S is for SuddenlySusan #AtoZChallenge



Hi everyone, that's me! My hubby and I were out on a motorcycle ride this day in 2008. We live in eastern Washington where I love the hot, dry weather in the summers. I remember how it felt when he shot this photo. There was a slight wind blowing wonderful, hot air in my face. Behind me is the Columbia River gorge. When we got home, my hubby pointed out the animal carcass that was 3 feet from me in this photo. Eeeks!

 

By now, you may (or not) have wondered why I named my blog Freezerburned. I grew up in Alaska and left when I was 42. I've never had the urge to go back. I hate being cold and never want to feel that cold again. SuddenlySusan is an old nickname but it is one that says a lot about me.

 

Can you guess what kind of animal that was? Do you have a story in you? What's the story behind your blog name? Do you have a nickname?

 

love, susan

Dear Lady Rider

Yesterday, I sold my motorcycle.

 

I know it was the right time to do it. I have been thinking about giving up motorcycling for two years now. I rode twice last spring and she has sat in the garage since then. A friend had posted online he was looking for a ride for a friend so I mentioned I was selling mine. She sold quickly.

 

As a goodbye to a very good part of my recent life, I wrote a letter to the young lady who is beginning her riding life. It felt good to pass on what I've learned from great biker friends on the road.  Oddly, I don't feel sad about giving up something that I truly loved doing. The time feels right for me. If you are one of my biker friends reading this, I thank you for all the wisdom you've imparted on me.

Dear Lady Rider:

 

I am thrilled you are just starting your journey on the road with this motorcycle.  This bike has taken me all over the state of Washington and a bit of Arizona. The best part of riding is the friends you’ll meet along the way. Bikers are the best people on the planet and now you are one!

 

This bike has a smaller gas tank than some of the people you’ll be riding with. My advice to you is to always top off the tank before you start out on a ride. Make sure you know what the plans are for your ride of the day so you can figure out where you need to stop for gas.  There is no light that comes on when you need to make the switch to your reserve tank. Make sure you always reset your trip meter so you’ll know exactly how many miles you have on a tank. You’ll get approximately 145 miles out of the main tank and when it is empty, you’ll have to reach down with your left hand and move the switch to the reserve tank. Robert will show you!  PRACTICE this before you need to do it on the road. Practice just moving your left hand down and finding the switch so that if it happens to run out of gas, you’ll feel confident about switching the tank to reserve. You MUST remember to switch it back when you fill up. Second advice on gas is fill up at the end of your ride so you are ready to go when someone calls and says LET’S RIDE TODAY!

 

Some things I’ve learned over the years are things other bikers taught me. I’ll try to remember a few here to pass on to you but I sure don’t know everything so listen when you are out with your biker friends. They know things!

Y   Start out riding around the block, use your signals, figure out your brakes. Then turn around and ride the other way. Just keep making your circle bigger and bigger and soon you’ll be out on the highway. It’s okay to be scared. Practice, practice, practice!

Y   Have your eyes open for gravel. Gravel is like ice. The first time you slip on it, you’ll know what I mean. The first time it happened to me coming out of a parking lot, I slipped and my first instinct was to put my foot down on the ground. Big mistake. It hurt. But I didn’t go down. J

Y   You’ll likely have bees fly up your sleeve or down your jacket. You must be a tough girl and grit your teeth. There is no room to panic when you are on a motorcycle. I’ve been stung a couple of times, once on the neck. That is nothing compared to what it’s going to feel like if you go down from panic.

Y   Carry a hoodie in your bag for times when you think it is warmer than it really is.

Y   Always wear your leathers even when you think it’s too hot. Summer time is for vests. BUT, if you happen to go out without a vest, never wear a shirt with buttons.  Tuck your shirt in or it will be flapping in the wind and you’ll be mad at yourself.

Y   Never ride when you are tired, hungry or distracted by chaos in your life. You need a clear head that is focused on the road. Before every ride, I always said a little prayer to the motorcycle gods to please let me have a clear head, a safe ride and good weather.

Y   Weather.  Always check the weather before you go out on a ride. You do not want to get caught in wind and rain. But if you do get caught in bad weather, constantly assess the situation and don’t be afraid to say, “I’m sitting it out for awhile”. There is no shame in that.

Y   RIDE YOUR SKILL.  A local guy said this to me one time when I was going out with a huge group (18 bikes!). What this means is … don’t get cocky or follow the crowd if they are doing stupid shit. You’ll find people who want to take risks. You do not have to follow them.

Y   Carry cash in your pocket just in case your credit/debit card doesn’t work at the gas station. Shell is famous for letting you fill up once and then at the next stop your card won’t work. Also, bikers stop a lot for lunch!

Y   Carry a bottle of Gatorade and a snack in your bag. Summer heat is brutal and you want to stay hydrated and not let your blood sugar get low. J

Y   Most of all, have big fun!

Scavenger Hunt Biker-Chick Style

Today was the perfect motorcycle-riding day. So I went to work and before I even put my purse down, I headed to the bosslady's office and pleaded my case for working 1/2 the day before rolling out. She smiled and said, "ok!"  And, that's how it went down. 220 awesome miles from noon to 5p.m.  Fall is the best riding time if you can get days that don't stay too crisp. It had warmed up enough by noon to make it just right for wearing leathers. We headed to Bickleton by way of Mabton and came home on Hwy. 14.

 On the way back, I got a little bored in my head, and decided it would be awesome to do an ABC scavenger hunt of today's trip. Probably not the smartest thing to do when I should be focused on the road but it was fun.  Here's some of what I saw today, in alpha order:

 

A very handsome man on a motorcycle. He was with me.

Butterflies, Bluebirds, and one Blue Heron

Coyote - he was so close to the road I could have reached out and petted him. He must have been on a kill because he held his ground. I've heard stories of bikers hitting dogs and coyotes ... it wouldn't have been pretty.

Deer. 3 live ones and 1 big gut pile smack in the middle of the road. So gross.

Eagle ... on top of a pole.

French fries ... next to my awesome hamburger.

Grapes, purple ones swinging from the vine. So beautiful.

Harley Davidson with a Vietnam Vet on it. See "V".

Irrigation sprinklers. Big whoop, right?

Justin's name on my cell phone when I checked it.

Kawasaki - that's the bike my hubby rides. It's a sweet ride, he says.

Leathers. It was cool enough to keep ours on today.

Mabton, WA. One sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere.

Nice waitress at the Bluebird Inn in Bickleton. She once lived in Phoenix.

Oregon - it was right smack-dab across the river from us.

People enjoying today, especially us lucky ones.

Quality Inn. I saw a billboard for it, ok? It counts.

Racoon. It was really dead. Poor thing. I never see live ones.

Sunflowers. They were almost dead too.

Telephone. I saw & heard a real, old fashioned phone today at the Bluebird Inn. 

Umatilla, Oregon. It was across the river. Ha! U is a hard one but I got it!!

Vietnam Vet - nice guy. He was on the Harley Davidson. See "H".

Winery after winery after winery after winery.

X I did not see anything representing the letter X. The closest thing was an eXit.

Y's in the road. Decisions were made at those Y's.

Z This is a hard letter to find out there in the world.

 

How'd I do?

 

love, susan 

Mt. Rainier - 392 Miles

Yesterday was the coldest ride I've ever been on. We headed out to Mt. Rainier at 8:00a.m. When we stopped at Naches to fill up the gas tanks, I was seriously considering taking my jacket off and riding bare armed but something in the back of my mind said "No, just wait."  Well, it was super foggy and cold when we got to summit. Our plan was to ride to Sunrise Lodge and although everything in our good senses told us to turn around and go home, we forged on. When we arrived at the top of Sunrise, it was cold at 40 degrees. I actually thought it might start snowing.  I have to say it was a first for me ... riding in such frigid weather. But what are ya gonna do?  Call your mama? My fingers were frozen and I was cold to the bone when we parked the bikes. We all packed picnic lunches and by-God we were going to eat them. I was so happy I had a thermos full of steaming, hot coffee.  Our friends paid $3.50 a cup for coffee in the lodge.

 

 Luckily, the wind died down and we saw some blue sky poke through the clouds, which warmed us enough to enjoy lunch together. The thought of getting back on the bikes and riding back down the summit was something I just kept pushing out of my mind.

 

I made a pact with myself that I would not complain if the weather turned out to be 90 degrees driving back into TriCities.  It wasn't 90. I'm not sure it was even 70 today. I think fall is blowing in.

 

Our only view of Mt. Rainier today. :-(

Anyway, it was a super fun day despite getting so cold. We never saw Mt. Rainier except for just a small window of it through thin clouds that cleared for just a minute. There was fresh snow on it and it was at eye level. I was glad to get out of there.

 

Everyone made it home safely and this likely will be our last big ride of the season. If the weather holds, maybe we'll get one more but I'm staying away from anyplace with "Mt." in the name.

 

How did you spend your Sunday? 

 

love, susan

 

 

 

 

 

 

August, I Will Miss You

Awesome road trip yesterday! We rode 268 miles on one of my favorite routes. Tricities to La Grande, Oregon via Elgin and Tolgate. The trip had us climb up to 4,000 ft. and stop at a viewpoint. This time of year it's cool enough in the morning to keep our leather jackets on going up the hill. Coming down on the other side of the summit meant we had to shed the safety of those jackets and ride bare-armed, risking road rash vs. falling over from heat exhaustion in upper 80's weather. Soon, the weather won't be an issue and we'll be riding in the absolute best riding month. Gotta love September!

 

So were riding along on uneventul day until we came around a corner and spotted this very old mountain sheep on the road. I couldn't believe my eyes. As we got closer, we slowed way down and I realized he wasn't going to move out of the road. Very odd behavior for this type of animal. We drove past him and pulled off the road and tried to get him to go back up the hill he came down. Not only did we not want to see him killed, he was big enough to do some serious damage to any car or truck, much less a biker. As Gene walked toward him, I could see he wasn't going to move. We think he was injured and very disoriented. I stood at the corner and waved to traffic to slow down and eventually he sauntered up the hill a bit. It was a weird sight to see.

 

We stopped in Elgin for lunch at a local spot. A shirtless young man walking his husky/shepherd mix pointed us to the better of two places to eat. He reminded me of Alaska is so many ways. He was right on about the diner. Gene had a big bowl of clam chowder and I had a perfect 1/2 chef's salad.

 

We drove right through La Grande without stopping. Farmers were burning their fields and it was a smoky, hot mess. We took a back road off the highway to a viewpoint and stayed long enough to snap 2 pictures and move on. It was gettin' warm. We haven't done a lot of riding this summer, for various reasons but I suspect September will see us making up for lost time. As much as I love summer, fall comes in a very close second. The peaches are ripe, the morning air is crisp and life is good. 

Not a bad start to a 4-day weekend!

 

love, susan

 

 

Mt. Rainier Trip

Mt. Rainier

We ventured over to see Mt. Rainier yesterday with a group of friends. The weather could not have been more perfect. I broke one of my own safety rules on the last leg of the trip by shedding my leather jacket. It was in the high 80's, perhaps even reached 90 by 4:00 p.m. and I thought I might faint from overheating.

We could see Mt. Rainier for over a hundred miles before we reached it.  Embarrassingly enough, when we got to the stopping place where I snapped this photo, I asked my friend, Dorothy, "is this Mt. Rainier"? Okay. Seriously. It looks way smaller up close than when you see it from 100 miles away. How can that be? An optical illusion, I suppose. Let me just say it and get it out of my system.  It ain't no Mt. McKinley.  But the surrounding area is so beautiful that it makes up for it's lack of grandiosity.

Flowers and a field of snow

I can hardly believe we have lived here 3 years now and this is the first time to visit Mt. Rainier. We will definitely be going again with camping in mind. There are hiking trails everywhere and we only scratched the surface of the area. With it being a holiday weekend, there was a huge amount of traffic but I noted that people were very polite and not in a hurry to run us over. There are quite a few places to park so even with the increased traffic, we were able to find places to park 8 motorcycles.

This trip was 350 miles and my tailbone was feeling it by the time we rolled into our driveway at 6:30 p.m. I put 750 miles under my belt this weekend and that's a record for me.

TAKE-AWAY: My take away from this weekend is that I have learned that a lot of things really are mind over matter. Perseverance. Mom used to tell me that but like many people, until I experience it for myself it doesn't mean much. I had a couple of uncomfortable times yesterday where I thought my tailbone was going to split in two but what was I doing to do? Keep riding.   love, susan