Cycling in the Clouds

Where did last year go?

2011-12-24T13:39:00.001-07:00

Wow, I just looked at this blog and realized I haven’t written anything since that bad experience at the hotel. A Year ago! The good news is I don't get paid by the word. The bad news is I don't get paid at all... Well much has happened since then.

Because of my son, Johnny, going to Kaohsiung American School with different winter holidays and the price of airline tickets skyrocketing, we stayed in Taiwan for the holidays. Christmas was in Taiwan as usual and for a change we celebrated Chinese New Year there also.

I took another bike ride up Ali Shan (Ali Mountain), this time making it to the top. I started the first day with Gary Sampson, an American living in Kaohsiung. He was training for a race so I slowly took him way out of town before I needed a nap and he was then able to race back home. My second and third days were all uphill and I learned that I never wanted to see another mountain again. I took half a day looking for an alternate way home knowing that there were a couple uphill stretches on the way “down” but ended up having to ride to the bottom of the hill where my wife picked me up.

In May we started packing to come back to Arizona “for good” and started exploring ways to best ship everything. Our conclusion was that there was no best way. Too many company moves or military moves kept us move-yourself type people out of the market. As I really only had three pieces of furniture I wanted to keep, we left it all there. Then there was the dilemma of personal stuff. What did we really need? How would we ship it? The post office turned out to be the cheapest as far as shippers, but as we had upgraded our flight to business class we got a greater luggage allowance. We ended up taking five extra bags, and with shifting contents and repacking we ended up only paying for three. Hsien-Ling is a hard bargainer. There is still some stuff I want to bring back but that will have to wait until a vacation.

Back in Bullhead I started back to work, catching up on all the things I had put off over 15 years since I was only here a short time each time. So many things at the house needed to be fixed and we are working through them. New curtains, blinds and valances along with a built-in entertainment center/curio cabinet. New refrigerator, new shower (twice, don’t ask). New canopy cover for the patio. New (used) truck. New gate at the airport which meant fix the backhoe water truck, steel wheel roller and tack-oil sprayer as well as rejuvenate the grader, rubber-tire roller and compressor. The airplane was just finishing up its annual and needed new baffles, it had to be something. No problems with the boat though, we don’t have one… At the storage yard both golf carts and the Ranger needed to be worked on. Slowly I thought I was getting caught up but am now buying out my partner at the airport. Now all the headaches, and debt service, are mine. How special.

Christmas is here and we have a tree and lights on the house. I know, I have had lights on the house for 15 years, but they never worked, we were never here, and they only faced my brother’s house next door. His house wasn’t there when I put them up.

But life is good, with friends and family around, we have work (paying work would be nice) and we have our health, such as it is: getting old is not for wusses. This year we had three friends pass away, one from old age catching up to him, and two at the Reno Air Race. We will miss them terribly. I have another friend in the hospital with bladder cancer and we are hoping for his recovery.

The new year will bring many new adventures and challenges, making life the wonderful event that it is.

Crowne Plaza, Kaohsiung, E Da World

2010-12-19T07:40:00.001-07:00

My son John is attending Kaohsiung American and as a parent we were invited to attend AmCham’s (American Chamber of Commerce) first Christmas party in the southern part of the island, Kaohsiung. The site of the gala affair was to be at the Crowne Plaza, Kaohsiung, E Da World, a new hotel boasting a location across from a new luxurious outlet mall, and an amusement park complete with a giant Ferris wheel. The hotel features a pool, of course with a water slide, indoor hot tub with jets, bubbles and the whole nine yards. There is an exercise room with lots of equipment, and a game room for the kids with ping-pong, pool tables and air hockey as well as video games and basketball games.

As a special deal for the evening, rooms were available for those attending the dinner for only NT$3,800/night and included a champagne brunch on Sunday morning. (US$1 = NT$30.6) While it is within commuting distance of our home I convinced my wife that it would be fun and in the Christmas spirit to stay and enjoy the 5 star accommodations.

We arrived early even though we knew that we couldn’t check in until 3 pm. We parked in the parking garage, checked our luggage and hit the pool. The locker room was nice with keyed lockers although no benches to sit on while we got into our suits. The showers and toilets were great, although for a hotel celebrating their grand opening there seemed to already be mold along the lower parts of the wall in the dressing room area. Not to worry. The first thing we were told was that the hot water system was not working. The hot water spas were luke-warm but the pool was only cool. Not to worry it was a sunny day. The spas could have been a little warmer to be comfortable, but not to worry, it was not unbearable.
After the pool we checked out the game room. Johnny challenged me to air hockey which I usually win. In 15 minutes I was trounced 22 to 8. Later when he was playing his mother we found out why: every time
His mother scored they both got a point and every time he scored, he got a point and his mother lost one. Not to worry, we hadn’t bet any money.

Time to check in found us discovering that the price was not $3,800 but was $4,200, and there was no champagne brunch, only a breakfast. Now we are starting to worry. We found our room on the sixth floor facing on the outside, the mall across the street and a beautiful view of the giant Ferris wheel. On the inside was an atrium like area seven stories high. While architecturally interesting, it was only large enough to echo and amplify all the sounds in the hallway. Supposedly this was normally an $11,000/night room.

The room had two large king sized beds, a TV, refrigerator, bathtub and separate shower. There was even a small balcony we could access though it wasn’t big enough for a chair. Internet access was available but for a price: $80 for an hour, $300 for a day, and another option. It is strange that I have stayed in $700/night rooms with free hook-ups.

We dressed for dinner, billed as a black tie affair, with black tie optional. Lucky for me since after being here almost fifteen years I had never even worn my suits so had taken them back to the States. All I could find was a beige sport coat. Yes, I know it is not summer, but as it turned out I was somewhere in the middle of the attire gradient. We got our picture taken as a part of the accommodations and given a picture in a key chain. This was a come-on to buy additional pictures which they produced with varying backgrounds like the Ferris wheel or fireworks, etc.

The dinner was on the eighth floor. We exited the elevator at the doorway to the hall but had to take a circuitous route, outside, to get to another entry door. We found our table at the back of the room and sat with the parents of one of Johnny’s classmates. Also sitting with us for awhile was Carlo and his wife and their son who is in third grade at KAS. Carlo flies 737s for China Airline and we had a great conversation until they switched tables to accommodate a party of six, all teachers.

The dinner itself was pretty plain. While on costing NT$750 it was pretty plain. It was all Chinese food, of course, but according to the Taiwanese at our table, including my wife, it must have been made by a foreign chef because it did not have a true Chinese flavor. The teachers at our table were from Hawaii, Colorado, Oklahoma, I didn’t hear where else, so we had some good conversations. Two had ordered vegetarian meals that they wouldn’t eat. The mushrooms might have been the best part of the meal except the doctor has me off mushrooms at the moment. Personally I thought the pumpkin pie was the highlight of the meal.

After dinner we went back to our room and after a little TV decided to go to sleep. Our neighbors had a different idea. Thus began the night from hell. We turned out the lights at about 11:00 and the neighboring room partied on. We could hear them clearly, talking about the travel agent among other things, and laughing very loudly. To say the walls were paper thin would be an understatement. They were more like sounding boards amplifying the sound. At 12:30 there was no sign of abatement so we Hsien-Ling called the front desk to complain. They said they would take care of it. At 1 am, I called. Again they said they would take care of it. At 1:30 I called and asked to talk to the manager. I told him that if he didn’t take care of it we were checking out. By 1:45 the noise abated. Then we got a call from the manager asking if all was quiet. All but the phone ringing, this could probably be heard by all 8 of the adjoining rooms… I don’t know what time I finally got to sleep but it wasn’t right away.

In the morning we got up. Collected out pictures and went to breakfast. The free breakfast was at the Heat and Chill restaurant and the wait was about one hour. After about 20 minutes they suggested we go upstairs to another restaurant. We did and were in within 5 minutes. Breakfast buffet was mostly Chinese and good enough for anyone to find something they liked.

After breakfast Johnny and I went exploring. We went through the mall to the amusement park. Since it cost $700 per person and we had to check out by noon we decided to come back another day. We later found out that many of the rides were not working yet, a good choice on our part.

On checking out we negotiated with the staff and the manager (the same one who had responded to our complaint at midnight) to no avail. Would we stay there again? Not in this lifetime. Would we recommend it to others? Certainly not to anyone we didn’t hate.

The hotel itself looks beautiful. It is however, similar to a Hollywood set: beautiful on its face with nothing behind it to back it up. Systems didn’t work, meals were merely adequate, services were lacking. Taiwanese seem to be able to copy well what they see, but they only see very superficially. They don’t see what is inside: insulation inside the walls, service that goes with the room, quality of the food they put on the table. If this is an indication of the quality of the finest hotels in Taiwan it will be a long time before they attract high dollar tourists from first world countries.

Cycling in the tropics

2010-09-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

There are some advantages to cycling in the tropics versus other places: there is no snow here and it rarely gets cold, never too cold to ride……… I can’t think of any others.

The humidity is usually up in the upper half of the scale and this has differing effects. I have a Brooks leather saddle and had Brooks leather bar tape. Those “in the know” say to never get the leather seat wet. If it is going to rain, use a plastic seat cover or plastic bag to keep the seat dry. Personally, in the tropics I sweat like a pig. Do pigs really sweat a lot? So if I am riding at all, my seat is wet. This has caused some cracking of the leather in a line in front of the rivets. So far, there has been no mold build-up in the seat in the months the bike is idle while I am out of the country in the summer. This is not the case with the handlebar tape. When I returned in August after being gone for only 6 weeks, the bar tape showed a thin coating of a whitish mold that was easily cleaned off with some no-name leather cream. This got rid of the look, but soon enough after I started riding again the tape started to disintegrate. It came apart like an old rotten cloth. It has since been replaced with a plastic tape.

Another problem with the tape is unrelated to the climate. I have drop bars on my bike and they came with a cork wrap that is spongier and softer than the straight plastic tape or even the leather bar tape. I added to that by putting the leather tape on top of the cork tape. It was much more comfortable this way but had a few problems. Because the bar was already wrapped with cork, it had a larger diameter necessitating more of the leather tape to cover the same linear distance. It would have been nice if the tape had been about a foot or two longer. Also, before we had bar-end shifters, we started wrapping the tape near the stem and finished by rolling it out past the end of the bar and tucking it inthen capping the bar-end. With bar-end shifters and leather tape that is thicker, that process is not available. Now the wrap is started at the bar end and wrapped toward stem. The problem comes when you end the wrap. Since the tape itself only has a small strip of double stick tape on the back, the end needs to have another piece of tape wrap around the end to keep it from unraveling. This is something that we would have considered unacceptable in the past. This is also not bullet-proof and works better if some other accessory like a GPS, Phone holder, or bell is also clamped around it.

Another problem of the tropics depends on what your bike is made of. I have never heard of carbon fiber rusting like CroMoly steel does, but aluminum will oxidize also. Any scratch harming the integrity of the paint seal subjects the frame to the possibility of rust. My Surly LHT is only two and a half years old yet has a few spots that would take years in another environment. There are a few different applications for rust proofing the inside of a bike. The need of this practice is debated in many forums, but seeing how quickly the outside of my bike started to rust makes me think that were I to remain here I would definitely do it to mine. In Arizona where I live my other life, the air is dry and exposed steel takes a long time to get the rust we get here in southern Taiwan overnight.

Lights are not affected by the humidity as much as by the rain that can happen in any environment. My tail light/turn indicator will sometimes change modes in the rain as well as render itself unable to be turned off.

One advantage to rain in the tropics is that usually the temperature stays warm. Wearing rain gear won’t keep you dry as your sweat will equal the rain. The only time I would wear a raincoat in the rain is as a windbreaker or in a typhoon. I just finished a tem day tour of Taiwan during which I saw zero rain. I even slipped in to my home city the only dry afternoon in a week before and a week after, including a typhoon. We were praying for a little relief rain but only got humidity.

New Parts

Last spring I bought a Pletscher two legged kickstand from someone on the Surly bike forum. I installed it late this summer on my return to Taiwan. There was a lot of discussion for and against this model and kickstands in general. Some complain that there should be a kickstand plate built into the bike, some say it should never have a kickstand and every degree in between. Mine, I believe, came with an extra adapter that helped avoid crushing the chain stays when clamping on the stand. I put it on and had no problems other than it was too long. While visiting my friend the Giant Bike Shop owner, we took it off and cut it to a more manageable length and now it works great. Oh, I did have to change one more thing: When I clamped it I managed to clamp the rear derailleur cable as well. It doesn’t shift as well that way….. I fixed that and now it’s fine. On my ten day trip I used it probably 95% of the time I parked it. Front wheel flop needs to be addressed, but it is easier to find something to control that than to find something to lean the bike against. It also makes a fairly good repair stand for working on the back wheel. The only problem is that the left peddle hits the stand on the way around. It will go past, but it still hits it harder than I would like. Maybe an adjustment would fix it.

John's future Bed and Breakfast

2010-03-25T19:31:00.009-07:00

I was introduced to John and Shelly Lamorie by David LaBolle after we cycled out to their house in LeeGang on Tuesday. John has a cram school in LeeGang but has a house on a good sized plot in the country near-by. David and I helped him set up a horse-shoe pit in preparation for a tour group to come on Thursday.

John has built everything on the property, from a lake with a couple of piers, to a schoolhouse with a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom. They are in the process of building a Gazebo type structure that will have a kitchen for making pizza. Eventually he will have cabins for overnight stays.

David took me out on a convoluted route that I would have no chance of remembering, but he also gave me the route on Google maps and showed me how to make my own. I took the details of where I was going and where my house is and made my own route. Next time I will take it a step farther and print it out. I rode out again on Thursday to help out with the tour, and it took me an hour and a half to go 25K to get there. Don’t ever stop at a Police Station to ask directions. In YenPu I couldn’t find the street where I was supposed to turn so rode around awhile before stopping to ask directions. They sent me in the opposite direction, told me to go 300 meters, turn right; go 600 meters and the elementary school would be on my left where I should turn right again. When I got to the Elementary school, it was on my right and there was no place to turn right. Remembering that I had been on the road before, I went back to the Police Department and turned left (opposite the way they sent me) and rode off in the correct direction. My memory of where to make my next right turn was a bit off, and I made a few early turns, taking the “scenic route” before I finally found my way to where I was going.

I arrived too late for French toast, but before the tour arrived. When they did arrive,
they had a brief orientation
and then broke into groups to see what was going on. The buildings are built with a brick and plaster system made of cement, water and newspaper. It is strong and very very light.

One group went to watch the making of bricks, one went fishing,
one went on raft rides,
and one group learned how to play horse-shoes. I was at the horse-shoe pit. Everyone had a try with four tosses and all realized two things: horse-shoes are heavier than they look, and getting a ringer, or even a point, is harder than it looks. But it seemed that they all had fun.

After they left John made omelets that were just delicious, maybe more so since I had missed the French toast. When lunch was over I headed back with a little help on the initial route back to YenPu. It took me 40 minutes and 15K to get home, amazing what you can do when you know where you are going. I pushed it little, and on Friday my legs suffered for it. No pain no gain some say, preferably I like no pain no pain.

Taipei Bike Show

2010-03-25T18:10:00.005-07:00

Taipei hosted the annual bike show last week and this year I attended. Like a kid in a candy store, not so much for the bikes, there are just so many and one can only ride a few. So many choices, so little money.

But the accessories, now, one can never can have enough. Along with the bikes there was everything imaginable one could put on the bike as well: racks, bags, lights, mirrors, better brakes, better cranks, better everything. Twenty or more ways to change every aspect of your bike. Gosh, what to buy?

I went first to the Surly display, being a Surly rider and all, met Tom Krueger, and got to see most of what Surly had to offer. They had the Long Haul Trucker (my ride), Salsa Pistola and La Cruz, Pugsley, Steamroller, Crosscheck, Pacer, and I will have to look at my pictures to see what else, I have slept since then. But no Big Dummy (not me, the bike).

There were a million different kinds of wheels hubs and spokes making at least a trillion different combinations, especially when you add on the different tire choices. I wanted a Son 28 Dynohub, they retail for over US$200, but didn’t find the company there. I did find a Sanyo hub and found that it wholesaled for about US$25, but talked the rep into selling me one for NT$500, the equivalent of about US$15. So as much as I wanted a Son, guess which one I am going to use. It even came with a light so now I can put off buying the other two I wanted.

I did pick up a tail light with wireless control turn signals. I already had a brake light….. I also met the owner of Cool Stop brake pads, Gene Smith, and picked up a set of pads. It turns out we lived in near-by cities in California, both in northern and in southern California. Small world it is. I saw several different double legged kickstands, which would be good while touring with a load but didn’t see Pletscher’s and the others were nothing to get excited about.

But then, as much as I like Surlys, I may be convinced to buy a Fuji, I would first have to make sure they are accessorized…….

The Aftermath

2009-11-27T06:34:00.003-07:00

I have lived in Arizona for 35 years and Taiwan for 12, if one can live in two places at the same time. In Arizona we have two to four inches of rain per year, usually all at once, maybe two years worth at a time. I have watched flash floods under blue skies begin with little trickles of water and progress to raging torrents.

When I first moved to Bullhead City, we would get three or four road closures a year due to these flash floods. One wash in particular, Silver Creek, carried the water all the way from the mountains around Oatman, several miles away. When the storms would come, several of us would gather at the point Silver Creek crossed Arizona Highway 95 and wait for it. The first time I watched it the road was washed out a few feet deep and of course the road was impassable. Mohave County workers came in and rebuilt the road and poured a concrete apron on the down wash side to keep the road from being washed out.

The second time watched we took a pool as to how long after the water started going over the road the apron would wash out. I don’t remember who won, if we even kept track, or how long it took, but eventually with a roar, the apron tumbled away, and soon after the road followed.

The County again came in and built an apron, this time the down side went almost down to the level of the Colorado River where the wash ended, several hundred yards away from the road. I remember watching this time very vividly. As we waited for the water we had watchers up the wash to tell us when the water was coming. They always started slowly here, not like the instant floods I have read about around the Grand Canyon. The water came and with a gigantic roar the new apron was washed away. Now there is a large box culvert under the road at river level and extensive renovations to the wash upstream. The wash has not run in several years and several of my friends have never seen it run at all. On the downriver side of the wash, between the highway and the river, is a condominium project. I was told that in the beginning of the 20th century, Silver Creek ran so much as to block off the Colorado and force it to change course. Looking at the local geography it is believable.

So I have seen flooding, I thought…

In Taiwan I saw wide rivers with meandering streams. I thought I was smart, knowing that once in awhile a lot of water flowed between the banks.

Typhoon Morakot came to southern Taiwan while I was in Bullhead City in August of 2009. Rivers flooded, bridges were washed out and villages were covered over by mudslides. Many people died. In my bike riding since returning I have crossed bridges and seen the trees that were brought down in the flooding caused by the Typhoon. I have taken detours because of bridges being washed out. Tuesday I took a ride along the riverbank of the KaoPing River.

I had no particular destination or route planned when I started out in the morning so I made my way to the old railway bridge near the KaoPing (car) Bridge. There I found the area had been improved on the old tracks with several abandoned cars on tracks and graveled roadbed.

The bridge was blocked off

Wooden walkway along side the cars

It was great for walking but not compacted well for biking.

The old railway bridge

Below was what had once been a restaurant that we never found open that now did not even pretend.

Used to be a restaurant here

From there I went to ride up the road along the river on the levee road.

Ooops, it was gone.

Before it had been a good dirt road; now it was four inches of loose silt. I followed it to a new park on the “high/dry” side of the levy. It had a bike path and a mock bridge make from a section of the abandoned railway bridge.

Mock Bridge

There were also several sections that had not fared as well in the removal from the riverbed. There used to be a canal diverted from the main stream that went to a large preserve that presumably was to clean the water and provide a sanctuary for birds.

Santuary, or what is left of it.

What is left of the canal

That was then.

After the park, there was a bridge over the canal back to the riverbank, and there the road ended. There are still several dirt tracks that are used by the trucks going to salvage the trees that washed down the river. The river is divided into different parts. The width between the banks is at some points about a half mile. One third to one half of that is the main channel in which there is usually only a meandering stream. The other part is raised and used to be farmed. During the typhoon, not only did the farmed land get inundated, but the banks were breached increasing the width by fifty percent in some places. And even at the widest parts, the remains are covered with the dead forest carried down by the waters.

The "high/dry" side of the river is on the right of this canal, the river is on the left

This is looking at the river side

Occasionally amidst the debris one can see a banana tree springing up, or a half buried shrine to the god of the land.

Huts that were used by the farmers were half filled or removed altogether. This Sunday I will be taking a ride one of the tributaries that feed this river. Hopefully I will be able to get pictures of where the debris came from.

Temporary Spoke Repairs

2009-10-06T03:03:00.004-07:00

A friend, ZhiSheng, invited me on a bike tour of Taiwan in early 2008. They needed a fourth to share the hotel expenses. I was riding a Peugeot that I had purchased in College in probably 1970. I had taken a five day tour then so certainly the bike and I could do it again.

About fifty miles down the road I broke a couple of spokes. They weren’t just any old spokes; they were the spokes next to the gear sprocket (“freewheel”) on the back wheel. In order to replace these without removing the “freewheel”, ZhiSheng took a longer spoke, cut off the curved tip, bent it into a Z shape (two ninety degree bends) and slipped it into the hole next to the “freewheel”. ZhiSheng, I forgot to mention, has the local Giant bike shop in ChangJhih where I live during the school year.

The trick is to get the new spoke the proper length. The first bend on the new spoke must be at about the same distance from the thread end as the bend on the correct sized spoke. The second bend needs to give just enough room to go through the hub. The remaining distance needs to be short enough so the spoke will point in the correct direction, although it can bend sideways a little. See the photos.

The spoke does not pull out, as it is stiff enough to hold its shape under the tension. I was surprised, but we did it several times before the trip was over. As it turns out, the holes on the hub that the spokes went into were cracked and as I rode, they wore out any spoke we put into it. I finally got a new hub in Taipei and the problem was solved.

below is a picture of the tools I carry with me in my saddlebag.

The Shining

2009-10-02T05:28:00.003-07:00

My friend, John Cowgil, has a Cessna 140 that is polished aluminum. That is to say, the fuselage is polished aluminum; the wings are fabric and silver coated. The fuselage, somewhat smaller than mine, shines like a mirror, and unfortunately, sets the standard at our airpark, A20. Thanks a lot, John.

Having purchased an unpainted (I say unpainted as it had not been polished in years) it was up to me to bring it up to the airport standard. When I purchased the airplane about three years ago, I spent about three weeks experimenting with different polishes and polishers in search of the magic potion that would bring my dull metal to a mirror finish with the least amount of work. I tried big orbital buffers and small orbital buffers. I tried about six different miracle polishes, all to no avail.

Finally I stumbled upon “Top of the Line”, a system using three different grits of polish and a sealant, along with a twin rotor buffer with three different types of pads. This provided the polishing goal, but nowhere near the “least amount of work”. At the end of my first foray into restoration of the shine, the plane showed a remarkable improvement, but when compared with John’s 140, it didn’t reach the bar. Thanks a lot, John.

This year, as I hadn’t sealed the aluminum in three years, the oxidation was starting to come back. Hsien-Ling and Johnny had to go back to Taiwan at the end of September so Johnny could start fourth grade but I had to stay an additional four weeks for work purposes. I took advantage of this to again attempt to bring my plane up to standards. It was a chore.

I remember in high school having a ten speed bicycle with aluminum handlebars. Occasionally I would have the handlebar tape removed and when I did my hands would turn black from the aluminum. In polishing the plane I not only tuned my hands black, but my entire body, and the entire hangar floor. I had a stack of 30 terry cloth towels that were blackened and rewashed each day, and the shower floor, well let’s just say I am lucky I cleaned it before I left for Taiwan.

I had come to the conclusion that the belly of the plane was a different kind of aluminum that wouldn’t polish up. Unfortunately, I found some Turtle Wax rubbing compound and a buffing pad for my sidewinder grinder. It polished up, and that meant that now I also had to polish the bottom.

Starting with the tail, I did one side in one day. Step pne was to use a wool pad with the coarsest grit, clean it off, then use a terry pad with the second coarsest grit, clean it off, followed by another terry pad application of the final polishing compound, and clean it off. Then with a sponge pad the polymer sealant is applied and buffed off. The hardest part is the cleaning and buffing between applications. The tail seemed fine until I went back over to John’s. Then I did it again.

Second in line was the trim around the windows and the top of the back of the cockpit. Third were the flaps and ailerons. It would have been nice if I could have removed them as they had areas that could not be reached. Now that I write this I realize that there is an area that is exposed when the flaps are down that was not even touched. Something for me to do in January I guess. Fourth was the bottom of the left wing. Here the oxidation was such that I could wipe it off with my fingers. The application worked great, the only problem was that I had to hold up the buffer against the wing, and it became annoyingly heavy. The wing was also not at the optimum height, too low at the root and too high at the tip. The process was the same, buff on with machine, buff off with a towel. Occasionally friends would stop by to see what I was doing and I have to say that the phrase “wax on wax off” got old real fast. Interestingly enough though, I have several friends who have offered to fly my plane while I am gone to keep the engine clear of rust, none of them offered to help polish.

After the first under wing I had discovered the possibility of polishing the belly so I went there next. At least under the plane I could lie on a creaper and hold the buffer on my stomach. The first pass with the sidewinder and the rubbing compound I did without the creaper and cleaned the floor with the back of my shirt and hair. As I did this I saw that I was running out of material and pads so did the first two passes on the belly and then the first pass on the underside of the right wing. With a delay of a day or two the additional material arrived and I was finally able to finish.

Two things would have made the exercise a lot easier: 1. If I could have removed the flaps and ailerons and polished them on a bench it would have been a lot easier and I would have been able to get the parts obscured by the wings; and 2. If I could have just turned the plane over just for a little while to polish the belly and the underside of the wings…..

All in all, it came out fairly well and I have already received good comments that almost make it worthwhile. Next time I will buy a painted plane.

Vacation in the west by car Part III

2009-08-16T20:36:00.010-07:00

After leaving Michael and Elizabeth Thompson in Salem, we drove to Florence and with only a short backtrack found the right road to John and Phyllis Laird’s home.

They had prepared a wonderful barbecued salmon dinner and I gained back all the weight I had so carefully lost eating at Randy and Margie’s.

My King Salmon, the one I caught (bought).

Tuesday John drove me around the town of Florence, first stopping at the airport. There were no hangars available from the city, but a couple private hangars were for sale somewhere between $35,000 and $45,000. None of the hangars were special, no bathrooms could be installed and no apartments. We looked at a metal one and a wooden one. The land could be rented for putting up a hangar for $0.17/square foot/year. Tie downs were $5/night or $60/month. With all the salt air blowing around an open tie-down would not be a good idea for more than a day.

Next we drove downtown and looked at older looking homes that might be for sale. We were looking for something with character. We looked at a couple commercial buildings, one with docks in the river, but there were no contact phone numbers so we didn’t delve any further. For dinner we went to Abby’s for pizza and met Pam and Juan Reyes from Needles. Not knowing they were going to be there, not having seen them in 13 years, and not having a clue that they had moved up here I didn’t recognize them right them away. They had taken my dog, Zuppa, when I moved to Taiwan. We had a great time and I learned all about all the people I had known in Needles. Hsien-Ling went outside when she finished eating and found a ton of wild blackberries. They tasted great on top of ice cream when we got home.

Wednesday was a big tour day. We started out going to the Sea Lion Caves. This is a giant Sea Lion hang out, one of the largest in the world. We took an elevator down into the cave to see them. There they were, sheltered from the sun, barking away and playing. Birds flew in and out as well.

Next on the tour was the Heceta Head Lighthouse. It is the brightest lighthouse on the west coast. We took a free tour and were able to climb all the way up to just below the light itself. We saw the two oil storage buildings, the gift shop that used t be the stables, and the house that housed the two assistant light keepers. That house is now a bed and breakfast that also hosts weddings and other parties.

At the beach by the lighthouse there was a whole bunch of people sitting on chairs waiting for I don't know what. So I stood before them, thanked them for coming and spoke to them for a few minutes.

Next we went beach combing on Strawberry Hill beach. We saw whales and sea lions in the water, and jellyfish on the beach. We saw lots of driftwood, starfish, crabs, sea anemones, sea urchins, and mussels.

And you have to believe me, we saw whales. We saw little more than their spouting, but we did see them.

After beachcombing we continued to drive north to Yachats where we had dinner. Guess what we had? Seafood. It was great, Ling, Halibut shrimp and cod. They were out of Salmon. The clam chowder was excellent also.

On the way back to the house we stopped to see the golf course. Greens fees were $79 plus $15 for a cart during the week, and another $10 or $15 on the weekends. Oh, and Friday was a weekend also. They did have a special for about $350 where you could play every day for a month. I didn’t check to see if that included weekends as well. It makes Taiwan’s green fees seem reasonable.

On Thursday, our last day of play here, we loafed around then went to the library to use the internet and let me catch up with my e-mail. There was nothing real important except that my mechanic wanted money. No real surprise there as I had talked to him a couple days ago. While I was in the library with John and Johnny, Hsien-Ling went to Safeway to get food for our trip down to Manchester tomorrow.

Back at the house we sat around reading and watching videos. We did get to see two does walking down the street and I did get a few pictures.

Dinner was barbecued chicken with zucchini, onions, mushrooms, potato salad, and string beans. I did pass on the pecan praline ice cream for dissert. My feeble attempt at keeping control.

Friday saw us driving south even though Hsien-Ling swore we were going north. There were lots of nice views and bridges along the way, places that would take days to explore. We stopped in Brooking to look around and talked to Scott Backer who said he would e-mail me info about the airport.

We saw lots of bridges

Sometimes we listened to the GPS and sometimes not, sometimes we didn't know where we were, but so what I always said (to myself).

Into California stopped and drove through a Redwood tree. Hsien-Ling and I had done this once before but when we got to Arcata that time we somehow lost the roll of film when we got out of the car at some view point. This time we had digital!!!

We turned off Highway 101 at Liggett to catch Highway 1 down the coast. What a winding road that is. We even lost reception on the GPS several times as the sides of the canyons got steep. Back on the coast the road wasn’t any straighter and we weaved our way south watching the GPS keep adding time to our arrival estimate. When I thought I was close I tried to call Ken and Carol Hofer but there was no service. Half the time I think it was my phone, the other half I think there was no service. Can you hear me now? WHAT????

North of Arcata we stopped at Trees of Mystery to buy my sister a Redwood Burl. The last time I went through I got her one also but it died. At the time she said she knew what she did wrong and could keep one alive the next time so I got her another one. We also the statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe.

We finally made it,

rested a bit then went farther down the coast to have dinner on a pier, or near it. We had eaten there before. Not much choice in these parts we were told. We ate outside and enjoyed it very much. Carol had a couple other friends join us and we all had a great time. I couldn’t believe it when I found out that they had lived on the coast for over 30 years and Carol didn’t eat fish. She and Johnny were instant friends. They both liked Hawaiian pizzas too.

At the house I gave Ken some Salmon and he gave Hsien-Ling some Abalone. Yum yum. We swapped lies till late at night and finally went to bed with the windows open and enjoyed the cool night air. We wouldn’t be getting any of that when we got back to Bullhead City. In the morning we went to breakfast and started on our way to Napa after promising to get together more often that every 13 years.

The ride to Napa was mostly pleasant, not overly curvy. When we got to Calistoga we called my college classmate, John Montmorency and gave him a heads up on when we would arrive in Napa. He gave us a different route and after starting on that route, and looking at my unimaginative GPS, we took a third route that turned out to be beautiful, but longer and curvier.

But we made it anyway. I had to make about five phone calls for directions once we reached Napa; I guess I should have written down the directions the first time…..

John and Tege were great, as was their daughter, Jessica. We hadn’t seen them in 13 years either. First things first, John had to take me to see his 1941 Beech Staggerwing. What a beauty.

Due to a primer problem we couldn’t take it up but it was a real joy just to look at it. It should be in the air again in a couple weeks. We managed to fill our time with stories of flying at San Jose State College, me in the Flying Aces, John in the Flying 20s. He and my instructor, Dan Dill were best friends and both went on to fly for Flying Tigers and then for FedEx. It was amazing what stories we remembered about our early flying days back in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s.

In the morning John made breakfast for us and we talked some more until Tege had to go work out. She is going to swim a race from Alcatraz to San Francisco so she needed to train. There’s another goal for me, a former swimmer (emphasis on the word former). When she left, so did we, making our way down the central valley, across Tehachapi and eastward till we got home in time for bed.

Vacation in the west by car Part II

2009-08-14T14:08:00.016-07:00

We left Park City on Friday morning for Payette, Idaho. The GPS was programmed to take us through Salt Lake City but we decided to go around the mountain the other way. After telling us to make a u-turn on the freeway, it recalculated and told us to go straight. Randy had e-mailed us thanking us for the few days and giving us directions on where to stop for gas and where to avoid speeding tickets. It proved to be a great help.

However, as we were approaching Idaho there was a sign giving directions to a rocket display and the location where the golden spike was placed in the railroad. We took the 21 mile detour to see them both. The GPS got confused again and kept telling us there were no roads where we were going and finally gave up.

The rocket display was interesting. Many different rocket shells were on display giving one a sense of proportion. Here are a few pictures:

Out in the middle of nowhere we found Promontory Pass where the railroad from the east met the railroad from the west.

Here two replica engines operate daily giving demonstrations. There were also many plaques, brochures and ranger shows to explain the history. It was very interesting and Johnny even got to climb up inside one of the engines while I could only take pictures from the outside. Lucky guy. We bought a few souvenirs, a book, Men to Match My Mountains, by Irving Stone. This book had been recommended to me in high school by my history teacher, Paul Conforti, probably 41 years ago. I don’t like to rush into anything.

The pictures I uploaded looked like I stood in front of a mural, but they weren’t.

And the plaque for the golden spike

On to Payette,

and after stop and go passing an accident, we stopped in Nampa for gas at Costco. We finally found our way to Randy and Margie’s house, in time for dinner and a long rest.

Randy was nice enough to not wake me on either morning to go on the bike rides that he did. They ride a bit fast for me.

Randy's sister, Catherine, and her husband, Sid, came over for dinner one night.

Two interesting things happened this weekend. On Saturday, Catherine and Sid Fry, Randy’s sister and brother-in-law, came over for dinner. While there we were discussing Facebook. In trying to add Catherine to my friend list, I found that another friend, Sarah Kambish-Grossman, the daughter a very special friend, Judy Fox, was living just 20 miles south of me in Marsing, Idaho. We chatted on Saturday and talked on the phone on Sunday.

The other interesting discovery was that Margie, who married Randy in 1977, attended San Jose State College during the year 1969-1970, the same year I started there. We have known each other since ‘75 or ’76 and never realized that. Or, maybe we did and forgot about it as something trivial. Sid went to San Jose State also, although a few years earlier.

Monday we headed out for Florence, Oregon by way of Salem. The drive was pretty smooth with a few spots slowing for road reconstruction. When we got to Pendleton, Oregon we had to stop at the Pendleton Mills for me to buy shirts. Growing up, and still, the main wardrobe consisted of Levi’s, white socks and tennis shoes, and t-shirts. If it was cold, we added a Pendleton. My first one was given to me when I was in 7th grade. It lasted until I was about 30. Obviously the styles went from real baggy to neat and trim. We used to see them at Disneyland, but who knows where Santa Claus found them. The prices were only about 4 times more than they were 45 years ago. Not a bad price considering inflation. I had figured at least 10 times as much. One could always spot a Pendleton by the loop for the top button rather than a button hole. They also had two pockets with flaps. I saw those but somehow the one I picked out did not have those. What an attention span. We ate lunch at Burger King and drove on.

Hsien-Ling drove for awhile and we traded back at The Dalles. When I got back in the driver’s seat I noticed a Native American with a sign saying Fresh Fish, and two more guys in a truck with a big ice chest. I asked them what they had and they said fish. They had many different kinds of Salmon, and we ended up with a 28 pound King Salmon (already cleaned). I thought we had a big cooler but the fish couldn’t have been an inch longer.

The Columbia River

Next we stopped in Salem to see Mike and Elizabeth Thompson. Mike is from Needles and was in Kiwanis and the Lions with me. We also were in the Chamber of Commerce together through several Rodeos and the building of the Fairgrounds. There was also a Canoe Race or two during that time. Canoe believe it? They have two handsome boys living with them and a gorgeous house with a view that won’t quit. We were having such a great time catching up that we almost forgot to leave.

Vacation in the west by car Part I

2009-08-11T21:58:00.017-07:00

Park City Utah

Three years ago we were vacationing in Florida on some special tour that took us to Orlando, Daytona, the Bahamas and Miami. This was during Hurricane season but that is another story. While in Orlando we stayed in a time share and went to the obligatory presentation. We didn’t buy, but did buy a prepaid vacation. We had to extend it for a year, and this year we were booked at Park City for a week at the Westgate Resort.

I called on friends Rick and Donna Leonis in St. George since we would be passing through there (the plane is getting an annual so we are driving). Unfortunately they would not be home because….. they were going to Park City, Utah! We agreed to meet while we were both there. So we had breakfast at Kidwell Airport, Cal-Nev-Ari and drove straight through, stopping only for gas (while on empty) and lunch at Subway as we filled up.

Entering Utah from Nevada on I-15

Getting closer to Park City, Utah

We checked in and wandered around the resort, getting ourselves oriented. We found the swimming pools and Jacuzzis, and that was enough for the time we had left of the day. Our room was a one bedroom with a large double bed, TV and Jacuzzi , and a single and a double sofa beds in the living room along with a fireplace and another TV. The kitchen was large and well equipped, with even a washer and dryer in the suite. There was lots of room, and we could even move around with both sofa beds pulled out. Even the base of the dining room bench pulls out to make another bed, maybe even a double. About the only thing missing was a screen door to keep out the bugs when we wanted to keep the doors open at night.

We even discovered on Wednesday that there was maid service every day and a newspaper, which is not something expected since we didn’t have it in either of our other two time-shares. It made our stay very comfortable.

On Monday, wanting to show Johnny the Great Salt Lake, we drove down the hill. We followed the GPS to find a beach and ended up at The Great Salt Lake Marina. The sign said to pay for parking at the ranger station so after driving around the parking lot and deciding we wanted to stay, we parked and I proceeded to look at the buildings to find the office. While looking I met a lady tri-athlete on a bicycle. I asked her about her riding and told her I was more of a tourer. She said she thought she would “graduate” to touring one day and I suggested that it was more of “retiring to” was a better description. She also pointed out that a Ranger had put a ticket on my car to “help” me pay for my parking.

The misinterpreted sign

I found the ticket, which was an envelope, requiring me to pay $2.00 for the parking. I didn’t have change. I chased down the ranger and asked if he did, but he didn’t. I had read the sign wrong, or actually had just not finished reading it. For a boat camping and slip rental one needed to pay at the ranger station, but for parking one needed to get an envelope and put the money in a box behind the sign. Hsien-Ling found some change so we were able to pay our dues and enjoy the area with a clear conscience.

At the water, but not in it

We spotted a big stack and after wading in the water, went to explore what it was. Turns out it is owned by Kennecott Copper, most likely a smelter.

We drove by and continued down the road until we got to a gas station and Burger King where we had lunch. While there we picked up some brochures and decided to see the grist mill that was near-by. We found it after taking a scenic route or two.

Is there a TV in the background???

The mill consisted of the mill itself and several out buildings including a few settler homes, a blacksmith shop, a cobbler shop, a few barns, and even an outhouse. While there we even got our picture taken for the Tooele Transcript Bulletin Online: http://www.tooeletranscript.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Museums+bouncing+back+this+summer%20&id=3044920-Museums+bouncing+back+this+summer&instance=home_news_left Oh boy, now we’re famous.

We also visited the Mormon Temple.

Johnny liked this....

Tuesday we went to the Olympic Village and watched the skiers practice jumping, doing flips, twists and everything else they do, but landing in water as there is no snow at the moment. We took a tour of the village and saw the tops and bottoms of the jumps, toboggan luge and skeleton runs. I wanted to come back and take a toboggan ride but Johnny made it clear that he was not going on it.

We then wondered around town looking at the sites and of course Hsien-Ling discovered the Tangier Outlet Mall so we spent a bit of time there. We were there when Randy hit town and he eventually found us there. Johnny and I bought some Mrs. Fields cookies and a soda but found nothing else there but clothes, too boring. Randy bought a book and a map of the riding trails at Pearl Izumi so we could figure out where we wanted to ride. He had brought down two mountain bikes for us to use as my Surly is still in Taiwan and my Peugeot is not much good off roads. The afternoon was spent resting and looking over routes for our rides.

For dinner we all met with Rick and Dona at Wasatch Brew Pub in Park City and had a great time talking all about what was happening with each other. Donna is still working as an escrow officer, and Rick is working out of Delta, Utah, stringing wire from a new wind farm to the grid somewhere. Details. After dinner we came home and went to bed in anticipation of a long ride on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning Randy and I rose early, drank coffee and ate oatmeal (my start to healthy eating) and headed out on the bikes by about 8:30. With a few extra miles we found the Rail Trail and headed down to Coalville, about 20 miles away according to the signs. The trail was gravel but well graded. We rode downhill almost all the way. At Coalville I bought batteries for my camera and snuck down a few Reeses Peanut Butter cups when Randy wasn’t looking. The Rail Trail kept going so we did too. Down around a lake the trail fizzled out and we hit the road. As I-80 turned a corner we realized we were at the end. There was a sign for a Pony Express station and the “town” of Echo. We hadn’t had a real breakfast so we continued on. In Echo there was the Kozy Café, a cemetery and a temple. We stopped and ate.

Coming back up the hill was slow, but not more than pain in the rear. I really miss the Brooks Professional leather saddle on my Surly LHT. It is really a lot more comfortable. When I got to Coalville I thought Randy would be waiting for me. Nope. I kept going until I got to the bottom of the steeper part of the trail. He was there and proceeded to leave as I got off my (his) bike to take my rest. And he thought I was going to follow him right up the hill after he had a rest and I didn’t. Wrong. While there, or just as I started to leave I adjusted the seat to something a little more comfortable. As we started up the hill I kept telling myself that trains do not do steep climbs, and I was right. I stopped at a few places along the way to “take pictures”, not to rest of course. Slowly but surely I made it to the top. I made Randy stop at a gas station so I could get something cold to drink. The hydro-pack I was carrying tasted terrible. We then started back a slightly different way than how we had arrived at the trail head. At one point I stopped to ask directions but couldn’t catch up to Randy to tell him we missed our turn. He was way ahead of me as Igot to the road to our resort so I opted to take the lift up the hill. It was nice to ride rather than pedal, but there was Randy to take my picture as I glided overhead.

The total ride was just over 60 miles with a total climb of about 2,000 feet. I went to the Jacuzzi to recuperate and watch Johnny swim. We had our obligatory interview to buy into the time share, and after an hour were able to convince them and ourselves that we were not interested in buying.

On Thursday morning, as if Wednesday wasn’t brutal enough, we rode to and across I-80 to a real mountain trail. It turned out to be an intermediate trail. I am a beginner when it comes to mountain biking. I might have found the strength if I could have found the technique to keep the front wheel on the ground and pointing in the right direction as I tried to power up the rocky hills. I found myself walking much of the time and Randy was Johnny-on-the-spot with the camera to see that it was duly recorded. To add insult to injury a hiker kept catching up with me as I alternated between riding and walking. When we reached a point where the trail crossed a road, I took the road more traveled and zoomed down the hill leaving the trail for Randy. I rested on the picnic tables until he finished and we rode back to the resort together. This time the tram was closed and I had to ride all the way up to the resort.

Randy decided to head back to Payette so he could ride in the morning. We would meet him there the next day. In the afternoon we went out to the Outlet Mall and bought some sandals then had a leisurely dinner in our room after finding out that we were an hour early for the resort’s restaurant.

Friday morning we checked out of the resort and headed for Payette.

Picking up Justine

2009-07-23T20:26:00.018-07:00

What we thought was a well planned trip to pick up my plane turned out to be a very different excursion than what was expected.

Chuck Carroll flew with me to Oshkosh a few years ago and was a real help when I was arriving along with 5,000 other planes for the first time. He was going to fly with me to Texas and back so we picked him up at 2:00 pm on Monday to go to Las Vegas. Passing through Laughlin, Nevada, we discovered that the road to US 95 was closed due to a fuel tanker truck tipping over. There was a thunderstorm with lightning going on so no cars were allowed to use the road. They suggested that we go through Kingman so we headed that way.

Arriving at the edge of Kingman we turned to Las Vegas on Highway 63 and saw a sign saying 97 miles. That was about what we had when we started, and we had already gone about 45 miles. Getting nearer to Hoover Dam we saw signs indicating delays. Tuning in to AM 1620 we discovered that all traffic was being inspected prior to crossing the dam. This was instigated after 9/11.

They also started building a bridge, but as all things government, it is still unfinished. It will be quite impressive if it ever gets completed.

Finally after five hours we made it to the CanCun Resort and checked into our room.

We were going to have dinner with Ronnie Fabre (a high school classmate of mine) and her husband, but he was suffering from Bronchitis so we decided to reschedule. Hsien-Ling and Johnny were staying overnight and going home in the morning. Chuck and I were to rest and catch a cab to the airport at 11:45 pm.

We all went to the Tropicana for dinner. Johnny told me to go gamble and he got half of what I won. I put a dollar in a machine and lost, only to discover it was a dollar machine. I found a quarter poker machine and put in another dollar, this time winning a few times. I quit when I had six dollars, and gave Johnny two dollars as his half of the winnings. He was elated.

Back at the resort, Chuck and I rested then went to the airport. Passing through security Chuck lost a bottle of water and a multipurpose corkscrew that his wife had put in his luggage for him. We were going to terminal D so we had a long wait for the tram and then a long walk to our gate. I listened in to a young couple from China for awhile and then surprised them by asking, in Mandarin, where they were from. We talked a little while then they went somewhere else to talk.

The flight to Houston was uneventful other than the beginning. The people in the row behind us got into and out of their seats no less than eight times before we took off. Every other time they did, they would knock the guy in the aisle seat in the head. Luckily he was pretty easy going. He was a pretty large man so Chuck didn’t sleep well. I slept the whole way, waking only to drink a soda.

In Houston we had a long walk to our connecting flight and stopped to have a snack of coffee and a roll/bagel. Along the way we saw rocking chairs along the side of the concourse.

Occasionally there were groups of travelers sitting together talking. Once in awhile there would be a single person sitting there carrying on an animated conversation with no one in particular, or maybe on their cell phone with an ear bud.

The flight to San Antonio was uneventful as far as I remember as I slept the whole time on that one as well. I woke up as we were descending into the clouds and as we broke out, only to fall back asleep and be rudely awakened as we clunked onto the runway.

David Welch from Sierra Engineering picked us up at the airport and told us it was his job to pick us up, take us to breakfast, and to drag his feet. Obviously the plane wasn’t finished. We got a tour of San Antonio including glimpses of the River Walk, and the Alamo. I got a few pictures of the Alamo, but that was it.

After breakfast at Denny’s we headed to Uvalde, about 75 miles away. I slept a lot of the time. When we got to Uvalde, David got us a room at the Holiday Inn Express so we could shower and take a nap while they finished the plane. We did. At 2:00 pm, Art Jackson picked us up and took us to see Justine.

She was finished, just needed one more test run-up.

Larry Montgomery gave me the two (old) $450 fuel strainers and the one $700 strainer as well.

I expected them to be gold and I wanted to melt down the old ones. We were to take off, test the autopilot, and if there was a problem, return for fine tuning. After getting all the paperwork and paying, we were off. There was no problem so we didn’t have to return.

We headed first to Wood County Airport where we were to be met by Bill Attwood and Cathy Cameron, great friends of mine from Bullhead City. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reach them from Uvalde or when we reached Wood County Airport. It turns out that Bill, who has the heart of a young girl (literally as he has a heart transplant) was sick in bed all day and their cell phone coverage is as bad as mine. There was a cold front moving to the area that should pass that night, and then become stationary. That would have kept us from leaving the next morning so we headed home. We had a little rain as we left Wood County and had to fly at 4,500 feet in the beginning to stay under the clouds. Later we stayed at that altitude for the smooth air and better tail winds. The front also kept us from stopping to see Steve Morris, a high school classmate who lives near Dallas. Time to spare, go by air.

We got as far as Graham before the sun set. Everything was closed at the airport and none of the hotels would come pick us up. I found some people sitting around talking in front of their hangar, and Babe Horton, a Cessna 210 driver, offered to take us to a hotel. We got an excellent deal and a great room at the Holiday Inn Express. It was brand new, and just like the one in Uvalde but about half the price. We walked about a mile uphill to the Dairy Queen for dinner but downhill on the way back.

In the morning we woke up at about 6:45, 15 minutes before our wake up call. Not bad since it was 4:45 Arizona time. I wish I could acclimatize this fast coming from Taiwan. The hotel had a full breakfast for us: bacon, eggs, s**t on a shingle, muffins, bread, bagels, juice and coffee. Who could ask for anything more? We took a couple apples for the flight. Chuck found us a “shortcut” back to the airport which was about the same distance away as the Dairy Queen. Fuel was reasonable so we topped off. I didn’t want to think about fuel as we slalomed around the thunderstorms.

We went along at 4,500 feet for quite awhile. Normally I fly much higher but the winds were better, a 5 knot tail wind rather than a 15 knot quartering headwind at higher altitudes. We stayed there until the ground rose up to try and meet us. We climbed, and the clouds dropped until we had to stop in Santa Rosa, Texas. We landed and I tied down the plane and took a nap, Chuck went exploring. They had a nice little pilot lounge with an air conditioner and a bathroom. They had a coffee maker but no cups. Someone had left a big note saying: “Cups would be nice!” Hey, I thought, if it’s that important, bring your own. It was more than I expected for free in the middle of nowhere. It was a very comfortable place to hang out, call weather service and take a nap.

After an hour or so we headed out again and stayed below the clouds and above the ground. By the time we hit Albuquerque we were at 8,500 feet and at the base of the clouds (within VFR limits of course). This was not high enough to fly over the airport unannounced so we called approach and got a number to squawk. We were almost on top of the runway as we rounded the mountain and were picked up on their radar. When they realized we didn’t want to land we were vectored to the south to avoid departing traffic, and then turned loose after we passed the airport area.

As we headed west we had to first divert around some 8,500 foot mountain tops, and later around thunderstorms. The zigzagging put us right over the top of the meteor crater between Winslow and Flagstaff.

After that it was just left right left right all the way home around one thunderstorm cell after another. I have a handheld Garmin GPSMAP 396 coupled to my S-Tec 30 autopilot (with altitude hold). I also have XM Weather so I can see a satellite image of the weather as I fly. It is an amazing time saver as I can turn early to avoid the cells and know whether to go around to the right or the left. It also lets me know when to stop and when to go after waiting. The cells topped out at about 45,000 feet so going over them was out of the question. That was according to Flight watch on 122.0, as my Garmin won’t give that information.

We finally touched down at A20 (Sun Valley Airport) about 3:30. 3.6 hours in the air on Tuesday and 6.6 hours on Wednesday.

When my plane was topped off for me in Uvalde I wasn’t there so I didn’t see how full it actually was. They put in 122 gallons. According to the book and the sales brochure it should take 138. Since it had actually been drained it might have taken even a gallon more. Now I have to run one tank dry and refill it to see what the actual capacity is for usable fuel. Just another excuse to fly…. Missing 16 gallons would put me short going to Japan from the Aleutians, but that is another story.

Back-packs for Kids

2009-07-20T11:57:00.007-07:00

Every year the Legacy Foundation in our area puts together back-packs for the young kids starting back to school. The Kiwanis clubs in the area donate to help with the cost and we volunteer to help pass them out.

Today, we visited three schools (okay, so I missed the first one because I was cleaning up my yard) and passed out, I think they said, 3,000 back packs. The schools were Fort Mohave Elementary, Mohave Valley Elementary and Mohave Mesa Elementary. Could you guess we live in Mohave County? The Kiwanis has been doing this for years, but this was the first time I was able to participate.

Inside the back-packs are 5 pencils, a spiral notebook, a ruler, a comb and brush, a water bottle, A Phoenix Suns cap, glue, scissors, a box of crayons, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, a tooth brush and tooth paste. Just about everything one would need in school.

Once in awhile, a student would say that they already had a back-pack, that they didn’t need one, but “thank you for the offer.” The other Kiwanians would give that bag to the teacher. I would tell the student that that was great but that he should take this bag and give it to someone else who didn’t have one. That always worked for me. Maybe they didn’t want to argue with that dumb adult.

Maintenance

2009-07-14T19:26:00.011-07:00

Don’t tell anybody, but I do have to work sometimes. Owning an airport, even with a partner, is not the most profitable venture I have ever been in. We have a lot of asphalt to maintain and not much to rent. This is the time to patch the asphalt, and it’s my turn.

Asphalt naturally expands and shrinks. The expanding is not as big a problem as the shrinking. As it shrinks it makes cracks. These cracks don’t disappear when the asphalt expands, but they do get bigger next time it shrinks. Small cracks can be sealed with a crack sealer that gets melted in a crack sealer machine and pumped out through a hose, then smoothed over the crack as it flows down inside. When the cracks get too big, the sealer just keeps flowing out every time it gets hot; which is every day from May through September.

Now is the time for the thick stuff, QPR. For big cracks we use a bagged patch material that looks like pea gravel with soft tar on it. It flows like hot asphalt and hopefully hardens up before getting stuck on the tires of whatever drives or lands on top of it.

We use two trucks with a compressor on the back of one and two trailers on the other. The second trailer was a small one that we dumped the material into from the bags to make it easier to shovel. When I went to pick up the trailer it had two flat tubeless tires. I was able to get one pumped up but the other had been flat for so long that the bead wouldn’t seal. I went down to Ron’s Tire shop on 95 and begged some goop, Foster’s Soap, I think, that gets smeared between the bead and the rim. It is about the consistency of axle grease. Then you just pump up the tire and it holds the air in until the bead seals. Amazing stuff. We also have a compactor that unfortunately I didn’t try to start before we needed it. It wouldn’t start of course. I had to use the van to compress the material. I had to clean it before Hsien-Ling saw it, and then cleaned a little more. Hsien-Ling saw me and thought I was so nice to clean the van for her. Whew.

The actual process involves first blowing out the cracks to remove the loose dirt or rocks,

(It's a tough job but someone has to drive the truck)

then shoveling in the mix.

The crack needs to be filled a little above the road level with the patch material so that it can be compacted into place.

John Cowgill and I drove to Las Vegas Monday to buy the material. This is John.

Unfortunately they had less than one pallet, only 50 bags. Two years ago, my partner, Jerry Bruner, used about a pallet and a half. Maybe it will be enough. Wrong.

We only finished less than one third of the runway and the cracks were getting wider and wider. I had scheduled two days to finish, and had officially closed the runway. Now I had to notify the FAA to change the NOTAM so pilots would know when they could or couldn’t come in. We also needed the compressor for Thursday but not for Wednesday. Luckily RSC Equipment rental told me to keep it and I would only be charged for two days instead of three. Great guys. I had to let the flight school know also. It is a bit of an inconvenience for them as they have to move part of their fleet to operate out of Laughlin-Bullhead airport while we work. They took the news well.

The material arrived in Las Vegas so John and I picked it up. We dropped the compactor off at Highway 95 Tool Repair and begged that they would fix it in one day. They did, but they closed at four and we were still out of town. Luckily my brother, John, picked it up for us. Now with two pallets of QPC we seemed to be ready to finish.

John and John getting the compactor out of the back of Doris's car.

Five am on Thursday arrived but the help didn’t. We had to roust John Cowgil from bed, and at 5:15 Manuel showed up. Jason showed up at about 5:30 and the third John showed up at about 5:45. Brother John hadn’t planned on working, but as Bill had been sick all night and couldn’t make it we were one man short, so he did. Having a brother can be either a curse or a blessing, probably depending mostly on which brother you are. To me, my brother was a blessing, so that must have made me the cursed one….

The blowing out was finished by about 9:30, so brother John took off and Jason came back and shoveled QPC with us. I alternated shoveling and compacting, but of course no one took my picture. At 11:45 we ran out of material again with about 750 feet still to finish. The cracks were getting farther apart, but also getting much wider and deeper. Oh BOY, another trip to Las Vegas.

Friday at 9:45 found John Cowgill and I on our way to Las Vegas again. We stopped at Cal-Nev-Ari, Kidwell Airport, for breakfast. This airport was built by Slim and Nancy Kidwell and is still run by Nancy. I took a refresher Private Pilot Ground School class from Nancy and Slim many years ago, and about three years ago bought my Cessna U206B from Ace Kidwell, Slim’s son. A couple years later my partner, Jerry Bruner, bought Nancy’s Comanche 250. Small world. After Breakfast we stopped and chatted with Nancy for awhile about old times. We discussed what it took to actually get water out of the ground and to all the houses at Cal-Nev-Ari, and how people now-a-days took everything so much for granted.

Back on the road we made our way to Las Vegas and to Construction Sealants and Supply. We bought another pallet of QPR and while we were there also bought a pallet of crack sealant figuring we would need about three in August and could only carry two at a time.

The trip home was slow because of the weight on the trailer: about 5,700 pounds. We stopped for lunch in Searchlight to let the wheels cool, and finally got home about 5:00, hopeful that we would have enough to finish the runway on Monday.

Monday morning, 4:00am came early. I picked up the ice and met John Cowgill at his house to ready the trailer with the trailer on the back. Two helpers showed up at just after 5:00am and we quickly settled into a routine of dumping the material into the little trailer and shoveling it into the cracks. As we got material down and it seeped into the cracks, I operated the compactor until I caught up with them and then rejoined in the shoveling. John Cowgill had an appointment that morning so brother John relieved him at about 7:30. By 8:50 we were finished filling the cracks, and still had 16 (out of 60) bags left over. Perfect. We got all the shovels and trailer cleaned up and officially re-opened the runway. Now that the cracks are all filled, we can wait a month and go back over them with the crack sealer. Maybe……………………no rest for the weary. Well, maybe a little.

Pimping Justine

2009-07-01T08:59:00.011-07:00

Justine. That is the name of my plane: Cessna Justine Airplane, as in Cess na’ just ine airplane.

Johnny and I flew to Uvalde, Texas on Monday, 6/29. Just passing Phoenix we saw Roosevelt Lake where Charlie Wooldridge taught me to water ski back in about 1962.

The flight to Safford was 2.02 hours,

from there to Uvalde, Garner Field, was 4.2 hours. The air was smooth at 9,500 feet as far as El Paso, Texas.

Then we hit weather. Down at 7,500 feet under the clouds it was a little bumpy; we got back up for an hour or so, and then back down. We had to skirt a tiny restricted zone that I hadn’t been aware of until my GPSMAP 396 warned me. Looking very closely I was able to avoid it. It turned out to be a balloon surveillance site, but the balloon was still on the ground.

Altogether we left Bullhead City at 6:15 am and arrived at about 3:30 pm local time. It didn’t seem like an hour over two weeks…. It never fails to amaze me how big Texas is. It only takes us about 3:45 to get to El Paso, but that last two and a half hours across half the state seems to take forever. But we survived, Johnny a little worse for wear.

At Sierra Industries we were introduced to jets, turboprops, and piston engine singles and twins, all getting new engines or panels. Justine is probably the “most affordable” aircraft in the shop. Nothing like seeing million dollar aircraft getting two million dollar upgrades.

Justine was there to get auxiliary fuel tanks installed: an additional 54 gallons to the existing 84.

After the 7 hour trip back in a Comanche, (plus a stop for lunch) I started to wonder why I was doing this. One can’t stop for lunch when flying over water, I guess. At least, not if one wants to continue. It will probably be the most expensive upgrade that won’t even be visible until I top it off with fuel and look at the bill…. It does allow more flexibility in finding cheaper fuel though. Monday I bought fuel in Safford for $3.10 per gallon and Tuesday we paid $4.49 in Las Cruces because the Comanche didn’t have the range with an IFR reserve to go that far. Even more depressing was watching them dump the remaining 20 gallons I had in the plane before they started working on the tanks. We should have brought a clean can to transfer the fuel into the Comanche. Hindsight is wonderful.

While in Uvalde, Johnny and I got to see some vintage planes owned by the owner of Sierra industries. It was my first clue that I was paying too much. The second clue was the sales rep, Art Jackson’s new Hummer. These are the planes we saw:

We stayed at the new Holiday Inn Express and enjoyed swimming, playing on the computer and watching TV. Well Johnny did, I swam with him then watched TV and went to sleep. Johnny watched well past when I fell asleep saying it would help him sleep on the plane. When I asked how late he stayed up, he couldn’t remember. I am not raising a dummy.

Johnny wasn’t real enthused about the return flight as you can see.

In the air he slept all the way to Las Cruces

and even felt good enough to have a cheese burger and fries. Big mistake, he ended up bringing it home in a bag, giving it up of take-off. Luckily he slept most of the way home. Before we got to Phoenix it started to get rough at 10,000 feet so we went up to 12,000 and it got a lot smoother. The only trouble we had was getting ATC to okay our descent and had to stay at 11,000 until half way up the valley. This meant a 10,000 foot drop in ten miles. We did a lot of circling. It gave me a chance to take some pictures of the local golf courses and the airport as well as my house.

AAAHHHHHHHH Back in the air

2009-07-01T08:51:00.005-07:00

When we fly to the U.S. from Taiwan we used to fly from Kaohsiung to Las Vegas. But as the economy has tanked we have more and more hassles getting our luggage on the domestic flights. In the “good ole days” we could bring 6 bags at 72 pounds each along with six carry-ons for the three of us. Those days are gone. Now it is down to 50 pounds if we can upgrade to business class, 30 something otherwise. China Airlines is very lax about luggage so we don’t have any trouble with them if we start the trip with them. But that means starting in Los Angeles when we return and ending there on the east-bound trip. This leaves the problem of getting to Bullhead City from Los Angeles.

In the past we have rented a van (we once rented a Lincoln Towne Car but it was way too small). Once, our friend John Cowgill drove us in to LAX in our van. This time we were lucky again in that my brother John, (lots of Johns in our life), was going to Mammoth with his son for a Father’s Day outing, and since we were staying with his son for the first night, my brother drove our van to Manhattan Beach and went to the mountains with his son while we drove home. In exchange for this, I agreed to fly to Mojave on Sunday to pick him up since he had no other way to get back to Arizona.

Friend John Cowgill came along on Sunday and we flew to Mojave in central California to pick up brother-John. Mojave is where Burt Rutan has his operation. He made the voyager that flew around the world non-stop, piloted by his brother Dick Rutan and Jeanne Yeager. He also built the first privately built spacecraft. It was Sunday, though, and no one was around. We did see the scrap yard for 747’s and the storage area for other big jets moth-balled and waiting for their next life.

The flight home was bumpy, but not bumpy enough to make my brother sick, even as hung over as he was. Next time I'll get him.

Jumping the pond

2009-06-27T06:58:00.008-07:00

It is time for our semi-annual pilgrimage from Taiwan to Arizona for the summer. There is always apprehension about flying across the ocean and more so after Air France flight 447. I personally would not have been allowed to take that flight myself as my wife, being Taiwanese is very superstitious. The numbers, in Chinese, have the same sound as “dead, dead, go”. Not a good sign. Interestingly enough I have a friend, Maureen, who I just got reacquainted with after 30 some years who was on a similar flight within a day of AF 447, and she had a friend who was on a flight an hour prior to that one. Eerie.

And of course there was a typhoon passing Taiwan just before we left so there was also the thought of the train tracks being undermined and another typhoon coming, etc. etc. But none of that happened.

Our friend Richard arrived, with son Ian, at 9:45 Wednesday the 24th to take us to the high speed rail station, so we packed up, stopped by Ren Ai Elementary School to pick up Johnny and were off. At the station Hsien-Ling in her stressed state led us all around the parking lot trying to get us to the first floor so we didn’t have to take the elevator. We only made it to the second and still had to use it, but now Richard had to get the parking ticket validated. Not to worry, more was to come.

We had lunch at Moss Burger and headed down to the train. Hsien-Ling found car number 2 and after finding our seats and getting our luggage stashed away found someone else sitting in our seats. OOOPS, wrong car, we were supposed to be in car five. Too late to go outside and find car five, we had to move along the aisles struggling with our luggage. But we made it. The ride was quite smooth, and fast. At one point the marquee indicated our speed was 298KPH. Hmmmm, faster than my airplane, and I could sleep here, too.

Out of the train in TaoYuan we had to catch a shuttle bus to the TaoYuan International Airport. At NT$30 each (less than one dollar US) it was pretty cheap.

At the airport there was much discussion about which terminal we needed, but finally got off the bus and we were at the right place. We got in the wrong line but not to worry, we were soon directed to the right place. Poor Hsien-Ling, too much stress. In the VIP room we were able to rest, take a shower, and eat. The humidity was very high so it was nice to clean up, cool down, and relax. Johnny hit the computer room and was in seventh heaven.

With our frequent flier miles we were able to upgrade to business class. Lots of leg room, and wine. I only watched three movies before succumbing to sleep, but after breakfast started watching another, “Taken”, which, of course, I didn’t get to finish. I hate when that happens. It was a beautifully smooth flight of about 11 1/2 hours and upon arriving we breezed through customs and immigration in record time. My brother, John, arrived in our van and took us to his son’s house in Hermosa Beach where we stayed the night. Cool almost to the point of cold (for us folks from hotter places) it was heavenly.

John's son Jim is a computer wizard, and he was going to give me an old iphone he had, but after trying to explain it to me decided it was beyond my capabilities. I had to take his word for it as I didn’t have a clue. Jim and Nikki have two kids, Makenna and Ryan, so Johnny had someone to play with. They also have two dogs, Wii and all the rest of whatever that stuff is so they were all busy. I checked my e-mail and read the news, the limit of my computer expertise. Oh, and I got a call on Skype from Nigel in Taiwan checking on my progress.

On Thursday we headed to Glendora, my old home town, to have lunch at the Village Eatery with long time friend, John McHann, and high school classmate Jerry Heinrich, and his wife Sherry. We spent a few hours reminiscing, much to the chagrin of Johnny who was bored to death. Our good friend, Kaia Rubel, passed away last Monday so the talk of her and Michael brought forth many stories.

Driving the rest of the way was uneventful; we only stopped at the two rest stops on I-40 to let Hsien-Ling drive while I slept a little. We arrived in the “cool”

of the evening, turned on the water and water heater and started to empty our suitcases. The mail would wait for tomorrow, I had to do something about the leak under the kitchen sink………………….

These quail were sleeping on our front door step the second morning we woke up. Luckily it wasn't the day before when I scared a cat out of the bushes.

Sightseeing along the base of the mountains near PingTung.

2009-06-16T06:48:00.022-07:00

I left home this morning at about 8 after taking Johnny to school. It was still too late but better than the 9 o’clock at which I left last week.

A month or so ago there was a big stink in the newspaper about a very prominent directional sign to SeSei. It was controversial because the pinying or English spelling of the word was SeSei, however the pronunciation of the word in Mandarin is DeSei. Someone was obviously embarrassed as the sign was changed. Unfortunately, the sign 100 meters prior to the intersection was not. Not to worry, there is a freeway off-ramp in ZuoYing that has three signs and three different spellings.

Taiwanese don’t seem to like second hand things. They do like to recycle though, this is the local recycling drop-off site:

Seeing the second hand stores I can see why. As I went by the local second hand store today, it was closed. Rats. But I did see something out front that I liked. I don’t know what it is, but I am sure that I need it.

I didn’t have any real destination in mind but thought I should stop for pictures more today since I had neglected that last week. I headed to ShuiMun to start exploring and photographing the northern part of Highway 185 along the base of the mountains. The south part is what I avoided last week. There is more shade on the north part.

The first stop in ShuiMun was to see up close the ultra-light carcasses I had seen from the bridge going to SanDiMun. They were pretty rough; someone had a rather uncomfortable landing. It obviously hadn’t been Sully’d in.

Up at the actual ShuiMun (water door) I decided to find out where the water came from that flowed out of the side of the mountain.

I carried my bike, almost killing myself, up the stairs, down the ramp and up some more stairs, only to find myself at the start of the hill climb to MaJia with no hint of where the water came from other than the sweat that was pouring out of my body. I will save further exploration of the water source for another day. I coasted down the hill to the 7-11 for something cold. Supau, snickers and malted milk balls, what could have been better? Actually it could have been better if that 7-11 hadn’t cornered the market on house flies. There were fewer outside so I rested there.

This is a school where I usually stop if Johnny is with me and we have a soccer ball. It puts a little excitement into our riding and breaks up the monotiny for Johnny. One time Nigel was with us showing me how to do a kick where you throw the ball down and kick it giving it an extra boost. I said I could do that and proceeded to do a Charlie Brown all by myself, ending up flat on my back. Luckily there was no camera on site.

Down the road is a tunnel. Nothing spectacular but there is a sign reminding you in case you hadn’t seen it. One can see the tunnel long before one can see the sign. More interesting, though, is the sign with the track hoe, warning one, I am sure, that there should be no digging inside the tunnel. Or is it, no digging on top of the tunnel?

After the tunnel is a river with a road beside it. I always wondered where it went. Now I know: nowhere. But it did have some interesting homes along the bank and offered a cool place to wade in at the point the pavement disappeared.

Back on 185 I saw some interesting air conditioning concepts.

This procedure could work in Arizona where the humidity is about 10%, but here where the humidity is 85% it really does more harm than good. I have seen misters used here during rain storms. Oh, well.

The next stop was the waterfall. The river coming across (under) the highway actually had water in it so it was promising. I wasn’t disappointed. There was water coming over the weir and water in the bottom lake. Even the waterfall was fully flowing. I took a swim to cool off and it was enjoyable.

A couple of ladies were there and it looked like one was getting a haircut as she had on this smock like thing. After casually watching awhile I realized it was a private tent so she could change from her bathing suit back to her clothes without using the lady’s room.

There is the belief that every piece of available land in Taiwan is being used, either for homes or agriculture. This isn’t really true, but there is a lot of agriculture, especially in the south where the winters are much milder than in the north. At the beginning of my ride I stopped and bought a Supau. While I was drinking it the lady gave me a BahLa, or guava. I didn’t get a picture of the trees but I have seen a lot of different groves, etc. along the way.

Betel Nut.

Bananas

Papayas

Mango

Pineapples

Ducks

There is even a red-light district outside the retired military barracks. They don’t like their picture taken, and that’s probably a good thing.

Pray for rain

2009-06-16T06:39:00.003-07:00

June 8th, I took a 106Km ride down south under the auspices of finding a beach that was close enough to cycle to and spend the day. During the entire day, and it took the entire day even though it only felt like a week, I saw no other cyclists. I was the only idiot on the road. That should have been my first clue. The temperature was somewhere in the mid 30’s (Celsius), 95F with the humidity high up there. I never thought I would pray for rain while cycling. The only picture I got was of a recycling plant. Taiwanese are big on recycling.

The rest of the time I spent looking for shade or visiting relatives just to get out of the heat. The first stop was in DongGang to see my (wife’s) coffin making cousin. I just sat in the shade while he worked, making traditional caskets. Just before noon I set out again, never finding a beach (it seemed too far out of the way considering the heat) until I located the tea shop on the marina at FangLiao. I didn’t stop as I had just left a 7-11 after polishing off a liter of Supau, the energy drink.

When I found my way back to Highway 1 I didn’t know whether I was north or south of Highway 185, the road along the mountains back north, so I headed south. After a few K’s I asked for directions (I know, not very manly of me) and found I was too far south.

When I reached 185 I realized I was hot and tired and 185 went uphill with no shade for several kilometers. I stayed on 1 and headed home. It was only 38Km this way, 45 the other. After 25Km I cut through the city of ChaoCho to stop at another cousin’s house. Niece Emily and husband Chuck were in town from Bullhead City so they dropped by to say “hi” while I recuperated. Chuck is my neighbor and very good friend from Bullhead City who married Hsien-Ling’s niece. They are here on a three week vacation.

I finally made it home about 6pm, hot and very tired. 9 hours total, most of it spent hiding in the shade.

The Swimming Hole 5-3-2009

2009-05-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Since we sold Johnny’s regular bike last night I had to go to the bike shop and retrieve the tag-a-long. Johnny, Nigel, Richard and I went for a ride today to the river to go swimming. I grabbed my camera and put in a new compact flash card as I ran out of room yesterday. Little did I know that I also ran out of juice. I wouldn’t have known because the display is broken and I can’t read anything. I think that in my blind search for a timed delay exposure I must have hit the quality of the save because now I can only store 30 pictures on a 1GB card. That’s what I get for not downloading last night.

We left at about 8:15 and first went through the red light district to say hi to all the “ladies”, then to breakfast across the street from PingTung Technical University. Johnny was too busy bantering with Nigel to order breakfast so I had to. After breakfast we went up a couple hills (actually bridges) that Johnny proclaimed were mountains and therefore, I had lied to him. I was beginning to believe him as he has gained weight. I keep looking to see if I had flat tires. Luckily, once in awhile he actually pedaled. Soon we were there. And so was everyone else from PingTung County.

Being hot one might expect spectacular scenery, but Taiwanese are afraid of the sun, and any girl who actually went into the water was fully dressed. Fully: long sleeves and long pants as well. But the water was nice, only cold when you first get in, and Johnny and Nigel took turns tormenting each other.

The swimming hole is a wide portion of the river that has been dammed up with rocks and tarps making a rather nice place to swim only getting maybe 8 feet deep in the center, but mostly shallow enough for most people to walk in. Richard and I had ridden here last week, on Thursday and there were only about 5 other people.

More and more people kept coming all the while we were there. We saw one group with their barbecue and propane bottle. There was even a watermelon in the water getting cool. We ate our sandwiches from 7-11, along with our rice triangles and chocolate bars. A great way to relax.

As we were leaving I got a call from Andy, the Yamaha dealer, inviting us out to lunch. Johnny and I were heading straight home, but Richard and Nigel were going back a different route down Eucalyptus Lane and through WanDan where Nigel lives. 10 minutes later I got a call from Richard. He had just received a call from Nigel, but it wasn’t Nigel. Nigel had left his phone somewhere and they were headed back to the swimming hole. Apparently when Nigel had changed clothes he had put his phone down and washed his hands. And he proceeded to forget his phone. It must be contagious because he was with me when I lost my last pair of sunglasses….

Johnny and I rushed home, showered, and then with Hsien-Ling, picked up Andy and went to lunch. He took us to the same restaurant he took me to after we played golf the other day. Great beef noodles with all you can eat noodles and broth.

After lunch Johnny went with our friend Flame and her two dogs to the park for a dog obedience class. Johnny’s job was to watch one while the other got trained. Lots of people showed up, but the trainer didn’t. Johnny had fun anyway.

At home at night there was the never ending game of monopoly as Johnny with now over $300,000,000 slowly takes my money away. Johnny has 14 motels and the service providers; I have 8 hotels and the airports. There is a lot of luck in this game. He keeps landing on the airports but keeps missing Times Square (Park Place for you old timers).

I will add pictures next time we go to the river.

Little LiuChiou, around another island, again 5-2-2009

2009-05-04T20:38:00.011-07:00

The Group, less me of course
LaoSu called up last week and asked if I wanted to go to ride around Little LiuChiou Island with him and a friend. Since it was on Saturday and I had a ride scheduled on Sunday I had to ask permission from higher powers. No problem said the boss so I had her call and get the details. We were to meet at the harbor in Kaohsiung for a 9:30 am ferry ride to the island.

Friday was Hsien-Ling’s Birthday (plenty-nine years old) so we went to Kaohsiung for lunch at the same place David Horwitt from San Diego had taken us when he was in town scouring my brain for cycling tips. We had a good view of the harbor and I was able to see where I needed to come the next morning. David called the other day to tell me about his trip. He was back in Taiwan for some more work but didn’t have enough time for another ride. He will be back again next year so hopefully he will have more time then. Work really gets in the way of one’s social life. We were also able to go to Costco to order two pair of glasses for me to replace the two I had lost recently. I wouldn’t say I have Alzheimer’s, but there is a good chance I have Part-timers.

I didn’t know how long it would take me to get to the dock, I thought about two hours, ZhiSheng (my LBS buddy) thought an hour and a half. Just to be safe I left after breakfast at 6: 50. It took an hour and a half and the boat didn’t leave until 10:00. While I was waiting I saw more foreigners in one place than I have ever seen, including the airport when leaving or arriving in Taiwan. The HASH Harriers were having a run around the island this weekend, so there they were. A couple came over and asked about my bike but that was all the contact we had.
>Lots of Foreigners, but no, that's not our ride

On the boat we sat upstairs in the back under cover. It was cool enough and breezy but I happened to sit in front of a speaker and had to listen to some dissertation the entire trip. It was in Taiwanese so I couldn’t understand a word of it. I finally got up and stuck my head out the side of the boat to get in the wind and out of the sound. It worked. We also saw three French girls who didn’t seem to be with the HASH group. Once we rode off on the island we only the foreigners once more when we stopped for drinks and some of them ran by.Arriving at the Island

The last time I was here Johnny was with me, along with ZhiSheng and a few others. We came and rode around the island. This time we came to the island and rode around… very haphazardly. Three people with us didn’t have bicycles so they rented two motor scooters. We first took the center road to the far side of the island and ate lunch. Then we rode around some more along the coast. We stopped at a marina and rested, took pictures, ate some more, and drank. As we were leaving I saw LaoSu start up a hill on a driveway of some sort. It was quite steep so I followed him. Down to the lowest gear and in the drops I found myself lifting the front wheel off the ground with each down stroke of the pedals. I stood up but found that at the bottom of each stroke there was no momentum to carry me forward and I was soon at a standstill. Wow, a hill tooooo steep.

Doesn't look that steep, does it?

At the top of the next hill we stopped and waited to everyone to catch up. They didn’t, so we went back to find out why. I waited at the entrance as LaoSu went in to find them. He came back and said (I thought) that one of the guys on the motor scooter had taken someone else to the restroom. Wrong. Apparently someone else had come in on a scooter, and left on one of the rented ones. Sneaky. When our guy got on the cycle he thought was his, the key didn’t work. They called the rental place and the boss came out and got him another cycle. Who would have thought that would happen on such a small island.

The group didn’t want to pay to enter into any of the tourist sights along the costal route, or visit the caves so we just rode around until 3:30 when it was time to go and catch the boat back to Kaohsiung.

On the way back we rode downstairs in the back. No announcer this time, thank goodness. The occasional sea spray felt great, but I need to rinse off my bike before it rusts.

Back in Kaohsiung we all went to dinner and had fish (what a surprise) although I don’t know how to explain which parts of the fish we had. All in all I ate too much and then had to ride home. One of the group was heading out in the same direction I was so he got me lined up on ZhongSheng road and I rode the rest of the way home on my own.LaoSu and Mrs. Su

On the way, and almost home, I got a call from ZhiSheng asking where I was. Two blocks away, I said. He had someone in his shop who wanted to use Johnny’s tag-a-long bike. I asked if she wanted to buy it and he said maybe. I stopped at the shop and she followed me home. She turned out to be one (of many) of Hsien-Ling’s students. She decided to buy it but when she got home was overruled by her husband. Oh well.

Two days later ZhiSheng called and said someone else wanted to buy Johnny’s other bike. She came over and bought it. The tag-a-long is still for sale as Johnny is too big for it. Johnny will now move up to Hsien-Ling’s old bike and Hsien-Ling wants to get a new one, with an elect motor………..

Sunday Ride With Nigel to WuTai and Beyond, but not too far

2009-04-29T19:21:00.005-07:00

Johnny didn’t want to ride today so Nigel and I took off for WuTai. I took that route a few weeks ago with ZhiSheng, my LBS friend and a few others. This time I wanted to introduce the area to Nigel, get in some good exercise and go to the end of the road instead of stopping in WuTai.

Great tree for a treehouse

We made it to the top of the hill after a couple rest stops, signed in to enter the Aboriginal area. A couple of friends of ZhiSheng were there, sitting at a table under an umbrella waiting out the drizzly mist. They didn’t want to ride in the rain of which there wasn’t much, but it was more than a fog. They were going to the left and we had planned on going to the right after entering the area. I have ridden my motorcycle to the end of the road on the left fork, but not to the end on the right. Because of the rain we figured they would never get going so we started in without them and continued with our original plan. I immediately realized I didn’t have my sun glasses so we went back to the checkpoint. They weren’t there. Discussing it, I thought I might have left them where we stopped at a closed café on the way up. We rode back down the hill, halfway to the bottom, only to find they weren’t there. We rode back up the hill, checked again at the checkpoint, and entered without them. That is the second pair of prescription glasses I have lost in a month.

We coasted most of the way to the bottom of the hill to WuTai. It was early so we thought we would eat at the next village. The end of the road wasn’t too far away according to the map….. We started out again, and up. And up some more we went. This contimued on for what seemed like days. We did pass some nice creeks, waterholes and waterfalls, but no village or place to eat.

Oh yes, it had also started raining on our way down the hill and continued, off and on though not hard, the rest of the day. After what seemed like 100Km past WuTai with no end in sight, I flagged down a motor scooter and asked how far it was to the end of the road. 30 or 40Km was the answer. And the next town? About 7Km.

Nigel while I flagged down the motor scooter

Amidst the rain and fog we decided to return to Wutai and have lunch.

On arrival we found that there was no place to eat in WuTai. We were pointed in the direction from which we had just come and told “10Km”. Been there, done that, and there wasn’t any. So we headed back out and up the hill, hungry. Still no joy at the checkpoint as we exited, we went down the hill almost to the bottom before we found a good placed to eat. The area and its people are known for their wild boar so we had that and a coke. Dellicious. It cost about NT$450.

Still rainy and cold we stopped at the bottom of the hill for a coffee. Two coffees were about NT$300, making lunch a bargain. There are no free refills in this country.

Back home Nigel had a new set of brake pads installed and I got mine adjusted. I should be able to do an endo now.

Again my GPS Edge 705 showed me riding 69.51Km but only showed 57Km in the profile. Luckily it only missed the approach to the hill that is identical to the tail of the ride. Ah, the agony of da feet

Back on the Long Haul Trucker

2009-04-29T19:03:00.002-07:00

Richard was able to get away from his Mr. Mom duties long enough for us to go on a short ride. He didn’t want to take the ride to FangLiao which is the equivalent of riding to KenTing but not having to ride home again: about 110Km. So we went in the general direction and went up along a river to a place I knew we could jump in and cool off.

First of course we stopped for breakfast across from PingTung Technical University and enjoyed the scenery while we ate. As it is a usual stop we chatted with the owners and they wondered where Johnny was. At school of course, but I promised to bring him in again soon. My son: the chick magnet.

We arrived at the river and sat in the water while solving the problems of the world. The temperature was just right, not too cold yet cool enough to lower the body temperature from riding. And the sun was warm enough to give Richard a little sunburn.

Upon leaving I wanted to check out the other fork of the river to see what improvements had been made. I didn’t want to go far as the road starts climbing away from the river quite radically after a little ways. We saw some people following the river on the right side past where the road goes over a bridge and continues on the left (and proceeds to start climbing) so we followed them. In doing so we found the river had been dammed up creating a beautiful swimming hole. We stayed there and swam for another hour, talking with some of the other swimmers and a cyclist. This has turned out to be a new destination that can be accessed by both bicycle and motorcycle, even a car. Hopefully it is not too far for Johnny to ride to. I will remember to take pictures of the good swimming hole next time……..

6 Weeks ago I Culdn't spel Draivar and naow I are one

2009-04-20T19:32:00.002-07:00

Well, what do you know? I actually passed my written test, but only by arguing. I took the test a third time rather than waiting for the results of my arguing the second test and that time got an 80%. I needed two more correct answers to get the necessary 85% but had four questions that were real questionable. They agreed to let me have it and then I pointed out that I didn’t have to take the driving test as my foreign license was current. The logic was taken from one of the test questions. They looked for half an hour to find out if I did or not when I decided not to rock the boat and take the test anyway. Surely I could pass a driving test.
Well Ok, they said, but I would actually have to wait for them to get approval for my written test from someone of authority, apparently they had none. So home again I went. That was Wednesday.
The next Wednesday Richard took the written for the fourth time and actually passed with a 92.5%. He took the driving test and failed. Go figure. He is a 40 year-old police officer from Brisbane. That day Hsien-Ling also called to see if my second test was approved. They thought they would hear soon. She talked to them about their English translations and the fact that Richard was a police officer and failed the driving test. They admitted that his car was large and he should have taken the test on the large car course. Swell. They then called Richard and told him he could retake the test on Thursday at no charge, on the bigger course. Then they called me back and said that my test was approved and that they would have written verification by Thursday or Friday so I could take my test on Friday or Monday.
They got it Thursday and I scheduled the test for Friday. Richard and I went to the course on Friday morning before it opened and he walked me through it. No problem.
At 1:20 I was there, paid my money and took the test in their car, a compact stick shift. If I took the test in my Chrysler Voyager, an automatic, I wouldn’t be licensed to drive a stick shift. So I rented theirs for NT$84 (US $2.50). The tester had me sit in the car during someone else’s test so I could see the routine. He was impressed that I spoke Chinese. When I took the test he also had someone in the back seat learning the route. In the US we take the test on actual streets with actual traffic. Not here. We merged into a lane and went around a corner, seeing if I could remain in a lane without touching the lines. Then there was a signal which only by luck was red so I stopped. No loss of points there. Then a left turn two right turns and then back into a perpendicular parking place without running over the lines that trigger an alarm. There were no poles to simulate the cars to avoid. Then out to the left, tight and left to an “S” curve with alarm lines on the side. Once through I had to back up through it. All the while the tester kept saying “beautiful, beautiful”. He was obviously easily impressed. After backing out it was then a right and a parallel parking test. Again no poles just push down the mirror and watch the alarm lines. “Beautiful, beautiful,” again. Then we made a left turn and a stop for the “pedrestrians”. Around the corner we had to start up a hill and stop on a red mark while keeping the wheels between a double set of alarm lines. After stopping we had to start without stalling the engine. (When the tester was showing Richard through the route he stalled the car three times). Now down the hill, a left turn and stop for the “train”. Last was straight ahead and stop for a 15 meter straight away where we had to get the car into third gear.
I scored an 88%. Thinking it was so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, I asked where I lost points. He implied my driving was jerky. I could live with that.
But then at 3:10 was the motorcycle test. This involves driving straight for about ten meters along a narrow track lined with alarm lines in a time not less than seven seconds. Then on a wider track on one must stop for a red light, go around a curve, stop for a train, then stop for a pedestrian and then finish. I took my two tries to get through the first track and then zipped through the rest. Actually I cut the corner exiting at the finish but they gave it to me anyway. Now I can ride motorcycles up to 25cc. For anything bigger I would have to take a course and pass another test. Those that have them still drive like they are on scooters......

Getting a Driver's License in Taiwan

2009-03-30T05:11:00.005-07:00

Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!

My friend, Richard, from Australia, has been here about two months. Now he wants to get a driver’s license. I have been here off and on for almost 13 years so I decided to go with him. I didn’t want to rush into anything you know. So last Wednesday we went, accompanied by his wife, Bonnie, to the Motor Vehicles Department or whatever they call it here to take our written test and then our driving test.

We took the written but not the driving test. We both failed with 77.5% on our tests. The test questions are strange. One would think that after practicing online a little and using 42 years of driving experience and common sense I would be able to pass the test with the required 85%. But no. And to think I only needed 70% to pass my private pilot written, which is what, I think, I got….

The questions don’t only ask about driving, but about what the fines are for driving incorrectly. Also, some of the signs are strange. In the book I had to study a few years ago t had about 25 pictures of signs that all seemed to show rocks falling off the cliff. Looking closely on the online test, one of those rocks is really a car, and the sign means that there is a cliff on the left, not rocks falling from the right. It looked like a rock to me but luckily the three answers led to the right answer. Here are a few of the questions:

1. When driving on 2 lanes of 2 ways, in the line division parts, it is allowed to pass, but not allowed to compete paralelly. [the spelling is not mine]

2. Applicant with illegal methods to take the test, the test cancelled. If the applicant already has driver’s license, the license will be annulled and with no rights to apply for driving test for 2 years

3. No person is allowed inside the trunk

4. When driving parallely with other cars, the car in the front needs to stop: (1) must turn on the right signal light and brakelight or hand gesture to notify (2) stop any time, no need for signal and hand gesture (3) slow down then stop slowly

5. Perpendicular yellow lines are: (1) car lane lines (2) direction division lines (3) car direction lines

6. Perpendicular white lines are: (1) zebra pedestrian lines (2) car lane lines (3) road side lines

7. Full horizaontal line is: (1) parking line (2) no passing line (3) stop line.

8. In a case of hit and run, the car owner who is informed to present at the scene and fails to do so without justification, or fails to provide the information of the driver is punishable by suspension of license plate for: (1) 3 to 6 months; (2) 1 to 3 months; (3) 1 to 2 years.

9. When you are driving and see the cars on neighboring lanes have turned off the turn signals, you must: (1) accelerate and pass (2) slow down and yield (2) compete and race (1) land mark (2) fog direction (3) road direction

10. And one of my favorites: (the character means east)

There seems to be an emphasis more on what penalty you may receive than what you should do versus what you shouldn’t do. If the answers were based on what actually happens in real life, most of the answers would be: do whatever. The questions even have narration in English. The question is read three times with the answers. Usually it is read correctly but once the writing said: It is correct… but the narration said: It is not correct… I think if I fail this week I will challenge the results. That should be interesting. I’ll see how good my Chinese is, or if I can bluff or bully my way into passing. Maybe it just needs a red envelope, you think?

For the driving test I am going to rent the car at the test facility. It costs NT$80, or about US$2.50. I didn’t have my registration with me last week and I also discovered that if I took the test in an automatic, I wouldn’t be licensed to drive a stick shift. I will still have to take a motorcycle test and my bike is a Yamaha 150 so it qualifies as a big motorcycle (over 90cc to 205cc) but not as a great big motorcycle (or some other strange name for anything over 250cc).

I may wait until I go back to the US this summer and get a motorcycle endorsement on my Arizona driver’s license and then come back and bypass the 30 hours of schooling and one year regular motorcycle license requirement to get a great big motorcycle license. Not that I will ever use it, of course. A big bike is not real practical here. No advantage in traffic unless one still rides it like a scooter, and no great advantage in parking either. Great Big Motorcycles can now be ridden on the freeway thanks to WTO. I haven’t seen any on the freeway and I don’t think I would like to ride on there anyway. Cars here don’t have a lot of respect for other cars let alone motorcycles. It could be dangerous. I’ll stick to my Chrysler Voyager, with or without a license.

Oh, you want the answers? 1.T, 2.F, 3.T, 4.1, 5.2, 6.2, 7.3, 8.2, 9.2, 10.3 How did you do?