Classic Galaxie & Wee

Our Vacation to the Tropical Island of Hawai'i is but a memory. Back to the daily grind of back to work and enduring the warm winter of British Columbia. This is shaping up to be the warmest winter in recent times. Vancouver is the host city of the Winter Olympics 2010 and it starts tomorrow. There has been so little snow that we had to truck it in from Manning Park over 3-4 hours away and unload it up Cypress Mountain. First they had to install a straw base by Helicopter at $900./hour and put the snow on top to form the ski runs.

Lately there has been great interest in photographing Bananas
(<-- click link) so I thought it was time that I put in my .02c


(Thanks to Iron-GRAN-dad, for the idea)

I am running out of Hawai'i vacation material but I still have a few things to say about the North Kohala area and the small town of Hawi on the northern tip of the Big Island. I just thought that with the major snow storms on the Atlantic Coast it was time to show everyone what the spring-like weather was like on the Wet Coast of Canada. If you wish to see some amazing snow pictures (<-- click link)

The weather last week was overcast with a slight chance of precipitation. I was wearing my Hawai'ian attire but decided it was more prudent to change into my usual riding outfit. For a moment it looked like Pink Crocs but in the end the riding boots won.



I envy those tropical riders in their shorts and T-shirts. Today it was jeans, with riding pants over, riding jacket with liner, leather gloves, riding boots, thick socks and the requisite GPS since we have more than one road in which to get lost or disoriented. Actually I usually use the GPS as a corrected speedometer. For some reason bike speedos are overly generous and I like to know the correct speed.

I had some errands to run and ended up downtown at my favourite parking spot



I couldn't find a photogenic place to pose my Wee. With the Olympics many roads are closed. They have special curb lanes for designated Olympic vehicles where you cannot stop or suffer a $167. fine/ticket and you cannot cruise the areas around the docks, so after a while on the way home, I stopped at my neighbours garage when I spotted this



It was a very nice old pickup truck. I used to have an old pickup truck which I traded for some computer equipment a few years ago and wished I kept it. I think it was a '53 Ford F something 6 cyl with 3 sp Hurst shifter. It was a step-side.



It appeared to be in very good mechanical condition and sported a recent green paint job . The owner of the truck was visiting my neighbour, Joe



Looking into the garage you will notice Joe, on the left. That is his recently restored 1963 Ford Galaxie XL500 convertible. It was a "basket case" when I first saw it towed in over 5 years ago. He stripped the whole car down to the frame



While he was busy dismantling the car and prepping it for paint he was accumulating all the parts necessary for the restoration



The Galaxie is better than new. Joe has done all the work himself, except for the excellent paint job. Joe used to own a gas service station and is adept at performing all the repairs himself



He completely rebuilt the engine to "as new" condition and took the transmission apart to rebuild it too



I asked Joe to pose one more time for the camera. He is very proud of this car. He basically rebuilt it himself doing all the work except for the paint. Last year he took it to a Galaxie club show & shine (car show) and won First Prize.



It was time for me to make my exit and I mounted my Wee to ride the short distance home, up the lane



No snow, No sand, No salt, No sun. Just another day on the Wet Coast, otherwise known as the Key West of Canada