocolate and a late supper.


The food, as always, was great and it was the perfect compliment to the evening's events. I loaded a very happy Angie back into the sidecar and we rode home, pulling into the garage at 9pm and into the house for a rum and eggnog to cap off the night.

A very Merry Xmas to all!

[blues2cruise]

Wow! What a fun evening. Lucky you.

[Gummiente]

Angie and I opened our presents this morning, as we'll be off to her mom's place later today to spend Xmas Eve and Xmas morning there. We're heading back Xmas Day to have supper with my Mom and Dad, and didn't want to haul all the gifts there and back. Besides, we're taking her car and there's not much room for Hector to begin with.

Anyway, I got some cool gifts like a propane heater for the garage and a Bell all-weather full face helmet (the kind that opens from the front), lots of imported beer, some Jack Daniels, a new tire for the Ural, a prepaid ticket for the January Toronto Bike Show and a gift certificate for the local Harley dealer.

Angie was quite happy with her haul of CD's, chocolate, wine and such, but she was MOST pleased with her engagement ring. Yep, I proposed to her in front of the Xmas tree and she said yes!

Merry Xmas to all!

[roscowgo]

congrats and merry christmas

[dr_bar]

And a Merry Christmas to you too Gummi. Congrats on getting the ask answered....

[High_Side]

Congrats Gummy! You're sure that she doesn't just want you for the Ural????

[Gummiente]

Finally, after much rain and above-normal temps we got our first snowfall of the season. Of course, I had to take advantage of the occasion and took Hector in the Ural for a romp through it. Ride report and pics can be viewed here.

[Wrider]

That settles it, I need a Ural with a sidecar... lol Because of our stupid snowstorms here in CO, I haven't been able to ride in about 3 weeks... Grrr
Interested in selling by chance?
Wrider

[Gummiente]

It had warmed up to 7C under partly cloudy skies when Hector and I left at 11am this morning and, although it was still pretty windy out, it made for good riding weather. We stayed off the pavement for the most part, taking the country roads to Hector's favourite "chase the ball" spot and we spent about 1/2 hour just wandering through the fields and playing fetch the ball. Then we carried on down the road into banjo country, keeping the speed at around 50kmh because of the slippery conditions. The roads were a mixture of half-frozen salted ice from the rains, deep mud and a sand covered top with frozen gravel underneath. When the bike rolled past the 23,000km mark I starting looking for a spot to take a self-photo to commemorate the event and the ride. Found one a couple hundred metres later and pulled the Ural off into the weeds to set up the camera. The only suitable spot to place it was in the crook of a tree across the muddy road, so I had Hector sit patiently in position while I turned on the camera, set the timer and hauled butt back to the Ural. But it wasn't going to be that simple. After three failed attempts I realised the camera was shutting itself down due to weak batteries before it could take the pic. I rummaged around in the trunk of the Ural, but there were no fresh ones to be found so I was out of luck. Sort of. The camera had warmed up in my hands by now and would stay on long enough to take a photo before shutting down, so I was back in business. The routine for the next five minutes was; set the timer, place the camera, haul "O Ring" back to the rig, pose, wander back to the camera, review the pic, curse out loud, reset the camera and start all over again. The first attempt was a failure, as I watched helplessly from across the road as the camera fell out of the tree and recorded its fall...


Strike two on the second try, as I'd forgotten to set the timer and didn't realise the photo had been taken until after the hustle back and forth across the road...


By now I had worked up a sweat from all the running about and forgot to turn off the flash for the third attempt. I was too tired to care and Hector was getting restless from patiently sitting all this time, so I wrapped up the photo shoot and headed for home...