Sunrise Ride with Yagi

I was awake at 5AM, previous experience said it was probably not worth it to try and get more sleep, so up I went for some coffee.

It was a mere 75°F this early here in the Colorado Front Range so I sat outside on the driveway watching the eastern horizon begin to light up.

The coolness got me thinking, once minimally caffeinated, that this was probably a good time of the day for a short ride.  It was another torridly sunny hot day in the weather forecast (but at least not as humid as in the lower elevations in the rest of the country).

Coffee consumed, geared up, and off I went in my latest effort to reestablish trust in Yagi, my Yamaha TW200 with its sporadic charging issue.

I rode through the quiet neighborhoods and then proceeded east on Quincy Road, past the county fairgrounds and onto Sage Ridge road to pose Yagi.

The air was nice and cool as it was let in by the riding jacket provided by Steve of Scooterinthesticks and for a little while my mind was pleasantly in neutral.

Something to be said for riding a motion the cool of the day, along a low traffic county road, nothing intruding in one's thoughts but the act of riding.

Photos collected, I rode back in now warming temperatures.  Yep, it was going to be another one today.  Some clouds in the forecast for the rest of the week so perhaps some relief from the sun's heat.

The same sun, which warms one when riding in winter's cold conditions isn't quite as welcomed in summer.  Yep, there's ways to deal with heat and riding gear, but nowadays my mind just doesn't see the return on investment of effort.  

Still, it was a nice ride and Yagi's charging system was working....guess I shouldn't ask for much more eh?

Spring Fling 2026 - Days 30-31: Riding Scooterinthesticks' Rides

Thursday , May 28

A multiple moto experience day!

I spent several hours today riding with Steve W. of Scooterinthesticks fame and one of my inspirations for riding year-round.

Yagi, my TW200, had been giving me trouble lately and I had once again fixated on the starter circuit.  It turned out to be ( I hope) a bad battery.  Steve W. Guided me to a local battery outlet where I got a replacement for only $60!

Steve W. led the morning riding.  I was on his Honda Trail 125 with its unusual gear pattern and clutch-lever-less shifting operation.  I got the hang of it pretty quickly though and enjoyed the beautifully bucolic scenery of central Pennsylvania!

We stopped for a break and snack at the Meandering Mallard, a favorite of Steves's :

In the second half of the morning ride, Steve had me switch over to the Himalayan motorcycle. Made by Royal Enfield, it's quite larger than the Honda Trail 125 and my TW200 as well.  I liked it a lot, it had good ergonomics, good power but it would not allow me to slide back on the seat to ease my knees. Steve told me that he usually just stands up on the pegs. 

I return to the campsite after the morning rides and installed the new battery which had been charged up in Steve's garage while we were riding. Yagi is now consistently starting with no problems, I am really hoping it was just a simple matter of a failing battery and a bad diagnosis on my part.   Yagi, will be going out riding tomorrow with Steve and his friend Paul R.  Stay tuned.

I drove the CRV back to Steve's house and we went out to dinner at a place called Otto's. We rode Steve's two scooters, the silver Vespa and they cream and brown colored scooter. 

2005 Vespa GT4 149cc

The silver Vespa which has been Steve's longest companion in his scooterinthesticks blog:

2006 Vespa GTS 250

249cc

After dinner, I met Steve's lovely wife Kim at their home and had a nice chat.  I also met their two Belgian Sheepdogs:  Lillehamer (Lilly) and Aiden.  Both are beautiful and friendly dogs.

Here's a couple of Aiden:

Here's Lilly:

Photo courtesy of Steve W.

Friday, May 29

20 year Anniversary of when I first swung a leg over a motorcycle, as I started Day 1 of the MSF Basic Rider Course.  How'd I spend it?  Riding and meeting new friends.

Steve W. And his riding/photographer buddy Paul R. Showed up on their Honda trail 125s at my camp at 9AM as planned.

Steve W. led us at an easy pace to and through the Penn-Roosevelt State Park . It was about 4 miles from my campsite!   No RV camping though as I found out later.

We stopped near a picnic shelter by a creek for pics and chatting.

Photo courtesy of Paul R.

Photo courtesy of Steve W.

Paul R. And I

Photo courtesy of Steve W.

No, I haven't gained more weight, just wearing layers under the riding jacket.

More riding ensued through thickly forested roads along with some highways.  A planned destination was precluded due to a road closure so we instead rode to a late breakfast at a diner called the Naked Egg.

Good food and conversation was had.  Steve and I parted company with Paul after the meal.  We then headed to Steve's place to get his dogs fed.

Steve had noticed that the zipper had broken on the front of my riding jacket and he offered me his old riding jacket as a gift. It's in very good condition and it is the very first jacket he ever had years ago when he started riding himself!  He said he'd been trying to find a good home for it for a while now.

How could I refuse?  The old jacket lasted about 18 years, not bad.

Snazzy, right?

A short ride, this time with me on Steve's Kawasaki W650, a nice motorcycle to a introduce me to a Vietnam veteran friend of his and his wife.  Steve would take me via a brief Moto Tour of the Penn State campus.

Howard and his lovely wife Claudine happily greeted us and we sat to chat about several subjects.  The main purpose had been to answer questions from Howard about boondocking.

We finished the visit and left again for Steve's place.  Here's another pic of me with my new to me riding jacket with working zipper.

I returned to my campsite around 2:30 PM and relaxed the afternoon away.  A good day!

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 16&17: FOB Marshall

Thursday, May 14

We left the Philpott Dam camping ground a day early and drove 5 hours to Marshall Virginia to FOB Marshall.

FOB: Forward Operations Base.

We are moochdocking with friends of mine from college ROTC who live in Marshall, VA.  We will be visiting other people that are in the area as well while we stay here. Hence, the use of the term FOB.  The RV will remain on my friend's property and we will use the CRV to do all the visiting in the immediate area. 

Google Maps once again had us going down the wrong road to my friend's place. It was a bit hair raising as a matter of fact, winding and narrow country lanes.

Anyways, we got here without any problems except for one incident of a line jumping Schweinehündin at the Sam's club gas station in Roanoke.  We are now closer to the overcrowded mess that is the NoVA metro area so I expect the people factor will become much more pronounced and annoying. 

Friday, May 15

Easy relaxing day today for the most part.

Did take the TW200 off the front cargo rack after annoyingly not realizing I hadn't switched to fuel reserve before draining the battery down trying to start it.

Sigh, jump started it using the RV chassis battery, got it off the rack, geared up and rode off.

Rode to a nearby nature preserve, perhaps 10 miles round trip.  I turned off the engine at a construction zone perhaps 1.5 miles from my friends' home.  Yagi chose to not start.  First she behaved like the battery was drained.  It should have charged up somewhat during the ride I thought.

I briefly tried starting it by popping the clutch, no go.

I called Martha to bring me the jumper cables with the CRV....luckily I decided to try bypassing the starter relay with a battery cable I'd started carrying since the events at Prewitt Reservoir.  

Yagi started right up and I called Martha back and told her to disregard.  Rode Yagi back to the FOB with no further issues.  Annoyingly, I tried stopping/starting her a few times the normal way and it was fine!

I rechecked all the connections and they were clean.  I did take apart the starter switch and cleaned the connections within as well.  We'll see how she does in the days to come.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 5: A Truman Kind of Day

President Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the USA came onto his post with FDR's death during that president's unprecedented 4th term in office.

Kept out of the loop mostly by FDR while the vice-president, Truman had the job of president land on him suddenly and he soldiered through to successfully prove his critics wrong.  

Martha and I visited his home in Independence, MO first.  Don't find out as we did though, you have to buy the tickets for the tour, which run on a scheduled basis, five blocks away in the visitor center.  So, we got our steps in today shall we say. 

Anyways, a short 10 block walk later, we joined a tour of a people led by a tour guide from the US Park Service.  Sorry, no pics of the inside as they were not permitted and the guide made sure that we kept to the specific carpeted path and touched nothing while inside the house. 

Here's some views of the outside:

Across the street from the Truman Home, is the Noland house, which used to house relatives of the Truman family. It is now owned by the National Park service and contain some more exhibits and you could take pictures inside. 

Since I know little about Medicare and its history, I was surprised to find out that Truman had worked on its creation but had not gotten it made into law before he left the presidency. President Johnson, who did sign the Medicare legislation issued the first two cards to the Harry and Beth Truman.

A young version of Truman and his future wife:

We then went to lunch at a local burger joint, nothing significant to report of that place, just a place to fill one stomach while waiting for the presidential library to open up at noon.

The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library had its interesting points but it wasn't as impressive to me as the World War I museum had been.  It is well laid out and plenty of history to read and view especially if you are a fan of Truman's presidency or his history. 

The museum was also hosting a special America 250 Year exhibit, with the basement level of the library showcasing photographs and descriptions of American events throughout its history. 

A pretty nice mural depicting themes of the westward migration of Americans

Vehicles owned by Truman, from a horse drawn buggy to automobiles

The president and the first lady are buried on site at the library, in the courtyard. 

A replica of the Truman oval office: 

The saying that Truman is famous for: 

Martha at the current main entrance to the presidential library. 

We think this used to be the main entrance to the presidential library before they expanded it. 

Artwork showing President Truman's house: 

The back of the above heart shaped artwork shows the three main migration routes taken by settlers as they move towards the west coast. 

We were quite done with touring by 1:30 PM so we headed back to camp.  We leave tomorrow for Illinois, stay tuned. 

I did go for about a 15 mi ride with Yagi but the plethora of forest around the area precluded much in the way of scenery.  Here are views of the dam that forms Blue Springs Lake.

Oh, and we had a visit from one of the locals at our campsite:

Hot Days at the Prewitt Reservoir

Tuesday, April 21

I woke to a temperature of 42°F at 7:30am so I knew it was going to be a warm day as forecasted by the weather guessers. 

The plan wants to hang out at the campsite, enjoying the warm weather, and doing some minor cleanup on electrical contacts on Yagi. 

The high temperature would end up being 96° F reported in the nearest town though my RV thermometer reported 82°F/87°F inside the RV.

In the morning, I was visited by locals: 

Canada Goose

Red-winged Raven....in flight, they're distinctive red circles with yellow 

trim reminded me of Japanese aircraft insignia during WW2.

Blue-winged Teal Ducks, male+female 

Around 3PM, a fisherman showed up and parked his car lakeside across the inlet from me....it was quite warm but he felt a need to sit by a fire he started.  You have to wonder.  

Seen but not able to photograph:  a Bald Eagle soaring overhead and later on what appeared to be a snake swimming on top of the water!  Quite fast too as it left a visible wake behind it.  Google Gemini said it was probably a Northern Water Snake, not venomous.

This YouTube video shows the type of snake I saw, except the one I saw must have been much bigger since I saw its body doing the S turns from at least 200 feet away!

Wednesday, April 22

I woke to an outside temperature of 57°F.  The forecasted high was 90°F.  It was going to be a hot one.

I watched a couple of small ducks fly up onto the higher branches of a nearby Cottonwood tree and perch there.  I didn't realize they did that, figured them for ground level waddlers when not afloat.

Some more test riding with the TW200, it was failing to start again but I think I narrowed it down to a loose connection after thoroughly cleaning the positive terminal on the battery.  6 miles of testing, stopping and restarting the engine every .2 miles.  That's 30 starts in a row with no issues.  

I had to make do with misc nut/bolt for the POS terminal as I managed to lose the nut while cleaning things up.  The replacement bolt had a narrower width and it required a lock washer to keep the battery cable tight to the battery terminal.

I'll get proper sized bolt/nut once I get home, no hardware store near me here at the SWA.

The place really emptied out today, which was great for me. I think there are only two van campers and myself in the area.  There are no campers within line of sight of camp!

True to the forecast, it started getting very windy here which precluded the u. se of the awning!  The winds are supposed to last now till noon tomorrow.  Red Flag Warning conditions: strong gusty winds and low humidity, a fire can quickly grow and get out of control in these conditions.

On the plus side, the winds kept the hovering clouds of gnats away!

Wednesday's sunset concluding a pretty good day.

The high temperature reached only 82°F, warm enough but not even close to the forecasted 90°F.