Movie Night at the Rodeo Opry, the next day

It was fun! Movie of course is kind of cheesy, but it was great acting when the movie was actually released ( shhh, 1947). The theater is the Rodeo Opry in the Stockyards of Oklahoma City. Darling Husband and I got to the theater a little early, so we had time to look around. You walk in the front door under the large marquee. On the right side, the operation's offices are located. On the left side, you find the concession stand. Two small bags of popcorn, two bottles of water, and we only spent $6.00 on concessions!! Two drinks and popcorn at the other theaters usually cost us $16.00. So we are already enjoying ourselves. We walk up the ramp to the auditorium. On the left and right sides of the ramp, the walls are decorated with pictures of performers, past and present. We walk in and are greeted with this sight:

The lighting was old and dim, it really reminded me of what you would think of the old movie theaters would be like when this movie was originally released.

One old gent walked in and he looked like he might have been a little boy and seen this movie when it was first in theaters.

We walked in, sat down in the second row from the back and towards the middle. The movie started. Angel and the Badman is a wonderful film about what else? An angelic woman and a badman. John Wayne is of course the bad man, and Gail Russell plays a Quaker woman. The opening of the movie shows John Wayne's character, Quirt Evans, notorious shootist, rustler, and womanizer riding "hell-bent for leather." Gail Russell's character, Penelope Worth, and her father are in a buggy in a field headed towards home. Quirt's horse collapses under him and he is thrown. Penelope and her father take Quirt home, nurse him to health, and generally grow fond of him. But Quirt can't let go of his past and it comes to call. As the film progresses, Quirt has to determine if he is going to stay on the side of good, or if he is going to be a bad man for forever.

This ninety minute film is the first that John Wayne both starred in and produced.

This evening was really fun and I can't wait for the Rodeo Opry to do it again!

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Jen

Movie Night at the Rodeo Opry!

Stockyards City Main Street Presents: Western Movie Night at the Rodeo Opry! When: Friday, July 30 at 7:00pm Where: Rodeo Opry, 2221 Exchange Ave., 73108 FREE ADMISSION
Movie is supposed to be John Wayne in Angel and the Badman!

Brake Fluid Reservoir

Good Afternoon! The plan was to discuss how my daily attacks on my hill of doom was going, and to let everyone know if I am still 0-6 for stalling out on this intersection. For everyone who has not experienced this phenomenon, "stalling out" is when you don't give a manual transmission enough gas while letting out the clutch. Happens quite a bit. More on that later. Unfortunately, things change. Instead, today we are going to talk about how a Brake Fluid Reservoir on a Kawasaki ZZR is NOT a good place to hang your helmet while you run into the Post Office. Especially when you can tell that it has been broken before and the previous owner to my previous owner (grand-owner?) had epoxied it back together.

DOH! Doo-tee-doo! So I came back outside, picked up my helmet, and there was my little reservoir swinging in the wind.

So instead of running the rest of my errands, I went home. Can't chance not having brakes, right?

Bike Night July 21 2010

Last night's bike night was hosted by BACA Nation, at Mooney's Pub & Grill in Norman, Oklahoma. My husband heard the ad on the radio Monday night and thought we should go.

We left our house last night at 7, met at the Redeemed Wolf's house in Edmond at 7:15, and then we waited for Broccoli and Flip. The ride down Edmond's city streets was relatively normal. Just traffic as usual. Broccoli just bought a 2006 Kawasaki Ninja, the bigger version, and had to replace the chain. So when they pulled up, he gets off his bike and the four guys start to work on tightening the chain. It's a lot like a bicycle chain. Just like when your bicycle chain would get loose, so do motorcycle chains. Anyways, the boys spent 20 minutes messing around with that before we could mount up and head to Norman.

No, I did not ride my own bike, I rode with my husband. I am not quite confident enough to head down I-35 on my own yet. Call me a chicken if you need to, I can handle it.

Redeemed Wolf led the way out of his neighborhood at a quick clip. After you leave the gate, the boulevard to the main road has several S-curves, so we swayed in and out and left and right. It was definitely enough to make a girl's stomach twitch. We got onto Kelly Avenue and headed south, Broccoli and Flip on their sport bikes, Redeemed Wolf on his custom 1200 Sportster, and us on our Street Glide. Definitely a motley crew. We were to meet the Mohawk Mullet and Crash at a gas station on 23rd and Broadway Extension. As we zipped down Kelly and merged onto Broadway Extension aka I-235, we zoomed up the on ramp. It was awesome! The wind in our hair, the sun on our skin, you just can't beat not being in a car sometimes.

(Every once in a while I wonder why we didn't start this hobby a long time ago. I know the answer but I will save it for later)

So we get to the gas station and pick up the Mohawk Mullet and Crash. Of course they had a good laugh at my expense about not riding down on my own and getting caught in the rain by myself last week. Back on the bikes, we left the gas station and our six bikes (3 Harleys, 2 Kawasakis, and a Yamaha) and jammed back on to the highway. As we topped the hill on to the interstate, it was like being on a roller coaster. He hit the gas and I was leaned against the sissy bar and we crested the top of the on ramp. We looked over our left shoulder and merged into the traffic. Thrown back, rise up, lean left, back up right! Whew!

As we merged onto southbound I-35, I held my breath because I was not sure if the guy on the phone in the car next to us was paying any kind of attention at all to the road. The highway was pretty crowded, and as person enters Moore, several highways and main roads converge, meaning a bunch of people trying to get into their lanes all at once. There are the left lanes merging with Shields and an exit ramp for the next road all together at once. It is not unusual to have a motorist cut across all four lanes of traffic to get off on 12th street. As passed the exit and on ramps for 12th street, all six of us were in the second to left lane. A tractor trailer was in the lane next to us. He turned his signal on. The fast lane was taken and the car in front of our group was going too slow. That poor trucker had to stay there in the slow lane.

Finally, we get to Mooney's. There were at least a hundred motorcycles of all shapes and sizes parked in the lot. We got off the bikes and walked around to check out the vendors.

Not a whole lot of vendors were in attendance. There were two beer tents, the BACA Nation guys, and a random stuff tent. The random stuff tent provided entertainment for a couple of hours. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not making fun of anyone, it was just a little different.

There were pins, patches, dice, knives, t-shirts, leather chaps, leather vests, denim vests, bandannas, and little thong panties. In pink and black. Really.

Mohawk Mullet brought this up: For the accessories, who on earth buys lingerie at a bike night?

Is it for girls who get their drinks splashed on their laps? (don't know) Are they gag gifts? (Don't know) What motivates the buyer to buy them? Do they stand there and think," hmm, don't want a bandanna, don't need a t-shirt, ah-ha! Panties! I need a bright pink pair of ladies' underpants! That will be my souvenir, gift for significant other, or the antenna flag for my bike! That would be much better than a t-shirt!I can't live with out them!" And how many pairs of panties are actually sold at such an event?

We understand the beer vendors, they are a no brainer. The pin and patch vendors, the boot vendors, even the leather vendors. Leather coats and chaps are expensive. They are usually a third of the price at such an event. But the undergarments are the same price as at a big box retailer. So the price is not that much different. We never did decide why the thongs would be a good purchase.

After our laughter died, we agreed we needed to find some place else to party. We took a very uneventful ride up the highway to the Dugout on May and Hefner. We hung out for an hour and called it a night.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jen

My First Highway Ride

I took the class to learn how to ride motorcycles in April and took the written test in May. I got my license and immediately started a more fervent hunt for my new bike. I looked at new bikes, used bikes, Harleys, Hondas, Ducatis and some things that looked like they needed to be put back into the scrap heap. I checked out cruisers and sport bikes, dirt and pit bikes, classic Indians and new bobbers. Many of the bikes I looked at were out of my preconceived price range. I wanted something that I could learn to ride. Something that if I "laid it over" (crashed) it would not break my heart (or my bank account). I loved the Harley Wide Glide. It was bigger than the Sportster line, but smaller than the Softail line. Truly, even the wide glide was out of my price range. Saving the entire long drawn out drama for another time, I finally purchased a 2006 Kawasaki ZZR from my husband's buddy. I wrote the check on June 21, 2010 and became the proud owner of a sport bike. I only got to practice two days that week 'cause my seven year old nephew came down for an extended weekend. I put a whopping five miles on that week. Friday, July 2, I left the neighborhood and rode the twelve miles to my office after work. Saturday, July 3rd, I rode on the back of my husband's motorcycle to Forman Harley Davidson in Stillwater and that was an all day event. Sunday the 4th, I felt brave.
We decided to take on OK State Hwy 33, Westbound.
Let me say this: it is windy in Oklahoma. Average wind speed is 12.2 miles per hour (Doyle Rice, USATODAY.com weather editor., June 23, 2005 ) That wind gusts.
We leave the house and cruise up Broadway between Waterloo Road and Hwy 33. At the itersection, we turn left and I start to get up to speed. We are going west. I am going a whopping 55 miles an hour. (Speed limit is 70). The wind gusts so hard from the south it blows me from the left of the lane to the shoulder. Scared me silly! So I really need to get off of this road. I pick up speed to get to the next turn as quick as possible for me. So I am shaking and going 60 mph. Big improvement, right? I have never been so glad to see State Hwy 74 South. It felt like an eternity to get to that light. I turn south into the wind and am able to do the speed limit (65 mph). Nothing too scary happens while we are headed south. I get excited to see that I am only a mile from my turn on to Waterloo and that puts me east bound and five miles from home.
We got home, put the bikes up, and had ice cream.
Whew!


Thanks for stoppin' by!

Jen

Uncomfortable

Sorry for the long absence, it has been a rough week and being on the computer was not what I really wanted to do when I got home. So with that, I thought I would mention my ride back to work after lunch.

Gross Alert!!

On Fridays, I have to run home over my lunch hour to let Rebel, my Rottweiler, and Rocksanne, my mutt, outside. So, today, trying to be conscious of both the environment and my wallet, I rode my motorcycle to work. Great Weather for a morning ride. Lunchtime rolls around and I head home. Let the dogs out, have a snack, put them back in, and go back to work. Do you know that tickle in the nose, the one right before you are about to sneeze your head off? Where your eyes start to water and your nose starts to twitch? Yeah, that feeling. All I could think about was going 55 miles an hour, and heaven help me, what does a person do when they sneeze inside a closed face helmet?!?

I didn't sneeze, thank goodness.

Husband's Birthday

Wow, today my Darling Husband is having a birthday! I can not believe that another year has already passed! DH's plans include going to Forman Harley Davidson in Stillwater, OK, going to Oklahoma's Oldest Bar, Eischen's in Okarche, and Bikes and Bricks in Bricktown in downtown Oklahoma City. Hope it doesn't rain! Happy Birthday, Darling!

Thanks for Stoppin' By!

Jen

MDA

My dad, Rodney Bickford, is taking part in MDA's annual fundraiser.

See his website here:
https://www.joinmda.org/MyLockup/MyHomepage/tabid/157627/Participant/RLBickford/Default.aspx


Donations to MDA provide help and hope in many ways:
Clinics - expert specialized medical care
Research - cutting-edge investigation into treatments and cures
Support - help obtaining equipment and coping with challenges
Camp - a barrier-free week of fun, friendship and laughter for kids
And so much more - visit mda.org for information on how MDA makes a difference to people around the country and in your community.

Please help Dad raise money for Jerry's Kids!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jen

Gettin' Started

Hello! I have really enjoyed reading my friends' blogs and thought it would be fun to start my own. Please be gentle with criticism as this is my first time and this will be a work in progress.
So here we go!
My name is Jen, I have been married for ten and a half years to Damian. We have been living in the Edmond, Oklahoma area. Damian has been here since 2000, me since 2001. I arrived here a year after him because I had to finish my enlistment with the Marines. We were both in South Carolina before we came here. He finished his enlistment in 1999, a few months before we got married. He is from eastern Iowa, and I claim central Texas.
We don't have children so we have hobbies, toys, and dogs. Our dogs are Rebel the Rottweiler, who will be eleven in August, and Rocksanne, the Chow Chow- Newfoundland mutt, who will be eight in November.
We both ride motorcycles. Damian has been riding since he was little, me, not so much. I took the safety course in April of this year and just got my motorcycle license in May. (Yay!)
That has been an adrenaline rush, me practicing riding my motorcycle.
We rode his motorcycle to my parents' house in central Texas over the Memorial Day weekend. We really enjoyed that, then the first week of June we rode from Edmond to Destin, Florida to see his niece graduate high school. That was a long ride!
We also enjoy drag racing, television, movies, cooking,reading and outdoors stuff.

I guess that is it for now, I will get some pictures posted this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jen