Saturday is errand day

Two years ago I knew that this would be a short,    very short,    riding year.   In fact, so short that I previously decided to not insure my BMW R1200R this year.  It was not worth paying insurance on two bikes so my Beemer has been sitting since I came back from my trip last year.  I have not started it since last September, 2013.

Since I did not ride my Vstrom much since last Spring and I knew I was going to be away last year on my Beemer, the insurance lapsed last June 2013   This Spring I insured my Vstrom but with the rain and the hot weather it also has been parked more than being ridden.  I have only ridden to work a handful of times and taken no pleasure rides.  I also don't like to tempt fate when I am on the verge of another long trip but on 4 wheels this year, so it too has been parked.   Since the insurance ran out last Friday (yesterday) I decided to put both bikes away for the season.   Fresh fuel stabilizer has been put into my Vstrom but I had not started the engine to circulate it through the system.   I also decided to start my Beemer and bring it up to operating temperature.   It took a couple of cranks and the tappets made such a racket since they were devoid of oil.  After a few minutes all seemed okay and the engine started to rev smoothly

Since we are not going to be around it was better to hibernate both of them and put them inside my secure and alarmed parking spot with battery maintainers connected



This was my shortest riding season ever.  We are only half way through Summer and here I am with no insurance on either bike and our Corvette is in Pennsylvania waiting for us . . .   Some one asked a question as to how I managed to get photos of our car in PA.   We managed to find a trustworthy person to receive our cars and park them somewhere secure until we arrived.   He snapped the photos when the cars were unloaded to show us that they arrived undamaged

Since I only had my commuter car I decided to go down to Granville Island

and after a bit of friendly interaction I was able to get my VIP badge from  Make Vancouver.  (info here) 

I get all of my T-shirts printed here.   They have a DTP: Direct to Print garment printer.  Actually they have two, one for dark and one for white T-shirts.  I don't like those iron-on print transfers as they feel like cardboard.   Here the ink is printed directly onto the material and is, more or less, permanent.  I bring my PSD files and they can tweek it a bit for you and even do a test print on a sample to confirm what the colours are like before they actually use a real T-shirt.   I know the girls down here but since I had not been around for a few months I thought I would visit, and as it turned out, I also ended up buying something too.  Sometimes the people I know are scheduled for different days so now I have a VIP badge and will continue to get my discounted price by flashing my "badge"

    Phaedra and Leah

Yes, Phaedra is the same as in the Nancy Sinatra song "some velvet morning", and we were recently rocking to Roy Orbison's Leah not long ago.  There is a video floating around somewhere of all of us singing  . . .

I find it a very pleasant place to visit and they are great people to deal with

   I'm the happy one on the right

If you come to Vancouver, make sure to visit Granville Island and to go the Make Vancouver store.

Two more sleeps . . .   next post will come to you live from Harrisburg, PA.   You should be able to follow our GPS tracks.  I have already put the link on the right sidebar under "current trip" but I need to get there to install new batteries first.