2017 Kuehl's Christmas letter part 1

    I have spent the last several months trying to get up the ambition to do some blogs since my last one in June. I think that I put another 5000 miles on the GS since that note but who's counting. So this will start my usual rambling narrative of the past year, although I am going to cut back on the rambling some. January, what can I say but the weather was on and off nasty, freezing rain, snow and cold, and bad roads. Jan and I were following Sam around for his basketball games in the Rochester area and also Leah and Aaron for their basketball games. Jan has been out at the farm helping out as I have at times also. I also started on a model of a Ducati Panigale 1199. I spent a lot of time on this one and if you look back in my blogs you can see the end result. I may include a photo. Jan also runs over to Windom to visit her Mom at the home on a regular basis. A trip to the dentist made another trip to Rochester required, he found a suspicious spot, so I had another biopsy done at Rochester. It must have been ok because I don't see any other notes. February started out with Jan and I on the road east bound again headed for Burke, Virginia. Hans' work has been taking him to Hawaii and this time he was taking Rachel along, so we were watching their gang for the coming week. We did some touring in that area, which is rich with Civil war sites among other things. We did manage to see Josiah play some basketball too, thank God for gps, I don't know how you navigate in that part of the world without it. Actually, the only place that I do use gps is in cities that I am unfamiliar with. About the time we returned home we had a spell of 60 degree weather followed by 4or 5 inches of snow one day. Mother Nature is such a teaser. Almost the whole gang met at a goat farm in Lakeville to look at goats, naturally Jan bought one and Lindsey got one too, so begins another story line. We spent some time out at the farm getting the goat shed ready for occupancy, with some lights that Eli scored from an acquaintance of his, also working on getting some wiring done in his shop. The last day of the month I was back in a doctor's office getting ready for some heart imaging and a stress test. March was more time out at the farm doing some more wiring and fixing some of the wiring and working on the Panigale model in the evenings. We were back to Rochester for basketball over the weekend and work at the farm getting ready for the goats arrival. The weather was teasing again so I did get a bike or two out of the garage for some exercise. The 6th saw 70 degree start with a finish of rain, hail, a couple tornados and snow, for crying in the soup! It must have been the year for it but I replaced batteries in Jan's car and 4 motorcycles in March. We spent the next weekend in Buffalo watching Sam's 4th grade team take the state title, they were undefeated for the season. And Jan and I drove home in snow that got worse the closer we got to St. James. I had an echocardiogram later in the month to finish up the latest round of tests, and finally got the all clear results, PTL. Brother Phil and I made the run to Rush City to Dennis Kirk for parts and a stop at Cambridge for burgers again. We think we have been making the trip up there for maybe 30 years. April began with a dead battery on the GS, it turned out an accessory I mounted over the winter had a very low current flow that sucked the battery down over several days. I found a lead that is only hot when the engine is running and fixed that one. Eli, Lindsey, Leah, Jan and I drove up to Lakeville to pick up the girls two goats. While we were gone the little goat Lindsey had gotten from the neighbors died somehow, very, very sad. Rachel, Joe and Annie drove here from Burke to spend a couple days. Jan's goat got sick and needed to go to the vets sitting on her lap wrapped in a blanket. Several injections later she recovered. I drove my Mom to an eye doctor appointment in Mankato, she is getting injections in one eye to help with macular degeneration. I traded our R1200RT of on a new Triumph Bonneville at Belle Plain just before taking off on another bucket list trip. This time I am trying to complete a trip south that I have attempted twice before. Eventually I did make it to Louisiana, jump the Mississippi into Mississippi and head north through Memphis, Kentucky and Illinois before the bad weather caught up with me, but then if you scroll back through my blogs you can read about that trip in detail. May started with a long bus trip to the Cities with my granddaughter Leah. It was pretty fun with stops around the capitol and a Twins game, that they won with 7 home runs. I brought our new Bonneville home and got busy breaking it in. We got the trailer out and loaded up for a weekend at Jackson of all places with a group of Jan's ex job friends. I managed to repair my 25 year old Honda mower that fell apart while mowing. Thank God for You tube videos on repair procedures. Also, Jan and I are following grandkids various activities in the area. In the meantime Jan is spending quite some time with her young goats as opposed to me, her old goat. Around my birthday I headed out on another bucket list ride, heading for Arizona ultimately. Down through Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and to Kayenta, Arizona, which is south of Monument Valley. For the most part the weather co operated this time with fair skies and moderate temperatures. The return trip was up through Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. So now I have ridden in every state west of the Mississippi and a few east of it too. June began with more doctor appointments, for Jan this time, one of her knees is giving her trouble. The main drawback to getting older, that body that you have been taking for granted is now looking for some payback and repair work. And now that grandkids are into soccer too. So more road trips in the area, and this includes some Patriot Guard missions too. Jan and I have doing some paneling in the basement to finish another area that has been hanging fire for an extended length of time. We have been spending more time out at the farm our family of children and grand children, and prior to the mosquito invasion we had some good times there. Jan's goat who was born with some identity issues had some surgery and is now officially Olivia. It seems as if the summer just keeps getting more busy all of the time, luckily the price of gas is staying down so it is not such a drag on our enthusiasm to run here and there. By the end of June I was getting our trailer out for our run to Lanesboro for the 4th of July campout. So I will take a break here and finish up with the last half of 2017 later on, as who knows what the rest of this year might bring? What with two finger typing and having to run upstairs and ask Jan how to spell some words,

it takes awhile to grind this out. It seems odd that the computer will flag misspelled words but not give you a list of possible correct spelling, must be windows 10.