Following convention July should follow June where I come from. So here we go with the second half at my attempt to bore you readers to tears. I had to rebuild the clutch slave cylinder on my 94 Ducati, probably spending entirely too much time in the garage doesn't help with age problems even for motorcycles. Jan and I headed down to Lanesboro with the trailer and a bike after spending that morning early, running to New Ulm Menards for sump pump parts. Our time down there is usually fun with one of the best fireworks shows we have seen, and I get a little riding in, heading over to Wisconsin for their back roads. Jan had a cousin pass away shortly after we got home so we had a funeral to attend in Jackson. At our age it seems like funerals are getting more common and are the only time we see a lot of people. I suppose that if we can hang on a while longer grand children will be getting married and start having families, so the cycle continues. I managed to get to some more PGR missions in the area, and Jan and I putzed around on some projects out at the farm. Even though it seems like yesterday, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing this year. Looking back now with what I have learned over the years, that was a incredible achievement that we would be hard pressed to duplicate today. I did my annual Big Horn mountain loop over to Wyoming later on with the new Triumph Tiger.
August finds me catching up on some homestead projects, doing some maintenance on our deck and hitting a few PGR missions. Jan had a go around with that medical procedure that everybody hates, it turned out okay. We got caught in the heaviest rainfall I have ever attempted to drive in, while the radio warned us of a tornado near Bingham Lake which happened to be the town we were driving by. We wanted to do some shopping in Windom but all the stores were shut down due to the tornado in the area. We live such an exciting life I can hardly stand it. Jan and I drove up to the Cities to make our reservations at the hotel that we are going to celebrate Christmas at with the whole family in just a few days from now- December 19-. I actually got the bicycle out of the garage and put on some miles before we headed for Ridgway, Colorado for a few days. Jan gets to hang around the motel, which has just gone through a big remodel in the lobby, cruise the thrift shops and I go riding in the San Juan mountains. We got home in time for Labor Day, but that's another month.
September, now we are getting to Vikings football and Leah playing volleyball with the St. Pauls team. Thunderstorms are making several appearances along with a tornado in Sioux Falls. Also Gus and Sam are busy with Fall soccer games at many different locations. Jan and I traded our Escape for a new Edge, mainly because we wanted a better riding vehicle with heated seats and steering wheel. One thing that I have noticed is that we can have a conversation while driving down the road without raising our voices much. The end of the month I tried heading down to New Mexico to try and find some sites that were used in the series "Longmire". The weather was kind of chilly and regardless of how warmly you dress, after a while you get cold, discouraged I headed home from near Cheyenne, maybe next year. I am working on putting a new wiring harness in Elis' 64 Falcon a bit at a time, so far the testing has been coming out good, so wish me luck.
October starts with more heavy rain, it's been a wet year so far. After an online course at the University of U-tube I replaced the rear brakes and rotors on Jan's car. Next up is the fronts, maybe next Spring. A couple days later I hit another deer, that makes four, and I hope that it's the last. Jan and I flew out to Washington to visit with the DeFor family for a few days. Rachel's job with a local contractor has her running all over the area moving supplies etc. around and I rode along a couple of days, I had a good time flying around northern Virginia- I think, most of the time I had no idea where we were. One of the stops in Arlington had us close to the Air Force Memorial so I kind of know where that is. Jan and I flew home on the 16th and we had a 70th birthday get together at the Schells Brewery on the 19th for the tour, imagine our surprise when Rachel and Gen showed up! They had orchestrated the whole thing, our three children Rachel, Genevieve and Steve and their two boys Sam and Gus and Eli and Lindsey and Leah and Aaron, Jan's sister Paula, my brothers Phil and Paul and their wives Laura and Marcy. I don't think that I missed anybody, but it was quite a day for Jan and I.
We had supper in New Ulm and cocktails later. The next day was Vikings football here and it was nice enough to put the tv out on the deck which has always been a great way to enjoy a Fall afternoon. Routine things kind of filled the rest of the month, but it had been a great one getting to celebrate the 70th birthday of the woman I love.
November where Fall goes to die and Winter really begins. Jan went up to Wadena to spend some time with her sister Paula and a couple days later I went there too and we came home together to find four inches of new snow on the ground at home, and so it begins. Leah and Aaron's school had a nice veterans day program that I attended. Got the Mustang's oil changed and put it away for the winter in a corner of the garage, now Jan's car gets to be indoors till Spring. We had an assortment of doctors appointments, one a pre-op for me for that unmentionable procedure and one at Mayo with my guy. As long as we keep getting good reports from him it's always a pleasant visit with doctor Eli and nurse Dawn, even if it's not good check up we still chit chat about things like the sky dive in May and how the riding is going among other things. We put snow stoppers on the roof the day before we got another 8 to 10 inches of wet snow, so the timing worked out that time for me. Thanksgiving was at the Theobalds in Rochester again this year. During the pre dinner festivities I had the thought that occurred to me before in of all places the Target in Burke "I'm really going to miss this when it's over". Life I'm pretty sure what I meant. I was also making some progress on the Falcon wiring project, so there is that.
So December begins with the ugly the bad and the good. Colonoscopy prep, actual procedure and the news that a small polyp was okay, and now for the good part, at my advanced age I don't need another one-ever! Then a weekend of basketball with Leah and Aaron at Redwood Falls and Sam and Gus at Northfield. A lot of driving but I have never complained about driving unless the weather is totally impossible. Jan says I'm like a black lab, just mention going somewhere and I'm out in the car waiting. About this time the temperatures took a turn for the basement with daytime highs at or below zero with snow and high winds. We had three National Guardsmen killed in a helicopter crash near St. Cloud, one of whom was a St. James graduate. I did make one of their funerals at St. Johns abbey. This funeral was almost like the Killed in Action funerals that I have attended in the past. Lots of military, tears, ceremonies, flag presentations to his family ending with a dual helicopter flyover. I shook a lot of hands after that including our governor Walz. And that about brings us up to date. I have been putzing around with the bikes but I have to save myself for the depths of Winter when I will really need something to do besides read. Jan and I will be heading up to the Cities to spend a few days with our family in a hotel near Southdale. Sometimes a person has to take some time and sit back and consider what the root cause of all of the hustling and bustling, depression, fear of not having everything exactly right, need I go on? Remember Christ is the reason for the season. That sounds a little trite, or still minimizing the real part of that slogan...Christ. I'll leave you all, or the couple that actually read this, with that.
Pete Kuehl 20 December 2019
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