Category Archives: silliness

Pugsly’s Wild Ride

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Took my Pugsly out for more than just a toodle around town! Her inaugural longer ride happened last weekend! 🙂

She was a little nervous at first

but quickly started to have a good time

My friend’s bike had some electrical issue, so he caught a ride back up the mountain with me and the pug. My first human passenger!

You can tell she’s very enthused to have the company. Actually, she had a good time riding up on his legs with her face in the wind!

This was Pugsly’s stance while riding through a neighborhood once we got back (I was coasting and took the pic. heehee)

the route:

Ural!

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Just rode this home from Tempe, Az to Prescott, Az.

I’m exhausted now! It was quite an adventure.

Left Prescott this morning at 10:00am with two friends. We got to Tempe at about noon. The seller had forgotten to have the title notarized (necessary in Az) so he left to the bank to do that while we hung out on his front porch.

He returned, we did the exchange, and off we went! My two friends drove my truck behind me the whole way…just in case.

Good thing too!

Smoke!
I pulled over and we discovered that the emergency brake was on! I hadn’t checked it because the seller had told me that he never uses it. Turns out, he showed it to one of my friends… and didn’t take it off. No wonder it was handling so sluggish. We moved the rig into the shade to let the shoes cool off.

We got through Phoenix and onto Grand Ave / Hwy 60 when my (suicide) shifter stopped working. It was floppy!

That area is an industrial part of the Valley, and fairly barren. I pulled into a large, empty lot.

After spending ten minutes or so trying to locate any near-by motorcycle shop, a tall, thin man sauntered around the corner of the warehousy building which shade we’d been using.

We all had a moment of mis-trust, but when he saw the Ural and heard about our plight, he took a brief look at the shifter, and said, “I can fix that.” He made a slight motion for us to follow him.

I followed after him and as I rounded the back corner of the building, I saw… a workshop! Cars! Motorcycles! Tools!

The guys, “my pit crew”, pushed the rig around and into the shop.

A welder who looked suspiciously like Brandon Frazier’s younger brother, checked out the problem with pit crew Cliff – the suicide shifter’s previously not-so-well-done weld had broken.

Brandon’s brother (who I found out later is a pro-dirt bike racer!) made quick work of welding it back together. He did a great job and the linkage was tight and sure!

They even have a race team for the one guy’s kid!
Punk rock!

How crazy fortuitous it was that my shifter broke where it did!

It was really windy on the back highway roads, and I was parched. We stopped for gas and a look-over in Wickenburg and were on our way.

After a slow ride up Yarnell, and an even slower ride up the twisties of the White Spars, got home and Pugsly greeted me in her excited pug way.

I’ve been getting her used to the Doggles, so soon she shall ride with me!

long lost

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I loved her back then. She was creative and joyful, full of glee and some deeper sadness. Our visits were something I always anticipated with a happy heart. We traded mixed tapes and whispered our future dreams to each other in the darkness of her bedroom.

Twenty-seven years have passed and I never expected to feel so connected – so re-connected – from the moment she waved at me across the hotel driveway.

You would think that after all those years and all those lives lived, places traveled, heartaches, and heartfelt experiences, we wouldn’t recognize each other. But there she was in all of her … her-ness. The same girl I knew during our oh-so-formative years was standing there, motioning at me to get into her car.

There were extra lines on her face – twenty-seven years has a way of doing that to our bodies, but she was there, creative and joyful, full of glee and lacking that dark undercurrent.

Oh, how wonderful to hear her stories of the past two plus decades! How comfortable it felt to wrap my arms around her in a familiar bear hug! In those moments, we were 16 again, connected and re-connected in a lovely Kansas City summer night.