digest number 13400

[souperdoo]

Martin,

Well, that's technology for ya!

Here it is for your (and I suppose everyone else's) address book:

charlestschmitz@...

Now, all you Nigerian princes and suitors out there, hold the e-mails. I got no money.

Tom

[cycletip]

You should write for a moto rag Earl.  Enjoy reading your travel stories! Still love my 03 KLR.  Can't wait to get out in the NV desert in next few weeks. 

[Martin Earl]

Hi Monty, You are very kind to say such nice things.Wouldn't writing for a moto-rag cut into the time spent riding and daydreaming? Twelve years ago, I wrote this short musing, shortly after moving to the Dakota's.It was first 'published' here at DSN_KLR650 ~May of 2004. All of our life stories could have a moral, if we search for one. As part of my South Dakota story, as some of you know, this parson has a motorcycle. The mechanical green beast has become my circuit-riding vehicle of choice. Particularly of note, my dark-green Kawasaki dirt bike carries a running-deer logo on the faring, which by now, some of you has seen. One of our anonymous friends, who after making a particularly complete inspection of the color and engineering, =Dave Ramsey of Harrold, SD, still can t believe it s not actually a John Deere.

Earlier last month, I started a 125-mile motorcycle journey that would become a 5-visit day, started by riding 25 miles North into the Hyde County hither-lands and day-traded the MC for a dun colored quarter horse named Polly. Oddly enough, she seemed only mildly interested in the ranches 2-wheel John Deere. On this day s agenda, Polly and I would spend about 5 hours together as I sorely, revisited the days of my youth, moving cows and separating pairs. Polly waited patiently while we pulled a heifer s calf, waited even longer as we prayed over a different calf that was born earlier. This calf is now no longer a vibrant sleek, black ball of fur with promise, but a sick, rejected and injured-in-birth bull calf that was only moments between life and death.

As icing on the Hyde County hinterland foray, during the final moments of my re-introduction into the world of working horse excursions, my cowboy-compatriot-benefactor has a wreck on his horse. He just missed being pinned to the ground by the saddle horn, which as you know, is bad, no, actually, it is very bad and might be considered by some to be in poor taste. The mare flipped over on her back, and nearly on the cowboy.

Ranks right up there as the cowboys 11th and 12th commandment.

11. Thou shalt eject from, and flee from thine horse that is inverted. 12. "Thou shalt not ride thy horse or thy mare that is inverted on their back lest it killith thee with the saddle horn, by pinnith thee to the ground, lest thou brains runneth out.

Mixing Biblical, Naval Aviation and cowboy metaphors, deciding if it was the 11th/or 12th commandment aside, the wreck made a heck of a smack.... the mare had her foot caught in some wire and got excited, and before my very eyes, I "seize" this mare stumbling backwards, the cowboy attempting to calm the entangled mare as the wire goes taunt around her rear foot, the horse went vertical as the dreaded flight deck words of Eject Eject become stuck in my throat, as poor Leroy struggled to find the ejection-seat handle before his airborne mare augers him into the Hyde county prairie. Right before my eyes, Leroy is about to take a heck of a hit as the mare passed the vertical, rapidly approaching the horizontal in the inverted position with all four hoofs churning the bright blue sky. Milliseconds before being smooshed, Leroy escapes the confines of the leather death-trap, just missed being pinnith to the ground! I wish it were on film. It was that dramatic.

By now, you are probably wondering what is the moral to this story

My first thought or interpretation of this little life lesson was this: Here I am, in the middle of God s country, called to be the pastor of the greatest people in the world, at least 25 miles from medical attention, this was the first time for me to cowboy since the summer of '75 and I was thinking, "I bet we are going to be late for lunch."

Later that night, I would go for the Hyde County, motorcycling bonus points, West bound and hammer down on my way home from the last visit, I am approaching Hyde Co deer preserve (=NO HUNTING) near Jim Faulstich s, I get-ts the dickens scared out of me on a broad, gravel road, when the deer, more than 5 of them, who had their noses pointed West and their b-hinds pointed at me, boiled out of the ditch!

You could almost here their voices as they scrambled in all directions, "Run for your lives, The Methodist John Deere is coming! The Methodist John Deere is coming.

" Whoo-weee and all I could think of was, If I hit one of these deer and get wacked, Grandma Nadine is going to kill me!

The real moral of the story here is that in all that we did that day, while exercising a prudent degree of due care, God s grace and protection were upon us and the results were far better that we deserved or could have expected.

Sure felt good to be on a horse again. I must have done ok, I got invited back the next week to help move pairs again.

end. m1.

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 9:04 AM, cycletip@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote: You should write for a moto rag Earl. Enjoy reading your travel stories! Still love my 03 KLR. Can't wait to get out in the NV desert in next few weeks.

[achesley43@ymail.com]

Beartooth Pass, what a memory. Strange how I ended up visiting it about 4 years ago. I was headed to Wash State on my 1250S Bandit and had just passed though Glacier. While at a gas and eat stop , I started talking to an older guy on an old Harley. Discussion got around to the places in the US we shared views of in our years of travel. Then he comes out with., " Have you done Beartooth?"  Thinking about it for a bit, I told him " No, been all around it and even done Chief Joseph several times going though Yellowstone one way are the other. 

His next words changed my trip plans. " You know, we both almost 70 and who knows when our last ride will be. You need to do Beartooth at lease once while you are still able . "  

I looked at him real serious and told him he had just change my trip plans. I went and done Beartooth from West Glacier.  So glad I did. The next year., headed to California, in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, I had to do a heck of an evasion act to miss a deer coming into a corner. Missed the deer but crashed attempting to make the corner when the front caught sand at the edge and me and Bandit  went into the rocks. Damage to my left shoulder ended my long distance riding but still able to ride about  a 100 or so mile radius on either the Bandit ( rebuilt from the crash ) or, my goto bike around here, the faithful '00 KLR.