We had some visitors for the past several days. Irene’s cousin Anne and Anne’s husband Lester spent a couple of days with us as they travelled east through the province on their way to Alberta.

We had a really nice visit. I’m not exactly a social animal, but once I get going I probably can talk the ears off of a brass monkey. We had some good chats about a number of things we can’t really control: economics, politics, artificial intelligence, social media, and health. Good meals were prepared and eaten and a few drinks were consumed. And we had some lovely evenings sitting on the porch chatting as the light of the day dissipated.

Departure

Lester and Anne left early Saturday morning. I felt a bit down and somewhat worn out as is often the case after visitors leave, but I spent a few hours Saturday morning puttering in the garage trying organize my vehicle polisher and supplies.

My bike is basically ready to go for the road trip I plan this upcoming week. I’m heading to Edmonton to visit my brothers Ron and Colin and my best friend Chris. But I’m thinking I should wash and wax my bike before I leave.

Motorcycle road trip

Cleaning my bike is part of my usual ‘pre-ride’ preparation for a road trip. I’ll be describing the trip itself in more detail on my motorcycle blog, Geek on a Harley, but some of the non-riding details will likely be described here. I really haven’t figured out how to split that kind of thing up between the two blogs.

I have a long ‘technical’ motorcycle post I’ve been assembling on that other blog regarding my tour pack installation. It feels like I’ve been working on that blasted post for months. The work is all done, but somehow explaining it is taking a while. And don’t I sort of need to finish that up before I can start detailing a road trip with the finished bike? It seems like that should be the sequence.

I’ve tried splitting that big post up a bit by separating out a section about relocating the license plate from the main post. But breaking it down further isn’t how my mind wants to work, so… a gigantic article on the intricacies of my tour pack installation is incoming on my other blog.

Irene isn’t fond of me going away for a week. I love these long road trips on my motorcycle, but she has zero … actually, below zero interest in riding on the back of my bike. And she doesn’t like driving long distances, so I she doesn’t want to follow along behind me in a car.

That means these trips are solo affairs which is fine for me as the trip clears and settles my mind, but no fun for Irene. So there is always some kind of discussion about how I can ‘make up’ the negatives of me being away with something later. This year she just wants me to come home when I’m done: we haven’t really come up with an idea for a special thing for Irene.

Finishing up some ‘To-dos’

I’ll be spending the next few days before I set out on my trip clearing a few to-dos off my list. Some are trip related- as I mentioned, washing my bike. But I also have to mow the lawn and take some photos of the house to send off to a guy for an estimate regarding permanent Christmas lights.

Not exactly riveting stuff, but it is the kind of thing that fills my days now that I’m gainfully unemployed.