Sure has been a long time since I've been on here. Too long, as I almost completely forgot about it. Maybe I will be able to keep up a bit more.
A lot has happened in the five years since I retired. I've driven a charter bus for Windstar Lines as far west as San Diego and Pismo Beach, California to Marquez, Texas; New Orleans, Orlando and Washington, D.C. Last summer I took the Lincoln Salt Dogs baseball team to most of their away games including a trip to Winnipeg for a 3-game series. People talk about how boring it is to drive across Nebraska on I-80. They need to drive I-29 north to Winnipeg. Don't forget that when you cross into Canada you are driving in KPH, not MPH.
My calendar for this spring was starting to get filled up, but now my bus trips in the immediate future have cancelled. The entire country is going ape-shit crazy about the coronavirus. Old people are supposed to stay at home; no gatherings anywhere of over 10 people, and stay at least 6 feet away from other people.
If this weather would warm up and consistently stay that way I would do some serious traveling on 2 wheels. Watching the forecast right now, it's will be in the 60's on Thursday but winter will return on Friday. Winter storm warning for the western part of Nebraska and we could get thunderstorms tomorrow, then 60 next day and 30 the day after that.
The dirt track racing season was scheduled to kick off last weekend with the Beatrice Spring Nationals, Mother Nature won that race. With a threatening forecast for Friday and Saturday, track officials decided to move everything to Thursday and Friday in order to try to get the show in. However, Mother Nature wouldn't have anything to do with that and the races were off as the forecast got even worse. Thursday was cold and windy and Friday afternoon the snow came. The track announced the races would be this weekend, March 19th - 21st. However, with a return to winter and the nationwide coronavirus panic, the races have been cancelled/postponed indefinitely.
There was also a new 4-night, 4-track series, the Nebraska Dirt Crown, scheduled to kick off March 26th. The series was to start at U.S. 30 near Columbus on Thursday, March 26th. The next evening the tour was to go the I-80 Speedway off I-80 at the 420 Exit; Saturday evening was to be at Beatrice and Sunday afternoon at Thayer County Speedway at Deshler. Classes running would be IMCA modifieds, sport mods, stock cars and hobby stocks. Yesterday, the series was cancelled with a note that they may try to put the series on later in the season. With the coronavirus panic spreading, the promoters had no choice but to cancel for the time being.
I guess in our neck of the woods this isn't all bad since the weather looks like it would have been less than favorable.
NASCAR cancelled the races at Atlanta last weekend and Homestead, Florida this weekend as well as Texas next week. Who knows when things will get back to normal??
When the local race season finally starts, we should be ready to go. We got a different open trailer at the end of last season and I am still trying to get it organized. This extra time should help us be more prepared when the season finally starts.
In the meantime, we scheduled a motorcycle trip to Williamsburg in July. Even though it's a few months away, I have been making plans and looking at routes and places to stay on the way there and back. Our Blue Knights chapter is also co-hosting the Fall Midwest Regional Conference at Hot Springs, South Dakota in September.
We rode to Pahrump, Nevada in September to take a 4-day Defensive Handgun Course at the Frontsight Firearms Training Institute. Pahrump is about 50 miles southwest of Las Vegas. We rode as far as Dalhart, Texas the first day out and Holbrook, Arizona the second day. We both agreed that 500 miles a day on the Gold Wing is a little on the "too far" side for us and we will try to cut back to 450 miles a day in the future.
