Sunday, June 22, 2008

Eagle Brook Riders in the Rain

Eagle Brook Church has a motorcycle group: Eagle Brook Riders (formerly known as Velocity Riders). Every spring, summer, and fall there are scheduled rides. So far this year, David and I haven't made many because of his heavy traveling schedule. But we decided to go today. It was planned as a long ride (230+ miles).

The day started sunny with little innocuous puffy white clouds against a blue, blue sky. I forgot to count the number of bikes but it was a couple dozen or so. Here we're resting our arses after the first hour or so.


This is David's Gold Wing 1500. I, of course, sit behind and am referred to as a "co-rider" in the Gold Wing circles. I used to drive a little Kawasaki 120. This is nothing like that. Relaxing, for me at least.

At the half-way point, the group stopped at Hansen's Hold-Up. It's a great little place situated on the top of a hill. David is standing next to a PVC pipe saguaro (sawarro) cactus statue. The valley in the background seems to go almost forever. We're looking mostly south here.

Here's a list of the specials for the day. David had the pulled pork and I had the Philly beef. It took a LONG time for our food to arrive but we did all show up at the same time and there were other people there as well. The food was well worth the wait.

And we don't want to forget the current traveling socks. These are, I think, Lorna's Laces in her Black Watch colorway. Thinner yarn than I'm used to on size 2 45-in. flexible needle. Can't wait to finish them. What I like about knitting socks is they are portable. I got a couple rounds done while we waited for our food.

David stood in line to place our order and is seen here looking out the window at the weather.

It looked rather gray when we arrived.

The rain started to fall.

This is our ride captain for the day, John, taking photos of David taking photos. John is part of an organization that raises money for a surgeon to travel the world and reconstruct children's faces. See www.rideforsmiles.com for more information or if you'd like to contribute. John will be going on a 30-day fund-raising ride. He is paying all his own expenses and taking pledges for the miles he will be traveling.

The rain came from smallish black clouds moving at a fair clip. Several passed over us, and our bikes, while we ate. David had found a nice covered location and spoke to the owners of that space when we left. They were quite nice about it. (I guess David is into forgiveness rather than permission.)

When there was a break in the weather and we'd finished eating, David and I took off and drove straight west. That was a good idea. Except for a few rather light sprinkles, we stayed pretty dry all the way home.

As always after a ride like this, I'm pooped. A nice hot shower to wash off a little road grit and a Cuba Libre (made with Appleton VX and [I'm sorry...] caffeine-free diet coke), I summoned the energy to write this blog.

Now I will load my home printer driver onto my work laptop before I lose administrative rights. Pentair is pretty careful about what is loaded onto their machines. But the fellow who built the machine for me suggested I load my home printer driver so I can print things at home if I need them. Thanks Marco.

Then I'm off to bed early. All that fresh air is just too much for me. By the way, my shoulder did well on the trip. Full-strength Motrin is a wonderful thing (if you ignore the flatulence it causes [Gas-X seems to help some]).

1 comment:

MNLacer said...

It sounds like it was a nice ride until the rain. I was chased inside by an instability shower about 2 p.m. or so yesterday afternoon. It was intense but short. I was able to mow the lawn later because the lawn was dry. Betty