Coop's Corner: Wildcat Mountain Rally - 2019

Friday, September 6, 2019

Wildcat Mountain Rally - 2019 - Out an' About

A fitting weather event Wednesday evening BEFORE the Labor Day weekend was underway, this taken from our front stoop.....

Weather while at the rally?? We didn't HAVE any weather. Sunny clouds, moderate temperatures and at most 12 rain drops was all I saw for the weekend and I mean all weekend. I got an early start Thursday afternoon and Ol' Blue ran flawlessly until he didn't.

This will give you an idea, though the early Thursday and Friday Tracks were written over, a problem I'd seen both in my Wyoming the Black Hills Tracks a few weeks ago. I didn't understand it then, assumed that I'd done everything properly like I have in the past. Now I've discovered that there was (still is?) a Zumo issue that is messing with my Archived Tracks. That curvy line that starts Top Center in the image below should not end, or really begin, where it does. Miles ridden before that endpoint have been erased to make space for the miles that followed which is what my Garmin units are 'sposed to do. To make room, those files are to get stored in Archive, making way for Current. The Yamaha went 421 miles, the saved GPS Tracks only admit to 361.

That line that ends over on the left side is another matter entirely; that line actually does represent The End and it happened Sunday around noon.

But back to the good things...it LOOKed like the weather might turn from lovely to wet ....it did not.

It's been awhile since I did Santa's Loop Road....

Towers......

Mom's sister has been gracious enough to gift me annual subscriptions to this lovely, easy-reading magazine and has done so for years now. Places I know and have yet to explore, diners with food worth stopping for, lovely photography and all around happy stories about people being good to each other; it's all in there and begging me with each issue's arrival to sit down with a hot cup for some relaxing time in the Big Chair.

The ad has been in each issue of the magazine, "Town of Stevenson - Displays from the 1800's to the 1950's". I've always been curious and would have stopped on my own long ago but the "...Tour Reservations: Call..." kept me from going there solo. www.townofstevenson.com

A few weeks ago I gave Carol and call and asked if a group of 8-10 would be acceptable and learned that it would be.

Tom chose Moon River, a great choice!

These really caught my eye.....

One of Carol's hobbies and creative skill sets, porcelain dolls. A Master wood turner as well among many other talents and interests.

Her 'doll' faces and heads appear in various places throughout....

After leaving Stevensontown, lunch at Kickapoo Korners in Readstown.

Up County "T" to Viroqua with a stop at Driftless Books.

The old tobacco warehouse. Owner Eddie says there's over 500,000 books. After I walked out Saturday afternoon, he was down 2.

These two horses were very concerned about my presence up on the hill.

I came up over a ridge and managed to get a snap of this large robin before it flew away.

Here it is, the riding, out and about video. Included at the end is The Presentation (thanks Richard), the awarding of my Pooped Piston Trophy and more importantly, my Extradition.

4 comments:

motormikeSeptember 6, 2019 at 5:48 PM
Good times.. good friends... already booked a room for next year
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Paul HSeptember 8, 2019 at 9:43 AM
Nice footage of the countryside and barns.

Didn’t know of your extraterrestrial powers. If drone goes thru someone’s kitchen window. We’ll know it’s neg magnetic powers on chains n electronics
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)