Yesterday, we spent the day cleaning up the downed trees from when Hurricane Ike blew through.  We had been without power from Sunday evening until Thursday night.  I know that there have been longer power outages in the world, but this has been the longest for us.  I have a small 1800 watt generator that worked for a few days, but the coil went out in it.  I have planned on ordering a whole house standby generator for backup power, but I have not been in a hurry to do it.  This incident just moved the generator up on the priority list, as this is the second time in 3 years that we have been without power for at least 4 days (there was a tornado 3 years ago that narrowly missed our house),  What I have planned to order is a 20Kw Guardian generator, as our house is all electric and I do not want Amy to have to worry about how to hook it up and start it if I am at work for 24 hours when the power goes out.  We had about 16 trees blown down and have been cutting them up.  All of our neighbors have had trees blown down too.  Every evening the smell of burning leaves fills the air.  

Amy and I got to take two short rides yesterday.  The first ride was to a neighboring town to buy some supplies for the chainsaw.  Amy has been getting fairly comfortable on her ‘82 Honda CB650SC Nighthawk.  She wanted to ride her bike with me. She did really well.  Later in the day, we needed to go south and take her bike to a friend.  Our friend rides a Honda 1100 Shadow Sabre and needs to take his test to get his license.  His bike is a little large and not really all that maneuverable.  He has taken the test once on it and we decided to let him use Amy’s bike, as it feels like riding a toy after getting used to a large bike. We gave him he bike a few days early so that he can have some time to get used to it.  He said he loves how agile the bike is.

On the way to our friend’s house, we turned onto Dover-Zoar road, which I ride all of the time.  The had just chipped and sealed the road!  The main road that I use to get to the town of Bolivar will not be the same for some time, as it is all loose stone right now.  On my BMW R1200RT, I don’t mind so much, as it handles on the stone fine, but Amy is nervous on stone.  I pulled over and asked if she wanted to continue on Dover-Zoar road, and she said keep going.  She rode this mess of a road and gained a ton of confidence!  I was proud of her.  There have been times when she doesn’t want to ride a road in the past because of a stone or two on our driveway, but she was a real trooper yesterday.  

After dropping the Honda Nighthawk off at our friend’s house, we drove to New Philadelphia for supper.  We ate at Texas Roadhouse.  After supper, we rode up to the Belden Village area (or Westfield Shopping Town if you are not stuck on old names).  We needed to stop by a store.  We arrived five minutes after closing time.  Oh well, we will have to ride back another day.  

I will have to write more another day.  I have some family coming over to help cut up these downed trees today.  We supply several family members with firewood every year, and in return, they come by and give a hand when we need it.  I have trees, they have a log splitter and muscles.