Rinda’s Scavenger Hunt–Adventure in the Rocky Mountains

We spent 2 weeks in August motorcycling round the Canadian Rockies!  We were on a guided tour,so that meant everything was booked up for us, including rental of motorbikes, hotels, etc, and there was a back-up van for our luggage!  We met some great people on the tour and saw some awesome scenery. 

I decided to try and do the Scavenger Hunt while we were on our trip.  I didn’t get them all,but here’s what I did get:

1 a wild heart

2 foot print or paw print.  There must be a paw print somewhere in this quilt- mustn’t there?

3 skeleton bone or x-ray

4 book or magazine read in 2016

5 porch or deck.  We were lucky enough to have lunch on the patio/deck at Banff Springs Hotel, and the weather was perfect!  Must be one of the most scenic places in the world to have lunch!

6 camper or RV.  I was fascinated by the HUGE RVs!  They were everywhere!  We stayed overnight at this RV park – we had a wooden cabin – in Clearwater, BC.

7 family gathering.  These guys were brilliant!  They certainly felt like my family while we were on the trip.

8 drawing art journal scrapbook page etc made by me

9 someone playing in or around water.  Canoes on Moraine Lake.  So pretty!

10 bicycle.  Rental bicycles in Vancouver.

11 fresh produce.  Granville Island Market in Vancouver

 

12 window. I found this window in the Chinese garden in Vancouver’s Chinatown

13 the moon.  How about this moon face on one of the totem poles in Stanley Park, Vancouver?

14 buffet of food.  Maurice felt like he was eating a whole buffet of food when he was served this humungous burger at Whistler, BC.

15 team logo.  The Whitecaps FC team store in Vancouver.

16 map showing trip

17 twins.  Maurice and Stewart hired the same BMW motorbike rather than a Harley.  They are BMW R1200RT’s with twin cylinders.

18 supermarket trolley full of groceries

19 seasonal cocktail

20 someone laughing.  We really did laugh a lot on this trip!  Here’s a great picture of Aussie Pam laughing(who rode her own Harley Davidson Fatboy!)

 

21 photo of me with newspaper or calendar from period covered by hunt

That’s it for this year from me!

Scavenger Hunt–The bike show

We went to a vintage motobike show at Ardingly back in July.  I was hoping to tick a few more things off my list, maybe a horn, or a person with a tattoo?

So without further ado, here’s a horn!  In fact, this was the only horn I found, as most of the bikes from the 1970s and 1980s, and don’t have such an elegant looking horn.  This was on a bike from the 1930s.

On the other hand, there were plenty of tattoos!  Look at these arms!! Quite a work of art.

How about this mascot – another work-of-art – on the petrol tank of a Honda Goldwing.  It is beautiful, and the bike is pretty splendid too!

Finally, here’s a parade of motorbikes in the car park.

I still have a few to get: a sign welcoming people into my home town, a juggler, a photo bomb, and me holding something representing the season. 

I’m linking up with Rinda for August Scavenger Hunt.

California Dreaming–The Motorbike

We hired a Harley Davidson Electraglide motorbike for our road trip from California Motorcycle Adventures, just south of San Francisco.  As well as renting us the bike, they helped put our trip together and plumbed our route into a satnav/GPS.  Well, it just had to be a Harley in California didn’t it?  Here’s how it looked before it got dirty, all shiny and sparkly, quite a machine eh?

Maurice had never ridden a Harley before and was a bit concerned about the weight.  It weighs 900lb, about double the weight of the bike he usually rides!  But the weight is very low down, and Maurice was soon manouvering the bike successfully. 

It is by far the most comfortable bike we have ever ridden.  Just look at the comfortable seat!  I have an armchair on the back.  I usually have to get off the bike every hour or so because of a ‘numb bum’ but I could have sat all day on this bike.  Just as well, as I did sit on it all day!

We had to fill up with petrol/gas every day.  The tank is not very big, but the bike reasonably economical so did about 170 miles between gas stations.  Just for the record, petrol costs about half as much in the USA as here in the UK.  Bit of a tricky comparison calculation, as while we buy our petrol in litres, the Americans buy their gas in US gallons, which are slightly smaller than UK gallons!

It got a bit dirty – we rode through 2 days of rain!  And right at the end of the holiday, the front gear lever came loose.  Maurice managed to change gear using the back gear lever, but we had to tie the front lever up out of the way – nothing my bootlace wouldn’t fix!

Would we ride a Harley again?  Maurice says NO!  He found it’s lack of power and clunky gear change very frustrating, despite the comfortable riding position.

A weekend away

Last Christmas, our children bought us tickets to the MotoGP for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.  It’s the ‘formula 1’ for motorbikes.  You should know by now that we’re motorbike nuts!  We have been to motorbike races before, but not the MotoGP.  Maurice avidly watches every race on the tv, so was thrilled with this gift!

Silverstone race track is about 2.5 hours ride away, so we decided to go for the weekend, stopping off at a stately home, Blenheim palace on the Saturday and going to the race on Sunday.

Blenheim Palace is one of England’s treasure houses.  It is a magnificent house set in acres of landscaped gardens.  It is the home of the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and the birthplace of Winston Churchill. 

The day of our visit was gloriously sunny and warm.  We had a very informative guided tour of the state rooms which included lots of history of the family.  The highlights are the wonderful tapestries that depict the story of the first Duke’s success in the battle of Blenheim in 1704.  Here’s the wonderful library.

We took some time to wander around the magnificent gardens, landscaped by Capability Brown in the 1760s, and stopped for a cool drink on the water terrace built by the 9th Duke.  We then visited a very strange exhibition, called the ‘untold story’, which consisted of actors on film pretending to be ghosts of previous occupants of the house. Very odd!  It was an enjoyable visit but not really worth the £22 each entrance fee!

After a not very comfortable night in a rather scruffy and old fashioned B&B in the little town of Banbury, we set off for a day of racing.  Wow!  Don’t think we’d ever seen this many motorbikes together! 

It was much better than we expected, in that we could see the racing quite well, and were able to follow what was happening in the race on the big screens. 

The atmosphere was great – lots of oohs and ahhs from the crowd as the bikes jockeyed for position.  Of course, we all love Cal Crutchlow, our GB rider!  There were lots of people wearing his Tech3 team colours.  He came 7th, but, oh! how we’d have loved him to be on the podium!  But when Valentino Rossi rides past, and especially when he manoeuvered for an overtake, the crowd roared!  We love you Rossi!  Marquez did not disappoint, with an epic battle for 1st place between himself and Lorenzo.  (This is the first year of Marquez MotoGP career and he is already leading the championship!) Scott Redding, our Moto2 rider won a brilliant race, and it has been confirmed that he will be racing in MotoGP next season.  The last race we watched was the Moto3, with lots of young riders.  It was very exciting with the 4 riders out front changing the lead every few minutes! 

Buses and coaches

Every year in Worthing we have a ‘sea front fayre’.  It includes lots of a fun activities along the seafront, including a fun fair, market stalls, car and bike shows, and a bus rally.  The bus rally takes place just nearby, so we usually walk down to have a look.

There are always lots of the Routemasters, the iconic London bus:

Our local bus company had this cream and green livery.

Ahhh!  These take me back to my childhood, early 1970s coaches!  I would have sat on one of these on school outings, and my grandparents would have caught one of these when they came to visit from Birmingham. I remember once going on a coach day trip wioth them to Hastings.  I think we have photos somewhere…. I feel a scrapbook page coming on!

 

We always enjoy looking at vintage vehicles that have been lovingly restored.  As we walked home Maurice asked me if it brings the ‘anorak’ out in me.  I have to say, no, it doesn’t.  I like looking at them and appreciate the hard work and patience that has gone into them, but have no interest in the history, the mechanics and details of which garage these buses and coaches operated from!  However, it must be great to show off your bus at one of these events, along with others who share your passion.

Finally, I managed another Scavenger Hunt photo.  An outdoor market.  Yesterday we had the charity stalls along the seafront

Sunday Morning Ride out

We were a bit stumped with what to do with ourselves this morning.  Usually on a bright sunny morning like this we would pack a flask of coffee and a couple of hot cross buns, and take Merlin, our flat-coated retriever for a long walk across the downs.  In fact, we may well do more of the South Downs Way.  But sadly, Merlin is unwell; in fact, we are quite worried about him.  He is back to the vets tomorrow for tests to find out what is wrong with him. Hoping it’s nothing too serious

So we decided to get the shiny Honda motorbike out for ride!

 

(We need lots of practice as we have a really exciting holiday booked for later in the year which involves hiring a Harley Davidson and riding the Pacific Highway up the coast of California). 

We set off in the direction of a National Trust property called ‘Uppark’.  It was a stunningly beautiful ride!  We left Worthing on the A27 going west and turned off at Arundel to meet the A272 at Bury Hill.  We encountered dozens of cyclists puffing up the hills, whizzing down the other side, and enjoying the warm sunshine!  We rode through lush green countryside.  This Spring has come really late in the UK due to a long wet cold winter, but everything is in full lushness now!  The trees are clothed in the brilliant lime green of new leaves, and the fields are green with young crops. The hedgerows along the side of the roads are full of white frothy cow parsley.  We rode through leafy tunnels where the trees touch over the road, and the dappled sunlight filters through.  At times we came out of the trees and high banks either side of the road to stunning vistas of rolling hills patchworked with lots of different shades of green.  We rode through little villages, just a few quaint old cottages, and maybe a cosy looking pub (must make mental note to come back to some of these pubs!).  There were signs on the side of the road advertising farm shops, village fetes, and the South of England Agricultural Show, but my favourite was a little hand written sign that said ‘ Beware, ducklings crossing’!

As we approached Uppark we rode through another leafy tunnel and came out to this stunning view.  The brilliant yellow of the rape seed plants took our breath away, so we stopped to take some photos.

 

Just look a the blue sky and little fluffy clouds!

Unfortunately, you have to pay entry to Uppark to get to the cafe, and as we didn’t want to stay long, we decided to motor on.  We took the road towards Chichester, which passes Goodwood motor racing circuit, and it was then that Maurice remembered that the Breakfast Club was on today, and the theme was Super Cars!  So in complete contrast to our lovely countryside ride, we drank our coffee amongst ‘petrolheads’ admiring the (rather gorgeous) super cars.  Which one shall I have?  A McClaren, a Jaguar XJ220, a rich red Ferrari, or a Porsche?

You will be glad to know that we were home in time to watch the MotoGP motorbike racing at lunch time!