Dumb, Dumb, DUMB!

I returned from NH yesterday to find that there had been a ton of rain over the weekend, and just about all of the snow was gone. Nice! Even better; the roads were washed clean of salt!! Double-Nice!! And since I have this week off from work…and since the weather forecast was for sleet, snow and ice to move in later today, the only sensible thing to do was to take the bike out for some more 2009 miles! Yeeeaahhh!!

I rolled the bike out and she came quickly to life. Bundled up to ward off the high-30 degree temps, I rolled out to lay claim to some more mileage. But where to go? I headed down some side roads and meandered my way through some neighboring towns. My unscripted path brought me to a major interstate highway so I thought what the hell, I’ll jump on and see where I wind up.

And this was the beginning of today’s stupidity. Why? Because there was a major weather pattern approaching, and I knew it. I knew what the weather pattern entailed, and I knew what direction it was coming from. And yet, I didn’t bother to think about that as I proceeded on my merry way…away from the approaching pattern.

Discarding each exit ramp as it was offered up to me, I opted instead to continue along the highway, further and further away from home, and further and further away from the approaching weather pattern.

After a while, I found that I was only about 30 miles away from the Cape so I figured what the hell, I’ll hit that, cross over the bridge, ride a bit south, pick up the other bridge to cross back into Mass and head home.

My low-gas indicator lamp came on so I signaled my intent to peel off at the last exit before the bridge to refuel. Exiting the highway, I looped back towards the direction I’d been coming from…and was greeted by a nasty, gray sky. WTF! Idiot! That weather pattern has been chasing you the whole way, and now you have to ride back through it to get home!

I gassed up as fast as I could and, even though I was only 2 miles away from the Cape, I decided to forgo my plan of heading further east. Instead, I hopped back onto the highway I’d just deserted, aimed my bike homewards and hammered the throttle.

Success was not to be mine on this day. I hadn’t made it more than 10 miles before the skies opened up and doused me with near-ice water. Visibility was excellent…ok, I’m lying; it wasn’t good at all. Thankfully, traffic was fairly light so I was able to maintain a solid, hard pace. It would have been humorous to look around and witness what I’m sure must have been some interesting looks from the cages as this motorcycle passed them by, but I figured I’d filled my stupidity quota for the day, and therefore; I was better off keeping my eyes focused on the pavement in front of me.

Eventually, I managed to make it home – soaked and frozen to the bone. The precipitation was actually turning to snow just as I rolled the bike into the garage, so perhaps a bit of luck was on my side after all.

I still can’t believe I was that dumb, though. A cardinal rule; if you don’t have a specific destination to head for, and are just f’ing around, then you always head towards the storm. That way, as soon as the weather starts to turn against you, you do a U-turn and enjoy dry riding for your trip home.

But hey, I got about 150 miles on – not bad for the end of December!! Woo-Hoo!! (And judging from the forecasts for the upcoming week - arctic air coming in, black ice on roads - they’ll probably be the last miles for this year.)

Here’s hoping everyone had a great Christmas, and that you all have a fun and safe New Year’s!

Ho Ho Ho

It’s Christmas season! Time for brightly lit houses and colorfully wrapped presents! Time for decorated trees! Fluffy white snowflakes! Frosty breath…and chilled fingertips... Icy footing and windshield scraping. Last minute runs to the stores for forgotten presents…hard elbows and throat-punches to the old ladies who try and cut you in line… Big fat men shoving their asses down your chimney, only to leave a big pile of black coal in your stocking! (Ok; my stocking.)

So with all of this going on, it’s a nice surprise when you open a Christmas card and two beers fall out. That’s right; I said two beers fell out!! What’s that? How do you mail two beers in a Christmas card? Simple; you disguise them as VFW beer tokens! Thanks Coose & Mary!!

Wheee! Beer Tokens!! And since they originated from the Olean VFW, the only proper thing to do is return them from whence they came. Wheee, beer trip to Olean!

(Although, since we just got almost a foot and a half of snow dumped on us, the trip will have to wait for a bit.)

Here’s hoping everyone has a great Christmas!

Wheee, beer tokens!! :-D

The Return of Eddie!

Had a picture text from Mary out in NY earlier today and had to get the pic posted up here while I had a break at work.

You may remember Eddie from way back when Zig and I did our Sturgis trip. On our return leg, we were hanging in Olean for a few days and got introduced to Eddie, the Wonder Dog. Eddie has this great trick where he drags his nuggets across the carpet on command - how hilarious is that?!?! As much fun as that is, he also has a G-rated trick, where he plays dead on command. Point your finger, say "Eddie! Bang!" and he drops. Too cool! Eddie's last appearance on this blog was a couple of months ago, nearing Halloween, and he was dressed as Batman's trusty sidekick; BatDog.

Well here he is once again, this time he's dressed for the upcoming holiday.

Mary titled it; "Bark the Herald, Angels sing". That's a frikkin' riot! (Eddie doesn't seem to share the same level of appreciation for wit and humor, though...)

Santa is coming, so hopefully everyone out there is being nice. (Although, a little 'naughty' every now and then isn't so bad, either!)

Ok, back to work...

Fingers Crossed

We've dodged the bullet for quite a while now. It's already December and the only snow we've had so far this season, is a one-day heavy dusting back in October (which thankfully disappeared later that same day).

All that may change though...the weather reports are calling for snow later today. Originally they were saying just a dusting, but as time dragged along, those reports have been upgraded; first to a couple of inches, and now to maybe even 4 or 5 inches. The end of the world? Certainly not, but it may be the end of 2009's riding season. Time will tell...

But instead of pining the time away, I figured it was better to hit the road and roll up some more smiles before the white flakes had a chance to visit. A few errands after work, a bit of time spent at the gym (to work off some of the ice cream diet I've been on lately), and it was the open roadways for me. I was hoping the late hour (look at the time-stamp on this post to get an idea) would equate to paths of pavement free and clear of most traffic, and while this proved to be the case in many instances, I did encounter something I hadn't prepared for; traffic control. See, most of the lights around here seem to set to switch back and forth between red & green at the most inopportune moment, leading to many rabbit starts, followed quickly by rapid decelerations. Damn these infernal colored contraptions!

The temps were floating around 40 degrees and the clean crisp air did much to alleviate the stress of the aforementioned stoplight interruptions. Pacing myself, and with no real direction or destination in mind, I purposely got lost several times. I'd take educated guesses and just keep going until I came across something familiar, be it an interstate highway marker or a town line signpost.

Eventually the temps began to wear on my fingers (I forgot to bring my heavy gloves, dammit) so I headed for home and just pulled in about a half hour ago. Final tally; a few hours and maybe a hundred miles or so. Not a lot, granted, but most of the paths I traveled were inter-town roadways, complete with posted speed restrictions, so all in all; not too shabby.

Time to get some sleepy-sleep and have dreams of bright sunshine, bored-out motors and wind-whipped faces. I would say "with any luck, we won't get much snow", but we've had tremendous luck so far and it would be arrogant to expect more.

But there may be more riding to be done yet this year, so I'll still be keeping my fingers crossed...

Ride Hard, Take Chances.