A new game... Post pics from your cel phone V.1.0

[MiniDave]

How warm is it?

Looks like beautiful place to 'have" to wait out till your next flight!

[94touring]

Mid 80s each day.

[94touring]

Fuel by the bottle

[94touring]

..

[MiniDave]

Who's yer buddy?   

[Mudhen]

..

Now, stop playing with your monkey and look behind you!

I guess this upper steady bushing served its life honorably.  Always amazes me how much a bushing here or there even makes the shifting feel smoother.   

[MiniDave]

I've not seen a poly bush wear out like that one did.....

[Mudhen]

I've not seen a poly bush like wear out like that one did.....

I try to give them every chance to recuperate on their own before replacing - it's only fair.

[94touring]

Found a cafe that has elephants.

[BruceK]

Wow. Thailand looks magical.

[MiniDave]

Did you ride one too?

[94touring]

No I just went there for coffee. 

Impressions of Thailand...  Phuket where I'm at is a tourist destination. Next time I'll go elsewhere.  It's basically me, my Thai lady friend from Northern Thailand, and a shit load of Russians mixed with a little Australian and some Europeans. Things are very affordable even for a tourist area.  She had rented a car for the week since everything is rather spread out, which was a fantastic idea.  However she's from the part of the country where's there's no traffic, or curvy mountain roads, and she isn't really able to do this, so I took over driving duties about 30 minutes in on day one from the airport.  To say driving is chaotic is an understatement. Aside from lots of car traffic, there are about a billion scooters which are constantly zipping within an inch of you at all times. There are obstacles. On a 2 lane road the outer lane is use at your own risk. Occasionally there are cars parked on or out in it, parked bikes, people walking, or the lane narrows to half a lane because when they were building a road a large rock was in the way they didn't have the tools to remove. Sometimes the lane simple ends. Right lanes also sometimes end if there's a right hand turn. There are no signs, markings, or warnings. It's every man for himself.  Stop signs, traffic lights, or speed limits...no. Round abouts are an arena where we all gather to battle. Lucky for me (and her) my driving history in regards to racing pay off here. Of course it's opposite side drive and opposite direction for a little extra bonus. 

More pics...

[Jims5543]

Looks beautiful there. It was never on my radar to visit there, I stick to the Caribbean. I still want to go back to St. Lucia, but want to explore more places first.  Now I want to see this place in person, its breathtaking. I also want to visit South Korea and Vietnam.  Someday I hope sooner than later.

LOL @ Driving there, one year when we were in Nassau, I decided I wanted to try driving on the wrong side of the car and road, before I owned the Pickup.   I rented a compact car from Enterprise, put every bit of insurance on it you could buy, then used my AMEX to pay for it for another layer of protection. Then went into the chaos.

My Autocross background helped a lot, my propensity to be polite on the road was my downfall, you have to be an asshole with no regard for any rule you think may exist.  Leave a car space in front of you while driving? It will get filled in, at first I was finding it insulting, then as I figured out the chaos, I found it fun, like I was driving in an AX event on the street and everything was a cone, people, scooters, other cars, power poles and curbs included. It turned into a big game of stupidity to me, the dumber you drove, the better you fit in.  Traffic lights and stop signs were suggestions, not the rule.


Thanks for posting up those pics. Digging the VW Bus bar.

[Jims5543]

I guess this upper steady bushing served its life honorably.  Always amazes me how much a bushing here or there even makes the shifting feel smoother.   

I call that getting your moneys worth!

The brake rotors on my FJ Cruiser are OEM they have over 200K miles on them. I have 4 new rotors in the garage and pads for them. I kept putting off the rear pads knowing they were done. I wanted to swap pads and rotors so I was not too concerned.

Then I heard some bad sounds from the rear brakes and knew, it was time. I would say I got every penny out of those pads. LOL!

New pads and rotors were installed.

[Mudhen]

Good usage right there.  You know what they say...

"[your brakes] Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson"

Remember when we were younger and you'd typically just replace the pads, maybe turn the rotors - gotta catch them before they get down to the rivets, don't want them hurting the rotors!  Now it's like...screw it, gonna replace them all anyway, use them up!   

Pics looks awesome, Dan!  We were in Florence a couple months ago...me, driving a 9-passenger van - had a coming together with a scooter - fking things all over the place.  Can only imagine how much worse it would be there.  Probably not for me.

[94touring]

These boats with turbo diesels.  And watch out for dogs.

[94touring]

Went to "grandmas kitchen" in this remote area up a long dirt road on a mountain.  It was amazing. Also a bunch of "houses" like this along the way.

[Jims5543]

That stray dog sign. LMAO!

It's really pretty there.

[94touring]

Had to make the drive to the airport during rush hour.  Woo what an adventure. The highlight was we ended up on some alleyway type through road that wasn't exactly wide enough for 2 way traffic, and it had storm drains missing every 100 feet or so.  There were a couple times we were backing up to let the other side move forward around the holes, I rubbed against a construction barrel at one point squeezing through. It was dark and there were of course bikes worming through all us stuck cars avoiding the holes.

Red areas were the bad spots.

[MiniDave]

What were the grey areas that have the two cars in the red circle? Looks like 4030 had less obstructions?

[94touring]

4030 was the worst area during rush hour. Major traffic.  And the most mountain.

[Jims5543]

I drove through another area that was hit by an EF3 tornado yesterday. I am fascinated by this, how a bunch of buildings and trees are tore up and 100' away its like nothing happened.

[Mudhen]

Scary stuff.   

[MiniDave]

As those of us who live in tornado alley can attest!   

[Jims5543]

JM Bullion sent me a letter with a 1 ounce Copper Round in it, worth about $4.

They want me to come back. LOL!! I have not left, I am just not buying anymore, over the last 10 years I have accumulated 30 ounces of gold and 3,000 ounces of silver, and I am sitting on that stash for the foreseeable future. I have not decided what will trigger me to sell that off, I am sitting on about 175K in PM's I paid about 70K for that over the last 10 years. That and the Crypto, I just sit on both and wait. I have no plan at all, I just wanted some insurance in place in cast the shit hits the fan.

If you go look at Silver price history, I missed an amazing opportunity in March 2020. Silver went to $15 an ounce for about 4 days. I wish I saw that, I would have pumped everything I had into that sure win. I would love to know how that was manipulated and who did it.