Orcas Island, Washington

Oh joy!!! The joys of eating FRESH crab straight out of the ocean, thrown in the pot and devoured all within 3 hours! We went to a friend's house over on Orcas Island, which is part of the San Juan Islands, and helped bring up the crab pots. Well, Karl and Larry did. Vickie and I watched from the comfort of the porch. Going over there is a unique trip for sure. We had to leave Ferndale at 8:30am and drive to Anacortes to catch the ferry at 10am. It's a 90 minute trip with stops at two other islands and we arrived around 11:30am. Meeting our friends at a restaurant we enjoyed a great lunch then off to their cabin to enjoy a warm and relaxing day. Karl and Larry changed clothes and off they went to boat out to the traps. They only pulled up two traps, but they did end up catching 18 nice crabs. There is nothing like fresh crab meat! We had a great dinner then changing clothes back on the bike at 6:15pm to drive the 30 minutes to catch the 7:00pm ferry back to Anacortes. We get there around 6:50 only to be informed that the ferry is running about 45 minutes late! It wasn't too bad waiting because one of the islands finest stopped and since he noticed that we were part of the Blue Knights talked with us for most of the time. Finally the ferry arrived one hour late and we were boarded, on our way to Anacortes. Unfortunately since it was late we didn't get back to the farm until 10pm. That made for a long day, but it was worth it when we were able to bring back 14 crabs for freezing. We will be eating crab well into the winter. Woo-hoo!!!

We are starting to wrap up the work at the farm and getting ready to leave for New Mexico on the 5th. It will take us about 2.5 days to drive and then we will be planted for the next two months. In November we will be moving the motorhome down to Phoenix so that we can be at Karl's son-in-law's graduation from the University of Phoenix and I can attend Christie's baby shower. After than we will leave the motorhome there and drive my car to California for the last two months of the year.

Karl's Aunt Myrne has decided to finally sell the farm (Thank you Lord) so we are slowly clearing out the house with things that she wants family members to have. To some people that sounds really odd, but if you think about it it is a great way for his aunt to give things to whom she wants while she's alive and no one can argue what belongs to them when she's gone. A great way to stop any fights that could erupt upon a person's death. The farm will probably go up for sale in November when Karl comes back for a few days. Hopefully it will sell quick, but not too quick, because there is still a whole lot of junk that has to be taken care of.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Our next adventure took us to Calgary in Canada. We met our motorcycle group from Sacramento in Yakima, WA and started on the road to the Blue Knights West Coast Conference that was being held in Canada. Since we were already in WA we decided to ride the 4.5 hours to Yakima on the 11th and spend the night at Karl's former Lt. from Topponish, WA (where Karl was Chief of Police) and who is now the deputy chief of Yakima. On the 12th we met up with our group at lunch and started on our trip.

Mike Martin is a fantastic ride leader/coordinator and he put together a great ride up to Calgary. Never in a straight line from point A to point B because we love to meander. He always finds great places to ride to, through, by, near, etc. This time we were able to ride through Jasper National Park and Banff National Park both of which are in Alberta, Canada.

As we entered Jasper Park we were greeted by Mt. Robson. What a great backdrop for a picture of our motorcycles on the road. We tried to find wildlife whenever we were in a park, but didn't have a great deal of luck. EXCEPT when we were driving along and spotted a young male elk grazing along the roadside in Jasper. We stopped the bikes and were able to snap pictures of him. Then he decided that the grass was better on the other side and slowly walked right behind our bike! At first I thought he was going to come a lot closer to us, but he changed directions at the last minute.

When we arrived in the town of Jasper for lunch we discovered that they were having a rodeo that weekend and the RCMP were escorting the rodeo queen through town on horseback. I love a man in uniform!!! The town was very crowded, but it was fun looking at the shops and having a great lunch at a Greek/American restaurant.

Our next adventure was going through Banff National Park. What an awesome place. If you ever get up there you will see scenes that will blow your mind! It seems that every bend in the road provided us with another fantastic photo opportunity. Glacier capped mountains, gorgeous mountain streams, turquoise waters, waterfalls at the edge of the road, etc. Unfortunately no wildlife was spotted by our group. We stayed in the town of Banff and had a great soup and salad dinner at the edge of town.

We arrived in Calgary on the 16th for the beginning of our conference and stayed right downtown. Not a real great place for a motorcycle conference, but we worked it out. It was a great time to see those that we haven't seen in a year and meet new members. Calgary will be another place we go back to see things that we didn't have time for this trip. During the conference the host chapter always puts on trips around the area for us to ride to. This time we rode about 90 miles to the town of Drumheller where they have a great dinosaur museum. The town really plays this up because they have found a lot of fossils in the area and have them on display. The museum was a great place and we got to see some pretty complete fossils. If you take a good look at this picture you can see why I couldn't pass up snapping it!!!! Mmmmm--tastes like chicken!

We are now back at the farm until the 5th of September when we will leave for New Mexico and stay rooted until the first part of November.

Louisville, Kentucky - Part 3

Ok gentlemen, here it is! Our last day to tour we were up early and took a 120 mile trip to Bowling Green to view the National Corvette Museum. What a treat. You may want to take a look at the pictures in the photo album because I will be referring to them alot since those are the only notes I took! I was having too much fun looking and snapping pictures to write any thing down. The factory is right across the street, but we didn't take a tour there.

Anyway, when you first walk into the museum you are greeted by the "Nursery" as seen in pictures 3, 4 and 22. The Nursery is where your car is delivered from the factory to await your arrival. When you order your car you can ask for the R8C option. That entitles you to have your car waiting for you at the nursery along with a VIP tour of the factory, museum and hands on delivery from the staff. There were six "babies" waiting and while we were looking at them all a new delivery was pulled in and parked.

When we went into the museum itself there was a picture of the first Corvette symbol on display, picture 12 (sorry that it's so blurry). But you will notice the difference between that one and the others that I have pictured. The reason for the difference is when Chevy was going to put on the symbol with the US flag (just hours from releasing the first model) they found out that you couldn't display the flag on a commercial product. So they frantically changed the symbol to show the Fleur-de-Lis and quickly put that on. You can see how the symbol has changed over the years.

They had the first car produced (1953) in the museum. At that time, if you ordered the car you could have any color you wanted (as long as it was white) and the interior was also your choice (as long as it was red). It really showed a person's individuality.

We walked through the building and came to the rotunda part that had a model for almost every year made. There was one very interesting car (pictures 17-19) with quite a unique story. During 1983 the factory was planning to move so they only made 43 cars with the year of 1983. the rest were considered 1984's even though they were still made in 1983. Of the original 43 1983's this one is the only one left! So it was a unique thing to see. There was also a special painted car in honor of the POW-MIA's of 4th Allied POW Wing.

Over all it was a great tour and well worth the trip down the road. I wish we had more time to spend in Louiville because we would have loved to have visited the American Printing House for The Blind, General Patton's Musuem, Lexington and so many other places. I guess we will have to go back.

Right now, as I write this we are on the motorcycle traveling up to Calgary, Canada for a Blue Knight West Coast Conference. It seems like, right now, our lives and travels are circled around Blue Knight conferences and conventions. At least it does give us the opportunity to see places that we probably would have passed by (like Louisville). Until next blog have a great day and stay posted!

Louisville, Kentucky - Part 2

First of all, to Tom, Judy and Geri, thank you for your kind comments. It's great to know that I have put a smile on your face.


The next morning we woke up to a very, very soggy day. It started raining the night before and continued through the rest of the day. There's nothing sadder than seeing motors sitting out in the rain and no one using them (boo-hoo, sob, sob). Okay, enough of that. We had four wheels and we didn't care what the weather was. So off we go to our next sight-seeing destination - the Louisville Slugger Museum and the Frazier International History Museum. I was really excited to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum because it also included a tour of the factory and I could see how this famous bat was made. Unfortunately picture taking was not allowed in the factory so I will try to remember everything that we saw.


First some interesting facts about the bats made. The trees that are used for bat making need to be older than 80 years old. During just one baseball season there are over 40,000 trees that will be used. In fact, there is a forest that the factory owns that they grow their own trees. Now each tree will yield about 60 bats - that's including bats for professional players and everyone else. When they used to make bats by hand it would take about 20 minutes to carve one using a hand plane and a caliper - measuring the new bat to the old one to get it just right. Now with machinery and a standard template it takes about 30 seconds. Annually, the factory will make about 1.8 million bats. During our tour we saw bats being make for Alex Rodriguez. They told us that each professional player has such specific details on their bats that they can tell just by swinging it if it's make right or not. As we entered the factory you realize just how small the factory is! It's about the size of an average warehouse. Once the bats are carved then they go to the sealing department where they are dipped, by hand, in a special lacquer sealing and hung to dry. After they are dried they get painted (if someone wants a special color, there are nine in all) or they can stay natural colored. The last step is deciding what type of label to put on the bat. You have a choice of burning, embossed or sticker. My son is getting his own personalized bat made for him. Enjoy, Brian.


In the museum you can see bats from Babe Ruth (see picture), Hank Aaron and some older guys (sorry, I couldn't remember their names). Also in the museum they have a display that has you standing behind the catcher as if you are the umpire (but behind a Plexiglas shield) and a pitching machine pitches a ball at you with the speed of a pro player. I don't see how the umps do it! Even though I was behind a shield I dodged every time it was thrown at me. Those things could hurt you real bad!!!!!


Our next stop was a few doors down the street and that was the Frazier International History Museum. Sounds great huh? Well, according to the description in the visitor's guide it says, "A world-class museum that takes visitors on an unforgettable journey through 1,000 years of history; with interactive displays, multi-media presentations & costumed interpreters." Boy, that sounds great! Now, Karl said he doesn't read my blogs because he trusts me in giving you the information of what we saw (sure that is a good idea, Karl?). Well, this museum was great for the men, "Wow, look at that! What a neat thing!), but really boring for the women, "Okay, I've seen a couple dozen of the same things, can we leave now?" The museum is a collection of weapons from the medieval days to the present. I mean you can only see guns, knives and swords for so long then they all look the same. Sorry, guys, but for me I could have been in and out in less than a hour. BUT Karl was really getting into this stuff so we ended up staying about 3 hours (ho-hum). I do have to say they do have a rather unique agreement with the Royal Armory of Britain in that they exchange between each other. So we saw a lot of British stuff and I imagine that they have a lot of American stuff over in London. The one thing that was great (for me anyway) was that the museum had the armour of King Henry VIII (when he was young and lean). And it was very interesting to see how they made chain-mail armour - tedious work.


Don't' forget to take a look the the photos on the link to the left of the page.


Next time I think the guys will really enjoy my blog. We went to the National Corvette Museum.