Getting settled in to the La Posa Tyson Wash LTVA

My boondocking site

It's a beautiful day today, mid 70s, some fluffy white clouds, and humidity in the 30s. I guess the clouds are the reason the humidity isn't single digits today.

I did a little cleaning in the kitchen today, took a brief ride on the little Beta 250 out in the desert, and I'm feeling great with no signs of the flu. Since I'm making a conscious effort to avoid the flu I'm now considering the avoidance an accomplishment.

I was hoping by now I would be better at cranking the little Beta but having the crank on the wrong side of the motorcycle has been more of an obstacle than I had anticipated. And that's not the only problem I'm having  with cranking it. The crank is mounted kind of high on the engine which means I have to lift my leg higher than nature meant for it to go in less you've been doing yoga your entire life.

I'm sure when I was younger I could raise my leg higher than this but at this point in time it's difficult and uncomfortable to get my left foot up high enough to put it on the kick starter, and then when I do get it up there my leg is at such an angle it  hardly has enough strength to push the crank down.

Sometimes I just stand on the left side of the motorcycle and kickstart it with my right leg, my right leg is more coordinated and knows what to do but it still has to start from a position so high it makes it inordinately difficult.

I could push start it, that's called bump starting, which works fine on pavement but sometimes in the dirt you can't get enough traction even in second or third gear to get the rear wheel to turn the engine over enough to make it start.

The only thing that's saving me so far is the engine is very easy to start, if I can give it just one decent kick it starts right up. It's coming up with that one decent kick that's been my problem.

I feel ancient and helpless just writing all of that down. I really hate it when getting old gets in the way of me enjoying my life, and having to face the realization that desire is simply not enough to overcome my geezerly infirmities.

 theboondork

The view from my front door

The view from my living room window