Our Ride Down the Mountain Yesterday

Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day and our ride through the mountains was really awesome. I just LOVE the handling of the MINI Cooper!! I can hardly wait to take it out like that again. We went on some really nice twisty roads in Northeast Tennessee and the little edge of Virginia there. (We saw "Welcome to Tennessee" signs but never knew we'd left....are we not welcome in Virginia?)

We did have one mishap, which was fortunately not a catastrophe. DH's friend C and girlfriend M were on the last motorcycle of 4, which I was following in the MINI. We came through major hairpin turn going downhill and C didn't lean as much as he should've out of fear of scaring M on the back of his bike. This proved a bad decision as the bike left the road. He fought it valiantly (see C, I'm praising you here!!) and kept from going over the edge where there was a pretty steep incline. However, when the front tire of the bike caught traction on the pavement again, the bike was sideways and flung both riders off the high side, still fortunately not down the incline. M is beat up and bruised hip, shoulder, and jaw (where I think her shoulder must've crashed her when she hit the ground), but that's about it. C appeared yesterday to have little more than a wounded pride and a fear that he'd "never live this one down". He may be feeling the impact in bones and joints today. Both were wearing proper gear. I didn't get any pictures of the bike on the ground because I was tending to the wounded M and the bike was pouring fuel down the hill so we wanted to get it up quickly.

The Sandwich of Monte Cristo

Our motorcycle ride on Saturday got postponed until Sunday. So Saturday afternoon DH and I went and met my Aunt (father's youngest sister) and my cousin (whom I hadn't seen since 1986) and my cousin's daughter (whom I'd never met). We met at a place called Cheddar's in Johnson City, TN. It was a really nice visit and quite nice that we could meet and catch up like that. I enjoyed it and would like to try to remain in touch.

Meanwhile, DH was pleased with his Monte Cristo sandwich. :)

My evening: driving fast thru backwoods, hillbilly TN in a British built German produced car blasting my Euro Industrial music chasing two Japanese motorcycles

Oh I Think I Ate Too Much

Today we (DH and I) are in Knoxville, TN. DH's friend C (whom we are visiting for the weekend) took us to an all-you-can-eat sushi bar for lunch. Above is the first plate. Below is the second plate. Anybody who knows me, knows that despite how big I currently feel like I am, I am really not that big. I ate a LOT of sushi. To my defense, I did overestimate on the second plate by about 3 pieces. It was very inexpensive and very good quality sushi. And I'll be darned if I caught the name of the place because I never saw a menu. I'll have to ask C. He said today was the 3rd time he'd eaten there this week!!

Something Bad Happened Today

This is pictures of the engine area and chain of DH's 2006 Yamaha FZ6 motorcycle as it is tonight (more better pics here). He said it went BOOM around the corner from the house, in the subdivision earlier tonight on his way home from meeting us in Suwanee for dinner. He tells me that usually when bikes do this, the rear wheel locks up and flings the rider off the bike. I'm glad to say this was not the case. I'm not glad to say this looks pretty bad. And more than that, pretty expensive. I think one thing that makes it so much worse is that we have plans to go up to Tennessee this coming weekend to go riding (specifically motorcycle riding) in the mountains. The bike shop is closed tomorrow. We'll be lucky if we have the bike back by the time we're supposed to leave on Thursday evening. If we're really lucky it won't cost us thousands of dollars to get it back.Sure we'll still make the trip without the bike. I was planning to take the 2009 MINI Cooper S anyway, with the intention of chasing the bikes through the twisties. I just know that DH was looking forward to riding with his buddy C and vice versa. DH is so sad.

09/22/2009 Update: It got to the bike shop today. More pictures got added to the CrumpledPhoto album after the covers were taken off. It's definitely not looking good and going to require some phone calls to Yamaha. Hope to know more before the end of today.

09/25/2009 Update: I forgot to mention that we got an actual quote on the repairs. $3800. DH has not decided what he wants to do. He did walk down the road in the subdivision and find the missing nut (the one that came off and caused all this) and one of the many chunks of metal that got knocked off. Those can be seen in the pictures. It's a mess.

Something Good Happened Yesterday

Yesterday, I went with my friend J to a dog breeder, and he put a down payment on this little guy. He is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. As yet, he remains unnamed. He will be ready to come to his new home on October 8. Isn't he just the cutest little thing? I can hardly wait to knit him some dog sweaters for the winter!! Hehehehe. I haven't seen J this happy in a while. He's been doing this goofy "Talking About My Best Friend" singing and dancing. If he doesn't watch out, he's going to end up getting blogged!! :-P Of course, after he has his best friend to dance with. ;)

This is the Momma dog Fergie with the litter. The breeder says that, despite the fact that the Daddy dog is a tri-color, the puppies will lose that blackness to their coats and will be red just like Momma.

My youngest brother

Some people have a hearth rug. My parents have a hearth dog. This is Beauregard, short name Beau. (My mother calls him Beauregardless.) He is my adopted youngest brother. He was among a litter of 5 hound mix pups that my mother and middle daughter K rescued on the dirt road (that my parents live off of) a short time ago. It was decided that my father wanted to keep one. Anyway, one of Beau's favorite places to sleep is on the hearth. Mom and Dad don't use the fireplace (as noted by how spotless it is), so it's unlikely to ever be a problem for him to sleep there. I wait to see how it all looks as he gets older and larger and doesn't fit so well. Heehee. It was quite interesting that me roaming around him snapping off a camera flash half a dozen times or so never caused him to even twitch. Talk about OUT. To his credit, he had just been through the horror of having been bathed by my oldest daughter E and may just have been worn out by the ordeal.

I'm so excited!!!

So my gardening adventures this summer have been chronicled in various posts. Today, I was once again out admiring my beautiful watermelon plant that has now taken over the entire garden, including where the strawberries are. I had been lamenting that maybe I was not going to see much actual fruit production because it's so late in the year, and we might have a frost before the plant had time to do very much. And there it was!! I was so excited. I actually have a little watermelon!! Sure it's not a lot yet, but maybe I might get to harvest at least one fruit! The coolest part is that I actually grew it!!!

Blue Fin Sushi

Anybody who knows me knows that I really love Japanese food. Maybe it was living in Japan as a child. Maybe it's that I am quite fond of most Asian food and Japanese falls in that category. Whatever the reason. We decided to try Blue Fin Sushi in Duluth after recommendations from a couple of reputable places.

Prices were pretty good for Japanese. The food and the service were excellent. J stated that the price difference for the bowl of ramen here versus the ramen shop mentioned previously was quite worth it. He, surprising himself, finished the bowl. The tempura udon I had was some of the best I have ever had. The soup itself had a lot of flavor. I look forward to going back and trying other things on the menu, including another random $8 roll. (wink at J)

Visit to Duluth Diner

Well, overall I must say that, so far, in the Atlanta area one diner is pretty much like another, down to the menus. Sometimes the food seems to be better or worse. Most of the time the food seems to be about the same. Duluth Diner was numbered among these. The menu looked just like the menu from Marietta Diner or from Gwinnett Diner. We'd surely go back because it was relatively on the beaten path being located on Peachtree Industrial Blvd, not far from the intersection at Pleasant Hill Rd.

I had the Grilled Vegetables. It was a really nice assortment of veggies in a very flavorful teriyaki style sauce. It was served with mashed potatoes in the middle. I thought it was quite tasty and would order it again. I would also look for it on the menus at the other diners.

My DH had a hamburger with swiss cheese. It looked like a decent burger and he said it was a decent burger. Again, average diner fare. Not as cheap as the $3.99 burger deal over at Gwinnett Diner.

Friend J had a bowl of chicken noodle soup, stating that he was not very hungry. He also said it was good. Typical diner fare.