Most all of the fun things we did as little kids were instigated by my Grandparents. Between raising four kids and working constantly to pay for the opportunity our parents were left spent, angry and not that into family-time trips. We did try it a few times but it seems like the trips always ended with someone crying, my parents arguing or a small child missing an arm. With only 16 limbs between us we had to be careful and husband our togetherness for fear of running out.
Things were very different with Gran and Gramps. We were allowed to sleep over every weekend during which we attempted to destroy their house and any of their valuable keepsakes not made from solid iron. Maybe because of our destructiveness they acted as if they liked taking us on adventures. Camping with one hundred million mosquitos at Fish Eating Creek, going to The Monkey Jungle where the people are in cages and the apes run free, and picnics at Crandon Park beach were commonplace events. We had it made.
Twice a year Gramps would take us to Daytona for the stock car races. This was back when the cars resembled production models and ran modified production engines. There was none of this Staged racing or Playoffs. We went to Daytona to see the race. It didn’t matter to us who had the most points or won the season championship because Daytona was a championship all by itself. If you asked the drivers of that era to choose between winning the Daytona 500 or winning all the other races on the schedule I bet you’d have some takers for the 500.
We always bought infield tickets. Camping at the Daytona Speedway was included with infield tickets so we immersed ourselves in the racing and never had to leave. Gramps had a late 1960’s Ford window van with a 6-cylinder, 3-on-the-tree drivetrain. The van was fitted out inside with a bed and had a table that pivoted off the forward-most side door. To give us a better view of the racing Gramps built a roof rack out of 1” tubing. The rack had a ¾” plywood floor and was accessed via a removable ladder that hung from the rack over the right rear bumper.
At each corner and in between the corners of the roof deck were short tubes that a rope railing system fitted inside. Metal uprights slid into the short tubes and were secured by ¼-20 nuts and bolts. Rope was strung through the uprights and snugged making for a passable handrail. The railing was an attempt to keep little kids from falling off the roof of the van. Once the ladder was in place and the railing installed we would bring up chairs and a cooler. A portable AM radio provided a running commentary of the race progress. We took turns listening. It was a wonderful way to watch the races.
Back then Gramps was in what we call his silver and red period, not to be confused with his red and green period. Everything he built in that era was painted either silver or red. For some reason Gramps preferred a bargain basement silver paint that dried into a soft, chalky coating that never really hardened. The whole roof deck was painted silver except for the sockets that the uprights fitted into. Those were painted red. The stark contrast made it easy to locate the sockets.
When you would climb the ladder to the upper deck your hands would pick up silver paint. If you sat on the deck your pants would turn silver. If you rubbed your nose like little kids do your nose would turn silver. It was like Gramps painted the deck with Never-Seez. After a full day of racing we looked like little wads of Reynolds Wrap.
Our camp stove was a two-burner alcohol fueled unit that, incomprehensibly, used a glass jar to contain the alcohol. Even to my 10 year-old eyes the thing looked like a ticking time bomb so I kept my distance while gramps lit matches and cussed at the stove.
The alcohol stove took forever to light, requiring just the perfect draft. The slightest breeze would extinguish the flame. Once lit it didn’t make much heat. Our eggs were always runny and cold. It took 3 hours to cook bacon. The plates Gramps passed out to our tiny silver hands were made from aluminum. Any residual background heat remaining from the Big Bang was quickly transferred from the food to plate ensuring everything was uniformly gross.
Gramps found great pleasure in our complaints about his food. He would smile and chuckle at us if we asked for our eggs hot. When we wished aloud for Granny to be there to make the food he really got a belly laugh. He prided himself on cooking poorly. I never understood why we had the stove in the first place. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would have been a lot easier and way more appetizing.
After the races were over it took forever to clear the infield. We took our time breaking down the upper deck, putting away the camping chairs and the stove and coating every surface we came in contact with a fine, silver dusting of color. I don’t know why I remember these things so clearly. It must be that silver paint, that chalky texture. I can close my eyes and feel the dry, talc-like residue on my hands even now.
It seems like I’m always working a pick and a shovel at Tinfiny Ranch. Situated at 6000 feet in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains the place is steep with many elevation changes. An arroyo runs past the house so that when it rains (and it rains a lot in New Mexico) my driveway becomes a short-lived trout stream.
We had a day to kill before I picked up the tractor so we went to Hunter’s Skybox at OSU and watched the OSU women’s basketball team dismantle a team from Kansas. The governor of Oklahoma has a suite two doors down and there was unlimited free food along with all the ice cream you could eat. The suite had a commanding view of both the football field and the indoor arena.
The Tractor was a beauty with tires so new they still had rubber bar codes visible. Kubota’s have earned a good name in the heavy equipment arena and this L2850 sported a diesel engine that fired right up.
Underneath the driven front end you’ll find a portal-type axle to give the tractor plenty of ground clearance. Everything is leaking a bit but oil is cheap and Tinfiny can use a little dust control. The steering felt tight and Woody, the guy I bought the tractor from takes good care of his stuff.
When I worked construction in Miami it was rare to see a dashboard unbroken. Vandalism was a constant problem. Lights, tires and hoses were routinely damaged by bored kids. The L580 dash was clean and everything works except the tach needle fell off.
At the rear of the Kubota has a two-speed PTO drive that I will be using as soon as CT buys me a backhoe attachment. Amazon has some cool 3-point hoes costing around $3600. You don’t want to do a lot of side digging with a 3-point hoe because the hitch wasn’t meant for big side loads but as long as you are crabbing in a straight line they will work well.
The transmission has high and low range with low range, first gear being super slow. Top end of the tractor in high range-high gear is around 12 miles per hour. With zero suspension 12 MPH is plenty over Tinfiny’s rough grounds.
This lever engages the front wheels. This is pretty important because the front end loader combined with nothing attached to the hitch means the big rear wheels have little traction.
I didn’t start out in the typing business looking for swag. I was more interested in seeing my byline on a real, printed object. Being published meant at least one person in the world thought my stuff wasn’t terrible. No, it was like more swag found me. Slowly at first, then faster as the typing game became less and less lucrative, swag has grown ever larger in importance.
CSC sent me a flat-brimmed swag cap. They didn’t need to: I love those guys and how their business plan is a fantastic experiment in mail order motorcycling. I like that the customer needs to be a bit more self sufficient to operate their motorcycles. And I like the hat. With most products becoming sealed off to us regulars, CSC bikes actually require you to dig in. Since I own mostly weird motorcycles that have no dealer support I relate to the pride a CSC owner feels when he sets his own valves or replaces the chain and sprockets on his motorcycle.
Swag works. The preceding paragraph should be all the proof you need. Swag turns customers into advocates and a scuba suit beer cooler celebrating Pandya’s 50th birthday will always come in handy. Come to think of it, Exhaustnotes.us has no swag that I’m aware of. I’ll have to get to work on that.
As I developed my passion for moto camping I began following blogs and Facebook groups to seek out tips and tricks that can make my moto camping experiences more exciting and comfortable. I began to notice that some moto campers on these pages camped in their hammocks full time and didn’t even own a tent. This awoke my curiosity since I always travel with an ENO double nest nylon hammock. On most nights when I camp I usually hang the hammock when I have a few hours to kill where I can get comfortable and read a book or just gaze into the campfire after a long day of riding. Even though I travel and use a hammock frequently I never thought of sleeping in my hammock while camping prior to reading these blogs.
I enjoy the unique experience of hammock camping and whenever conditions are right have continued to camp in my hammock. I am now in the habit of setting up both my tent and hammock at my campsites and go with how I feel, the weather, and my surroundings. Hammock camping is another option to have, and with moto camping having more options is never a bad thing.
And there you have it. No doubt there are more highly-charged comments posted by the time you read this. I stopped reading them and posting responses because I thought I might offend someone, or maybe even be offended myself. But then, I always have had a short fuse…