After the Pyramids

Back on the road .. traffic was light, we were zooming along ... and passed a white van upside down in the ditch. Uhoh. That was the group of folks who left before us! We pulled over, our guides went to help, and came back with three people .. only two fit, so took them with us, and they told us the story of what happened. 

They were zooming along too fast, they said, and I believe it, as there is no traffic enforcement in this country. 140 km in a 60km? No problemo .. just wear your seat belt. Or make it look like you are. Anyway... a little car darted in front of them, going much slower, so they slammed on the brakes and skidding sideways and flipped. Nobody was wearing a seatbelt ... and all but one walked away. By the time we had the two ladies in our van, there were no ambulances to be seen, and we were there maybe 15 minutes. I didn't see any police cars either, but there appeared to be someone in uniform there - maybe they pulled off the road instead of using their car to block traffic so they can safely get people out of the van .... and we got to watch the local neighborhood.

Back in the van, the old Dutch guy next to me put on his seatbelt. Good .. that makes four of us (the woman and child from München were the others .. .four out of 11). Not even the two ladys we picked up. As we were driving along the women asked to stop and get some ice and water and we did, and I remember i had some ibuprofen. One of the women suggested turning down the AC .. I'm thinking she's going into shock, and suggest that she find a hospital. She wasn't going to have any of that, while the old dutch guy next to me was complaining about how the drivers didn't ask us if it was OK to bring on new passengers ... sheeesh, give it a break! BTW, This was the guy who, several times today, pointed out thing around the city he was responsible for, art or something, I wasn't paying attention to his bragging. Anyway, we finally passed the ambulance on the way to the scene, by now it was perhaps 30 minutes since the accident. The ambulance was in the toll booth, paying a freakin toll! (Later I learn that these ambulance teams are often parked on a side street and moving among vehicles in traffic begging for money). I also learn that the single payer health care system in Mexico is, like most such systems, overloaded and anything beyond life-saving measures are rejected unless you can pay for it ... which most Mexican's cannot do. The only effective alternative is to find a private clinic where, surprisingly, the cost is about the same as the state-run system, but if you look like you are poor or Mexican you will not be treated.

Well, anyway, the women didn't die. We dropped them off at a taxi stand, dropped off the rest of the folks, and took me to my hotel. I was last because I was furthest away.

After a long day I was back in my room and looked in the mirror ... holy moly was I sunburned! I tell ya, Minnesotan's just don't think about sun block in March. Being short on sleep, and having an early conference call with a customer at 7am, I hit the sack early.

So THIS is what summer is like!

Today's blog is of another day in Mexico City in March, when I had a day off to wander around like a tourist ...


After a short morning with the client in Toluca, I was free ... Free! Free at last!

So  I had my driver take me to the Mexico City Anthropology museum, with instructions to pick me up in four hours. Being a beautiful 70F sunny and dry Saturday of a three-day weekend, everyone and their cousin was out. That included the bloody vendors ... at least these were tent-vendors, not suitcase-carrying vendors who follow you around. 

So Anyway ... on the way to the castle I passed what appeared to be a manmade lake, as all the edges were concrete, there was a big fountain in the middle, the water was anti-freeze green and it was chock full of paddle boats. 

There were people everywhere - it must be a popular place to hang out on Saturday's. 

The Castle itself was neat. They only retained some of the original furniture and stuff, and turned the rest of it into an art museum of sorts, and various exhibits. Nothing was in english, so I was one of those people who zoomed through real fast. The best part was the view - worth the $4 admission and hike.

In particular, there was a mural painted on the ceiling on that held my attention. There is so much detail going on in this mural, depicting the Battle of Chapultapec:

According to legend, the last of the six, Juan Escutia, grabbed the Mexican flag, wrapped it around himself and jumped off the castle point to prevent the flag from falling into enemy hands.

After that I walked down to the museum and got a chance to see about half of it before I ran out of time. Definitely need three or four hours to do this justice. There is some stuff in english, but it is the sheer amount of stuff they have on display that takes time to absorb. I'll just put up a bunch of photos .. .and yes, the big rock heads are 8-12 feet tall!

After dropping my camera off at the hotel I had the driver (Santiago) take up the street to La Calle, a mexican restaurant. There I had an amaranth and tamarind-breaded fish filet. It was good, and I guess I am writing home about it .. but it wasn't spectacular or anything. 


After dinner I had a brisk 15-minute walk back to the hotel as the sun was setting. The temperature was just right ... I can't wait for summer!

Driftless

It was supposed to be a nice weekend and Paul, Brian and I had made plans to have a "guys night out" in Madison, Wisconsin. Unfortunately Brian couldn't make it, so we asked another Brian (known as 'Dave' in some circles) whether he would like to join us. He had just purchased a Buell XB9R from his friend and was also eager to ride!


Our trip was supposed to be real nice on Saturday but the forecast for Sunday was for thumderstorms, hail and tornado's. So we went anyway ;-)



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Our route went through the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, named that because the glaciers did not extend here. There are lots of hills and rock formations, deep valleys, and thanks to Wisconsin supporting its dairy industry, lots of roads through these valleys. 


All of this makes for a great place to ride. The pavement is usually pretty good because the large trucks avoid the area. Traffic is nearly non-existant, and since there is little traffic there is little enforcement. 


As we rode the sun came out, and the closer to Madison we got, the warmer it was. After about 250 miles we arrived at our hotel, changed out of riding gear into normal gear, and sought places that had good beer. In particular that included the Great Dane brewpub as they have an outstanding Black Earth Porter on the menu (including some dayum good meatloaf). Next stop was the Capital Brewery which didn't have much for a selection and what they had, a Maibock and a Doppelbock, appeared to differ only in gravity and the glass they were served in. 


Moving on down State Street we popped into Pau'ls Place, for a Delerium Tremens Belgian golden strong (Paul and Brian compared tequila's ...). We were hoping to find some good music at the student union, but it was decidedly pathetic. I think the audience of five were friends of the band. Eh. And we could have passed for their professor's.


Heading back up State Street we stopped at State Street Brats and didn't have brats. But it was  a reminder of what it was like to be in college again, except a) the beer is better, b) the beer is more expensive, and c) not many folks were here. While it wasn't a ghost town, the place was decidedly not hopping. Maybe 10pm was too early? 


But our final libation station was Cooper's Tavern. This was apparently not where the college kids hung out as everyone was older and dressed better, and there was a line - we had to wait until someone else left. At least we weren't denied entry, which happened to Chuck and I once in Oslo, because we wore jeans. Cooper's Tavern had a great beer selection too - I started with a sour flemish that was waaaaaay too sweet for the style and nowhere sour enough, and finished with another belgian which I have no recollection of what it was. 


Being old farts we made our way back to the hotel around midnight. Paul threw on his swim trunks and went to the pool. After a minute I looked at Brian and said "I'll go keep him company" and Brian pointed he'd be back in a minute, cuz there's a cosmic law that pools close at 10pm. That's when Paul walked in the door. Teehee!


The next morning we were greeted with a hazy yucky day. Breakfast was served continental-style (i.e. bagels, fruit, yoghurt, oatmeal and donuts) by the hotel, with excellent coffee. One step outside yielded a surprise: it was warm! Like, 70F warm. Very humid too, and the sun was burning the haze off, but that nice warm temp had us itching to ride!


And ride we did. We had to jump a couple curbs to get out of the hotel parking ramp (we left the room keys in the room, not knowing we needed them to get out of the ramp). 


Having used our fancy schmancy phones to look at the weather we decided to stay south a ways and then go north to avoid the weather. 



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That worked great! The temps where about 80F most of the way. After a lunch stop in Richland Center the clouds a bit dark but it never rained on us until we were in Wabasha. Our waitress told us it had hailed earlier in the day.

Just outside of La Crosse Brian and I swapped bikes. I rode his XB9R and he got on my couch-like FJR. The Buell is a very compact motorcycle. Once we got rolling I had a hard time bringing my legs up to the skyhigh pegs, but I managed. Then I bounced the twin off the rev limiter, and couldn't figure out the shifter as it had very little engagement feel. And, yes it shakes. Other than that .. it was a fun bike. The motor, while it has no top end rush, has a solid and flat torque curve and a very "planted" feel. The suspension soaked up all the little road bumps (at the expense of 'feel') without being sloppy. If I didn't have access to Jenn's SV650 it would be a fun 2nd bike.

We took some back roads up to Wabasha and were thwarted by the flooding river ... oh well. A few miles south of Paul's place the temperatures dropped, the lightning started, and rain came down. We waited out the microcell in Paul's garage.




The final leg to Red Wing was uneventful but cold. 


And that was our ride.

The Virgin of Guadelupe

Next stop was the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Outside of the basilica is a huge sculpture of Pope John Paul and his PopeMobile on display. Since he was one of the few popes who visited the mostly Catholic mexicans his popularity is quite high.

While there are many here who believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Miracle of Roses, I call it a cult or superstition. I haven't decided yet.

Our guides seemed to believe in it, and had a couple stickers in the van for good luck, I suppose. I mean .. why should the Virgin of Guadalupe bestow any blessings on people who don't pray to such icons? Anyway .. there was an interesting architectural feature of the basilica, where they had an image of the virgin up high and tilted so the congregation could see it. In the photo below, on the wooden wall by the altar, slightly offset to the right, is a picture.

And up close you can see the picture more clearly.

So how did I get that close to it? There is a tunnel under the altar. An opening with four conveyor belts people could get on, and thus kneel, while looking up at the image, while moving along. 

It was somewhat inspiring to see how much meaning and devotion directed towards that image, and other similar artifacts. 

Oh yeah .. we also went to where the Miracle of Roses happened.. a priest carried roses in his apron and they left a mark like the virgin mary... y'all know how superstitious Mexican catholics around things that resemble something). I dunno, I sort of spaced out and looked at the architecture.

Of course ... no such tour is complete without a trip to a junk store . .I mean souvenir store .. where I am convinced the guides get kickbacks. At least they had bathrooms.

Then we were back on the road, zooming out of Mexico City, into the northern countryside, along the slums, on our way to Teotihuacan.

Note that the buildings aren't finished. They might be nice inside, but the residents will not be taxed until they finish the home, therefore, they are not painted. 

But Wait! There's More! 

Our guide promised to take us to an "Obsidian Factory". Hm, a volcano? No, a place where they    take obsidian and grind and polish it into art to sell to tourists. "Obsidian is a lower grade diamond" our guide promised. Hmmm... I thought diamonds where made from carbon, and obsidian from silicon? 

So we get there .. and get a tour of an agave plant (not blue, i.e. tequila) before they show us art pieces made from obsidian. right ... but where's the factory? They didn't show us that. But rest assured ... each piece had a price label. But no banyo's. I suspect the sad and dying agave plant was a time-waster so they could milk the group before us. 

Tax The Rich!

Our national politicians want to solve our budget deficit by taxing the rich. How well would that go?

Forbes released the list of billionaires so we have some numbers we can use.

Let's see ... if we took ALL of Bill Gate's wealth ($56GB) and applied that to our annual budget deficit ($1600B) there would still be $1544B to pay. We would actually need steal from about 30 Gate's to pay for JUST ONE year of our deficit.

Let's expand our search to the world's billionaires - after all, there are 1210 of them. Combined, they have $4500B. Yup, that would cover the deficit for 2.5 years. What if we applied that to our national debt? Nope, not enough. We're still short nearly ten thousand billion dollars ($10,000,0000,000,000).

Ahhhh.... but the smart people realize we don't tax WEALTH, we tax INCOME!

Check out this article:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/why_we_cant_tax_ourselves_out.html

If the highest rate of 35% were raised by a factor of 20% to 42%, then the additional tax revenue would be $43.5 Billion, not much of a dent in $1,665.0 Billion.  So, let's raise the rate by a factor of 50% to 52.5%; the additional revenue would be $108.9 Billion.  Still nowhere near enough, so let's just tax it at a rate of 100%, bringing in an additional $404.8 Billion.  Unfortunately the country is still $1,260.0 Billion in the hole for the year.

There are about a million millionaires in the US. If the gov't took a million bucks from from everyone who had at least a million, that would reduce the deficit to 600 billion.

I guess Obama was wrong ... there simply aren't enough "rich" people out there to balance the budget on their backs. Perhaps that's why he's focusing on the upper middle class - those who earn more then $200k, or or $250k as a family. Or like our Governor, Mark Dayton, who ran on a platform of lowering it to $120k and $150k. At least he is realistic. It is unfortunate that our elected republicans and democrats put us into this mess.

So who else can we tax? Let's see... the middle class? No, then it would like the government is hurting families. Hm, how about the poor? They don't pay any taxes as it is, right? Yeah, YOU go on TV and tell people you'll tax the poor. You won't get a second term.

Ok. We can't tax any more. The obvious solution is to cut spending. Let's see... that didn't go so well when President Bush sat in the Oval Office, and with our current republican congress it still isn't going so well. What did they propose to but? $100 billion? Only $1500 billion to go!

No, we all know who is going to pay for this spending:

Your children.

Teotihuacan

FINALLY we get to the pyramids! I'll spare the details (wikipedia has lots of info on them) and show you photos, and here's a hint: those obnoxious vendors who try to sell you crap are all over the place EXCEPT on the pyramids! So get up there! 

Climbing the pyramids was not difficult, despite the high elevation. This was followed with an ascent, back to the sea of salespeople, and out to the van which took us to dinner. Again ... a place the guide gets kickbacks. Mediocre enchiladas in very good mole and loud American's behind us. They left before us ... apparently our guides knew each other and were in the bar. 

First ride of spring

It was a short ride, but a ride none the less. 

It started early in the morning when I took the FJR out from the back of the garage, dropped a battery into it, and it fired up instantly. Filled the tires with air and replaced a burned out tail light, let it warm up, and then parked it for a few hours as I ran errands. 


Then Chuck and I hiked up Barn Bluff for excellent views of Red Wing.

We even saw a fox!

Later in the afternoon we were to meet at Smokey Row Cafe for lunch. However, upon arriving there (a few minutes late, too), I attempted to park near Tim and Scot's cycles but noticed that a minivan with a handicap access ramp was right next to them - and Tim's bike was in the way. So was mine. Tim was nowhere to be seen. As I moving my own out of the way, the driver of the van, a young girl with lots of tattoos and clearly out of shape, came up to me and starting shouting that if her ramp knocks over some bikes, that's not her problem. WTF, are they assuming that since I am on a motorcycle, I can just go ahead and move a bunch of other motorcycles? Wasn't it abundantly clear that I had just arrived? I asked her if she could just back up the van ten feet and then load their passenger? While she was getting more belligerent, the older people (of which one was in the wheelchair) agreed with me that was not a problem .. but the young girl continued to be a jackass and refused to move the van, and we should not have parked there in the first place. 

You know what they say about arguing with idiots, and I don't want to be the type of macho jerk who links my ego to whether I "win" petty arguments, so I asked Chuck find Tim and ask him to move his bike (I was still doffing gear). While they were doing that, I suggested to the old folks that they put a sign on the side of the van requesting that drivers leave clearance for the wheelchair ramp.

One grilled yellowfin ahi tuna sandwich later (with aioli sauce), spirits unbowed, we had decided on a short ride around Lake Pepin. This past winter in Minnesota the road crews have been using beet juice to mix with salt instead of magnesium chloride, and I suspect they have thus used less sand too. On the western side of the Mississippi there wasn't much sand at all, but on the eastern side, we stayed on Hwy 35 as the side roads were clearly full of sand. Being late in the afternoon, and Great River Roasters not having opened yet, we stopped in Nelson for Ice Cream and then simply rode home.

For a lack of anything else to do, and an abundance of beer in my kegs, the obvious conclusion of the day was for the guys to ride home and get the Fair Marie to haul them back to my house where we viewed photos and videos from prior Walt Ride's (and making a good dent in my IPA keg too!).


 On a different note, Brian got for a ride on his new (to him) Buell, and went west. However, he encountered some water.