Happy New Year and 2021 in Pictures

Happy New Year !!!

Here's hoping 2022 is the year that sees an end to the pandemic and onto better things!

As the tradition it seems to have become, here's a compilation of pictures taken during 2021, I hope you like them:

The usual stats:

Motorcycle mileages

This year it worked out to be a downward trend  for Yagi and Scarlett.  This being the first year I've owned the Sammy, not a big surprise eh?

Total mileage ridden in 2020 = 3556 (-48% over last year) and very pitiful when compared to the totals for 2010 when I apparently first posted end of year mileages achieved: 16941 miles!

Scarlett:  Ending odometer reading 68562 = 1145 Km or 687 Miles (worse than last year) 

Brigitta ('87 BMW R80): Ending Odometer 102,275 = 932  Miles or 1491 km (almost double than last year's sad figure)

Yagi: Ending odometer: 15286 = 1947 Miles or 3115 Km (almost half than last year)

Totals since 2010 (missing 2011-12)

Total motorcycle mileages

RV Stats:

We went camping for 216 days or two weeks more than last year.  That works out to 59% of the year vice 55%  last year)

Umarang: ending Mileage: 80864 = 10,964 Miles for 2021. ( 1364 miles more than 2020), starting mileage under our ownership: 20,240 back in 2016.

The Sammy: Ending mileage 91631 - 9700 towed miles = 5870 driven or actual miles

Seen while bingeing....

The weather here in the overcrowded Colorado Front Range has been and remains cold but sunny since Christmas.

I did go on a brief ride in Scarlett, my Ural Patrol sidecar rig but it was but to run an errand at the VRRV's storage yard and back.  It was, a "coldly brisk" ride.

I must get Brigitta out before the expected snow fall come New Year's Eve in a couple of days or so.

In the meantime, what have I been doing is sheltering in place (lazing on the TV couch) bingeing on multiple episodes of "All Creatures Great and Small".  Based on the great books I read in my younger days by James Herriot, a British Veterinarian.

I remain unsure why I find this series so interesting, to the point of there's been days when all I've done is watch episode after episode!  Good thing I'm retired.

So, why this post you ask?

Well, starting near the end of season 4, a new character was introduced.  Calum Buchanan, a newly minted Veterinarian come to join/help with the practice in the Yorkshire countryside.  

Calum you see is quite the character and to accompany said character is his mode of transport: A 1931 New Hudson Sidecar Motorcycle!

Here's some screen captures and pics from listed online source:

The rather stylistic/fluted exhaust pipe which was apparently a signature design of New Hudson motorcycles makes them easy to identify.

And yes, the sidecar is shaped like a boat!

After it made its debut on Episode 10 of Season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small, it went on sale for £12,000 but apparently remains unsold.  More info here: New Hudson and here: Chortley

Some pics from the article itself showing better detail of the rig:

and one from the auction website:

Pretty rig isn't it?  I don't think the boat is actually detachable and a functional watercraft but even so, can you even imagine the "delay factor" involved when driving such a rig around?

Sadly, it appears that in a latter episode, they had to switch to a different but still beautiful sidecar rig:

I'm guessing the above tug is a Norton?

Anyways, more episodes await.....not to mention, Brigitta, who hasn't been out since Oct 29!

Merry Christmas

Been home a few days now, and no riding....just adjusting back to home life.

No snowy white Christmas for us here in the overcrowded cesspool that is the Colorado I-25 corridor; but I'll take global warming over a new ice age.

Here's hoping you have a Merry Christmas, that you and yours are healthy, and that the holidays are what you hope them to be.

Here's a pic from Christmas near Las Vegas, NV back during 2018....

Home again

Sunday, December 19:

Returned home after almost 11 hours of driving.  Long day with 566 miles to cover per Google Maps.  Nothing like the distances covered by RichardM while retrieving his new Jeep from WA to FL, but still, long enough for me.  Came home to no snow, and the usual snow falls haven't happened.  Heck, the temperatures are comparable to what I was experiencing in New Mexico!

A bit over 2130 miles round-trip by the VRRV with the Sammy in tow; according to Google Maps anyways....next time I must remember to write down starting mileage for the VRRV.

47 nights camping this trip.

It works out to roughly $37/day.....I'm thinking the only way to draw down this figure is to stay longer at each stop on the next trip.  The longest I stayed at one spot (Dragoon Mountains) was 13 days.  The usual limit for such camping is 14 days (sometimes shorter depending on local BLM/USFS policy).

Then again, costs are well within budget.....perhaps I need to quit overthinking things and just enjoy the solitude of my type of camping.  This was the first camping trip where I zealously tracked each and every expense, not sure I'll do it again.  Ignorance can be bliss, right?