2009 Rides

December 31, 2009
Fort Collins, USA

14709 Miles and ten times that many Smiles... need I say much more than that?

12-31-2009 = 19352 miles
11-30-2009 Thanksgiving in Texas Rides = 346 miles
11-11-2009 = 18998 miles
11-11-2009 Veterans Day Lunch Ride = 37 miles
11-08-2009 Shopping around ride = 57 miles
11-07-2009 Book Store Ride = 80 miles
10-18-2009 October Sunday ride = 115 miles
10-18-2009 = 18679 miles
10-17-2009 Afternoon ride - everything else will keep = 68 miles
10-04-2009 Toy Run = 62 miles
10/03/2009 Foolin' around on a Saturday afternoon ride = 56 miles
09-30-2009 BTGTWR = 20 miles
09-27-2009 In search of gold ride (pt 2) = 210 miles
09-26-2009 In search of gold ride (pt 1) = 274 miles
09-20-2009 Peak to Peak Fall Color Ride = 210 miles
09-19-2009 Saturday afternoon ride = 60 miles
09-17-2009 Breaking the new tires in ride = 50 miles
09-14-2009 = 17522 miles
09-05-2009 Labor Day & Beyond Ride = 2035 miles
09-04-2009 BTGTWR = 38 miles
09-01-2009 = 15359 miles
08-29-2009 Flat Landing It Ride = 130 miles
08-21-2009 4 Day Dead Heads in Dakota Ride = 1389 miles
08-20-2009 = 13797 miles
08-12-2009 Thunder Mountain Ride = 14 miles
08-09-2009 Sunday Ride to the Springs = 360 miles
08-08-2009 Saturday Ride After Work Cut Short = 20 miles
08-02-2009 Short Sunday Ride = 26 miles
08-01-2009 Before the Concert Ride = 72.5 miles
07-28-2009 = 12898 miles
07-26-2009 Devil's Gulch to Estes Park Ride = 105 miles
07-25-2009 Tim's Recovery Ride = 330 miles
07-19-2009 Tim's Birthday Ride = 65 miles
07-18-2009 Testing... Testing... Ride = 30 miles
07-07-2009 Last ride... Before Surgery = 20 miles
07-11-2009 = 12311 miles
07-05-2009 4 Day Independence Ride = 1380 miles
06-29-2009 Million Mile Monday = 200 miles
06-28-2009 Breakfast in Laramie WY Ride = 136 miles
06-27-2009 Serious Texas BBQ via Carter Lake Ride = 71 miles
06-26-2009 Rist Canyon BTGTW Ride = 52 miles
06-25-2009 Happy Harley Anniversary Ride = 72 miles
06-24-2009 = 10320 Miles
06-21-2009 Rally-Moab 3 Day Ride = 1168 miles
06-17-2009 Go Juice Ride = 20 miles
06-14-2009 Flag Day Ride = 140 miles
06-11-2009 = 8956 Miles (rear tire changed)
06-06-2009 White Water Poudre Canyon Ride = 254 miles
06-03-2009 = 8694 Miles
05-31-2009 Ride Home from Raton, NM = 325 miles
05-17-2009 Walden CO Ride (solo) 230 miles
05-16-2009 Rist Canyon Ride (solo) = 54 miles
05-09-2009 Mother's Day Eve Ride = 60 miles
05-06-2009 Goin' Green Ride = 66 miles
04-26-2009 Short Sunday Ride = 20 miles
04-24-2009 Short TGIF Ride = 20 miles
04-23-2009 First Sunset Ride = 64 miles
04-23-2009 = 7007 Miles
04-23-2009 Thursday Ride = 66 miles
04-22-2009 Artsy Fartsy Earth Day Ride = 74.5 miles
04-21-2009 Touristy Tuesday Ride = 50.5 miles
04-20-2009 This is more like it Monday Ride = 30 miles
04-19-2009 = 6674 Miles
04-19-2009 Sunday after Snow Day Ride = 124 miles
04-14-2009 Gray Tuesday Ride = 25 miles
04-13-2009 Monday After No Easter Ride = 33 miles
04-10-2009 Good Friday Ride = 165 miles
04-07-2009 First Day of April Ride = 22 miles
03-22-2009 Weekend Ride Day 2 = 97.5 miles
03-21-2009 Weekend Ride Day 1 = 200 miles
03-20-2009 First Day of Spring Ride = 15 miles
03-17-2009 Corn Beef and Cabbage Ride = 20 miles
03-15-2009 Sunday Out and About Ride = 140 miles
03-14-2009 Saturday Supper Ride = 32 miles
03-08-2009 Sunday in March Ride = 56 miles
03-04-2009 Lunch at Vern's Ride = 20 miles
03-03-2009 = 5656 Miles
03-02-2009 Blue Sky Monday Ride = 49 miles
03-01-2009 March is Here Ride = 137 miles
02-25-2009 Toss your troubles to the wind ride = 26 miles
02-24-2009 OH !!%^!!#!!^#!! Canyon Ride = 48 miles
02-22-2009 Not Too Cold to Ride = 80 miles
02-19-2009 = 5280 Mile High Mileage
02-19-2009 5000 Mile Maintenance
02-05-2009 Flatland Ride = 68 miles
02-04-2009 'Nother Dam Ride - Part 2 = 52 miles
02-03-2009 Tuesday Cruisin' = 44 miles
02-03-2009 = 5060 Miles
02-01-2009 Super Bowl Sunday Ride Brrr... = 36 miles
01-31-2009 Hurry - Cold Front Comin' Ride = 22 miles
01-22-2009 = 5000 Miles!
01-22-2009 'Nother Dam Ride = 63 miles
01-20-2009 Domesticity be Damned Ride = 57 miles
01-18-2009 Windy Sunday Ride = 36 miles
01-17-2009 Let's Get the Heck Out Ride = 33 miles
01-01-2009 New Year's Day Ride = 46 miles
01-01-2009 Beginning Mileage = 4643 miles

Visions of Harley rides dancing in my head...

December 30, 2009
Fort Collins, CO

OK! We live in cold country by choice. Colorado isn't as cold and snowy as some places (especially Texas/Oklahoma this year) but we can expect snow on the ground for a good bit of the winter. We like snow. Perhaps we don't like it as much now that we have the Harley. Ha! Normally we have snow in Northern Colorado that sits on the ground for a day or two and then disappears. Still, cold and snow set in early this year and Ol' Man Winter shows no signs of going away anytime soon. Worse, neighborhood streets are ice-packed now and we need a good, sunny, week long warm-spell to cure that problem.

So, we sit in front of the fire, drag out the road atlas and talk about rides we would like to do although we'd settle for the 20 mile Dam Ride right now. We look at the photos of last year's rides -- all the great places we visited and beautiful scenery we saw. We remember all the wonderful food we sampled along the way. We talk about places we would like to visit again and those we hope to visit. But, again, we'd settle for flat-landing it on the eastern plains.

Of course, we drag out the back issues of all our magazines, HOG, American Iron, etc., and make certain we have read all of the articles. We check out other motorcycle blogs and shop catalogs on-line and in-hand for - well, anything motorcycle related. Parts, tires, leathers. We both think we may read The Old Man and the Harley again. We watch motorcycle movies, even the bad ones.

We start The Ride and let it idle, sweet rumbling in our ears... we hook up the battery tender... we put the dust cover on and off... then on again. We clean and oil our leathers and boots. We sew on patches and place pins on our vests. We organize gloves and do-rags. We try on the do-rag we got for Christmas. We carefully plan how to best spend the Harley-Davidson gift card we got for Christmas. We tally our Harley points.

As a severe case of cabin fever sets in, we commiserate with our fellow bikers, forming an unofficial support group of sorts. We cheer if someone we know actually gets out of their driveway on two wheels. Are we pathetic or what?

Dad rides December 22, 2009 before Texas Christmas Blizzard

I said pathetic. We do have other things in our life - right? We have children and grandchildren, work, honey-do chores and hobbies, domestic stuff, cooking, cleaning, laundry - right? We have taxes to figure - ouch - right? We all have daily doses of drama that we must get through - right? If all else fails, we have headlines and politics over which to moan and groan.

I mean... good grief our entire lives are not centered on our motorcycles - right?

Right?

For Christmas we received a couple of Harley T-Shirts from Nashville, Tennessee from friends who visited there recently. The front of the T-Shirt says: Life Begins When You Get One. And that, my friends is the answer to the question.

Sure, our lives are full. We are surrounded with people and situations that need our attention. We muddle through the best we can...

Then, the sun breaks through the clouds of oppression, the ice and snow melt and the temperature rises enough to saddle up and ride. And ride, we will... because this - riding - is the one thing we do for ourselves... the one thing that gets us through the rest of it... the one thing necessary to our survival and ultimately, our sanity.

I think it may be a disease - riding - an affliction from which many of us happily and willingly suffer. So what?

LIFE BEGINS WHEN YOU GET ONE.

Merry Christmas

December 25, 2009
Fort Collins, CO

Nuff Said

December 20, 2009
Colorado, USA

A Different Christmas Poem

December 16, 2009
Fort Collins, CO



The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear..
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat..
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.."

" So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

---

Source: received via email
Video source: A Different Christmas Poem
Attributed to:
LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Bah! Humbug! We'd rather be riding...

December 13, 2009
Fort Collins, CO

We still have snow pack on our neighborhood streets here in northern Colorado so there's no riding until they clear up. We have not ridden since our trip to Texas over the Thanksgiving holiday. So... we've kept ourselves reluctantly busy with the business of the holidays, decorating and getting the house in order (all that stuff we put off while we had good riding weather - ha!). Bah! Humbug! We'd rather be riding...

But, today it was 74 degrees in Texas. Dad and some of his riding buddies took advantage of it. Dad hasn't ridden since Thanksgiving either but he made sure we knew how perfect the day was today for riding... rag... rag... rag... Ha! Some of our other Texas friends rode to Dallas to participate in the Snowball Express Ride ( a charity that seeks to provide special memories for the children of our fallen military heroes). Some even got to ride into the new Texas Stadium. Yeah - we're jealous. Sigh!


Dad riding out into the sunshine...


Molly waiting for her master to get home...


Dad riding in after a great December ride...

Remembering Our Heroes

December 12, 2009
Fort Collins, CO

Wreaths Across America Program to Adorn 151,000 Veteran Graves

For Morrill Worcester, this time of year is all about remembering the heroes who died protecting the United States, one wreath at a time.

Worcester, owner of the Worcester Wreath Company in Harrington, Maine, will be escorted on Sunday by Maine State Police, volunteers, and veteran bikers for the 18th annual Wreaths Across America program, which will lay more than 151,000 20-inch wreaths on headstones of veterans at Arlington National Cemetery, more than 400 state and national cemeteries nationwide, and 24 cemeteries on foreign soil on Dec. 12.

What began as one man's way to honor veterans with 5,000 wreaths in 1992 has blossomed into a national nonprofit organization with more than 100,000 wreaths sponsored by individuals, businesses and community groups from Maine to Alaska.

Source: Fox News Wreaths Across America Day 2009

Sigh!

December 11, 2009
Fort Collins, CO