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Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:27 pm

I spent a couple hours this weekend putting in a stereo and finishing the install of the new tent.

My daughter and her boyfriend heading up to Fort Collins for the 4th to do some fishing on the Poudre River & Horsetooth Reservoir

We met them the next day up at Horsetooth to do some paddling and fishing around the back bays and islands.

Then it was back to my other daughters place for a holiday cookout and an extended game of Settlers of Catan under a big shady cottonwood tree, where the dad tutored the young 'uns on that age and treachery thing once again.

Tuna was on her zip line so she wouldn't bother the poultry and when the brief but intense late afternoon thunder and lightning showers rolled in, she knew right where to go.

Mon Jul 03, 2017 4:27 pm

bobbyblack wrote: I love this thread, it's great to see all the action going on out there!
Thanks! Feedback like this is always nice

Quote:
1: Your images suggest you have a knack for photography; Are you professionally trained, or otherwise a professional photographer? I'd love to shoot like you can!
The technology is so good these days that even people like me, who have absolutely no training in photography, can take good pictures.
Most of these pictures are taken with my cell phone, an old Galaxy S5. I do have an entry level Nikon, but most of the time that's at home
There usually is a bit of postprocessing where I use the freeware Irfanview picture editor to first crop the picture to the frame I like, then sharpen the image 1 step, then brighten/darken and/or Contrast and/or Saturate a little bit as needed. Then I load the pics up to flickr.com and link them in from there.

You can see the difference in how this cropping & postprocessing works between the first and second set of Buses of Arise pictures
The first set, which was a simple upload of the pics as taken, is a bit fuzzy, vaguely posed and, frankly, a bit boring.
The second set, which was cropped & processed, each have a clear subject, more color and impact.
The second set was also taken with the Nikon, vs an older point-n-shoot

Quote:
2: The color of your van, is that LP7Y Flash Silver? And if so, what have you found as your touchup paint solution

?Keep the great thread alive, thanks!

-bobby
No, its is Savanna Beige Metallic L1HV. I'm really happy with the non-metallic touchup spray paint that I ordered from Automotivetouchup.com, these L1HV cans below were $20 each.

Thanks for the positive comments

Thu Jul 27, 2017 6:43 pm

We have a vintage race this weekend, so the kids, Tunes and I went down to the race shop last night to help get the '61 Jag MKII racer dialed in and prepped.

I spent last week down at the university in Queretaro, Mexico, and while there were 100's of T2's like this tidy watercooled driving around, there were no T1's or T3's to be seen anywhere.

Sun Jul 30, 2017 4:35 pm

We were on our way down to the race shop early in the morning when Bob called and said rain was forecast at the track and that he didn't want to drive an hour and a half just to sit under a tarp all day. We agreed, so no racing this weekend.

With the day free, we took the cruiser bikes back over to the amazing Community Cycles Co-Op and spent a couple high-quality hours finishing tuning them up and adding some bells and racks.

Then we rode the cruisers up to the mountains on the deliciously cool Boulder Creek bike path to escape the heat and humidity.

Denver folks: The ARISE music festival is next weekend. Is anyone else going up?

Mon Jul 31, 2017 4:08 am

Love your travels and pics, but don't forget it's really all about Tuna...where is she??

:D :D :D

Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:02 pm

Abscate wrote: Love your travels and pics, but don't forget it's really all about Tuna...
Tuna would agree completely. Personality-wise, she's the largest cat that I've ever owned.

Tuna taking a break from mousing at our favorite overlook this evening while I lounge in the back reading Field Marshal Erich v Manstein's memoirs of the German disaster on the Eastern Front as the sun appropriately sets in the distance

We tend not to bring Tunes to the bike co-op as she is not allowed around the repair stations and she gets very husky-vocal when she can see us right there, but she can't be with us.

A less centered race prep pic, but with more Tuna as requested.

Tue Aug 01, 2017 6:54 am

Im channeling Tuna this week because my 1/2 Husky is blowing her coat. Unfortunately, we get the full 100% Husky coat experience.

Woof Woof Woof

Quote: Tuna would agree completely. Personality-wise, she's the largest cat that I've ever owned.

EPIC!! :D :D :D

Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:02 pm

Last weekend we went to ARISE Music Festival (More pictures here).
Here's our shower setup to get the dust off during the heat of the day.
Next year I'll put it on the other side to keep the water away from the cargo door area.

Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:03 pm

Saturday we combined two outings in one.

The route for the Colorado Classic bike race was going by one of our favorite local microbreweries, New Terrain in Golden.

So we loaded the cruiser bikes on the back of the bus and parked at the brewery.

Once there, we coasted a half mile down the road to watch the race go by, then debriefed afterwards back at the brewery over ambers and stouts.

Sunday, I spent way too much time installing a set of 6.5" speakers in the back, but it was so worth it, they really fill out the sound.

To celebrate, we went out to one of the nearby overlooks for a picnic dinner.

Tuna was a busy busy girl, checking out everything.

Since I forgot to bring dog food, she got to share the Penne Alfredo with mushrooms, andouille sausage and salmon for dinner.

It was so relaxing that we stayed there until way after dark, stretched out in the back enjoying the evening breeze with the slider open, watching the mountains turn purple, then grey, then black, slowly reading Mark Twain's wonderful account of Life on the Mississippi on the kindle, while the playlist on the new speakers transitioned from classic Fleetwood Mac to a low-key Dead mix and the temperature dropped from "just right" to "Gosh, I'm sure glad I have this fleece blanket".

Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:35 am

I was running early Monday morning and stopped at the end of the Boulder Gliderport to relax in the back of my mobile office with the slider open to go through my weekend email before work.

The solitude and views are very nice, occasionally broken by a glider tow show.

First, the big Pawnee pulled the pretty Grob acro...

Then, Tinkerbell fired up to prep for a tow just as I was leaving.

Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:38 am

Do you get to Bring Tuna to Work everyday?

:D :D :D

Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:14 pm

gold for gold I like it. what happened to the doner van I bet that has a good story behind it?

Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:59 am

Urmyboyblue25 wrote: gold for gold I like it. what happened to the doner van I bet that has a good story behind it?
Actually, it was quite painful. It's been a year now and I'm about ready to talk about it.

Synopsis:
Last September a young driver ran a red light and t-boned me at 60mph.
The force of the impact threw me and my 2 ton Syncro ~60 feet from the center of the intersection into the ditch.
I got very very lucky and celebrate almost daily that I'm still alive.

The Crash:
If she hit me a millisecond earlier in the hard front 4WD suspension, I probably would not have survived the force of the direct impact.
If she hit me a millisecond later, the fuel tank would have failed with an outcome that I don't really want to contemplate.
As it was, she hit me in the soft, crushy, cargo compartment, which absorbed much of the initial energy of the high speed impact.

The human body is hardened to survive frontal impacts and happily, the young driver, with her functional airbags, wasn't hurt.
Unfortunately I was hit on the side and although I initially thought I was OK, I wasn't.
The windshield and my nice polarized prescription sunglasses exited out the front of the vehicle, closely followed by the top box and the awning, all ending up in various places in the the intersection
If I hadn't had my seatbelt on, I would have joined them.

Restrained by my seatbelt and armrest, I was thrown violently towards the passenger seat.
Fortunately I didn't hit anything solid and just suffered a non-impact concussion.
It could have been much worse.
If I had smacked my head on something hard, like the window or windshield frame or the dashboard, I probably would have been in a coma or a vegetable.
But, a concussion is still a concussion and it's strange knowing that you are 90% as smart & creative as you used to be.
Friends that have been though this say they are almost OK after 5 years.
I also sported some spectacularly colorful seat belt bruises for a couple weeks.

Liability:
Unfortunately I can't prove she ran the red light.
She said that she went through on a yellow and had a witness to back her up.
I said she ran the red and had a witness to back me up.
This is an open rural intersection that I am very familiar with and I have a 40 yr perfect driving record.
I am an experienced/trained vintage race driver and my phone was put away.
I don't make stupid mistakes like this.
In the end, the State Trooper who responded said fault couldn't be assigned, no tickets were issued. (usually they ticket everyone and let the court sort it out), leaving us to be covered by our own insurance.

I had only paid $1500 for the Syncro 15 years ago and I self-insure (i.e. only carry liability, not collision, insurance coverage) my cheap vehicles.
My mistake was not adding collision coverage on the Syncro as it appreciated.
While I'm probably still financially ahead after 40 years, it still hurts to take the ~$20K hit on this.
I have since invested in a dashcam to avoid this in the future.

Aftermath:
I probably should have lawyered up, but I had to get on with life.
We had two dying parents, once brilliant but now two confused children in a bewildering world, to take through their final journey.
I told them that I had been in a minor fender bender and moved on.

But, the hits kept coming...
Two weeks later I was nearly t-boned again by a texting teen driver.
A week after that, my back up car, a nice Audi Cabriolet that I had converted to manual transmission, was rear ended & totaled by a distracted young driver.
I had added collision coverage to the Audi after the syncro wreck, so I ignored their low-ball settlement offer, took my insurance company's very fair offer and let the insurance company lawyers fight it out.

Getting Lucky:
Not having a Westy anymore left a big hole in my life.
I had commissioned a high-quality rebuild/upgrade on the syncro transaxle in preparation for a SVX conversion.
When I got hit, the 0-mile syncro transaxle was still sitting uninstalled on my garage floor.
Last Spring I traded the Syncro transaxle straight up for a dirty, but pretty solid, Gold 2WD Westy Weekender that is featured in this thread.
Other then the 2WD, it is a virtual twin of my old syncro with fewer miles

I am lucky to have a friend that's let me store the wreck while I get my life & my head back together.
I'll probably start parting the wreck out next week.

Like I said before, I got very very lucky and celebrate almost daily that I'm still alive.

For a few more pics, see the bottom of this long tribute thread: Sanchius: The Syncro Years (2008-2017)

Sat Aug 19, 2017 7:37 pm

Quote: But, a concussion is still a concussion and it's strange knowing that you are 90% as smart & creative as you used to be.

I can't see that you have lost a step. Your posts are one of the reasons I keep coming back to this joint. Thanks for sharing the story. The self-driving car can't get here soon enough for those people who aren't prepared to commit to being safe. I get it, driving is boring compared to playing Candy Crush or posting to Instagram.

Sun Aug 20, 2017 2:33 am

You will get that creativity back in a few years. And you are already smarter, as evidenced by your second crash experiences.

Dash cams are great things. I was a witness at a red light violstor T bone and I stopped waiting for 5-0 to arrive. Older guy had hit young Mom running the light at excessive speed and was bullying his way into a no-fault until I pulled the cam showing her green. There should be a hefty fine for falsifying your story at a traffic incident, shouldn't there?

I'm dealing with parents now although we are early in the journey, Dad is 93

Just give that big beautiful cat a hug from me and promise her winter is coming

Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:55 am

Why does this shit have to happen to our old, beloved vans so often. I see more and more bay and vanagon daily drivers getting smashed up at no fault of their owners. I wish these lunkheads would start driving smarter and put down the phones. Grrrr.

Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:30 pm

While the hard-core portion of team Sanchius braved the traffic up to deepest, darkest central Wyoming and back with their cameras, filters and lenses to capture the eclipse totality, the more laid-back half loaded up the bikes, packed a picnic and went up to Fort Collins' lovely City Park to see the 95% eclipse.

We arrived at the park early and had some time to kill.
Since Tunes hadn't yet had her daily run, we pulled down the bikes and rigged up her tow harness.
After a couple laps around the park pulling me on the cruiser bike, Tunes decided that the cool shade under the big trees was just lovely.

As the eclipse neared maximum, the dappled sunlight around us transformed into millions of little crescent suns.

Tunes was ready for the max, practicing safe specs.

Once the eclipse show was over, we grabbed some BBQ and then drove up into the mountains along the beautiful, curvy, Cache la Poudre river road, to the Ansel Watrous Campground.

The highlight there is the big jumping rock with the deep swimming hole underneath.
We spent a lot of time there, jumping off into the bracing water again and again, swimming around in the mountain river and cooling off from the hot summer afternoon.

Afterwards, we just kicked back on the rock, enjoying the scenery, watching the water ouzels play in the water and soaking up the sound of the water.

The adventure over, we headed back down the canyon for the long drive home.

Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:09 am

Does Tunes like water or is that a hassle with a Vanagon full of wet Husky?

Blech! I wash mine monthly which makes me clean the car, too

Fri Aug 25, 2017 5:51 pm

Abscate wrote: Does Tunes like water or is that a hassle with a Vanagon full of wet Husky?
She doesn't mind the water all, but that double coat takes hours to dry, so I try to keep her dry unless I intend to give her a bath soon.

Sorry, the only pic I have of her in water is a repeat from a post last year

Sun Aug 27, 2017 4:31 pm

After a high-speed crash on my mountain bike running Tuna Saturday morning, I wasted a beautiful weekend hobbling around the house with major trail rash, lots of sore joints, a couple bone-deep bruises, and just generally achy, scabrous and not feeling too adventurous.

Still, we managed to put in some bus time on the back roads of Boulder County this weekend.

We some some really old things....

some moderately old things...

and some newer things...

but mostly we slowly putted down the twisty old farm lanes listening to bluegrass...

and soaking up a wonderfully warm and sunny late summer day out in the country....