Chronicled in the Chronicle

Thanks to Leah Binkovitz for this great write up in the Houston Chronicle and for being a great sport about riding in the sidecar!

Houston, We Have NO Problem - Just A Great Time In Your Town

 After a rainy and cool trip from Orlando to Houston, it was great to see that Texas sunshine and the smiling faces of brother-in-law Stan Smith, with whom I was staying for the week, daughter Joni and her wine making husband Gary, as well as Stan's daughter Shelly, her husband John and son Johnny.
They took us to NASA where we toured space exhibits and had lunch with Astronaut Dr. Tom Jones who took time to pose for pictures.

  The all day visit in included a tour of all the buildings s well as videos and interactive displays.
The next day Stan and I drove to Austin for a two day  visit with Major General Len Smith the Assistant Adjutant General of the Texas Army National Guard, Stan's son,  and his wife Cindy. The LBJ Presidential Library and State Capitol building were scheduled for visits, but first, the one thing every visitor to Texas should experience:
The Salt Lick Barbecue at Driftwood Texas.

Just looking at the picture of the Open Pit Barbecue makes me hungry all over again.



 






 Hundreds of people waited up to two hours to be served.The festive atmosphere, music and beer made the waiting an experience in itself.

 A long awaited adventure was the tour of the LBJ Presidential Library.
The building was filled with several floors of picture, videos, sculptures and page after page of his home spun quotations and salty humor.

 The Texas State Capital was the next visit

 The Legislature was scheduled to begin meeting the meet morning and the entire building was buzzing with excitement as each meeting room and office was being readied for the big day.

Joni had told the editors at the Houston Chronicle that her 80 year old Father had arrived in  town on his National Motorcycle Tour. They decided an old guy cruising around the country on a motorcycle with a sidecar and pulling a camper trailer behind it, would make a good feature and sent out a reporter write the story.
It should be in print and on-line by Sunday February 1st.
It was a fun interview and I even got to give Leah, the reporter, a ride in the sidecar.
Thanks Joni for setting that up. Your contacts in the publishing world never cease to amaze me.


Following the visit and dinner with Joni and Gary it was time to  continue the ride west.
Saturday morning I left Stan and the cold Texas rain behind, or so I thought, and headed off toward Kerrville, Texas.
After camping in a  night that  dropped to 31 degrees I renamed it Koolville.
That was one night I should have opted for a motel.
Fortunately Stan had taken me to a Lowe's Home Center the day before and I purchased  a small electric heater. It ran all night and managed to ward off some of the cold.

The next day I headed off on I-10 for Fort Stockton, on my way to Roswell, New Mexico.
Camping was great at the KOA and by morning I was ready to visit Roswell and it's famed UFO Museum and research Center.
Passed through Pecos, New Mexico on the way and got a great picture.

Pecos, home of the world's FIRST rodeo. How about that.
Glad I spotted that sign in time to get a good picture.

And then a beautiful bronze sculpture.

 



Texas and New Mexico towns are not too close together so before crossing the state line into New Mexico I was running very low on gas.
There didn't seem to be any towns near enough on the Interstate so I took a chance, pulled off I-10 and headed for a small town a few miles away.
I made it, but I was running on fumes before I got there.
But the good thing was that it was Sunday morning and a small church had a service that was about to begin.
I walked in during the first hymn and was made to feel right at home.
They had no organ but had two guitar players, one of whom had a great  voice and led the song service. What a beautiful service at St. Jame Lutheran Church in Harper, Texas.

 

 This was another neat little church I saw along the way.

 Years ago while rewiring a satellite TV system at a house in the North Valley of Helena, Montana, the home owner introduced himself.
Dr. Jessie Marcel was a man I had read about years earlier.
He was 12 years old in 1947 when his Father, a Major in the US Air Force was the first member of the military to view the site where a reported UFO had crashed.
His Father gathered up pieces of the craft and brought them home to show his son at 2am in the morning.
Air Force officers picked up the alleged UFO fragments the next morning and took them away.
Although first reports from the base information office referred to it as a UFO, the air force soon put out a news report that it was a weather balloon.
Dr. Marcell said, "some people have called me a UFO nut, but I know what I saw and it was not of this world."  He never wavered from that belief.

One of the exhibits showed the early news paper stories.

The UFO Museum Research Center.

I spent several interesting hours at the UFO Museum.
It is well done with tasteful, thoughtful exhibits and presents a clear picturfe of both Government and Private UFO Research.
The $3.00 admission seemed very reasonable and I said so to the the lady at the desk. She said it is to make the facility available to all.
Great concept. 

The next stop on my ride for today ride was the Carlsbad Caverns, a great place to visit but a hard place to do pictures since it is kept dark with lights on special features.
It was a great tour and one that I will cover in more depth on a future entry.

At this writing I am sitting in a Days Inn Motel waiting for the Arizona winter rain storms to end so that I might continue the journey to San Jose, California, home of some Grand and Great kids.
There are flood warnings out for creeks and washes throughout the Tucson area and I will stay inside where it is both warm and dry.

Watch for me.
I'll be in the Right Lane America.

Del "Lonnie" Lonnquist

Meet the Mini Mate!

Stopped by the cycle shop where they replaced a nut and bolt which vibrated off on the ride. Probably laying in a corn field in Illinois. 

Then it was off to the Mini Mate Shop, hoping to be on the way South by noon. Jason and I set the tent camper up for practice. It worked great. Should be easy to pull and easy to set up. 

Looking forward to getting out on the road with it. The trip has been fantastic so far. Some rain and wind but mostly good. 

(Here are a couple videos that show how easy it is to set up.)

Ready for the Skyline Trail which connects to with the Blue Ridge Parkway. Camping tonight!

Blow Out! Forty Miles From Town And The Rear Tire Blew

It was all going so well.
I completed the Saddle Sore 1,000-1, and made the run through North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and into Maryland.
Less then 100 miles from the home of Grandson Jason and Allison Darelius.
Cruising up I-68 at 65 MPH when I heard a loud bang, followed by a loud whistling sound.
The rear tire had blown out.
The Yamaha didn't wobble, shake or swerve.
It stayed as solid as a rock.
A tribute to the great job  Sidecar Bill Ryder did in setting it up.
I quickly moved to the edge of this very busy freeway and pulled as far off onto the shoulder as I could.
I  have Triple A Premium which covers motorcycle and RV tows, thanks to my son Roger telling me about it.
I got the Triple A card out, but before I could make the call, a sharp looking Harley Sportster pulled over and it's rider sporting a beard, leather jacket and denim vest covered with patches from Biker get-togethers around the country got off and asked if I needed help.
"Blew the rear tire" I said.
Without waiting Sportster guy, Dave Brode said " that's not good let me make a couple of calls."
With a couple of  calls he had located a tire at Twigg Cycles in Hagerstown, some forty  miles away.
I got the Triple A card out and tried to call for a tow truck.
With all of the trucks roaring past I couldn't hear well enough to get a truck.
Just then one of Daves friends pulled up in his SUV.
Seeing that I was having trouble with my call he told me to get in his car, away from the highway noise.
Sadly I neglected to get his name so I could thank him in this report.
Triple A did a great job in getting the information and lining up a towing service to haul me the forty miles in to town.
They said it would be about an hour to get a truck out to pick me up.
Much to my surprise, in less that five minutes I received a call from Scott Carbough owner/operator of Jaz's Towing and Recovery service of Hancock, Maryland.
He wanted to confirm the location I was at.
I told him I was on I-68 East near Exit number 68.
Dave had pinpointed the location for me when he first arrived on he scene.
To my surprise Scott said he was already at Exit 68  but in the West bound lane.
When he received the call from Triple A, he had been on the way to a relatives house to check on some needed repairs on his truck.
His Uncle lived close to the spot where I was stranded.
Instead of an hour long wait for the truck, he was there in a matter of minutes.
In a short time he had my rig loaded on to his truck and 45 minutes later he was backing up to the loading dock at Twigg Cycles in Hagerstown, the largest motorcycle shop in the area.
Service Advisor Andy Horowitz quickly had the bike moved into the shop and the crew went to work.
As Harley Sportster Dave put it, " I think God was working overtime to get you taken care of today, if your tire had blown a half mile further down the road you would have had no cell phone service, it's a dead space for cell phones."
 Yeah, I think he got it right.
On this day, all the good came together for me.
Life is good.
I had a great ride today and a very interesting afternoon.
Met new friends and have another good story to share at side car rallies and other get togethers.
I'm looking forward to meeting many more good folks like the ones I met today.
I'll be coming your way, look for me.
I'll be in the Right Lane America
Del "Lonnie" Lonnquist

Visiting family

June 28th through July 6th I went traveling through North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Montana.
What a great trip.
Three Thousand Two Hundred Miles.
I visited in Fargo, North Dakota with Grands Katrina and Justin and Great Grand Vian.

That Vian, he is something else. Always smiling and making everyone around him laugh. Good one K & J.
Then on to Minneapolis, first stop at Twin Brother Dean & Bev's Garden and Vinyard in Monticello.
Here's Dean at Perkins for breakfast.

Had a great time at the graduation party at Vivian and Dave's, but it was raining and I didn't get any pictures. Under the canopy(s) everyone enjoyed the party and another of Viv & Dave's Grandkids has been graduated from High School.
We went to a wedding reception in North Minneapolis and saw Krystal Lonnquist and Adam Harvey. It was a great time at the reception while visiting with many Lonnquists.

Krystal & Adam. They are off to a great start. Thanks Krystal for the great pictures you sent.

I hadn't visited Tomah, Wisconsin for several decades. It was fun visiting some of the houses Lois and I and the kids occupied during the Tomah years.
This one was the first house we ever owned. It was on North Glendale Ave.

While living here the kids went to Kindergarten at the Lemonweir School.

 We built a house in 1967 on the other end of town. On the corner of Madison and Madison, the kids used to say.

It was a good visit when I had lunch with an old co worker from WTMB, Patrick J. Adler
He was Patrick J on the air.
Early the next morning I made the run through Fort McCoy on the Interstate. I remember well the morning I hit a deer with the motorcycle a few miles out of Sparta, Wisconsin. Sure glad I had that helmet on. Of course, it wasn't much good after that. The whole side was mashed in. I had lots of Asphalt Rash that morning, along with a broken collar bone.
Stopped in LaCrosse for a visit with old friends Jack & Ethel Sobotta. I remember them as The Country Caravan, a great country band in the 70's.

They sure don't look like they are in their 80's, do they?
Of course I don't either. Do I?
Had a good ride through the rolling hills of southern Minnesota and saw mile after mile of wind turbines spinning in the wind and making lots of electrical energy.
I had a good ride up I-29 to Dawson, MN for a visit with Allen and family. Well, good except for the rain and wind. That was a cold wet ride and I was glad to finally arrive in Dawson, more than ready for a hot cup of coffee and a great lunch with Allen, Pam, Laura and Lydia.
Good Grief, how did those two kids grow up so fast?
The sun was shining the next morning and I was ready for a nice long ride over to Sturgis and Deadwood, South Dakota. First their was a Lonnquist Farewell.

I-90 across Southern Minnesota and into South Dakota was an awesome ride.
I went to through Sturgis, SD with only a short stop at the Motorcycle Museum. It was great with over two hundred old motorcycles, some with sidecars. I told the kids they had motorcycle here that were even older than me.

Following the museum tour I headed a few miles down a great winding, twisting road to Deadwood. A couple of years ago when Lois and I went through here with Diana, Jared and Linda, Jenny found us a neat motel on the edge of Deadwood for just $35.00 a night. It was clean, neat and had plenty of room. I pulled in for another stay. The front clerk said, "Well I will have to charge you $45.00 since this is Thursday and the Fourth of July weekend is starting."
I told her my daughter Diana had stayed there a few weeks earlier and told me to be sure and ask for the specual $35.00 rate.
The lady replied, "Well, I guess it's not really the Fourth of July yet, so you can have the room for $35."
Nice lady. I'll stay there again.
Breakfast in Sturgis the next morning and of course it had to be at the Sidehack Saloon.
If you ever visit Sturgis you should try the Big Breakfast.
That is, if you dare to order The Garbage Omelet. It was actually very good and very, very filling.

Even if Dale Coyner in his book Motorcycle Travel does caution you to eat light to enjoy the ride.

I had planned to visit the Lehman Trike factory in Spearfish, but pushed on through on Sunday morning when it was closed.
Visit www.Trikeit.com to see what my friend Dan Herstein does with the Lehman trike kits.
Wyoming came up fast once I made the run through Spearfish.
It was in the 90's and I stopped often for water.

Really nice Visitor Center just over the Wyoming line.
Nice folks and free coffee for visitors during the Holiday Weekend.
Pulling out of the visitors center I had to make a quick stop.
I had never seen a full size airplane mounted on a pole and being used for a weather vane.
You don't see that every day. But there it was. Turning in the breeze. Pretty neat.

This was a long days ride through 90 degree weather.
I planned on going all the way from Sturgis to Billings, Montana, just over four hundred miles.
Too far for an old guy to ride in one day.
A lot of hills in Wyoming can slow you down, but on a couple I was behind a truck and they sort of pulled me over the top. That was easy.
Worked good until I somehow got behind a semi that was trying out the new 80 MPH speed limit that the state of Wyoming put in to effect that very weekend.
Well I used the brakes and got back down to a sensible speed.
After a good nights sleep at the Billings Comfort Inn I had a nice relaxing ride through the Montana mountains to Helena and home.
Three Thousand Two Hundred miles.
A great ride.
It is true you know.
After being married for sixty years, learning to live alone is a lot easier if you have a sidecar.
I'm heading for Washington DC to visit Grands Jason and Allison in late September, and then, with my new Mini Mate tent camper secured by a sturdy trailer hitch, the Yamaha 1100cc Classic, the sidecar and the tent camper will head on down the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Destination, Lake Mary, Florida and a visit with Diana, Ilidio and Jenny.
Maybe a cruise on the Disney Fantasy if Lorna and Rosario have their way.

I'll be in the Right Lane America.
How about you?
May your ride be long and may your Love Song never end.
Lonnie

Delivering books to Valley County Historical Society in Glasgow

In July I received an order for 16 copies of Lois' book Fifty Cents An Hour from the Valley County Historical Society in Glasgow. I decided to deliver them in person and headed for Fort Peck. It was a great ride. I stopped at the Maltana Motel in Malta, MT where Lois and I had stayed several times on our many trips to Fort Peck as she researched her book.

 The Little White Church In Malta. The first thing Diana noticed in the picture was the little bird house. It's a nice church and the Pastor pulled into the driveway as I took the picture. He had a big smile on his face. I bet lots of folks shoot that same picture.

 Fort Peck Dam is a four mile long pile of dirt with a road running across the top. The rock used as Rip Rap was blasted from Snake Butte about sixty miles away and carried by long trains to the Dam Site where the big railroad cars would open up and deposit the boulders on the face of the dam.

The Memorial to the 59 men who died building the dam. Lois worked for several years with Michelle Fromdahl the curator of the Interpretive Center to get this Memorial completed.

Raymond Hagen was Lois' Dad's best friend. They went to work on the dam together. He was hit from behind by a big jack and was thrown into a two hundred foot hole to the bottom of the shaft. They were working together and Raymond had just asked her Dad, "What time is it Len, time for me to go home to my wife?" Lois wrote a song about this for our program.

 

The presentation room where Lois and I did her Songs and Stories of the Fort Peck dam program.

Peck's Rex, the centerpiece of the dinosaur museum at the interpretive center.

More dinosaurs.

 Huge floor to ceiling aquariums. That is one big fish!

 

 More big fish swimming in the fish tank.

 

The center has great wildlife displays

The Power Houses have a great tour. Don't miss this if you visit Fort Peck.

Stepping in to the past.

I took a picture of Lois and her friend Michelle standing by this picture and tried to get them to raise their foot to wooden beam in the picture so it would look like they were actually stepping into the tunnel. They wouldn't do that.
I took the books the Historical Society ordered to the Pioneer Museum. What a dedicated staff they have taking care of the history of the pioneers from Northeast Montana.

This is Kitty Lou Rusher who talked on the phone with Lois for many hours during the writing and after publication of the book. She was so sure it would be a big seller that when the head of the museum said they would order 6 copies of the book, Kitty Lou said you should make that sixty because they'll sell fast. They ordered 36 books and Kitty Lou ordered 36 more on her own. She kept them in the trunk of her car and sold them whenever someone asked her about the book.

Stayed again at the Maltana Motel and met fellow travelers from Knoxville, TN the next morning. It had rained and they were uncovering their equipment. I didn't have a rain cover so I just wiped the seat off with paper towels and hit the road. They were nice folks. We had a good visit. They were heading for Glacier National Park.

 The long wet road took me home.

It was a great tip. I don't suppose I'll be getting back to the dam anytime soon. Lois and I visited it many times as she wrote and researched her book. How great that it was published and was such a great success for her before the Alzheimer's Disease stole the memories and stories.

Well, til next time, Keep in the Right Lane America. Be Fantastic !