Lookout Mountain and Red Rocks rides, 14 Years Apart

Today, I basically replicated a ride I did back on Christmas Eve, 2011.

The weather was radically different from the previous ride, as was the choice of motorcycle.  14 years ago, it was on Yoshi, my Suzuki DL1000 with a sidecar, today it was a vintage BMW R80 Airhead: Brigitta.

Lookout Mountain Road is a steep, windy road rising out from nearby Golden, CO.  At the top is Buffalo Bill's gravesite and museum.  Here's a link for the museum:  LINK.

The weather has been unseasonably warm here in the Stoner State.  The road up to the top wasn't crowded at all, being a weekday.  Turns out, they now close the road at night.  Not sure why or when that started.

Gateway Towers at bottom of Lookout Mountain Road.

Golden with South Tabletop Mesa in background 

Christmas Eve 2011

2011

Yoshi, 2011

Now folks are barred from walking out onto 

the outcropping known as Wildcat Point 

Martha on Wildcat Point 

You can see North and South 

Tabletop Mesas

View from museum parking lot 

As I rode back down the mountain, I stopped at Windy Saddle Park to hike up the 305 steps on the Mount Zion Trail.  The recent flu had robbed me of wind and stamina and it was a bit of a struggle for me to do this little climb!

You can see the top of the tabletop mesas 

from the top of the trail.

Next, as I did 14 years before, it was a ride to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre area.  No snow this time so I didn't get stuck as I did with the sidecar rig back then.

The below pic actually had swarms of parked cars....I edited them out 

There's some kind of drive thru Christmas Lights setup in one of the parking lots.  I'm sure it looks great at night but it looked like crap in the daytime.  I can't even imagine the crowded chaos it must be at night.

Construction work shown above prevented me from accessing the area where I got stuck 14 years ago:

2011

I drove through the town of Morrison and had a near incident with a clueless cager while on the main street.  This was my cue that it was time to go home, all the ass wipes were leaving their late breakfast and desperate for tourist attractions such as Red Rocks 

Made it home with no further issues, a 110 mile roundtrip fore Brigitta, likely closing out the riding for her this year.  She did great.

Finally over "the crud".... I hope

Finally thinking I'm going to survive "the crud".  It was, to me anyways, a severe head cold virus...lots of coughing fits, some fever, nasal drainage and just an all around miserable experience.

It took about 14 days and at the end, some antibiotics to finally enable to sleep through the night (mostly).

There'd be periods, in the latter half of the sickness, where I managed some short rides on both Brigitta, my BMW R80 and Scarlett, my Ural Patrol.  Just local stuff to give them some exercise. No picture opportunities, just me seeing the ever increasing infestation of housing and apartment complexes blotting the landscape.

Lot of house time as you can imagine.  The leak from the master bedroom shower continued to be elusive despite initial success reports.  It would take the complete decaulking and recaulking of the whole shower enclosure to stop the leak.  (So far, anyways).

An investigation into strange noises from the rear of the Honda Ridgeline revealed a failed lock mechanism actuator.  It looks like whoever wired up in the aftermarket Pop&Lock for the tailgate did it incorrectly.  Sure, it worked when the car engine was not running to prove the concept but if you turned the left turn signal while driving, it would also try to unlock the tailgate!  After a while, all that pulsing of the actuator burned it up and caused all the noises we were hearing. 

Along the way, I learned, that Honda had not included a lock for the tailgate.  After all, the pickup portion is open right? Perhaps that is why they incorporated that locking trunk in the bed of the pickup truck? Anyways, I'd never thought about that in terms of pickup trucks since I've never really owned one.

I replace the actuator but could not get the wiring right, so I just gave up on it and disabled the whole thing. If there is stuff to be locked up, it'll go in the trunk or in the passenger compartment. 

All the above chores, were done while I was going through the crud so my patience level and the enjoyment we're not very high as you might imagine. 

Anyways, still alive and feebly kicking.  The weather is supposed to warm into the 60s the next few days so perhaps some more riding before year's end.

Chores and Repairs

I took Umarang, the VRRV to the shop to have an O2 sensor OBD code which sprung up just before I got to Elephant Butte, NM last month.

The Bank 1 Sensor 1 O2 sensor was diagnosed as faulty, causing sporadic "too lean" fuel mixture errors.  The sensor was replaced, Uma got an oil change and filter and a lubing of the underside grease zerks 

The weather has been quite cold here in the cesspool known as the Denver Metro area.  Spent the last week or so on chores such as chasing down a water leak which had caused discoloration in the ceiling of the house's main floor.  It proved to not be drain pipe related but instead it was coming out of the corner of the shower stall!

The holes I cut into the ceiling for access:

The temporary panel (extra false ceing tile from basement) I used to cover the unsightly holes while troubleshooting and waiting for next leak.  I'm glad I used a temporary panel as a leak showed itself a day or 2 after it was installed!

The water would pool and slowly drain into the wall and then on to the openings used by the hot and cold water pipes for the shower:

It took several tests before we could easily replicate the leak.  A lot of caulking work later, I'm cautiously optimistic it won't leak again.  We'll see.

Today, Thursday, December 4

I rode Scarlett to the RV storage yard at Buckley Space Force Base where both the VRRV and the Sammy are in storage until Spring of next year.

The plan had been to disconnect the POS terminal on the Sammy's battery so it won't discharge much before Spring.  Forgot the darn keys so it'll have to wait a couple of days 

I saw a camping rig at the nearby FamCamp, with a Sammy parked behind it!  I was tempted to knock on their door and see if they wanted another one!  But no.

Feeling a bit under the weather with some bug, hopefully it won't hang around for long.

The definition of Insanity

The common, widely-quoted definition of insanity is often attributed to Albert Einstein, although it predates him.

​It is defined as:

​"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Such turned out the case with the Sammy I am sad to say. 

Thursday, November 20:

Suffice to say today was a day of issues that ended up at the point where enough was enough and it was time to throw in the towel.  

Basically, oil is getting past at least one piston's oil rings and causing a military-grade smoke screen to be generated.  The oil is, along the way, pouring out ( while driving ) at the connection between the engine's exhaust manifold and pipe leading to the catalytic converter.

She was putting out quite the smoke screen:

The oil leak viewed from underneath:

Where exhaust manifold connects to pipe leading to catalytic converter:

I am unwilling to throw more money and time down this particular rabbit hole.

I will be towing the Sammy back to New Mexico the next time I go camping in that direction, back to Mike W.  He is completely blameless and the issues are all on me. He and I had a long talk and we're all good in spite of of the Sammy issues.  He will regain ownership and the Sammy's fate will be in his hands.

It is what it is, and I am moving on. The Sammy will sit in the RV storage yard till it gets returned to New Mexico.

I am out a very small amount of money, and as my father-in-law used to say : There's always a tuition to pay for life's lessons.  

At the RV storage lot, out of my garage and hopefully out of sight, out of mind to my overthinking brain.