Here She Is

I love it!

AWESOME!!!!

WOW!! Got the bike back today and the custom paint job is awesome! I will post a picture tomorrow. Got home to late today to take one. It is still red, but now it is candy red with gold flake. It has the Maltese cross on it as well as some great flames. Can't wait to show it off to everyone.

Ready to go again!

Well, we have decided on a destination and time for our next trip. September 20th we will head out to Las Vegas. This is going to be a long ride, and probably not overall as relaxing as the last one, but we want to give it a shot. Last trip was 1644 round trip, this one will be 1303 one way. Instead of several days of 150-200 mile rides, this is going to be 3 hard days there, 2 days to stay and 3 hard days back. That gives us one day to recoup after we get back home or to have an extra day for unforseen problems. Each days ride will average about 430 miles. I think the most we have riden in one day before is about 300 miles. That day we just stayed local and rode for about 12 hours, with LOTS of stops. We are going to need to try to ride about 8 hours a day, so that still leaves some time for stops, but just not as many.

We figure Saturday will be home to Roswell, New Mexico, Sunday will be Roswell to Flagstaff, Arizona and Monday Flagstaff to Vegas. Tuesday and Wednesday in Vegas and then leaving to come home on Thursday. Vegas to Gallup, New Mexico, Friday Gallup to Carlsbad, New Mexico and Saturday, Carlsbad to home.

I have talked to James and Eric to see if they are up for a road trip. It would be pretty cool to have them with us. Also, it would make packing not such a problem if we had the trunk of one of their cars to throw stuff in. They are going to give it some thought and get back to me later. While my boys have always loved our vacations, road trips have never been the part they cared for much. They say it is not the destination, but the trip that is supposed to matter, but for them I think it has always been the destination. Luckily, they do want to go back to Vegas, so the destination may be enough to get them to go on the trip with us. Also, the last road trips they went on, they were just passengers, now they will be the drivers so maybe that will be more tempting to them. I wish DJ was 21, it would be more fun to have all 3 of them, but it would be such a bore to him as they will just kick him out of everywhere we are, just like they did Katy.

Mothers Day

Well, it is Mothers Day and I am enjoying my morning all by myself. Eric called to wish me Happy Mothers Day, but he is not going to make it up this time. James and Katy will be up later. DJ and Darryl are both still asleep.

Mom and Mac are also going to come over later and we are all going to eat some BBQ chicken and homemade ice cream.

Here ya go

Well it looks like it is a good thing we headed home yesterday. We hit no rain yesterday and it started raining last night here and is headed east. Also much colder today. It would have been a rough ride.

Putting the pictures directly on the blog is not working for me. To much rearranging every time I post a new one, so I am going to try the slide show. Hope that works........

Well several hours later and I still cannot get it to work. I am tired of trying today. May try again later. Or I may just change the other picture that I already have on the blog daily until I run out of pics................

There's no place like home

Well we are home and safe. I know that on Thursday I said that we were so disappointed that the trip was almost over, but today about 1/3 of the way home it dawned on me that it will be nice to be somewhere where you don't have to worry about having clean underwear and socks!!!



This morning when we woke up we made a decision based on the forecast of 30% chance of rain today and 80% chance tomorrow to go ahead and head home today. Sadly that meant that we were not able to spend the night with Patsy and Damon. We did stop in for a short visit and they took us out to lunch. Thanks for lunch, by the way. :) If we win the lottery, how about we buy you a trike



Ending mileage is 7820. That makes it 1644 total for the trip. All I can say is "When can we do it again?" I bought a T-shirt while we were gone that says "To ride or not to ride? Stupid question." That pretty much sums it up for me.



Tomorrow I will load some of our pictures on here and give you some more details on the trip. Until then, I am going to chill!

Not much to add today

We did not make it as far as Patsy's today. The weather was a little iffy and we spend some time dodging it. Also got delayed by some road construction. And by my not being able to pick out a shirt at the Baton Rouge HD. Ended up with nothing and spent an hour deciding on that. Stupid me.

We ended up in Kinder for the night and decided to get a few more points added to our Club card at Coushatta. That was all we did. Did not win anything.

We also had their crawfish buffet and Darryl enjoyed eating those. I spent most of my time trying not to look at the carcases he left behind. YUK!!

We will definitely be spending tomorrow night with Patsy. Will give you another update then.

Lovin Every Minute Of It!

OK, let me start off by saying, that the lists are supposed to be in somewhat chronological order. That being said, I would also like to say that my boys are ALWAYS #1 on my list, as they very well know. Then I also could add, that you boys could be added to the smelly list as you all stunk like bait that night!

Now, back to the trip. I would like to say that Darryl and I may have a very hard time leaving Louisiana. No, really, I mean it. We have driven out of our way twice trying to leave a town, but always going the wrong way. Hope we can find our way back to Texas.

Tuesday morning, we got up and headed out of Houma. We drove about 15 miles in the wrong direction before we figured that out. However that worked out OK as we encountered the man in the gray Mitsubishi Mirage, (see Smelly list), on our way back thru Houma. We followed, him for many a mile, just could not seem to get around him. And I would like to add that while second hand smoke may cause cancer, it does not cause you to get stoned at 40 miles an hour.

Then we headed up River Road with the intention of seeing several plantation homes up that way. The first one we stopped at, Laura Plantation, turned out to be the only one we had time to tour, but it was well worth it. I learned more in that hour and a half tour than I did in all my history classes. I would highly recommend it to anyone who might head this direction. We then drove on by the other ones and I got a few pictures from the road, but it looked like it was going to rain so we decided to head on in to New Orleans.

We did end up getting rained on slightly, but made it into New Orleans around 6:00. So we had to fight rush hour traffic, but it was not horrible. Got to the hotel and discovered that expensive hotels intend for you to pay for everything! No free Internet here as I had in the nice, more moderate hotels. Even though I really paid more for them than I did the Marriott in N.O. I bid on it on Priceline and got it fairly cheap, so I was not going to pay about 25.00 a day to use the Internet.

We walked for a while down on Bourbon Street and discovered quickly that you should not stop and talk to anyone that appears to be wanting to give you something. We had spent 13.00 in less than 5 mins on free stuff. Other than that, it was an interesting place. Basically an Austin 6TH street with strip clubs. And it stunk!!! In fact the whole French Quarter stunk. I wish I could say it smelled like a French whore, but that was not it at all (see smelly list). We were pretty tired, so we did not stay out late. Went back to the hotel and rented the movie The Bucket List. Would also recommend that to anyone. Good movie, but you almost can't go wrong with those 2 stars.

Wednesday morning we got up and walked down to Cafe De Mondes and ate beignets. They were great! Then we walked around town for a while and ended up taking a walking tour of the #1 Cemetery and the Voodoo world of New Orleans, while bits of it were informative and interesting, over all I would not say it was worth it. I did leave an offering at Marie Laveau's tomb and ask a favor of her, but Darryl says I was not paying attention to the instructions. If the wish comes true, you are supposed to come back and thank her. My wish was for a safe ride home. So now, I guess that means we will have to come back and then I can wish the same wish again and then a revolving circle would begin........

We also saw a real live, practicing Voodoo Priestess. I think she is supposed to be a very famous person in those realms as she has interviews from various big name news papers as well as info about her being interviewed for TV several times in her shop. But, I agree with Darryl that I think she was just very stoned. Maybe if you had a lot of time to spend with her on an individual basis she would be more clairvoyant. Maybe it was just that with 9 people there we had her very confused.................

After that, we went to Harrahs and threw away a few dollars. It is always fun to do that! Then we went back down to Bourbon Street, found a cool bar and hung out there for a while. It was called Fat Catz Music Club. The band we listened to was The Connection. They played a lot of old school rock and funk and they were really good. They had a 9 piece band crammed onto a little stage. We listened to them for about 2 hours and they never took a break. I guess they realize that down there, with no cover charge in most bars, that if the band stops, you leave and go to the next bar.

During the night sometime, Darryl and I both were awakened by a loud noise. Not being able to figure out what it was we went back to sleep. Then at about 5 am, he got up to go to the bathroom and discovered that a ceiling tile in the bathroom had gotten soaked, from a leak above it and had fallen into the bathtub. Since it would keep us from showering in the morning, we called the front desk and they sent someone up to take care of it. About 30 mins after we were able to go back to sleep, the front desk calls and wakes us up to ask if it was taken care of.......... We got up shortly after that.

When we woke up we immediately felt let down. It was over. The trip off to new places was done. It was time to start heading home.

But once again, we went in circles before getting out of town. Then we headed down south for one last look at the bayous and the ocean. We had a nice day riding, but did not see much new or interesting. Also the wind was blowing pretty good and that makes the ride a lot more tiresome.
We ended up back in Houma for the night and will head out to Patsy's tomorrow. We will call you, Patsy, if we are not going to be there tomorrow night, but that is our plan. Probably won't be til late in the afternoon or early in the evening, so don't plan dinner for us.

Love you all, but not looking forward to getting back to the same old grind. I am trying to win the Power Ball lottery while I am here. It is up to 144 mil.

There is a HD dealership right next door to the hotel and they had some party tonight and we went over and bought some stuff. I think the sticker I bought for my helmet says it all.
"For some there is therapy, for the rest of us there are motorcycles."

Ending mileage today is 7201, which makes a total of 1025 for the trip so far...........

Eric here~

They are in Louisiana at some big fancy expensive hotel that doesnt have free computer use (LAME) and wont be able to post till Thursday.

So here is an alligator.
Alligators apparently rank 24th on the list of cool things they saw so far.... With us boys coming in at a paltry 20... And a random running squirrel taking the lead at number 1!

Hey, I guess the good news is we didnt make it on the list of things they 'Smelled'.

Oh and a Minature Horse came it at number 10.... What ever 'Minature' means. o.O?

=D

3 Days and I don't think I am ever coming back.....

....well, not until the money runs out anyway. :) This is so much fun. No schedule, nothing that we have to do or anyplace we have to be.

OK, Eric, I fixed as much of the spelling as I could find. And grammar, no one in LA cares about grammar!! The last computer was just not up to my speed. Thanks for starting my lists for me Eric!

Ending mileage today was 6868. That makes 692 miles so far.

Today we started out about 9:20. We left the hotel and were going to tour the Shadow on the Teche, it is an old plantation house where a Civil War battle was fought, but well Old People think differently than us younger people. They had 2 tour buses pull in just before us and she could not figure out how to put us on the tour with them. Even though it was not a private booked tour, it was just too many people for her to figure out how to handle at once. She asked if we would mind coming back later. When we explained that we were just passing through and it had to be now or never, her attitude was "Oh, well."

So we left there and went to Avery Island. It is where they make McIlhenney Tabasco Sauce. It turned out to be a very nice experience and way more interesting than I thought it would be. They had pictures of what Hurricane Rita did to the island. The island is on top of a salt mine and they use the salt from the mines to make the sauce. They also grow some of the peppers right there on the island. It also has gardens and a bird refuge. They are the reason the snowy egret did not become extinct.

Speaking of Rita, everyone still talks about what damage is still in New Orleans from Katrina, but you should see the damage still left from Rita. On the first day in LA, all along 82, there was foundation after foundation with houses missing and nice brick houses that were empty except for the weeds that were growing through were the windows and doors used to be. It was very sad. We stopped in one store and they said the phones are still not on where they can be depended upon. The fire stations do not have paging capabilities still.

Back to today. After Avery Island, we rode down to Houma and went to the Harley Dealership here. It was a nice one and I got 2 shirts here!!! Then we went to Munsons Swamp Tours and went on a 2 hour swamp ride. Saw a lot more gators, but nothing too big. But they fed them off the boat so we got to see them up close. They are pretty scary looking.

Now we are going to just stay the night in Houma. Our plan for tomorrow is to go up to Donaldson and follow the river road back south to New Orleans. That is suppose to be where all the plantations are. It is supposed to be a very nice ride. Then we will spend the night in New Orleans.

Love and miss you all!!

2 Days and Still Rolling!

Sorry I was not able to post anything yesterday, but more on that later.

We left Spicewood about 9:00 Saturday Morning. Had to stop in at Vee Dub so Darryl could leave some last min instructions. Then we stopped in Bastrop at the Texas Grill and had breakfast about 10:40. They have great omelets. Left there and continued on 71 to El Campo. A little ways out of there we headed east towards Angleton. Stopped in at Goe Harly Davidson and Darryl got a cool T-Shirt. I could not get anything because it seems that in Angleton all Harley chicks are either Small, X Small or 1, 2 or 3 X Large. No Medium or Large Women for Angleton!!

We got to Galveston Island about 4:00. Texted the boys to see where they were and they were all at Eric's in Houston. They headed our way and we headed to the hotel to check in. Well that is when things got interesting. It seems this weekend was some big beach party weekend for rapper gangsta wannabes and hooker looking chicks. There were thousands of them all lined up on both sides of the sea wall just sitting/standing in/by their tricked out piece of crap cars staring across the road at each other. Lined up in the middle turn lane was every cop or law enforcement official in Galveston County. It was not a real comfortable feeling riding through them to the Hotel. Which also turned out to be a piece of crap. We stayed at the Flagship, which is the hotel that is out over the ocean. In the words of another one of the guests, "Bet this place really rocked back when Elvis was alive." Unfortunately, they have done little to upgrade or even maintain it since them. So that also means there was no way for me to update the blog.

After checking in, we met the boys back on the other end of the island, riding back through the freak show again, at Nate's West End Steak and Seafood. While I really enjoyed the dinner with the boys and Katy, the place itself was over priced for the quality of food you got.

Then we all went down to the 61st Street Pier and everyone but me fished for a while. Katy caught the first fish and I think stayed in the lead for the night. Darryl also caught quite a few and some were even keeper size so we gave them away to some other fishers on the pier. DJ and James had a little bit of trouble catching any, but they caught a few. All in all I think we just all enjoyed the time together. Darryl and I left around 11:30 and headed back to the hotel. The boys stayed for a while and then I am not sure what they did.

Once again the ride back was scary, even more so this time as a few of them decided to notice us and yell a few comments to us. But we made it back to the room and then the real partying started. Not us, them. It sounded like about half of them had rooms on our same floor and they were running up and down the hallways yelling at each other until about 4:30 in the morning when they had to call an ambulance for one girl for some reason. Then things quieted down for a while. Then about 8:00 they started feeding the sea gulls right above our room and that was the end of the sleeping. We ended the first days trip with exactly 6500 miles showing on the bike.

Sunday after we got up, we ate some of their continental breakfast and finally left Hotel Hell about 10:20. Road the ferry out of Galveston and got into Louisiana about 12:00. Had to cross a couple of BIG ASS bridges to do so and I was not thrilled with that. Gas in Johnson Bayou was 3.95 a gallon. The highest we have seen on the trip so far. Also talked to our first Cajuns there and I have to say, all of the Louisianans I have talked to so far make me ashamed of my fellow Texans. We are supposed to be so friendly in Texas, but these guys have been by far the friendliest people I have met so far. Very talkative and enjoyable to listen to.

I saw our first alligator somewhere about 2:30 this afternoon. I was so excited and could not understand why Darryl would not turn back around to go see it. It was one of the things he was most looking forward to about this trip. Saw another, bigger one about 30 mins later and again he would not turn around. What was going on????? Then we stopped for gas in Grand Chenier and he forgot to fasten his helmet back. He pulled over and stopped the bike by one of the many bayou bogs/ponds/gullys that were all along the road and we heard a big splash. Low and behold it was about a 4 foot gator that was swimming away from us. For a short distance. Then it decided to swim back towards us. We quickly got back on the bike and then saw another one out in the water by the first one. Darryl thought it was "Awesome!". I told him, see I told you I was seeing them. He tells me he did not believe me. Thought I was just seeing logs or something!!!!!!!!!

We made it to New Iberia about 5:00 and stopped here for the night. It seems like a very friendly nice town although everything is closed on Sundays and we could not try any local food tonight, so it was Chili's for dinner. I think that is it for the night. Ending mileage today is 6741. Check out the lists I am making for the trip. Things we saw and Things we smelled. Bike riding makes all senses seem more in depth, and sometimes as in the first list, that is good and sometimes, as in the second list, that is bad. OK, well as it turns out, this computer has some funky settings and will not let me get to where I need to so I can add a list. MAYBE.......Eric can add the list titles and then it will let me edit them......... Have to check back later. Also, I will be adding a slide show of the cool pics we are taking when we get back home.

It Begins!!!

Well, tomorrow we will be off and running. Or I should say biking I guess. We will be leaving about 9 or so in the morning and we will be spending the first night in Galveston. In fact, we will be meeting all the boys there as they are planning on going fishing. We will all get together for dinner, which will be the first time since Christmas we have all been together. I sure love my boys!

Starting mileage is 6176!

Bye Bye Cougar

I think we are going to be getting rid of the cougar. We have not had any time to work on it for a very long time and now if we have time, we are going to be spending it on the bike. So I am going to kiss that dream good bye for now. I have the Mustang after all and while it may not be a classic hot rod, it is still a blast to drive and definitly a hot rod. In fact, DJ got a ticket in it today............88 in a 70. So suffice it to say he is back to driving the rabbit for now.
We have had the cougar on craigs list for a few days and I think I have a serious buyer, so the car should be gone on Wednesday.

One more thing

Oh, an update on DJ is in order I guess. We heard from the doctor and nothing is torn. We may still end up getting the surgery done to tighten the muscle, but he may just do rehab also.

Well I have not posted anything in a while for 2 reasons. One I don't think anyone is reading it anyway and two, I have not had much to say. But yesterday we went on another great bike ride. I really love riding that bike!!! I can not wait until the 19th when we head out for a whole week on it. We are going to stay the first night in Galveston and then spend a couple of days following the coast line and ending up in New Orleans. We will spend a couple of nights there and then maybe head on into Biloxi. Then back home again.

Yesterday we also had dinner with James and Katy and went to see Horton Hears a Who. I really liked it, but I am not sure anyone else was impressed. The animation was great. I think it was one of those movies that the more you watch, the more you will see in it. I also really enjoyed spending the time with James and Katy. Spending time with my kids is my number one thing to do. Even the bike takes backstage to that.

Nice Weekend

Well, we have had a busy and tiring weekend, but it was very nice.
Saturday we rode to Smithville for a biker rally they had. It was the first rally we have gone to and not exactly what I was expecting. But then again we were not there at night time when I assume everyone gets the drunkest and roudiest. It was really very tame while we were there. There are so many different kinds of bikers! It was a great place for a people watcher to just set back and speculate about everyone else that was there.
The weather was awesome! It was the first 90 degree day of the year and that was perfect for riding. Before it got to late, we rode on to Rockdale and spent the night in an old restored motel there that Geoff told me about, The Rainbow Courts Motel. It was also very nice.
The ride back home this morning was not so nice. The wind was horrible and the temp was on the cold side. I did buy me a new leather jacket at the rally and it was nice having it on the ride.
When we got home Tim was here working on the wall in our bedroom that was rotting away. Darryl helped him finish it up. Now we need to plan a weekend to piant the house!!

He's Home!!

DJ made it home today. He flew in about 4:00 PM. He really seems to be OK. We will have to see what the docs say when we get to see them in a week and a half. He has not changed a bit. I know he has only been gone a month, but it feels like much longer and I really have missed him.

Thursday

DJ should be on his way home on Thursday. We don't know exactly when he will be here, but he is supposed to leave there sometime on Thursday. He is coming home a little worse than when he left. Besides the messed up shoulder, he also now has a broken hand. Go figure. I am just going to be glad to see him again. I have really missed him.

Nothing much new to report other than that. Darryl is out on a big fire in Blanco County right now and he will probably be there most of the night.

Nice Weekend

Yesterday was a beautiful day!! Darryl and I went for a MC ride up 1431 past Turkey Bend to a road named Cow Creek. Grandma Jean had told us about how pretty a drive it was and she was right. You follow a beautiful creek for about 7 miles or so, and then end up on another road that winds back around to 1431. Then we took 281 all the way up to Blanco. It was a great day for a ride.

Then last night I went to see Fools Gold with Martha. It was a good movie, it just could have told the story in about 20 mins less time and it would have been a better movie.

Now today, I think I am just going to have a relaxing day around the house. I am going to do laundry, read my book, maybe watch a little TV and if it warms up enough this afternoon before the cold front hits I might work in my gardens for a while. It is about all Grandma Duffy can do to keep up with her own, so mine have gotten pretty grown over. But I hope to clean them out and get them looking as nice as she used to keep them.

Darryl is up at the fire hall. They have some cleanup work to do as they are going to use the fire hall as the place to vote this year.

DJ called again yesterday and he should be home on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. We don't have the details yet, but I will keep you posted.

TGIF

Well not much new today. It is raining here now and Dad is out working a wreck....... not a bad one, he should be home soon.

The cats could not seem to wait to meet each other last night, so Harley snuck out of the bathroom and before I knew it they were already playing around. They seemed to have survived their first day together without killing each other.

If I forgot any one's birthday, let me know and I will update it.

Let's see what tomorrow brings...........

Deej & Harley

Got 4 more letters from DJ today. It is not going so well for him. Besides the shoulder he is sick with bronchitis or pneumonia and someone stole his shoes. The SEP division he is in is about 120 people. He said about half are being discharged for medical reasons and the other half for legal reasons. He said the legal half keep causing problems for everyone. They snuck abunch of dip and a bottle of vodka in somehow and the whole division lost their phone priveleges and the TV. So all they have to do is sleep and write letters. He has met a few friends and they hang around if they can.

And I got me another kitty kat tonight. We went to the pound and got a little 8 wk old black and white kitty. We have named him Harley. We will wait until Saturday to introduce Shadow to him, but I have faith that Shadow will be a good big brother for him. I will post a picture of him this weekend.

New Cousin

Trudy had her baby today! She had a healthy baby boy. 6 lbs, 18 inches. They named him Seth. I think............
May have to update that later :(

Day One

Well, I am attempting to create a blog so that our family can post messages to each other and see what we have all been up to. As this is my first attempt at this, I am sure that I will mess it up often, but I am also sure that I will be told what I did wrong. Hopefully soon, I will get some good information posted up here. Keep your fingers crossed!