A Passing, of Sorts

Erma, my daughter-in-law, stopped by yesterday with her nephew Matthew in tow. Erm was on a mission, as it’s said. The Mission: pick up SN1’s “new” bike and haul it back to Salt Lake City (Layton, actually. But if I said “Layton,” you’d say “Hunh?”), by way of Albuquerque. Her visit was brief; we caught up a bit while Matthew and I muscled the bike into the back of SN1’s pickup, which was harder than it sounds, due to the fact that SN1’s pickup sits about, oh, four feet off the ground. I exaggerate, of course, but it was a bit of a lift and we had no ramp. No matter; it’s a small bike. And Matthew’s a big boy! Matthew and I secured the bike in the back of the truck, I passed the key over to Erm, we said our good-byes and she was gone. Fifteen minutes, tops. Short, but sweet!

So. I am bike-less for the first time since 1978. There have been periods of time when I didn’t ride for quite a while, but there was always a bike in the garage, waiting. And now there’s not. This particular bike, while not a crotch-rocket by any means, nor is it a “looker,” will always be sorta special to me. The bike was special in the sense that we went a lot of places together: it was my sole-source of transportation (aside from the RV) from November of 1999 until October of 2000. We covered a lot of ground during that time: from Upstate NY to Florida’s Panhandle; from Brownsville, Texas to Seattle Washington; all over Yellowstone National Park in very early spring; navigating rush hour in Houston; zooming up the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park; down Main Street in many a small town. Good times.

The bloom was off the rose, however. I hadn’t been on the bike for a year; I just quit riding it, for whatever reason. When SN1 was down to visit last month I told him he could have it if he wanted it. And so that diminutive little Yamaha is now on its way to Layton, even as I write. I do have visitation privileges, though. A few pics:

Bobby (SN3) and the Bike

In Yellowstone National Park

Point Blank! (Texas)

The Rio Grande. Near Brownsville, Texas

Boca Chica Beach. On Padre Island, Texas

And about these pics…as I was going through the photo archives last evening searching for visual material for this post, I was struck by the fact that nearly all my early digital pictures are, uh, crap. It’s a poor workman that blames his tools, and all that, but… It’s amazing how far digital photography has come since I bought my first d-camera in 1998. The resolution, color balance, and creative options of my current Canon PowerShot G5 are simply worlds away from that ol’ Kodak DC-100 grabshot I carried around in 1999 – 2000. But, hey. That DC-100 worked (sorta), and that’s all that counts.

In other news… I’ve been off the news for the last few. Which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing for you, Dear Reader. Worry not. Something will irritate me, or otherwise catch my eye, sooner or later. And then I’ll be back in the pontification business.