Tuesday, January 20, 2015

I Need Your Help to Find a Cure for MS!!


Dear Family & Friends,

I hope you have enjoyed my travel blogs. There will certainly be more to come but right now I have a serious favor to ask of you..
As some of you know MS has affected our family for the last 8 years. Because it is such a personal issue for my family  I have been actively raising money for the MS Society to help find a cure for MS. I hope you will see it you heart to make some donation to this cause. It is easy, just follow the link below.

Sincerely,
Jason

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Just a Few More Days of Mexico....

Hola Mi Familia & Amigos!

The week is just flying by now… After a few days in San Miguel Allende we take off for a ride through the rain forests of the Sierra Madres..
The first day of riding was varying from low valleys to high mountains as lush and green as any place in the Pacific Northwest except with small quaint Mexican villages. We finished the day in a colonial town of Japlan. Again a town built by the Spanish around 1700, dominated by a large classic church and town square..
We got there late in the after noon and a few of us gathered around the pool and started drinking ice cold beers… We started discussing what would tasted good with an ice cold beer and we all agreed some street tacos would hit the spot….. Suddenly Bonnie disappeared and came back 20 minutes later with 25 tacos!! Once again she was the hero of the hour and kept earning her new nick name, Bonnie Zen!
After a couple of hours of beer and tacos what else could we do but walk into to town and find some good local food…. This is a small town and of modest means so we found a small local restaurant overlooking the valley below run by what looked like an mother and daughter.. No one spoke English and we just kind of pointed and hoped for the best…
The food was excellent but HOT.. Bonnie bit into a green pepper and almost went into orbit! She jumped from the seat and ran to the window and started gasping cold night air. It was HOT… Even the Guacamole had a big kick to it.. Good thing we had lots more cold beer… The young girl who was our waitress did not speak a word of English but she seemed to enjoy or spicy food pain because she laughed at us all night!

The next morning we rose early for a long day of riding…. The roads were great, twisty mountain roads with spectacular views of villages and rain forests.. Bonnie was so calm she was photographing from the bike. She took great road photos, scenic views, and even a few selfies.. All the while blasting along on a motorcycle through narrow twisty passes with 1000ft drop offs and no guard rails.. Evidently she really trusts my riding skills…..
Late in the morning we stopped at an exotic place in the rain forests. It was an artist retreat built in the 1940s by an eccentric English Lord named Edward James.. Such famous artists as Picasso, Esher, and Dali all visited there. IT is all concrete structures designed to be as organic in shape and to blend with the environment..
After that stop we had a long ride. Bonnie was such a trooper to spend all day twisting through the mountains and blasting across valley floors.. The valleys had sugar cane and bananas growing and looked beautiful…
Our guide kept saying we were making good time and we would make our next nights stop before dark  (5PM). By 7:30pm I figured we were not going to make it… Once we dropped down into the last valley before the boarder it was COLD so we were glad to arrive at our last nights stop. A half hour after we arrived it started pouring rain!! Bonnie I were so glad to avoid more rain.

When we finally got off the bikes everyone was cold and exhausted but the wait was worth it.. Our last night was in a very remote village with a hacienda hotel built by the Spaniards in around 1600! It was gorgeous and really felt like classic Mexico. When we arrived the staff met us with copious amounts of Margaritas, beer, and a nice warm fireplace so in no time we were all in good spirits. We were celebrating our last night in Mexico and also one of the men in the group was celebrating his 70th birthday that day! So it was festive and inspiring…  When I started riding motorcycles I doubted I could keep riding much past 30 because that seem so old. Then when I passed 30 I thought the expiration date was 40 and so and so on and I never thought it would be possible to do adventure riding around the work in my 60s, but now who knows?

The next morning we awoke up early, had breakfast and hit the road again. We had about a four hour ride to the boarder in fairly cold weather but at least no rain…
When we finally cleared customs and arrived back in the USA at the hotel we started we were all so happy!!  Everyone arrived in good spirits, no injuries and a week of great memories.. 
I am so proud of Bonnie. She over came her fears of riding a motorcycle and really was amazing. She was enthusiastic and happy for 9 days straight and over 1300 miles of difficult riding.. rain, cold, mud, pot holes, twists and more but we have great memories to last a life time! She really earned her nick name Bonnie Zen.
Also our new friends Kim and Becky were wonderful!! Fun to be with and Kim is a great rider and Becky over came her motorcycling fears to really enjoy the week. Bonnie and I are so happy to have such wonderful new friends to have many more adventures with.

That’s it for now. We are back in the US and we are driving to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show and the classic motorcycle auction plus other fun stuff. I a may not be retired yet, but I am trying to play like!
Until the next adventure, signing out….

Jason

Hot air balloons in San Miguel Allende..




Town square in Jalpan

Church in Jalpan

Jalpan town square with great street food and vendors of all sorts.

Our hotel in Jalpan
Jalpan town square.


The Edward James artist retreat.




Some of Bonnie's road photos..





A 75mph selfie!











Mountain Villages..













































These doors are NOT made for me..





Road side villages in the mountain passes.













A Mexican Hot Dog.. is this really the color of a hot dog?? Cold and tired enough and you will eat anything.



Our room the last night... not bad for a 450 year old room!!








Our dining hall...













Celebrating a long, challenging and fun motorcycle adventure, Bonnie Zen!


Our new traveling friends, Kim and Becky feeling the excitement of a great adventure vacation!


The Story of my V12 XK120 FHC,,,, start to finish~

This was by far the hardest project I have ever done from the frame up! I started with a rusty bare body. It was completely rebuilt with ext...