2023: A Girl, a Motorcycle, and a Gypsy Soul

The day prior I started out the day wheezing ~ there was some sort of air pollution warning in effect due to fires in Canada. This was very evident as the air was thick and hazy grey.  A few days ago I developed a little cough and my whole body ached. I attributed this to an abrupt ending to a medication in which you are NOT supposed to quit cold turkey, but due to my lovely health insurance 'upping the copay' to $10,200.00 for 3 months, well, I quit cold turkey. Bad idea. Every side effect in the book was allllll mine! Shakes, sweating, dizzy, headache, body aches.... the works. It was awful. I found a half-ass solution while I battle out my health insurance - at least it will take away the heroin-like withdrawals I was having. By Friday I was feelin better, not great, but better. Thankful as Saturday me and the bestie were going to ride up to Leech Lake and cancel a hotel reservation we have - I mean, we could do it via phone... but why? When we can ride and enjoy a summ

After 4, almost 5, solid couch days... 4 solid days of coughing.. or as I now call it 'intense ab work'.. I am ready to return to life. The antibiotics are kicking in, I am slowly coughing less and able to get quality-ish sleep. Life is starting to look up. I am still exhausted and cough as though I have smoked half my life (I don't smoke)... but, its still looking up. I really miss my bike... she's getting SO dusty in the garage... something about pneumonia and riding don't mesh well.  Air forced into the lungs when the lungs cant handle what they already have... that equals pain. I have missed out on riding. Missed out on shenanigans. Missed out on my last night of bags on 2 different leagues... sad sad sad. I am tired of bonding with the psycho cats. They are fine and all... but I hate cat hair. And Fidel, the fat one, hurts when he decides to walk on top of me to get closer to my face to snuggle... aka rests his big bodanky-donk on my chest. I caved and starte

  So we ripped home from Sturgis in less than stellar conditions - meaning, we were running on minimal sleep, slight dehydration, and sheer exhaustion from the last 2 weeks of fun in the sun (literally). We hit the raod by 7am.. and made it all the way to the nearest way side rest where I needed to stop and take a snooze on the bench. That was the first 45 miles in... the rest did not improve. We managed to make it home in 12.5 hours... with lots of stops, lots of caffeiene, and a dash of sheer magic. This left us wondering why the heck we subject ourselves to this kind of torture. I don't want to ride this stupid stretch of freeway again anytime soon, I recall telling myself. Fast forward to Friday after work... when we get this grand idea that after just 2.5 days of 'rest' we were ready to return to Sturgis because we had a group of friends that were going to be out there, who weren't there the first round. I was on the fence about this idea, as was Stiffy.

After 5 days in Sturgis, here is what I learned:   1. The body can handle a LOT of beating from sun, heat, lack of hydration, and overconsumption at night   2. Sleep is for the weak.   3. Navigating cow trails in the darkness is not as easy as one would think. Its like our very own version of ninja warriors trying to get from Da Bus stop to camp in the middle of the night. 4. Peeing in porta potties at night is much more of a challenge that one would think. Sure, I could take out my phone for a light...but so help me if I drop that thing anywhere... I will not pick it up. It would be good as gone. Nothing about porta potties during anytime, let alone hot bike week, is appealing. I can tolerate using them... at night. Because what I don't know wont keep me up at night.                                             (Ok I don't have a picture to go with this statement, but you get the idea) 5. Whe