OTRA: The Samurai Returns Home

 We'd been watching the weather since Thursday of last week, looking for a window to depart Colorado through Raton Pass and into New Mexico.

This was two days ago, Friday, as a snow storm made its way through Southern Colorado:

Obviously, we didn't leave on Friday.

Saturday morning looked promising but it still looked icy:

Sunday, it looked good and so Martha and I departed the cesspool that is the Denver metro area at 9:00 a.m. and by noon we made it through Raton Pass, with no issues I am happy to report. The roads were for the most part dry, with the occasional wet spots where the snow on the side of the road was melting. 

6 hours total to the KOA at the south end of Las Vegas, New Mexico and an early night. 

We woke to a temperature of 23° F, but since we were at a campground, we had electricity and had run the electric heater all night to stay warm and to keep the pipes from freezing inside the RV. 

About 4 hours more of driving, we are now in Elephant Butte, New Mexico, having dropped off the Suzuki Samurai, with Mike and Laura. Mike is the Samurai Guru I met years ago, and he will be taken care of it from this point on. 

Tomorrow we head further south and west into Arizona.

Brigitta goes to a new home.

Today I passed ownership of Brigitta, my 1987 BMW R80 Airhead to her new owner, Alfredo S.

He answered my ad that was posted up back in 2024 and after minimal exchanges of texts/emails and a physical viewing by him, we agreed on a price.

I would say I will miss riding the R80, all the power I could want, reliable and is the motorcycle that gave me the least problems.  However, I'm not riding her enough since I started RV camping and she's been overdue to go to someone who's got the time/inclination to maintain and exercise her 

I bought her on June 12, 2008 and sold her today, January 7, 2026.  

That is 17 years, 6 months, and 26 days that she was mine.  I was actually surprised at how long she's been with me.

Alfredo, the new owner, has two more modern BMW motorcycles and promises to give Brigitta a good home.

I put a total of  42,136 miles +/- (she came to me with replacement speedometer/odometer and I replaced it again while under my care back in August of 2014).

Here's my last pics of her, as Al finished strapping her down before heading off to work at Buckley SFB.  It was an early morning transaction as you can see, but we've got snow in the forecast and today was the better day to do this.

Thanks Al, I trust you'll have many, many happy miles on the motorcycle.  

Using Binoculars with a Smartphone Camera during First Ride of 2026

I like the pictures my Samsung S24+ takes though its optical zoom lens is limited to 3X which isn't a lot.  Sure, it'll go to 30X with digital zoom but the images tend towards high pixelation.

Although it's not often, sometimes I find myself wanting more optical zoom.  Such as when my Sony a6000 Camera and associated 200mm Telephoto lens would provide me some depth of focus capabilities.

Alas, the Sony remains broken and I'm not going to be paying to repair it any time soon, if ever.

I had bought from Amazon a tripod mount adapter which secures my 10x40 power binoculars to my tripod. 

I also bought an adapter that secures my smartphone to one of the eyecups of my binoculars:

Two days ago, I assembled it all together and while very fiddly in terms of getting a good sight picture; it might be a usable tool for pics of objects out of range of my smartphone's camera.

For sure it's not something you can put together quickly for a quick shot.

You probably can shoot a distant subject without using a tripod but results will be most likely a bit blurry.  Just no way to hold the camera still enough at those zoom levels!

Here's an example using 3X zoom lens on smartphone coupled withe binoculars focused on the chimney stacks visible from my house.

Using 1X zoom on phone, no binos

Using 3X zoom with binos

Using 3X zoom, no binos

Using 3X zoom with binos

The handheld shots I tried were as expected, slightly blurry due to body/hand movements.  Maybe if I switch to "manual" mode and use a faster shutter speed?

I'll be testing this setup when appropriate in the next few months.  I'm cautiously optimistic might be a solution an infrequently encounter photo subject.  

Today's riding was to pose Scarl with Mt Blue Sky in the background.

Here's a 3X optical zoom shot from about 2/10ths of a mile away from Scarlett I believe.

Same picture as above but magnified and cropped:

Now using the bino adapter, it would take me more than a bit of fiddling before figuring out you have to rotate the binos as well do the camera phone sees things level.  There's also a bit of fiddling getting everything lined up.  This lash-up is definitely not something that's easy/fast to setup!

It was driven home to me, how narrow a field of focus binoculars provide while bringing distant scenery "closer".  Below is the above shot, once I rotated the binos:

1X  with binos, scaled down and cropped

If you think shooting at 1X in the camera's field of view was narrow above.  The below shots are done using the 3X zoom on the camera.

So, obviously, this setup isn't for wide landscape shots.  I can think of possible shots where the background mountain or rock formation is narrower or closer which might work but I won't know till then.

This setup is appraised by birdwatchers to get closer shots of their bird sightings.  I'm going to try for wildlife shots but don't have much hope for success.

More experimentation to follow in my next camping trip.

7JAN26 update:

This might work for handheld shooting of pics:

Happy New Year and 2025 in Pictures

Happy New Year to you all! 

Another trip around the sun by all of us.  Here's hoping 2026 turns out as good as you hope.

Here's a compilation of pictures from the blog, taken in 2025.

Motorcycle mileages:

Brigitta (1987 BMW R80): 103754 = 384 miles. 16% down from last year's 410 miles, a continuing sad state of affairs.

Yagi (2006 Yamaha TW200): 23257 = 1147 miles. 58% down from last year's 1954 miles.

Scarlett (2014 Ural Patrol): 77346 km = 1478 km or 886 miles, 20% up from last year's 1189 km or 713 miles.  

Total Motorcycle Miles: 2417 miles = 660 miles, 20% down from last year's 3007 miles.

Days Camping:

159 days (43.5% of year), down from last year's 178 days (49% of year).  The almost seven weeks or so traveling to/in/from Spain cut into both camping time and below driven mileage.

Umarang the VRRV: Ending at 119275 = 7734 miles, 35% down from last year's 11906 miles.