Tandem day! Woohoo!

Oh, did I say that already? Well, we’re pretty excited about it! Breakfast, driving, blah, blah, blah. Let’s get to the good stuff! Here is The Bear with the tandem, in front of their building:

Here is a closeup of the importants:

We then took it out for a spin, and it felt pretty good, though both front and rear suspensions were a little soft, so we headed back to get that adjusted. Pumped up the rear shock, adjusted the dampening on the front, and the second ride was MUCH better. Woohoo!

After that, went to lunch at Beau Jo’s, a pizza place. Ok, but not great:

Then, headed back to daVinci to pay them the balance and head out. They were taking photos of the bike, so I snuck one of my own:

And while there, asked two of the guys to pose with it for us. Todd Schusterman on the right, and when I get his name, I’ll pop it in for the guy on the left:

Todd has a good sense of humor, but still let us get a serious shot:

We were hoping to hit the dirt with it today, but the day got away from us – we headed back to Fort Collins to show the bike off to the folks at Peloton. Woohoo!

GSD day, since we’re pretty much just marking time until the truck gets fixed.

Hit one of the local bike shops to get some stuff for the tandem, which we will go pick up tomorrow. Peloton Cycles is the place we’ve gone to every time we’ve been in Fort Collins, and they’re a fine bunch of folks. A great gl there also pointed us to “The Mayor of Old Town”, a pub fairly close by, so we headed there for lunch. I think I found heaven!

100 beers on tap! And the rumor is, when a keg runs out, they don’t restock that particular beer for 30 days, so that they keep rotating what beers they carry. I’m guessing that does not hold for all 100, but it might. Oh, and these are ALL Colorado craft beers!

Tomorrow – Tandem day! Woohoo!

Rest day! A very well-deserved rest, at that! Slept in WAY late. Back is MUCH better, so that’s a great thing. And went out to shoot some REAL photos of the canyon, so here are a few of the better ones:

What do you think?

Monday. Early to rise, free breakfast, which was pretty good – scrambled eggs, bacon, decaf and orange juice – that pretty much covers it! Time to walk to the dealer. It’s sprinkling now, after some rain last night … hope it’s not an omen!

Well, we arrive pretty soon, and the truck is still outside – not a good sign. We walk in, and Jesse (the truck guy – really nice, and always very helpful, BTW) is right there, eager to help, as usual. Tells us he’s got a car coming to pick us up, to put us in a rental from Enterprise … ooookkkay. We had some issues when we tried to rent from them in Amarillo, if you’ll remember (if you don’t remember, it was on day 14, page 13 of the website if you want a shortcut, though that will change in time as more are added). Well, the dealer sent a P.O., so we should be good to go, and when we get there – we are! They have a RAM truck for us, red or black – we say we don’t care, and get a red 4×4 1500. With a trailer hitch … hmmmm … possibilities! I can move the trailer if I have to, though it doesn’t have a brake controller, so I’d be driving it without trailer brakes. I’ll try hard not to do that. Here’s the truck at Dan’s place:

Pretty truck! It has no gearshift lever, just a knob you turn. Hard to get used to. Progress? Not too sure about that … BUT – we have wheels! Woohoo!

Oh, that’s the apartment and shop beside the truck – Dan re-roofed it a couple of years ago.

Sooooo, anyway … it’s been raining … we walk into the cabin to make lunch … and there’s water on the stove … oooops! Looks like a minor leak around the vent-a-hood, so should be no big deal, but it’s a good thing we came back and saw it, so we can tell Dan – I don’t think anyone was coming back here for a while, and even though it’s a small leak, it’s good to know about it, especially if it worked out that folks showed up when it had not been raining, and he did not find out about it for months – very bad! Glad I could be of service, Dan! Can I go up there and fix it? Ummm … no. Sorry, but I still don’t do high places.  But at least you know about it!

Ok, so – we have a truck to get around with, which is good, because we’re one bottle down on gas, and it’s been cold at night, so we go out to refill it. Nice to have wheels! They’ve got it rented until Friday, but I sure hope it doesn’t take that long. Not that I really mind, it IS beautiful up here (I’ll go out and take some photos tomorrow so you can see), and we do get to stay for free (THANKS DAN!!!), but we’re basically just killing time, and not getting any riding done, since there’s really nowhere to ride close by. Ugh. By the time we get the tandem, we’ll be in no shape to ride it – double UGH. Oh, well.

Well, it’s all done! Here it is, from the back:

Only thing left is the cleanup, and we’ll get that done in the next few days. Whew! Dan is justifiably proud. Me, not so much. I feel bad that my back kept me from helping the last two days, but I’ll get everything cleaned up so it looks nice, we’ll be here long enough.

And speaking of “long enough” … tonight we’ll go into Fort Collins and get a hotel room, so we can walk over to the dealership and get a loaner, so we can get around while our truck gets fixed. Can’t wait – it SUCKS to be without transportation, especially as here we are an hour away by car. Yes, it’s only about 40 miles, but it takes at least an hour to make the drive. It is beautiful once you get here, though. COULD bicycle it, but there’s no way I’d ride that road on a bicycle – it would be suicide! No shoulder to speak of and big trucks on occasion – no thank you!

We’ll se what happens tomorrow …

Well, we missed a call from the dealer (didn’t find this out until Monday coming up – no, I’m not psychic, I’m VERY late updating), but it was a miserable day, mostly, as my back is still killing me. Was not much help, but fortunately, Dan’s youngest son, Aaron, came up to help – yay!

Here is what it looked like:

This is the front of the cabin. Almost finished! HAS to get done by tomorrow, as Dan has no more time off, and we are basically useless on the roof. Well, I refuse to get on it, so that’s that, and The Bear is pretty much terrified, as it has got slick with time. We’ll gladly clean up when it’s all done, since that’s on terra firma!

Got a lot done again today. Didn’t finish, but got close, except for the final detail work. I didn’t get a photo, I’ll take one tomorrow morning before we do any more.

Anyway, to celebrate, we went in to Fort Collins, besides, we needed to pick up the truck. No, they’re not done with it, but we had decided to let them do the more minor work, then go get it so we could move to the KoA in town on Sunday, and take the truck back to them on Monday, bright and early. The drive in is great:

That was the plan … and it seemed to be going SOoooo perfectly! We show up this evening, after the service department had closed, but they left it outside for us, since we have a spare set of keys, and we picked it up around seven. Now, out for dinner! Except the truck is making a new sound … a louder sound, and not a very good one. Sounds like the rear end. Well, we figure we’ll go eat and then take it back. After all, they said it should be good to drive a couple of hundred miles or so. Yeah. About five miles from the dealer, just off from a light on a slight downhill on a four lane divided road (that is under construction to add two more lanes) SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!! And we come to a grinding halt in the left lane. Yes – the fast lane. And the rear end is locked SOLID. This truck is going NOWHERE. And Dan (our friend and guide) is gone. We can’t call his cell phone, as it’s forwarded to the cabin (no cell service out that far), so we try to text him. My phone is having none of that – I have to reboot it. The Bear calls AAA. “Oh, you’re not in Texas? In Colorado? Let me transfer youCLICK”. And … nothing. Call Good Sam. “Great, but since you were not towing the RV, it’s not covered”. Can you get us a tow anyway? “Oh, you’re stopped ON the road? No, you have to call the police”. Way to let us down, Good Sam. So we call 911. And wait. And wait.

Eventually, a guy shows up and puts on yellow lights. He’s a cop, but not a cop … Community service vehicle, though he IS police. I ask HIM to call a tow truck, which is probably the best thing I’ve done all night – they are required to show up in less than 20 minutes – he shows up in 15, though it seemed like forever … and it’s starting to rain. Could it get any better?

Well, the guy takes us back to the dealership

and he drops it off. Of course, before he can do that, The Bear takes a header off the tow truck cab and lands on her side in the parking lot. Ouch. I eventually help her back up, but sadly without a photo, even though I was ready to take the one that ended up being the above. Would have been more exciting to get a shot of her, but I may not have survived that.

So – exciting day. I’m tired. VERY tired.

Got a lot done today, and it shows! Got all but one partial strip of steel put up on the rear roof, as well as ALL of the back patio – woohoo!

Here is what it looked like when we started:

Here is what it looked like at end of day today:

YES!!! We should get all the steel up tomorrow, then Dan gets to finish the trim on Saturday, with a little help from us (neither of us does heights or edges of roofs).

More roof work … boooooring.

We did get the front almost completely foamed, only reason we did not finish is to not disturb the antennas on that part of the roof until the last possible moment. Also started tar papering the rear.

More roofing work! We got almost all the foam on the back roof:

But I decided to have some fun along the way:

Those of you who used to watch “Tool Time” should get a chuckle … if you didn’t … oh, well.

I fell of a ladder while holding one of those foam blocks (they weigh about 64 pounds) and smacked the living bejeezers out of my right shin. Swelled up about a half inch, by 2 by 6. And it HURT. Still hurts late in the evening. I KNEW I should have stayed away from those ladders!

Tomorrow we should finish the foam, maybe even put down the felt for the metal roof. Woohoo!

Got an estimate for repairs on the truck … not very good news. Noises and oil leaks can be expensive, but still cheaper than a new truck (or even, a newer truck)! Guess we’ll just get it done.

Oh, yeah – Out four months now.