For those of you who viewed my superboat photos back in August, Thank You. It was the first of the Grand Prix circuit to be held on Lake Michigan at Michigan City, Indiana. The racers were impressed, and will be returning for the next 3 years in their international competition.

CBS SPORTS filmed and will be televising the races, The race at our location will air on Sat. Oct 3rd at 1:00pm, (CST) Please tune in if you want to see the first Superboat race held on the Great Lakes. The final races for the overall winner will be held at a week long extravaganza in Key West, FL, in Nov.

Thanks for enjoying the superboats.

Retire your ride is Canada’s vehicle recycling program and we discovered it at just the right moment. If your car was made before 1995 Canada will help you get it off the road and get into something more energy efficient and greener.

According to Retire Your Ride, older cars (1995 and older) produce 19 times more air pollution than cars made in 2004 and newer. For a long time Canada has had a yearly emissions test that must be taken before you can get new license plates or the year stickers that go in the corner of the old plate. We knew when September rolled around our old 1990 Dodge Caravan would not pass the test. It’s kind of hard to pass the test with no tail pipe. Besides we were very tired of tossing cold hard cash into a car that was too old to appreciate it.

You are rewarded for retiring your ride. In Ontario our choices were

• $300.00 Cash
• $359 to $490 off the price of a high end commuter bicycle plus parts and service discounts
• Chrysler, Hyundai and Ford all offer dollars off on a new vehicle when you participate in Retire Your Ride.
• Discounts on Auto Share – A program you join - Auto Share members get 24/7, self-serve access to clean, fuel-efficient cars and vans - at over 100 locations across Toronto - without the hassles, costs and headaches of ownership.

We chose option one. $300 is about $250 more that the book value of our old van. Our van needed to go so it’s gone. The auto share program wouldn't work for us because we don’t live in Toronto, Bicycles might have been a good idea about 25 years ago but not now, and we already have one new car we don’t want another. Something used for around town is what we will end up buying.

BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT A VAN LOOKS LIKE AFTER BEING HIT BY A DEER - the van was fixed and lasted five more years

My Dodge Caravan belonged to my Dad. When he died in 2001 it came to live with us. It had around 30,000 miles on it then (Dad didn’t drive much at 87 years old) and in the 8 years we’ve owned it we put over 100,000 miles on it. It was a good little car!

MY DAD WAS A CARD CARRYING MEMBER OF THE NRA - a hunter, the interior of the van was the same as when Dad owned it. It still smelled like him and that was good!

According to Retire Your Ride they have retired 14,692 cars and reduced 790 tons of smog forming emissions.

Their mission – SAVING THE PLANET ONE CAR AT A TIME!

IT MADE ME SAD TO SEE IT GO...

The flea market I attend every Sunday is on land owned by a local Steam Engine Association.  Every Labor Day weekend they hold their annual Steam Show with antique steam engines, antique tractors and new tractors, tractor pulls, tractor parades, an operating saw mill, a blacksmith shop, etc.  There were at least 500 tractors there and I don't know how many different kinds of engines.

After I was done shopping for treasures on Sunday I walked around and took a few photos of some of the tractors and steam engines.

I recently saw this old truck in a storage yard that I drive by frequently. I have been wanting to stop and take a picture, but it is located on a busy road and there is just a small drive in front of a locked gate. I was running errands yesterday and traffic was light, so I was finally able to stop and take a few pictures out my car window.

It looks to me like it might have been an old fire truck.

It would be interesting to know more about it, like how old it really is and what kind of places it has been.

They store a lot of old stuff on this lot, including a lot of old train equipment. I don't know if they sell the stuff or what they do with it. They have had some pieces of train track outside the gate for a few weeks now. That might be fun to have in landscaping in someones yard.