20 Weeks Left!!

We're down to 20 weeks before take off - 137 days - approx. 98 working days. We're starting to get anxious!

I was reading a book by Jimmy Buffett - A Pirate Looks at Fifty - and he has a poem in there by Don Blanding called The Double Life.

The Double Life
by Don Blanding

How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell.

But shacked to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content
With hearth and home - dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well-loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,

With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun,
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where......just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back.
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But One says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And One says "Yes," and One says "No,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

**********

I wonder how many people are in this dilemma?

PDQ Signs

Brian, our good friend at

www.PDQ-Signs.com

designed this logo for us.

Doesn't it look great?

Happy Holidays from the Devlins

How time flies...

Wow....only 23 weeks to go until lift off! It's hard enough to believe there's only 3 days left until Thanksgiving, a little over a month until Christmas, then a New Year, and then, WOW..... I'm sure you get my drift by now.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Some friends have invited us over to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. Besides that, the only plans we have for the weekend is to start going through our gear to see what we have, need, don't need, etc...

The first weekend in December we'll head up to Seattle for the motorcycle show to drool over new bikes and look at gear.

The majority of our thoughts seem to be geared towards our trip next year. It's unbelievable the amount of planning it takes to plan a big adventure like this. Little things like mail forwarding, storage units, and bill paying are on the top of the list. But, the more we do now the less we have to worry about when we finally hit the road.

Bye-bye, Shadow

We have had Shadow since January of 1995. On November 15, 2006 she was ran over. It was a tough night for both Jim and I. Jim always claimed to dislike Shadow, but it was all an act. We'll both miss the silly ol' mutt.

More photos

Check out our
photo site!

Jim's new bike

This is Jim riding away on his "new to him" bike.


Stopped at a rest area somewhere in Utah on the way home.


Ridin' in the rain. Poor bike was abused in the first 24 hours of ownership. It hadn't been ridden in the rain up to this point.

 

A new bike!

Someone's getting a new bike! Guess who? Yep - Jim. He's been hemming and hawing about getting a newer bike and finally found "the one". It's located in Colorado so we'll be driving over there in a few weeks to pick it up. He'd really like to ride it home, but it's getting to be that time of year when we just don't want to take a chance on the passes being snowed over. We'll drive over, and if the weather is nice enough, he'll ride it back, and I'll drive.

We're nearing the 7 month countdown! Have we started counting the days? You betcha! 

Out of control

This is what happens when you have a young driver driving to fast on less than ideal road conditions. The driver was coming from the opposite direction, driving to fast, on wet roads, and lost control. Her car slid sideways into the oncoming lane, taking out two of our riders. The result: two totaled bikes, one bruised rider, and one rider who's been in the hospital for nearly two weeks with another twelve weeks to go. Was it worth the 10 minutes she was trying to shave off her travel time? I doubt it. 

So there I was....

"So there I was"........we always tease Jim when he starts his stories out like that because we know the ending isn't going to be good. Ranks right up there with "Hold my beer and watch this..."

Anyway, this is a "so there I was" story, only Jim isn't the one telling it...

Jim knows this guy who has horses. He's been asking me if I wanted to come out and ride his horses for a while now, so finally Sunday I did. He puts me on Red - a retired barrel racer. We worked in the pen for about an hour or so and did great. The woman who was supposed to come out and ride with me didn't show up, so D asked if I wanted to ride down the road, so I did. Off I go, la te da da da, about a mile or so, no problems. Turn around to go back to D's, la te da da da, no problems, then wha la - all of a sudden - next thing I know, we're running. I don't know if something spooked her or if she just wanted to be home. The stirrups were a little to long, so right off the bat I lost the stirrups. Somehow I got thrown forward and was able to hang on to her mane. I just about had things under control when the road curved just enough to throw everything off kilter and off I went. We were on a gravel road (of course!) and luckily, I seemed to have lost consciousness before I hit the ground (or else simply can't remember). I think I must have landed on my head, shoulder, and elbow- all on my left side, of course, because I am left handed. I managed to get up onto my hands and knees and looked up and there was a pickup there - not sure how long it took me to get up. Not to long, I don't think, because I remember seeing the horse running down the road. Anyway, the guy asks if I need a ride. Duh!! I have blood dripping off the ends of my fingers and running down my face. I try to get up, but absolutely can't, so he gets out of his pickup to help me up. I really can't remember to much until we're driving down the road and he introduces himself to me. And, of course, he knows Jim. By this time, Red had made it home and D and Jim were flying up the road in D's car. I waved at them so they'd see me so they turn around and meet back up with us at D's house. The guy who picked me up told Jim, "she just about had her, I don't know what happened."

Now - that's NOT the worse of it! Here comes the "hold my beer and watch this" part. The woman I was supposed to ride with shows up, and they saddle up another horse. I didn't even think about not getting on because my Dad always made us get back on. So, up I go. This horse is smaller, thank goodness. This time we ride out around the field. Except for some reason, this "much tamer" horse is acting all freaky. Keeps wanting to back up instead of go forward. I've always been told that when a horse acts up to make them go around in a circle and they'll forget what their problem is, so we start going around in a circle. Oops! Horse falls down, on top of my already hurt ankle. D comes running and helps me up. I can't put any weight on my ankle at all. We're a ways from the house and I can't walk, so I have to get back up on the horse. Only thing is, it's my left foot that's hurt, so I have to get up on the right side of the horse. That's awkward! So, D leads us (me and the horse) back to his house.

At the hospital (for x-rays) a couple of days later, one of the nurses that we know stopped by to ask what we were doing there. He said "keep riding those horses, they keep us in business." We asked him what the number one reason was for emergency room visits and he said number 1 is horses. Motorcycles are number 3. Basketball is number 2. I don't know if that's just local or all over. Since this is cattle country, I would suspect it's for this area, but I don't know for sure.

My ankle is sprained, which the doc was kind enough to tell me is actually worse than a break! Great. It's a week later and I can walk on it fairly normal. I still can't get a shoe on. My road rash (head, elbow, and shoulder) is much improved. I think the next time I go horseback riding I'll wear all my motorcycle gear.

Ride Map for Eastern Oregon 2006 Ride

We've already ridden these roads at different times, but we're running out of unique combinations.

Saturday morning, Sept. 16, we'll meet at the Bridge St. Inn for breakfast at 8:00. We'll plan to leave at 9. From there, we'll head up Hiway 7 to Hiway 245 - Dooley Mtn. -

stop at the Unity Reservoir for a break.

From the Reservoir we'll head to Ukiah. If anyone needs fuel (it'll be 135 miles to Ukiah from Baker City) they'll need to fuel up at Austin Junction. At Austin Junction we turn onto Hiway 7, go about 1 mile, and turn left onto the Middle Fork Road. At Hiway 395 turn right, go about 30 miles, turn right to go to Ukiah.

Fuel up, eat lunch and/or snacks in Ukiah.

From Ukiah we'll ride to Sumpter, stop at the Gold Dredge in Sumpter for a break, then on to Baker City.

It's roughly 225 miles. We originally planned on the Hells Canyon Loop, but it was close to 300 miles and thought that was a little far since most people have to travel so far to get here in the first place.

We'll BBQ at our place Saturday evening. We'll supply the hamburger, buns, and fixings.



  

Page 2

It didn't save large enough to read the first time, so here's page 2 a little bigger.

  

Oops!

An R6 will not go 200 miles on one tank of gas at freeway+ speeds. It will go 191 miles - 6 miles short of the gas station. Don't ask how I would know this. I did get a picture of a nice sunset that I would not have stopped to take otherwise.


 
 
  

Women with wanderlust

Jim and I had the honor of meeting these two lovely women. They traveled in RV's for 10 years and ended up in Baker City. We met with them on a Sunday afternoon and visited for a couple of hours. They had lots of advice and stories to share. We appreciate the time they spent with us and look forward to visiting with them again.

Jim's Famous

There was a large motorcycle rally in Baker City and the newspaper interviewed Jim for an article they were writing up.

Women Riders Now article

Women Riders Now article by Penny Devlin







http://www.womenridersnow.com/PublicFiles/DepartmentViewer.asp?DepartmentID=14&ArticleID=249

Movin' on out...

We've moved probably about 90% of our stuff to where we'll be living for the next year. The amazing thing is, I don't even miss it. I'm able to function with the remaining 10% of the stuff we haven't moved yet. I haven't needed to run out to the apartment to look for something because I miss it, or "need" it. I think it's amazing that we accumulate so much "stuff" and think we need to have it, but when it's boxed up and out of sight, we forget we even have it.

If I was really brave, I'd leave a lot of stuff in boxes and after several months simply toss the entire box without ever opening it to see what's inside. I know that won't happen, though.

posted on March 22, 2006 4:03 PM (PST)

SOLD, to the highest bidder

Actually, sold to the first bidder. We sold the house. We signed papers today and the buyer signs tomorrow. Yippee!! We are in the process of moving a little bit of stuff each day, plus getting ready to have a moving sale. Maybe someone else wants our junk? Never hurts to try.

We're moving from a nearly 3,000 square foot house to an under 1,000 square foot apartment built in a barn. Needless to say, we're getting rid of a lot of stuff. Our goal is to get rid of enough stuff that we don't have to get a storage unit.

Our dog loves it where we're going. The people we are renting from have 1 black lab and a chocolate lab. Our dog is a black lab mix. She thinks she's gone to doggy heaven. She'll have more than enough space to run around in. She's a fairly old dog but I think being around these dogs will add a few more years to her life.

posted on March 14, 2006 4:20 PM (PST)

Cleaning up

Cleaning Up

In preparation for selling our house we've been going through all of our junk. Wow!! How much stuff can two people accumulate in a few short years? A lot!

We've managed to clean out two bedrooms completely - giving away the beds and other stuff to people we knew could use it. We've thrown away a couple of garbage cans of junk, and taken a couple more loads to the Salvation Army. I'm hoping we can get rid of enough stuff that we won't have to have a yard sale.

We're going to try to sell the house ourselves. That might be interesting! At least I work at a mortgage company so I have somewhat of an idea of what needs to be done.

We already have a place to live once the house sells. It's out in the country so we can keep our dog. We've had her for 11 years, so I was hoping we wouldn't have to give her away. I have a friend who said she'd take her if we needed her to, but I'd rather keep her as long as we can.

The place we'll be living in until we head out on our travels is a nice apartment that a local rancher built in his shop. It's only a one bedroom, which is fine. That forces us to get rid of more stuff before we move in. We'll be allowed to park our vehicles in part of the shop while we're living there, so we'll have a place for the bikes and cars.

We're still moving ahead with our plan.

posted on February 14, 2006 9:28 AM (PST)

The "no plan, plan"

My husband and I ride motorcycles. He rides a 2000 Honda VFR and I ride a 2002 VFR. About two years ago we came up with this crazy plan to quit our jobs and ride our bikes for a year. It was a "no plan, plan." Our "plan" was to just ride - no specific destination in mind, just hit the road and follow wherever the front tire led.

It started out with a 5 year plan- we were going to slowly work up to taking off. We'd sell our house, sell what we didn't need and store the rest, quit our jobs, and take off. After a year, we had to add another year to the plan. The first year, we just talked about it between the two of us. The next year we started telling a few select people. Then we actually started planning in earnest.

Once the planning stage really started, we realized we wouldn't be able to take off an entire year. Our finances wouldn't allow for it, so the plan was modified to 3 or 4 months, or until the money ran out.

This month, January, 2006, we both gave notices at our jobs. Due to our positions we felt we needed to give quite advance notice. We'll take off in April or May of 2007. My boss was great, accepted my notice graciously, and thanked me for giving him such advance notice. My husband's boss is trying to work out a deal with my husband for him to take a leave of absence rather than quitting.

Once we know for sure what we're going to do, the planning will move ahead full force.

Jim and Penny

In May of 2007, my husband, Jim, and I will be quitting our jobs and traveling on our motorcycles. This blog is a way for our family and friends to keep track of our travels and see where we've been, where we're going next, and to join us on our ride.