Wow - my blog hosting site tells me that this is my 900th post on this blog! Who would have thought that I would keep up with this experiment for that long. Actually, I started blogging on a different site before I changed over to this one ... but we will celebrate 900 anyway. I certainly write less frequently nowadays as compared to when I started, and less while we are not on-the-road, but I still like to provide an update on our doings once in a while for those few who check in.
This posting will start with a rousing HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY greeting! I hope you all are enjoying great weather with friends and family! This day has become all about big meals and football, and those traditions are fine, but sharing the day with those you love is the best part ... and always has been.
Today is a generally cloudy day here in Maine as a warm front is moving in to bring us some warmer temps up into the 50s! It has been pretty cold these last few days with lows in the teens to 20s so this little warm up will be nice. We got our first snow accumulation earlier in the week when we awoke to some white on the ground that was gone by noon ... so the season has started. I found the snow shovels the other day and moved them to their winter storage locations .... and moved the snowblower to its ready-to-be-accessed spot ... so I guess I am closer to being ready for the first big storm.
The "holiday" season has really snuck up on me this year. It seems like just last month we were visiting folks in Arizona, and just last week that we got back from our summer trip that took us to the northwest. I guess that means we have been busy and active doing all kinds of interesting things. Well some of them have been interesting, some have just been normal chores, and some have been unplanned events filling the days of our lives. As my lovely and wise wife likes to say ... "It's all Good."
I have been spending a lot of time working on my bike restoration project lately. I have pretty much completed cleaning, painting, and plating all the parts that attach to the bike's frame. This part of the restoration is both the "fun" part because you get to see things start to go back together - and the hard/messy/tedious part spent cleaning each and every part, nut, bolt, and washer before carefully painting the painted parts and zinc plating and polishing each of the fasteners.
And then there is the challenging times where you get to try and apply paint to places so small you need to use the eye of a needle!
But it will all be worth it when the completed project emerges in the spring.
For those of you following the 2015/2016 Honda 350F restoration project ... I have a big surprise planned that I hope to reveal in blog post 901.
As for now ... it's on to giving thanks, eating turkey, and watching football!
Our weather continues its march towards winter as the nighttime lows get lower and the daytime highs are not quite as high as they used to be. But all-in-all it has been a pretty decent fall weatherwise. The leaves are pretty much done falling but we still have several weeks of leaf gathering to go before that chore will be complete for 2015.
In and around pre-winter yardwork Peggy and I have been busy attending high school soccer tournament games, visiting with young Miss Taylor and Miss Sophie a little here and there, and playing with our various projects.
The soccer season has finally drawn to a close with Kyla's Lady Bobcats earning a hard fought 1-0 win over the Ashland Hornets to once again reign as the Maine Class D Soccer champs! The Richmond High Girls Soccer program has been very successful over the past 10 or so years but they had to beat the team that beat them in the State Championship game last year and had amassed a 35-0 record over the last two years. Peggy and I made the 270 or so mile trip up to Presque Isle, Maine last Saturday to watch the game and stayed overnight in a local motel before driving home on Sunday. Wow -- it had been a long time since we had stayed in a motel ... when did they get so expensive!
The Honda restoration project has kept me busy the last week or so. I finally got the frame stripped of its old paint and then applied several coats of new gloss black. With that task complete I was anxious to start putting a few pieces back on the frame ... so I did.
I also helped get the stripes applied to the newly painted gas tank and then Glen finished up that paint project by applying the last coats of clear over the silver base coat and the blue stripes. After the tank had a few days to cure I re-installed the gas cap, added a new gas cap latch mechanism, and installed the rebuilt petcock. The tank and newly painted side covers are ready for installation!
Since all that was going so well I decided to install the re-built, re-painted, and re-polished front forks and associated "stuff."
Still a long ways to go .... but the progress is looking promising!
Do you realize that Thanksgiving is only 12 days away! I didn't!! Not only that ... Christmas is only 29 days after that! My goodness ... didn't this year just start a few months ago?? I guess time does in-fact fly when you are busy living your life. Before you know it the snow will be snowing, the walkways will need shoveling, and old man winter will be here in full force! It must be time to start thinking about heading south to warmer places!!
I know - I know .... Didn't we say we were going to stay put here in Maine this winter? I think we might have said that in August ... or maybe even in September. But thoughts of warm weather and grilled gulf shrimp started to creep-in in October and just thinking of snow, cold, and winter's darkness in November are taking their toll. I'm thinking a trip to Florida around the first of February might be in order.
Don't you?
After all ... that's only 11 weeks away!
Well here we are ... all the way to November of 2015! I know it happened 1 day at a time but it sure happened fast! The beautiful fall foliage of New England is now all over the ground and most of it is in my yard.
I did manage to get many of my pre-winter chores complete for the Evringham Fleet. The Winnebago is parked and winterized, the Chevelle and the Yamaha are in their storage spots, and the Honda has been completely disassembled. I still need to get the oil changed in the Fusion and the batteries in the Winnebago need to come home before the really cold weather arrives ... but the vehicles are pretty much ready for winter. Now it's time to find those snow shovels, get the pre-winter maintenance done on the snowblower and deal with 1.2 million leaves! Never a dull season here at the Maineiacs Not So In Motion Winter Cabin!!
In between taking care of pre-winter chores we have taken advantage of some opportunities to visit with kids and grandkids including attending a few high school soccer games to watch Kyla and those Richmond Lady Bobcats as they march towards yet another State Class D title match. This year the State Championship game will be held in Presque Isle, ME which is waay up north where the polar bears live. I wonder how they play on ice and in the snow? We may find out!
As mentioned above, I disassembled the Honda a few weeks ago in preparation for the "restoration" project to occur over the next few months. I was a little concerned how difficult it would be to get that engine removed from the frame - but it came out fine with a little planning and a tug here and there.
I even managed to get it mounted on my engine stand for its future minor rebuild and beatification work.
The gas tank, side covers, and front fork covers are the only pieces that will require "color" painting on this bike and they were handed over to Glen (the paint guy) to work his magic a few weeks ago. He already has most of that work done except for applying the stripes on the tank using a decal kit I purchased on-line. Although this bike was originally painted Glory Blue Black Metallic as that was the only color available in the USA for the 1974 model, I have decided it should be resurrected in Custom Silver Metallic with Navy Blue stripes on the tank. The silver model was available in non US countries - so it's sorta correct! Here is a little teaser photo of what the final product will look like.
I have been working these past several days on the tedious task of preparing the frame for paint. After repairing a bad weld from a previous repair on the side stand bracket I have been stripping off the paint and a bit of rust before I prime and paint the frame back to its original black.
I have lots of parts to clean, polish, paint, and repair over the next few months. But that's the fun part!!
SO ... that's what's happening here in the cool and getting colder northeast. Watching the leaves fall, getting ready for the snow to fall, and looking forward to riding the Honda in the spring!
Oh Yeah ... also starting to think about when these Maineiacs might get back in Motion. Peggy is more that happy to stay here, watch the snow fall, and play with grandkids. Me too .... but I suspect both of us may be in a different frame of mind come the first of February. One thing I know for sure -- if we leave in February -- the direction will be south --- way south!
