Natasha Rides

Last Saturday Rus and I hired a sitter and met up with the local motorcycle gang.
The over forty gang. (Rus and I brought down the average significantly).
Riding dual sports (mostly).
Organized by Rus's dad via adventure rider dot com.
We rode up to Lamy, NM, which is just southeast of Santa Fe, where Rus's mom and friends had lunch ready. Then we saw the Lamy train station and made the loop back around through Stanley and Edgewood to Cedar Crest, where our Astro van was parked. Rus says, "What's more manly that a minivan? TWO minivans! And loading two motorcycles in one of them!" It's true...we had both bikes in there, easy as pie, and we felt pretty cool about it too.
It was really, really fun and hot and pretty much exhausting. Who knew?!
I actually rode on roads with traffic and everything. I swear using my blinker has been the most difficult skill to master on that bike. My favorite part of the ride was a winding dirt road with lots of cattle guards. When my butt got numb I just stood up on the bike and welcomed the breeze. :)
Did I mention my bike tops out at 55 mph, 60 if I push it? And look at me..."my" bike...I've already grown attached. It's actually Rus's seventy+year-old uncle's bike. We were admittedly kinda happy to hear that he broke his hand punching a dog who was chewing on his dog's ear...now we can keep the bike a little longer. (Sorry, Uncle Lloyd about your hand!)
Anywho...here are some pictures as proof...Don't Rus and I look hot? No really. It was close to 100 degrees. I'm sporting Rus's mom's motorcycle jacket. She doesn't ride, but Roger is slowly getting her into the sport, fashion first. Want some interesting trivia on this picture (below)? The guy behind me in the blue only has one eye. He got a little out of control going around a corner right after a cattle guard, slowed down significantly, and just barely missed getting hit by the chic behind him in the red. She was not so lucky, however, and dumped her bike to avoid hitting him. I missed seeing all of this, darnit, as they were behind me, but everyone was okay, just some scrapes and no permanent damage.
In case you are curious, we are still working on our themes...last week was transportation and we went to the ABQ balloon museum where they have free storytime (and thus free entrance) every Wednesday morning at 9:30. The kids had fun; I was kind of a grump...something about them running off every two minutes. We also made box-cars one day...that was pretty much it. This week is sports and we have started swim lessons and we're planning a big family baseball game. We're going to learn about bones and muscles and we're going to try different exercise videos. Should be lotsa fun...