Featured Rideout First Group Ride In Months! I "rode" My Mustang.

Thanks, Bikerman! Sorry about your crummy weather. I grew up in Minnesota and it was always so disappointing to wait for summer to arrive through six months of winter then have frequent rain and thunderstorms and the occasional tornado. As I've said before, I'll take the desert weather over that. The heat can get oppressive but at least you can get outdoors to do things if you go early in the morning.

Check out the sun icon for the upcoming week. And I always say that, thanks to our low humidity, it usually feels about 10ºF cooler than the temperatures indicate here. So having highs in the 90ºs is actually quite comfortable.

 

That's a terrific idea, DD! I'm a big fan of the "out of sight out of mind" method (which is evident when I open my closet door). I also like your "conversion" of my Mustang's mpg to reflect gas prices. I like the way you think. Let me qualify that. I USUALLY like the way you think. Sometimes though....

Are these Tucson gas prices per gallon 66% less than you're currently paying across the pond? Compared to what we're used to over the past several years, these prices are considered cheap for us. Of course, with COVID we're not really going anywhere to take advantage of them.

 

Ok, I need a translation please. That's the second time that someone has responded to one of my posts with "you can go off people you know". I googled it and am a bit worried now.

 

Yep, that's per US gallon, DD! Those prices are low even for us. But even when our prices have been at their highest, I usually don't fret over the price because, yes, we either buy it or we don't.

 

Glad I can bring back some of those fond memories of Mt. Lemmon, Don!

 

Glad you enjoyed the write-up and photos, Dawsy! And thanks for the translation. And the well wishes, too.

 

Ahh, thanks Smilinjack. With your translation/explanation along with that of @Dawsy, I think I have a reasonable or at least rudimentary understanding of the phrase now. Of course, I suspect something will still be lost in translation, particularly without the benefit of voice tone and inflection, facial expression, etc. Oh, and cultural context, too. It's fascinating to me that we're all speaking (well, typing) English but it can be so different!

 

Yep, life is good, @Hobnail! Well, apart from a pandemic and worldwide protests. I do strive to count my (many!) blessings daily.

 

Thanks, Joe! I'm really glad you liked my story about our Mt. Lemmon ride/drive this past week and the photos I posted along with it. It is truly my pleasure to do these write ups for the forum and I quite enjoying thinking about what might be of interest to and enjoyed by my forum friends when I am out on some sort of motorcycle-related adventure. Yes, the rest will come with time like the bike and tours as you said.

Speaking of the bike and tours, today would have been Day #1 of our big summer motorcycle trip if not for a the pandemic and my crash. We had planned to ride about 2,000 miles through northern Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. And although I'm not yet fit to ride, I'd have probably taken the Mustang with the group and gone anyway. But the seven of us decided a couple of months ago that even if hotels and restaurants and other things started opening by our departure date, we just wouldn't feel comfortable being out for eight days and 2K miles and going through four different states. So we're considering our trip "postponed" rather than cancelled and will give it a go again next year.

We are hoping to do some sort of motorcycle trip this fall and we're toying with riding up into southern Utah some of the national parks there. For the past five years we've ridden to Las Vegas Bike Fest in early October but we just can't see being in old Vegas with wall-to-wall people on Fremont Street. Vegas Bike Fest has become one of my favorite annual motorcycle events but I think we'll be missing it in 2020. Anyway, as it is so difficult to know what tomorrow will bring these days--much less what four months will bring--we shall see.

 

Bloody virus is right, @Bikerman. I'm trying not to spend time or waste energy being sad and angry about all of this lost time that we'll never get back.

We'll definitely do the same trip next fall or summer that we'd be on at this very moment or a version of it. And in the meantime, perhaps I'll get a bit of new camera gear and maybe figure out how to use a GoPro to do a bit of video or photos from the bike while riding. I've always thought that might be fun because I always see great stuff while we're moving and think, "Hey, that would be a GREAT photo"! Gotta look for those silver linings.......

 

@joe mc donald
Thanks for the positive comments and encouragement, Joe! Yes, there is always next year (hopefully!) and the beautiful roads and places we love in the Southwest will be there waiting for us. And, yes, I will be physically is a much better place as well.

I'm really sorry that you had to postpone your trip to Scotland. Will you be able to reschedule it for some point in the future? Yes, I know that many have had to postpone or cancel trips. As Bikerman said, "bloody virus". Well, at least we're healthy and don't have the bloody virus.