Welp, I still exist. I know it has been a long time since I posted last, but hey, busy and all. So, here is an update.
I’m sore tonight. I left Los Alamos in the pouring rain and headed over the Jemez around 3pm. It rained pretty hard in the first part of the Jemez, there were rocks washed down in areas I have never seen before. I rode through this no problem, though, as all my gear is waterproof. I made a vow that if State 4 was dry by the time I hit the turn off to 126, I would take 126, otherwise I would go the long, paved way.
State 4 was dry as can be miles before the turn off, and the radar map had showed that the rain was to the south of where I was to go, so, I headed down 126. The first part was great, dry, but not too dusty, my new tires doing a good job with the little rocks and etc. One guy in a Subaru stopped me, and asked how far it was to the highway back the way I had come. He looked frazzled. There was a bunch of little girls in the back seat.
Continuing on, the road turned from ‘tuff’ (volcanic ash) to a clay. I came up over a hill, and found just a little bit of mud, and the next thing I knew, the front end washed out, and I was down. I got off the bike and turned it off and looked it over. No real damage to the bike, but my side case was shattered. Ah well. I managed to stand it up, and move it to the side of the road, and move all my clothes and etc into a different bag.
Brian is still working up the mounting for the giant turbo he is putting in his Mustang. Here you can see him attempting to TIG weld a mounting bracket.
Still in Utah, at least for the day. Tomorrow I am headed back to Los Alamos for a short while before coming back up here. Mariel moves in on Sunday, and then we are going to Socorro for a couple of days the first of next week to hang out with some friends. It will be nice to unwind for a few days and not do any work. Doing two weeks at a time here is working out pretty well, but near the end of the two weeks, I start getting a tad frazzled, trying to wrap things up, and just getting kind of burnt out on just sleeping and working with nothing else going on.
Next week, I will be moving snurkle.net over to a new co-lo in California, so things might be wacky for a day or two as all that settles, but I doubt it will be much of a deal.
Hope everyone is having fun.
Getting caught up on blogging today. A bit slow at the lab, waiting on some things to happen. By that, I mean, I am back in Utah again for two weeks.
Danny and Meghan are looking in on the cats while I am gone, as Kija has now moved to Albuquerque and started her new job at Charter Bank. So far, she seems to be liking it. We have decided as of when I got back from Chicago that we are going to split up and see what happens. She is planning on going back to school at some point, and I am working towards moving to Utah. So, strange being single again, but I plan to make the most of it to try to restructure things and see where life takes me.
When I get back to New Mexico in about a week and a half, my friend Mariel from the Chicago area is going to move in to my house and rent a room from me. She’s kind of in the same boat as me, due to job things outside of her control, she has been given the opportunity to start over again, and she had been itching to move out west and see what it was like. I’m looking forward to it, as I’ll then have someone at the house to take care of my cats while I am back in Utah. She also has a cat, so that will be interesting to have 3 cats in the same house. Right now, the plan is to do like 2 weeks up here, and then 2 weeks at home, back and forth, until it becomes a full time gig. But that will be a few months before that happens, so it will give me time to get the house in order and get it sold and for Mariel to get herself set up in Albuquerque or whatnot. Should work out well.
I finally left Chicago, but not before I had a chance to visit the Sears Tower.
Click here for more shots from the observation deck. It was a cloudy day, so I don’t think I saw the 3 states that you are supposed to be able to see.
I left out and headed for Oklahoma. Along the way I passed some old places…
I finally arrived in Oklahoma about an hour before dark.
Christy put me up for the night. It was fun catching up with an old friend. I had not seen here since I was through Tulsa last with Danny on our way to New York, back in college.