Bondorella on the Road!

SIMI VALLEY, CA – Much as I love them, my spotlight-lovin’ motorcycles have been dominating this blog, but I can’t blame them. While Bondorella gets her weekly exercise, she hasn’t had any grand adventures lately, nothing thrilling enough to write about. I mean, how many times can I say “my truck is so pretty”? (She is, of course!)

The second Bondorella became roadworthy in 2010, I took her EVERYWHERE.I thought nothing of going a couple hundred miles in a day. Every weekend it seemed we hit up some event. But really… it became too much. For one, it was hard on the poor old girl, and two I began to neglect everything else in my life: Stopped writing. Didn’t spend enough time with the hubby. Ignored my motorcycles (maybe that’s why they’re such attention hogs now). So instead of showing Bondorella off at weekend shows, I kept her to myself (as I wrote about in Love and Other Such Nonsense), just the two of us running errands, cruising to the Orange Motor Palace, the farmer’s market, loading my guy in for dinner dates. In other words, I took a break from the car world.

I didn’t realize how much I missed Bondorella road trips until Emily of the Hells Belles Car Club asked if I’d join them for a shoot in Simi Valley, about eighty miles each direction–not an epic distance, but farther than I had done in a while. Much as I wanted to go, I knew my girl needed some maintenance. I’m overdue for an oil change, my electric fan isn’t kicking on as it should (although the mechanical fan is working), I’m still running the stock rear-end, and when I checked my brake fluid, I found one reservoir almost empty, plus a whole bunch of crud buildup around the lid and on the rubber insert. My feller thinks water must have gotten into the system–and it wouldn’t surprise me, since an amateur redid the brake system… (uh, me).

Instead of saying no and sitting home all sad though, my usually overprotective guy assured me it would be fine. I think he knew how much I needed this adventure. So I topped off the oil in both the engine and mechanical fan, wiped out the master cylinder reservoir and refilled it, and away I went. (Brakes felt fine, by the way, although I am going to flush them).

Hitting the road with Bondorella  put the biggest smile on my face, not to mention, hanging with the Belles, who are always fun.

On top of that, my pal Kat (one of the Belles) volunteered to co-pilot since her ’48 Fleetline isn’t up to distance driving at the moment.

Kubo left the Metropolitan Nash at home and brought along her new project, a Datsun 1600 Roadster! How fun does that look? Really makes me itch for another little car, like the Triumphs I had in high school. I could probably sneak one in amongst the motorcycles, right? They don’t take up much space.

So what were we doing in Simi? Well… can’t tell ya specifics (we had to sign releases saying we wouldn’t reveal anything), although I can say we’ll be background in a show. When we find out when and where it will air, I’ll let you know. Stay tuned!

Many thanks to the Hells Belles for dragging me out of my cave. We’ll have to venture out again soon. Very soon–after I get some maintenance issues taken care of, that is.

Until next time…

Later gators!