On the Way to Cheyenne

After we got up Saturday morning, we had breakfast with John,

Candace, and Lee. Then we went to go visit Grandma. It was a nice visit.

Then we got back on the road. Throughout this afternoon, one thought keeps running through my mind: How desperate must the western settlers have been to cross this desolate area? For miles there is nothing. No houses, just fields of scrub.
We were just on this highway for forever and it did not have any turns.
I never was so glad to get to a restaurant.
This place had pretty decent food, just outside of Limon, CO

Thanks for Stoppin' By!

Jen

Finally in LaJunta

I was soooo glad to get to the hotel last night!

We hit construction on the south side of Springfield, Colorado and we must have missed the follow me truck because we were there for forty-five minutes waiting for our turn.

Now, a person might ask, why are you going through Colorado to go to Sturgis, South Dakota.

There are a couple of reasons. First, my brother and my grandmother live in Rocky Ford, Colorado. That means we get to see them. Second, going through Colorado means going around Nebraska which means I don't have to wear a helmet. Yes, I believe in helmets, does that mean I like to wear them? Most emphatically, no. I do wear one while I am riding my ZZR but if I am riding pillion with Darling Husband, I will pass, thank you very much.

So anyways, we get through Woodward very uneventfully. Then, we run into construction just outside of Fort Supply. Highway 3 is down to one lane. We get through that and keep heading down the highway.

About thirty minutes later, more construction. Yay! (Not really) Again, we stop. We talk to the flagman and he tells us he is from Amarillo, Texas. Flagman says that when he first took the job, he thought it would be boring. He found out other wise. He tells us about how that morning, he has a lady in an SUV just blow right past his stop sign. Then she had to reverse to where he was and shut her car down. Flagman asked the lady why she did not stop, she tells him that she did not see his bright yellow reflective vest nor did she see the great big red stop sign he was waving at her. He was in the middle of the road. He had to jump out of her way. Finally, the follow me truck comes back and we get to get back on our way. Flagman did not want his picture taken.

Finally, we get to Guymon, Oklahoma. We stop, fuel the bikes, and head north Highway 287 to Springfield, Colorado.

As we come up highway 287 north to Springfield, we are greeted with this fabulous sight: parked cars in the road, engines not running.

We stop; dad and Darling Husband kill the engines to the bikes and we dismount. We must have just missed the follow me truck, because we were numbers seven and eight in this line and soon traffic behind us was backed up a half mile. We sat there for twenty minutes and talked about how the construction we were sitting in must go all the way to Springfield for it to take this long for the truck to come back. Finally the truck comes back and we get to mount back up and slowly roll through the six and a half miles of construction. When we get to Lamar, we pull into the gas station to fill up. We have just an hour of road time left to La Junta and the hotel.

So we get to the hotel, and hooray for paisley sheets!

We visited with my brother and his new girlfriend, Candace.

We visited with Lee, a friend of the family, and his new project car.

Then it was bed time...

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Jen

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin

So we have been on the bikes for ages! It sure is a long and windy ride accross central and western Oklahoma. We left so early this morning! It sure is dark.

The lights are still burning on the neighborhood sign.

I tried to take a picture of the trees surrounding the road that we left out on but it was still too dark. So I adjusted the colors and this is what we got:

We are finally stopping in Kingfisher for breakfast at The City Cafe just north of Highway 33 on the northbound road through town. The food is awesome. However, if you order the biscuits and gravy, the biscuit my dad ended up with was about four inches tall by four inches wide by four inches long. It was huge! The hashbrowns were so yummy! Just like when I was a kid. I am so full and sleepy that I just totally forgot to take pictures. (Come on, it is six o'clock in the morning!) The sun was up and we passed through some of Oklahoma's beautiful plains. I like this one where you see one of Oklahoma's income earners.

That is a pumpjack pumping oil with the storage tank next to it.

This is before Woodward, I love this old barn. Of course, Darling Husband asks if I would like the clapboard home. He says it would take a little work but he thinks it would be a great fixer upper!

I like seeing the windmill nestled with the cattle chutes. It reminds me of a time long ago, even though these are modern chutes.

More ridin' yet to do.

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Jen

Gettin' Ready to go, Sturgis Bound Friday

The sun isn't even up. Why am I awake at this ungodly hour? What time is it? Is it really? It is really 4:30? Ack! What are we doing awake? Oh, that's right. We are leaving for Sturgis this morning. Ugh! Oh, I can smell the coffee. Dad has the coffee going. Thank goodness! Are we loaded? Yes. Teeth brushed? Yes. Dogs out? Yes.
Yes, I have the hotel reservation emails. Do you have the maps? Great. Lets ride.

Headed to Sturgis, Thursday

Well, I am sorry I have been absent most of this month except for the one ridiculous post about Walgreen's. At the beginning of this month, my dad, my step mom, my husband, and I all went to Sturgis, South Dakota for the 70th Annual Black Hills Motorcycle Rally. Yes, that rally. The one with all of the bikers. That is the one. It is held the first full week of August each year. So if you are planning a family vacation to see Mount Rushmore, you have been advised. The area was expecting about 650,000 motorcycle enthusiasts. I heard but can't prove that they actually had between 750,000 and 1 Million motorcycles. Meals in restaurants were kind of slow. The eateries were kind of busy.

The plan was my parents would ride up from McGregor, Texas, about 330 miles to our house on Thursday and we would leave Friday for Sturgis. Dad and Gwen got here right on time, so we went to eat dinner at Applebee's here in Edmond. Then we went to BS Unlimited in south Oklahoma City to do some shopping. We were shopping for a pad for Dad's motorcycle seat.

We have talked about seats before, when I rode as a pillion passenger on the back of my ZZR. Seat comfort is important for rides over fifty miles.

Dad had held off on buying an upgraded seat for his Heritage Softail (the green and white one) until right before the trip. Dad and Darling Husband are both big believers in the Sundowner seat sold by Harley Davidson. Dad purchased a Sundowner for his bike, put it on, and made the dash to my house. We have a Sundowner seat on our Street Glide, the red one in the previous picture. I love it. That seat is so nice and cushy. Ahh, I get all comfy thinking about it. So Dad gets on his bike with Gwen and they head to our house. By the time they got here, Dad's back and uh, derriere, were bothering him. So, we went to BS Unlimited to get a gel seat pad for him. The manufacturers of those things are proud of them! Dad got a nice blue velvet one (the only color they came in) and we went home and installed it. By this time, it was bedtime. We were planning on getting up early to make the big push to La Junta, Colorado.

We went to bed and this is the start of our trip to Sturgis.

Teenage Boys

This post is dedicated to all of my sisters out there.
Somethings in life we just can't help.
Today I stopped by the Walgreen's down the street from my house. I had to get a package of feminine products. I walked in, selected my items, then went in search of a cashier. Now, usually, when purchasing such products, I will look for a female cashier. Today, no luck. The only cashiers were teenage looking boys. The pharmacist in the back was also male. So, lucky me, I get to use a teenage boy cashier. I approach the counter, the boy looks up from his computer and smiles, until he sees what is in my hands. His expression went from one of professional courtesy to the deer in the headlights look. Poor guy. I understand. I could tell from his expression that there was no way he was going to ask me how my day was going.
So I asked him, "So how is your day going?" As he is flying those products across the scanner.
He replies: "just great, will there be anything else?" he smiles. Not a good one, a forced one.
I said no, he said, "Wonderful, your total is $XX. " I swiped my debit card, signed the console, and that was probably the fastest I have ever been checked out at the Walgreen's. I did wait until I got to my car to laugh so hard my ribs hurt. Poor kid.

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Jen

Man Vs. Food

OOOPS: The time was moved to 8!
Sorry!

Jen

Man Vs. Food in Oklahoma City on the Travel Channel

Stockyards City District News:
CATTLEMEN'S Tonight at 7pm on Travel Channel's"Man vs. Food"
Turn on your TVs and set up your DVRs! Cattlemen's will be featured on the Travel Channel's Man vs. Food, in an episode dedicated Oklahoma City!
The Oklahoma City episode of Man vs. Food (COX channel 51, DIRECTv channel 277, Dish Network channel 215) will feature three Oklahoma restaurants. Host Adam Richman filmed an entire day at the famous Cattlemen's Steakhouse. Through interviewing restaurant customers and owner Dick Stubbs, Mr. Richman got a good feel as to why Cattlemen's is so popular! David Egan, Operations Director, spent the bulk of the day in the kitchen with Richman. They cut some super thick porterhouse steaks and grilled them to perfection. Adam seriously enjoys his well aged beef. Before filming, Egan served Adam Cattlemen's "calf brains and eggs" for breakfast. Although he had never had brains before, he seemed to enjoy them. He also enjoyed some famous lamb fries for a little snack. All in all, it was a very good day in Historic Stockyards City!

Highjacked from an email from Erin at Stockyards City.
Please check out their Facebook page.

Thanks for stoppin' by!
Jen

First Rides

I was talking to my friend, Apple, about when we first start riding as passengers on motorcycles with our husbands. We both agreed that at first it is really scary! It is especially scary depending on what that first ride is. Granted, my first ride was as a 3 year old from my cousin, I think. Come on, I was three. I don't remember anything about it. So it does not count. My next ride was with my husband. We were just dating at the time. We had come back from Japan and were on the "Whirlwind Tour to Meet the Future In-Laws." That was not what we called it at the time. Then, we were just on leave and I went with him to Iowa 'cause he was going to take me to my truck in Texas. Seemed more fun to go on leave together and drive than it would be to fly home separately. So there we were you see, in Backwoodsville, Iowa, and I was fortunate enough to meet his best friend and Nick's wife. I don't remember her name; they got divorced the following Christmas. So anyways, my Darling Husband, Nick, Nick's wife, and Silo Jim all decided it would be fun to take Nick's farm equipment out and go riding. Nick's equipment was along the lines of two four-wheelers and two dirt bikes. Let's talk about the dirt bikes. Dirt bikes are not designed for passengers. At all. They do not have "sissy bars." They do not have foot pegs for the passengers. They look like this:

Again, note the total lack of anything for a passenger. You are not supposed to have a passenger on these. So anyways, they all thought it would be a good idea to go out and check the fences of the property on two of these and the four wheelers. My Darling Husband wanted one of the dirt bikes, of course. So, being that you "go with the one that brung ya," I took a ride with him. Now, where Nick lives is out in the country. He is a farmer. There aren't paved roads to Nick's house. Once you turn off the highway, it is all gravel all the way out to his place. We get on the dirt bikes and four wheelers. No helmets. No eye protection. I can hear it now. Yes, we were stupid! With a capital STUPID! I tell Darling Husband that this is my first real time on a bike. Okay, he says. So we get on a dirt bike and go down the gravel road. He is driving, and I am holding on to him for dear life. Did I mention that there were no foot pegs for the passenger? Well, there aren't. So I am sitting on the back of this thing with my legs flopping in the wind. I looked like an upside down Y. He feels the need. Not the need for speed, mind you, the need to do a wheelie going 60 miles an hour down a gravel road with me on the bike with him. Front wheel goes up in the air, we are riding that wheelie down the road. It was probably only fifty or so feet, but I was scared. I was so freaked out that my feet were going to get caught in the rear wheel, that we were going to go over backwards, or that I was just going to fall off.

I was madder than a wet hen. So mad, that when we came to a stop, I told him that I had no intention of getting back on, he can ride by himself. I am a terrible person, I got on the four wheeler with Silo Jim. That was in July of 1999. I did not get back on a motorcycle with Darling Husband until November of 2009. Now we both ride. Kind of crazy, huh?

Thanks for stopping by!

Jen

Yay! Brakes are Great!

I am really excited! We got my brake fluid reservoir fixed! Yay! No more master cylinder floppin' in the wind! So it is not supposed to look like this:



It is supposed to look like this:


Ain't it pretty?

So anyways, I got to ride on the back of a sport bike for the first time.
Sport bike (aka "crotch rocket")


Cruiser:



Note the back seats:




Yeah, it was my bike. Darling Hubby did not want me to ride all the way to the dealership to get the reservoir changed and the brakes bled with the reservoir floppin' in the wind. So he rode it and I was a passenger on my own bike. I have issues with that. If it's mine, I like to drive it. However, common sense must prevail and since I am not on the highways, yet, I need to let him be the driver. I have learned that I don't like my back seat at all. I also learned that I would rather ride my bike than be a passenger on it. I now know why girls who date guys with sport bikes aren't all that into riding. Something having to do with the seats, maybe, or possibly even the fact that I felt like I was hanging on for dear life? My feet kept slipping off of the passenger pegs and my left knee felt like it was all the way into my chest. Oh my, and the acceleration, it was almost like being a passenger in my old Mustang with my husband trying to "blow the cobs out." Or the lean over his back and the pressure in the lower back from not wanting to just flop onto him forward.
We rode to Destin, Florida on his bike and I never felt like that.

We went 30 miles to the Kawasaki dealership and I guaronteee that it will be a long time before I am a passenger on a sport bike again.



Thanks for stoppin' by!

Jen