Monday, April 20, 2015

Truck stop connoisseur.

A fellow C&C 37 owner sent me an email asking if there was any progress since my last post at the end of March when the boat came out of the shed. Alas, there has been no work on Ronin since then. I’ve been off-line figuratively and literally for some time now.

After getting the hull set up on jack stands in the yard, I took a few days to prepare my KTM 400 EXC for shipment out to an establishment called 3 Step Hideaway in Southeast Utah where it will stay for the next year. My brother, several other friends of ours and I took our bikes out there last September and had a great time riding the area. It was such a great place to stay and ride from that it occurred to us that it made more sense to leave the bikes there and fly in and out rather than drive them out each time we wanted to do some off-road adventure riding.

My brother Pete's wife is a seriously competitive horse endurance racer and had been looking for a new addition to her stable of Arabians that was young, in good health and ready to be trained to run 100 mile races. She found a 4-year old gelding in San Antonio, Texas and bought him. Since my brother was on tap to drive down and pick the horse up and I enlisted to help him do some of the driving, we quickly realized that we should make a “slight” detour to drop the bikes off in Utah. And do a few days of riding at the same time.

Off we went, dragging a 3-horse trailer loaded with 4 KTM’s. I’ve been on the road for most of the time with the exception of 4 days at 3 Step Hideaway. It was a long (5,000+ miles), grueling trip and I got to sample some of the finest cuisine at some exceptional truck stops throughout the Midwest, West and South. And I have the gut to prove it...

Anyway, I got back into town last Friday and have been attending to the house and grounds that were going wild in my absence. No work on Ronin yet.

Today I ordered and will have delivered to the boatyard a 16’ wide, 14’ high and 45’ long galvanized steel and heavy duty fabric shed so that I can totally enclose the boat. This will be erected over the hull so that I will be able to continue working on the decks over the summer and fall. That should arrive around the end of April or early May. Although expensive it will make a big difference it getting things done on my current schedule. 

In the meantime, some travel snaps.

Pete on left, me center and old friend Jim from San Diego on right:

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Campsite sunset in Canyonlands. With a glass of wine:

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 Spring calf branding at the neighbors:

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How bulls become steers...

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The object of my sister-in-law’s desire:

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