Almost Christmas at the SKP Park

Sunday - The leaves on our tree are quickly changing and are starting to fall. It has been a long week since the Riverwalk last Tuesday. Bridget should be released from the hospital soon, maybe tomorrow. It’s a pretty long drive between the RV and the hospital. Somewhere around 60 miles. 

A resident of the park made a shrimp dinner last night. I think there was around 60 people. Not shown is the garlic bread. I’m not usually a fan of coleslaw but this version was very tasty. 

The food at the hospital cafe was sort of so-so. A deep fried dinner. Fries, chicken nuggets, and fried small shrimp. I was hoping the salad bar was open but it wasn’t. Sunday must be a minimal kitchen staff. 

Sure Sign of Spring!

I know that I probably used that phrase before but this is the sign that is almost universally accepted around here. The return of the birds to Creamer's Field Migratory Wildfowl Refuge. These are the wetlands between Farmer's Loop Rd and College Rd. They actually clear the snow using giant snowblowers that are normally used to clear the runways. Then seed of some sort is scattered around. In previous years, I've seen hundreds of swans plus uncountable numbers of other birds in these fields. I mention "swans" as they tend to stand out and even I can spot them. This opportunistic iPhone snapshot was taken on Friday evening around 7:30.

Snow Berms

Another beautiful Spring day. At least the weather was nice on Wednesday. It was only 8°F when I left the house this morning but was up into the low 20s (°F) by the time I left College Coffeehouse. After multiple trips to the transfer station (that's what we call the place where we dump household trash) with the Ural, it was almost 30°F. As I'm typing this in the late afternoon, it's all the way up to 34°F with water running across the road. Things around here are kind of dirty and dingy around this time of year. The snow isn't brilliant white along the roads anymore as all of the sand/ash/gravel/trash that has been scattered on the roads all winter is starting to surface.

The picture above was taken on Thursday on the way back from coffee. The clouds are back and there were even a few snowflakes. This is what just about all of the snow piled up on the sides of the road look like. Kind of drab from all of the dirt but then all of that dirt causes the berms to melt faster. The one thing you need to watch for is water running across the road which could freeze at night. DOT usually tries to push the snow and ice far enough off the road for that not to happen but they don't have control of all of the side roads and driveways.

On Friday, I needed gas in the Ural so I put the GoPro on to see if it still worked. Sort of worked. The USB outlet in the sidecar now has one broken outlet (out of two) but since I can't find the remote anyway, it sort of didn't matter. Plus, GoPro Studio on the Macbook Pro no longer imports the video and its replacement, Quik, is pretty flaky. So, I tried using iMovie. A little more flexible but a whole lot more complex than the simple GoPro Studio.

Happy Easter!!!

Post Fall

Fall has pretty much come and gone so now we are just waiting for the snow to arrive. It has been pretty dreary for the last week or so with just occasional bits of blue sky. The Ural has been plugging away but just running to College Coffeehouse in the morning followed by errands around town. No recreational riding. I'm still waiting for the Roadcrafter to get back from Aerostitch so riding in the rain isn't as nice as it could be. They estimated a minimum of three weeks which is right about now. I'm also still waiting for the trailer to get repaired after dropping it off about a month ago at a local RV shop. Maybe I should look at it as free storage.

This picture is of a friends Suzuki GSX-R that he has set up for moto-camping. He used to race the bike but rather than get rid of the bike, he added homemade aluminum racks to carry his gear. It's a nice setup though I'm not sure how comfortable it would be but that's just me. He loves the bike and that's all that really matters.

Mid-week Update

On Monday morning, I was flying to Anchorage for a meeting and took this snapshot of the Tanana River. It definitely looks like Fall here in the interior with hardly any shade of green remaining. Even though it does look a bit dreary, the weather in Anchorage was cold and wet. At least it was dry in Fairbanks.

Tuesday was spent upgrading devices to the new iOS. The 9.7" iPad Pro was registered in the Apple Beta program so it received the update last week. Today was the iPhone and the Apple Watch. Both went without incident though the watch update process took several hours. I think it was because the new OS was transferred to the watch via Bluetooth.

I'm still digging into them looking for any real benefits. The new Siri watchface (pictured) is probably not one of the real benefits though Siri on the watch has always been much better than on the phone. I've been running the public iOS betas since July and like the new features though it seemed to increase battery consumption. Hopefully that has been addressed in the final release.

Ural National Rally - Not

The Ural National Rally was today (Saturday, September 9th) and, no, I didn't participate. In fact, I never bothered to register since I wasn't sure if the rig would be on the road. But I did manage to get the Ural out and about a several times. It was too nice of a day to not test the transmission. After morning coffee and a stop at the Farmer's Market, I noticed a slight loss of power on hills. It was then that I remembered that before pulling the transmission, I made a point of using up most of the gas in case I needed to remove the tank. A quick switch to reserve solved the loss of power on hills. Later on in the day, I went out in search of evidence of Fall and I'm afraid that I found plenty. We really don't have a lot of Fall colors around here besides yellow. Unless brown qualifies as a color. There is very little red except on some bushes. This picture was taken at the park in the Goldstream Valley.

I then continued east towards the pipeline turnout on the Steese Highway. I thought that the trees would be more yellow. Maybe in a couple more days. I was reminded by a whining/spinning noise that I probably need to replace the bearings in the alternator drive. It's a pretty simple procedure and I believe that the bearings are available at Napa. I had helped JedR replace the bearings on his newer Ural. I think that they are pretty similar.

I then headed home as I was going to make pizza tonight and needed to start on the dough.

Ice On the River

Still no snow in the long term forecast (not that I'm complaining!). This is the Chena River that flows through downtown Fairbanks and ice is starting to form. Since I was working on the Ural a few days ago, the BMW was easier to get out of the garage. There was a lot of wind today and you can really feel it when coming from the sidecar side. Occasional gusts would want to push you to the left and you can feel the sidecar occasionally get a little light. As in the wheel not being firmly planted on the road.

When going down the highway, I would shift towards the sidecar with more weight on the right peg. The 30-40mph wind combined with 18°F (-8°C) ambient temperatures reminded me that the BMW still needed to have the handlebar end covers installed. And, it feels like the left heated glove isn't working again. Sigh...

Later in the day - As expected, another broken wire in the left glove. Fixed. The next pair of heated gloves will be battery powered...

Tuesday Morning -  And again! This time the right glove decided that it wanted some attention. The break seems to frequently occur right at the end of the strain relief. The problem isn't the strain relief but they use plastic insulated wires that get brittle when cold. Not the best design for something that will be used in the cold. So I carefully cut off enough of the strain relief on the connector and the remaining wire to solder. Then slip some heat shrink tubing over the splice and tape it all up.

I was thinking of looking for some springs at the hardware store that can be slipped over the remaining strain relief and the first couple of inches of wire. Both repairs could use some additional mechanical support to prevent the wire from flexing.

Another Beautiful Morning

Sunday - Another beautiful morning. Not a cloud in the sky and 23°F (-5°C) about an hour before sunrise. After the record rainfall this summer, we expected the moisture to continue and get dumped on with snow. But then again, it's still early in the season…

No challenges or engine failures makes for boring posts. Not much to write about.

Monday - The project of the day was replacing the old, flickering, dim fluorescent shop lights in the garage. There were 6 fixtures, each with two 40 watt T12 bulbs. Today, I replaced 3 of the fixtures. The LED replacement fixtures are 42 watts per fixture or about half of the power for a whole lot more light. The old fixtures were wired into the permanent wiring and the new ones were designed to plug into ceiling outlets. A quick trip to Lowe's got me all of the pieces needed to install quad outlets on the ceiling for the lights so they are still controlled by the wall switches.

Plus, we had a 10' track with 3 LED flood lights that used to be in one of the bedrooms. That now lives in the garage illuminating the workbench area. This is also plugged into my new ceiling mounted box. I'll replace the other 3 fixtures next month.

Clear, Sunny and No Snow!

The forecast for the next ten days is more of the same. Last year we've had a pile of snow by this date. I don't think anyone around here is complaining. I talked to a KLR650 rider this evening and he is enjoying the extended riding season on his new-to-him bike. Other riders at his job have been saying that it's past the time to put the bike up (as they already have done). His response is "no snow so why stop riding?". He mentioned that he told them that he knew the guy on the sidecar and they just shake their heads. Some people just don't understand.

If you look carefully, you can see the Alaska Range showing through the trees. This is what the weather has been all day. On Monday there was some great aurora but I didn't try and take a photograph.

BTW, the BlogPress app for the iPhone is considerably better than it was in the past. Especially the ability to specify photo size and placement. The reason for wanting to use an app is for times when I don't want to haul a laptop around.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

1st Last Ride

Today was the "real" solstice for this area. Equal day and night according to Weather Underground. So it seemed like a good day for the BMW riding group here in Fairbanks to schedule a "1st last ride of the year". There have been some years when they've made it to the 5th last ride but somehow we don't expect that to be the case this year. Note, I thought about taking the BMW but the Ural was the easier option.

We left College Coffeehouse heading out the Parks Highway towards Nenana. The goal was the Monderosa Bar & Grill just this side of Nenana. Once you climbed into the hills, the temperature warmed up to about 45°F (7°C) but once we dropped down towards Nenana, the temperature dropped to 34°F (1°C). These temperatures are according to my OAT installed in the windshield. This is the view from the Parks Highway Monument looking south towards the Tanana River and the Alaska Range.

Originally, I was just planning to stop and take a photo but the group decided to stop and try and troubleshoot an electrical problem on a R100GS/PD. The fuse for the tail lights/dash lights keeps blowing while riding. I suspect multiple broken wires in the bundle from the headlight to the handlebars. I offered to take the troublesome bike off his hands for $20 but he didn't take me up on it. BTW, the bike with the electrical problem is the red/white one in the foreground not the other red/white R100GS/PD that most seem to be looking at. 

One More Project Done

The latest project of the day completed. Due to the weight of the diesel engine, adding a snow plow to the front of the truck requires you to add some ballast as far back as you can. The round "plug" in the bed is the gooseneck hitch and is two inches in front of the rear axle. The frame is built from all-weather wood and it is to keep the bags of gravel from sliding around the bed when braking and is braced against the front of the bed, the tailgate, fender wells and the bottom of the bed rail. The recommendation is for 600# of ballast. Right now, I have seven sixty pound bags in place so I need to pick up a several more bags. Last year, I had stacks of bags in each rear corner of the bed tied in with rope.

The mornings have been getting consistently colder but still above freezing. I still have been riding everyday still preferring the Ural to the BMW. Maybe it's time to remove the sidecar. After all, there's still some two wheel weather left.

Misc. Fall Tasks

Not very much exciting going on this past week. After my knee started feeling better, I started working it a bit harder. I used to get a lot of miles in every day walking but lately, even 4-5 miles is unusual. I may start riding the bicycle some even if I have to haul it somewhere to start riding.

I did get some work done on the truck this week. Changed the engine oil. The oil, air and fuel filters are well under the change interval. I installed this trailer connector inside the bed using a premade harness that splices into the existing trailer connector wiring. I still need to make a wooden frame to hold about ten bags of gravel at the rear of the bed. This would be 600 pounds, the recommended counterweight to offset the weight of the plow hanging off of the front.

I also installed a shoe kit on the snow plow which helps to keep the edges of the plow from digging into the ground. The pile of washers allow you to adjust the height. This also seemed to be an opportune time to move the snowplow out of the garage.

September 15th is the first day when you are allowed to run with studded tires. Since I had never swapped tires on the BMW, this was an opportunity to take it out on the road. After sitting since the end of March, I just charged up the battery and the engine fired up on the first compression. I only drove it around 20 miles or so. The riding experience is so different from the Ural. A lot of clutch slipping is needed to get moving, the throttle requires a lot more effort, shifting is so light and easy, and before I knew it I was past the speed limit. The first curve reminded me how heavy the steering is.

The other Fall task was clearing up some of the fallen leaves. Bridget had me pick up a leaf blower and I must admit that it did speed up the chore. Especially where the leaves were mixed with gravel. The electric leaf blower also had a vacuum/mulch feature that worked really well. What would've been about four large bags of leaves fit into one.

It's About That TIme of Year

Clumps of yellow leaves are showing up all over town. Well, actually sort of brownish-yellow clumps. These are just some in our yard. There are a lot more at higher elevations. I'm getting some riding in after what I think may be the last trip to Barrow for this field season. I brought back one ActionPacker (just under 50 lbs) of gear from Barrow including a couple of laptops, some tools, several external drives, the Raspberry Pi-3s and some food that will probably go stale. I also brought back my old riding gear. The Kilimanjaro jacket got a lot of use after I removed the protective padding. It is a still a great breathable, waterproof jacket.

The Ural is almost at 50k km so I'm getting ready to do a "major" service i.e. what is specified for 10k km. The owners manual doesn't go beyond something like 32.5k km. Maybe they're not expected to last that long. Rather than deal with the list of compatible spin-on oil filters, I searched on Amazon for the factory filter, a Mann 75/3, and found several listings. I picked the one listed as "Prime" for free shipping. I just cleaned the air cleaner element in my Home Depot PVC fence post air cleaner aka Leftka 3. It was pretty filthy after only being used since Spring. Maybe there was some improvement in airflow from cleaning but probably not as the Moto Guzzi filter element has substantially more surface area than the stock filter. The inside of the filter housing itself was pretty grimy complete with leaves, sand and gravel. I need to hack up some sort of dirt/water trap for the filter housing intake.

I've been averaging 32 mpg since the beginning of May (after the engine had been broken in). Quite an improvement from my road trip last summer when I opted to use the stock filter housing. I'm still considering increasing the size of the main jets one more step as there is a minor flat spot at full throttle. There is actually more power at 80% throttle. In the last 2500 km, I've added no oil so I'll be switching to synthetic in the engine. The transmission and final drive has been running synthetic as long as I've owned the rig.

Today, I'm headed to Anchorage for the day to attend a meeting. I thought about riding down but the non-refundable airline ticket was already purchased. It would've been a great end of summer trip.

This pano was taken in Barrow last Saturday morning. There were a number of barges on the water and I was just curious if any of them were part of the fiber optic cable project. The one on the far left is in the area where the cable is landing but I couldn't tell what it was doing (besides floating).

Nights Are Getting Longer

I spend Tuesday afternoon out on the BEO again. I was told that there was a network problem as one of the groups was having difficulty connecting to their experiment. It turned out to be more of a power problem in both the Control Shed and their tower. The network was fine. There is a lot more water out here now than earlier in the summer. This section of the plastic walkway is actually floating on the wooden walkway underneath and it feels pretty treacherous. Kind of like walking on a boat. The knee high rubber boots almost seem to be a little short walking along the trail.

I think that there will be at least a couple more walks out here over the next couple of days. On Tuesday, I was out there for about 5 hours. On Thursday, I suspect that I'll be out there even longer. The yellow cable is power for the new tower. I think that I've already missed the "peak" for color on the tundra. No more flowers.

It's only 11:05pm and it's already after sunset. This is the view from the living room window of the hut I'm staying in this week. The quonset hut across the street is typical of where I usually stay. But this week, it's a nice two bedroom frame house. I just thought the view was interesting. 

Almost Ice-Free

That is Ballaine Lake in the background. Still not quite ice-fee but getting pretty close. Our temperatures are still just above freezing in the morning but are getting close to 60°F by the end of the afternoon. Warm enough to dispense with the fleece liner under the RC. I'm almost to the 1000km break-in mileage on the rebuilt engine but I'm still not 100% confident that there isn't still a hidden problem. Right now, when the clutch is disengaged and the bike is still in gear, there is a very slight tendency for the rig to move forward. This was never the case in the past. But that's about the only thing giving me pause.

On Thursday evenings, starting yesterday, the local Harley/Honda/BMW/Polaris/Victory dealer has a barbeque with free hamburgers and brats. Yesterday, there were a number of door prizes given away in addition to the free food. I'm not sure I'll attend every week that I'm in town but the brats were very tasty. Their big prize, to be given away sometime in June, is a well outfitted BMW G650GS. I think that it was a rental bike at one time but it has tons or Touratech add-ons and has spoked wheels. A very nice bike.

I think that I've ended up going to the University just about every day this week. I had picked up one of the 9.7" iPad Pro models a couple of weeks ago but the keyboard cover, camera connection kit and pencil were back ordered. The camera connection kit is still back ordered but the keyboard and pencil arrived today. I did the iCloud restore on the iPad using the Internet at the university. Just a little bit faster. I'll do a full review in a bit after using the new gadget for blogging. I was told that I wouldn't like to type on the keyboard cover but it isn't too bad. After all, I got used to typing on the new MacBook keyboard so I could probably get used to typing on just about anything.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

What a Way to Spend a Morning

In the waiting room of a tire shop. May 1st is the deadline for using studded tires. We don't have a second set of rims for the Prius so the tires must be swapped on the rims twice a year. Maybe it's time. Let's do the math $75 twice a year and we've had the car for 4 years. That's about $600. Could've easily paid for new rims plus there wouldn't be the wear and tear on the tire beads. This may be the last time for both sets even though they aren't anywhere near worn out.

I did hear back from the author of BlogPad Pro and they thanked me for reporting the problems. The paragraph break is the more annoying problem and they said that Google had changed the API and it will be fixed at the next release. Until then, I will be starting posts on the iPad where it's easy to insert photos, then bring them up in the Blogger web interface to fix the paragraphs. Simple enough. The incorrect HTML style in the photos was new to them though. I guess that has been there but not mentioned before, I guess people just put up with it.

Another day, another waiting room. Though this one has better free snacks. I'm at the local Toyota dealer getting the next service done on the Prius. Fortunately, there isn't much needed as part of the service. Since it's out of warranty, I should probably start doing some of this myself. Then I wouldn't be sitting around in another waiting room. I did talk with a friend who was here getting an air bag recall done on his old Corolla. He is another airhead member and is getting ready for a bike trip to the lower 48 with his son. He said that his son may be keeping the airhead so he'll be keeping the old Honda. I believe it's a predecessor of the Goldwing. I don't remember what they were called.

Ice Coffee Weather

Another typical spring day in interior Alaska. There have been a lot of bikes out on the roads this weekend and the almost universal comment has been "it's only April!". Not only are the bikes out but also bicycles, RVs, boats, kayaks and canoes. The only thing missing were the leaves and those came out last night. This morning, the hills had a green tint that wasn't there yesterday.

On Sunday afternoon, we went out for lunch and I had the sushi platter. I was really looking forward to this and the restaurant didn't disappoint. The glass has strings of raw beets topped with cucumber and was a strictly a garnish and had no flavor. But it made for a nice presentation.

This morning was warm enough to justify an iced coffee as it was starting to feel too warm. Almost 60°F. I arrived late to the coffee house and most of the regular crowd had already left. I had stayed home as the neighbor was felling trees and asked me to stick around. I took advantage of the time to arrange the garage to make room to store the snow plow. It's now in front of the BMW which was turned sideways. That gave just enough room for the Ural plus some walking space around everything.

Right now (Monday afternoon) I'm trying out my birthday gift from Bridget. A "smart", fuzzy logic rice cooker. I'm not sure how you make a rice cooker smart but I used one while we were renting the townhouse in Kyoto, It did a great job though I had a hard time reading the menu (it was in Japanese). I like that it has a brown rice setting as well as a variety of measuring marks in the pan. We had been using jasmine long grain rice for years but I had picked up some California short grain rice while I was in Barrow and I thought it tasted much better and had a better texture. The cooker has different water settings for short grain white rice and jasmine rice. It even has a setting for baking cakes! I'll need to try that sometime...

No issues or problems with the Ural yet. I've added about 100 ml of oil so far but it's still in the engine break in period. Almost to the 1000 km where I'll need to torque the heads, adjust the valves and change the oil and filter.

60 Years

Not too bad of a day. Not very "spring-like" but not winter either. Today, I get to celebrate my 60th trip around the sun. I'll be heading out to the College Coffeehouse in a bit and thought that I should say something, especially after I deleted the Facebook-like post that was put up earlier this morning by someone else...

I did receive a letter from the university letting me know that I am officially old and should plan on attending the UAF commencement ceremony this year. They will be conferring the title "Senior Engineer, Emeritus" on me. There are several words in that phrase suggesting "old" but I guess I shouldn't dwell on that and just accept the honor intended.   

I'm using the new iPad blogging app again to see if there is any way to get it to put in the appropriate paragraph breaks. (It didn't and I needed to modify the html directly for the right margin of the picture.)

Edited with BlogPad Pro

An Early Spring

This is what "breakup" looks like around here. This morning it was slightly below freezing and it's supposed to get up to +48°F this afternoon. Ballaine Lake has some standing water on the surface and there isn't much snow left on the ground. Maybe a couple of inches. But at least it's sunny. The NWS reported that for the first time ever, somewhere in Alaska was over 70°F. I believe that this was in Southeast AK.

The Ural is (still) running nice and smooth though it did die when I pulled up to an intersection. So I cranked up the idle speed when I got back home followed by re-balancing the carbs. My suspicion that the left cylinder was working harder may have been right as today, the left head temperature never went more than ~25°F above the right. This also suggests that the CHT gauge and sensors are working properly. Just to get a second opinion, I ordered a relatively cheap infra red thermometer off of Amazon.

According to Weather Underground, we are up to 13:34 hours of sun above the horizon now and gaining at almost 6 minutes per day. I think that this is one of the warmest winters we've had in a long time. Not a single day of -30°F or colder at least none that I remember. The record low for today was -47°F if that gives you an idea of how weird this is.

Today was just too nice of a day to not ride around. I just need to avoid highway speeds and long grades for a while. I believe the break in time is 1500 km.

BTW, don't miss the phenomenal Alaska moto-video on AlaskaPeek's latest blog post. 

Barrow Winter Dawn

The light and colors in the sky at sunrise/sunset here in Barrow is nothing short of spectacular. The iPhone camera fails to capture the huge dynamic range. Even the HDR image I tried didn't capture the colors from the sun just below the horizon. At 1:00, it's still around 3° below the horizon. The first sunrise will be on January 23rd. I set up the GoPro on a window sill in the Barrow Arctic Science Center on time-lapse but the battery just doesn't last long enough. The start time is 10:30am and the battery ran dead at 1:05pm just before "solar noon". Maybe I can dig up a USB charger to run the camera on and try again tomorrow.