Another Great Summer

Time for another update. The crazy human has finally found the time to do some typing for me again. We have been busy with all sorts of things on the tour this year, making new friends and doing some really fun things. Everything has been going well this summer, and we have some new pictures for you all to see. Gary hasn't been taking as many pictures this year because he's too busy riding his motorcycle! But here's a few new ones for you all to see.


Since I'm riding on the back of the motorcycle this year Gary found me a helmet in my size. The hard part was finding one that my ears would fit through! Gary said that if he has to wear one I have to also, no matter how unBEARable it may be! But Gary's right, safety first.


Here I am just "Hanging Out" on old Route 66 just outside Weatherford, Oklahoma. It was a wonderful day, great weather and a fun day of riding. Just watch yourself if Gary comes anywhere near with you with a bungee cord in in his hand! He just may hang you out somewhere too.



Mmmmmmm…LUNCHTIME! One of my favorite things on the tour (Except for Breakfast and Dinner)! Here we are at the ol' lunch counter in the Route 66 diner in Tucumcari, NM. There's nothing like the good old American greasy-spoon diner food! They're really nice to me here, they even make me a berries and honey sandwich! I love this place!!


Here's the crazy human drinking beer and riding! Oh…wait…it's only root beer…errr…I mean Route Beer…Route 66 Root Beer. Gary may be crazy, but he's not stupid enough to drink alcohol and then ride!


Here we are in front of the Sandhills curiosity shop with Harley and Annabelle, the craziest rednecks on Route 66! One of the most memorable stops on the entire trip, and Gary's just crazy enough to fit right in!


On one of our tours one of the participants, Bob Perkins from England spent his last two weeks as a Northamptonshire Policeman on holiday with us. One of his last official acts was to swear me in as an honorary Northamptonshire policeman, giving me his actual cap badge for my cowboy hat! He was even nice enough to give Gary his badge from his helmet. Thank you very much Bob. I'll wear it with pride!


Looks great doesn't it! In all the confusion I can't remember if I fired five shots or six.…So I've got just one thing to ask you…do ya feel lucky punk?…well…do ya?

Okay, so I let being an honorary policeman go to my head. While the humans were in the restaurant eating lunch Gary left me with the bike. So I thought that I could go for a quick ride and be back before anyone noticed I was gone. While coming back I noticed I was going to be late and decided that an honorary police bear could go a little over the speed limit. Boy was I wrong, just my luck, I got pulled over by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol just as I pulled in to the restaurant parking lot. Talk about embarrassing, there I was getting a speeding ticket while the whole group was walking out to their bikes! I tried to talk the officer into letting me go because I was an honorary policeman, but he still gave me a written warning. When Gary came out and saw me getting a ticket on his bike, he was extremely mad at me and made me sleep in the saddlebag that night as punishment!
Special Thanks to Maj. J.D. Wilson, Zone Commander of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for letting me off with a warning and for the pic! I promise I'll be a good bear in the future!


One small bit of bad news for this year, Hillbillees Cafe in Arcadia, Ok. was recently purchased and closed. Some greedy Billionaire greasebag bought Hillbillees just to shut it down because he didn't want it to compete with his own new place "Pop's" he was building just down the road. He has shut down a local favorite and historical piece of Route 66, just so he didn't have to compete with a local institution.
Gary asked me if we should go down to the old swimming hole to do some fishing…and I said "sure, sounds like fun"…

fun…until the crazy human decided to use me for bait!!! Don't worry though, the other people on the tour convinced him that the whale wasn't real and I wouldn't make good bait anyway.
Well that's about it for now…we'll write more later. Remember to keep the rubber on the road and the shiny side up!

Earthquake in Peru : How can WE help

As you will probably know by now, Peru was hit by the worst earth quake in the past 50 years last Wednesday evening, August 6^th at 6.40 pm Local Time. Epicenter was 60 km off the coast of Ica, some 200 km south of Lima. 2 consequent quakes, the first of which measured 8.0 on the Richter Scale and the second 7.6, shook the whole South of Peru for 2 minutes and destroyed the cities of Ica and Pisco and their surrounding areas almost completely. Thus far 510 people are confirmed killed, 1600 injured, 17,000 houses destroyed and over 85,000 people homeless or otherwise affected by this tragedy.

Having lived in Peru for nearly 7 years, this hits Karin , myself and the CAT Team in a very direct way as lots of people are suffering right now. We have a lot of friends and colleagues in the area, so our thoughts are with them and their families at this time as we hear more terrible stories on the news.

Besides the human side of the catastrophe, we've also received news that there are many tourist sites have been damaged in the Paracas/Pisco Area, including the famous Catedral de Paracas , and the Mummies Museum...we still don't know the latest situation of "El Candelabro" or the Ballesta Islands.

At CAT we all have been extremely lucky as so far our team members, families and friends in Peru were saved from this dreadful experience. One of our team members has her family living in Ica but apart from their house being destroyed, miraculously they too were spared. Still many, many people are in direct need of help and as rescue operations are starting , we would like to call for your help as well to help the people in the Ica and Pisco region. Please click on the following link to see what you can do to help relieve the worst anguish for those most in need: http://www.cat-travel.com/Peru-Earthquake-Help.asp

If you can, please be so kind to cut and paste this html banners in your blog or e-mail signature to let people know how can they help.

<a href="http://www.cat-travel.com/Peru-Earthquake-Help.asp"><img src="http://www.cat-travel.com/img/Peru-Earthquake-Help-White.gif" alt="Peru Earthquake. HELP needed!!" width="388" height="55" border="0" /></a>

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http://www.cat-travel.com/Peru-Earthquake-Banners.asp

Thank you very much in advance for your generosity; the people in Peru will be better of thanks to you.

Bart