Chapter 63

I stopped for lunch on the way to pick up the bike. When I got there the welding shop owner met me at the car.

"As I said on the phone, I made a few changes to make it even more sturdy," he said. "I also made the trailer easier to remove if you want to store them separately," he informed me.

I sat on the bike and saw that it was easier to recover than I expected. I could actually sit on it with my feet on the pedals without it leaning. "I have to admit that I like it," I said.

"So do we. We aren't violating anyone's patent are we?" he asked. No the trailer is an open source design and the hitch is open source as well," I said. "You just brought them together in a new package."

"Well, I went a little over the $100 dollar estimate," he said. "Instead of working on it two hours I worked on it three."

"So what is damage?" I asked.

"My policy is I charge only half price for the time over the estimate. So you owe me $125 dollars," he said.

"Fair enough," I said handing him the money. "Now for the extra $25 how about loading it in the back of my truck?"

"Sure no problem. Let me give you a tour on how to connect and disconnect the trailer," he suggested.

Once I could hook and unhook the trailer he loaded it onto the back of my truck with the trailer unattached. I figured it would be easier to remove it that way. When I got home it proved to be well within my capacity to load and unload them both.

It was a Monday so I dropped the bikes and went back to the Village. There were no tradesmen on site for some reason, but I didn't mind. I was able to get my hands dirty for a few hours.

Since it rained a lot in the mountains, Carlos had decided early on to put the roof decking on as many houses as he could first. Then he and Juan could work inside even on rainy days. The heavy blue plastic tarps were not exorbitant and I wanted the houses done as soon as possible, so I had sprung for more tarps. I mentioned it because it had begun to drizzle by the time I got back to the Village.

I found them in one of the three tarped houses. Two more of the houses had roofing shingles, but were not completed inside. I worked with them as a helper. I carried materials inside the house for them to use. We replaced a few window sashes and made repairs to the beaded board walls of a house. Since the houses were for sale, I removed the cheap Masonite paneling to reveal the original beaded boards. Before we did anything else we tried to remove as much old paint as possible from the living room walls. I had those walls finished with polyurethane by the painters, but I didn't like the idea of having a paint company charge me to sand the walls. I wanted to give Carlos and Juan the work since the cost would be the same.

The bath got tile glued to concrete board and the beaded board above the wall tiles. The bedrooms got a fresh coat of paint on the walls. The flooring man came in and sanded the floors after everyone else was finished. Then the house was either turned over to the new owner, or it was put up for sale.

I stopped by Luis's place on my way home. He was home for a change. "Rosy, what can I do for you?" he asked.

"I was going to ask you that. Are you doing okay? I couldn't help notice you were gone over the weekend," I said.

"My daughter came for me and I spent the weekend with her and the kids," he explained. "So you up for a drawing lesson tonight?"

"Not tonight, but I brought you a sketch I would like an honest critique," I said.

"Okay," he said. I handed him the envelope then left.

When I got home, I went to Ebay to check out hub motors for my bike. I found that the most powerful electric hub motor was a real barn burner, but I didn't want anything that powerful. That would completely defeat the purpose of the bike. The purpose was to ride it as far as my ass could reasonably stand to be in the seat. I couldn't pedal that far continuously, but I could do a combination of both.

I spent several hours reading the various forums on electric bikes. The best I could figure weight versus range the lithium had everything else beat all to hell. Also from the forums, I learned that a 48v 1,000 watt motor would do what I wanted, like help me climb the hills and let me rest some. It would also move the bike at twenty five miles per hour on the flats and about ten to twelve mph going up hill.

So it came down to the cost of the lithium batteries. They were hugely expensive. For batteries with a hundred mile range it was going to cost me almost a thousand dollars. Well nobody said a road trip would be cheap. At least the bike was paid for and appeared to be safe.

What I decided to do was to buy the front hub motor at 36v 800 watts. I also bought a 36v 20ah lithium battery. That should give me almost thirty miles. I placed the order before I chickened out.

After I got it, and got it all together I could practice with short trips. The first was likely to be to the Church Camp. I could spend the night there and come back the next day. It would be within the 30 mile range I was expecting from the bike. Of course it was also pretty much up and down hill, so I needed to test the bike before I even tried an overnight trip anywhere.

Luis helped me set up for the festival. He really was a big help and he got his account with me reduced accordingly. I was still waiting for the motor kit and battery to arrive, so I threw myself into the festival completely. I left the finishing of the houses to Carlos and Juan. Part of Luis's duties was to check on the tradesmen. I sent him when I was busy with the festival.

I had begun to run advertisements for the festival starting a month before the event. Luis hated it, but he helped me with the paper work and ran errands for all of us. Just to piss off the woman at the Arts Council, I offered a discount for any Arts Council member who wanted to join us. I knew they would tell their friends so I would be reaching most everyone the president would have reached, and I didn't have to join those pompous asses.

I ran advertisements in local newspapers and arraigned for Luis and some of the other residents to be interviewed. A couple of the residents were naturals. I got enough coverage without having to go on camera. On the weekend of the festival, I wore my baggy jeans, a baggy sweatshirt, and a baseball cap complete with big ugly sunglasses. I didn't tell anyone why, I just did it.

The second festival was even better than the first. Since I didn't charge admission and the fee for the twenty five spaces was only $25 each per day. I couldn't pay the performers, but I did the same thing as I had for the first festival. I encouraged them to send a pretty girl through the audience to take up a collection. I put twenty bucks in each of the collection plates. The food trucks did a hell of a business, but they weren't mobbed by any means. It was just a nice Community Arts Fair. I doubted the food trucks would try again.

With the festival over we concentrated on finishing the houses on 4 Sale Lane, as I had come to think of the second parallel street. The first street was 4 Rent Lane and it was complete. Just four houses remained to be finished on 4 Sale Lane. If we did anything else it would be on the streets that connected the two completed streets. One of those streets, I thought of as Bottom Street. It had no houses on it. Top Street originally had eight houses and the company store building.

The end of July came and the two phases were complete. "What we gonna do now," Carlos asked.

"We'll get all the demolition leftovers off the lots on Top Street. Put them on the old plant site till we finish five more houses on Top Street and the store building. I am going to sell the five houses but keep the store building," I admitted to Carlos. "I have no idea what I am going to do with it but I'll do something."

"Could I take a week off when we finish the house on 4 Sale Lane?" he asked.

"Of course, you are a contractor just tell me you are going to take a week off," I said. I was expecting my motor any day, so it was possible that I could take some road trips while he was gone, if it arrived in time.

The motor arrived three days before Carlos finished the houses on 4 Sale Lane. We have five more to go on Top Street before we had to make some hard choices. I had to decide whether to build on the factory site or keep it as a fairground. I was going to put that decision off as long as possible.

"It took all Sunday to put the bike motor on correctly. The advertisement was right, I could have done in and hour of so. I could have if I had known what I was doing. The learning curve was large. I started after breakfast and by the time I prepared a late dinner consisting of a tray filled with Mac & Cheese, it was finally done." I put the battery, which had arrived a few days earlier, on the charger, then went to bed. Okay I prowled the Internet for a couple of hours before I went to sleep, but I was in bed when I did that.

I had just gotten in the restaurant from the fast food breakfast race, when Alice took me aside. "I know you are working hard. What with the festival and the finishing up of the village, but honey you have to take better care of yourself. Your hair looks like a welfare mother," she said.

"Actually it looks worse than a crack whore," Jeremy said with a laugh.

"Alright, I'll go see Lucile. I have been thinking about a new hairstyle anyway," I said.

That's how I came to be standing outside her door with the new bike parked on the curb. I walked in the door carrying the bag with the lithium battery inside. I plugged it in, then took a seat.

"What is that? Did you ride that thing all the way from your house," she asked.

"I did indeed. Now I want a new hairstyle. I'm going to spend the rest of the summer riding that thing all over," I said.

"What do you want to look like when you get off the bike and take off the helmet?" Lucile asked.

"A blond goddess of course," I said with a smile.

"The impossible does cost a little more," she said. Lucile had given me a haircut once a month for the last year.

"I would like to have it easy to manage, but some hair sticking out from under the headgear," I said.