About this blog
The original intention of this blog was to help promote my handcrafted jewelry and beading supplies. However, I believe I lead an interesting life (which Dave gets a lot of credit for), so you will often find ramblings about things other than beads and jewelry! Hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy living it!!!
I recently joined the Florida chapter of the
Chic Riders. Chic Riders is an all female motorcycle organization that was started by
Jessica Maine, one of the first female stunters to make it big in the motorcycle industry. I kind of stumbled upon the whole thing by accident through myspace (click
here to check out my page). I was searching for other sportbike riders in South Florida in the hopes that Dave and I would be able to find some people to ride with. We are always looking for others to ride with, regardless of what kind of bike they ride. For whatever reason, its hard to find people who enjoy the same kind of ride we do. While I don't want to stereotype any
group, many sportbike riders are younger than us and want to do 120mph everywhere and all the time, and many Harley/cruiser riders want to do 5mph under the speed limit. Dave and I are kind of a mix of both. We really enjoy long rides...like putting time in the seat. We don't just wash our bikes and then show up to bike night and park 'em. When we ride, we usually do about 5-10mph above the speed limit, and are known to occasionally twist the throttle until the speedometer is reaching 130mph, but that's just when the situation is right! In any case, while I was looking for some other riders to possibly hook up with for some group rides, I found Jessica's page. I liked the Chic Riders message and what they were about, and thought this might be a good way to make some of the connections we were looking for. I haven't met any of the other ladies in person yet, but will soon. On Sunday, 11/15 there is a ladies only motorcycle run departing from different parts of the state and meeting up in the middle (Ft. Pierce) for lunch. The run is actually being organized by another group, but many of the Chic Riders will be participating. Dave will have to sit this one out, but I'm hoping to meet some women whose husbands/boyfriends also ride. I'll definitely be posting about the experience!
Yesterday Dave and I got up early and headed out on the bikes for a lake ride. Kickstands were up at 8:00am and off we went. We stopped in Indiantown for breakfast at Cracker's Cafe. This place has the best breakfast and is cheap!!!
After breakfast we headed into Okeechobee and then back south to Port Mayaca. We stopped at our normal spot, the scenic outlook at the Port that overlooks Lake Okeechobee. Our original plan was to ride up to the rim so we could see the lake, but the sun was blazing, so we pulled in under the bridge.
This is the Army Corps of Engineers dam at the lake. Lake Okeechobee is just on the other side.
A closeup of our bikes...Dave's is the yellow and black R1, so by process of elimination, mine's the white and red one!!! :)
Looks like I ran over a mustard packet in this photo! It was actually a very large bug! Better the bike than me! But getting hit by bugs and having to wash the bug guts off your arms is a small price to pay for the utter exhilaration of the ride!
This is a shot of a small lake on the outside of the rim. A lot of people actually fish at spots outside the rim...not sure how good the fishing is...but we always see people out there. I'm guessing it's because the best fishing in Lake Okeechobee is only accessible by boat. Lake O is huge...next time we make it up to the rim, I'll be sure to snap some pics!
It was definitely a good ride...about 160 miles. We did have a close call with a pack of turkey vultures. We came up on a pack of about 15-20 of them on the side of the road chowing on some roadkill. These are very large birds and it takes them several swoops of their wings to get their massive bodies off the ground. As we closed in on them (we were doing about 75mph so this all happened pretty quickly), they started to take off. Dave had given me the "heads up/keep your eyes open/something could happen" signal as soon as he had seen them, so I was ready...well as ready as could be. I knew we were both thinking the same thing...please don't take off towards the road, please go the other way! Well, all but 2 of them did just that. The first one that went toward the road actually got up pretty high pretty quick, the second one, not so much. We were both tucked in behind our windscreens (well as much as you can tuck in...you can see from the pics, there really isn't a whole lot to get behind!) and were ready for an impact. Luckily, neither of us hit the second one, but it was a close call...probably missed Dave by about a foot and me by about 6 inches!!! Aahhh...the joys of motorcycle riding in Florida!!!
Back in April, Dave and I went up to Leesburg with our neighbors, Jeff and Jeanette, for the Leesburg bikefest. We trailered the bikes up...I know...I'm hearing the groans from the die-hards! Believe me, I would have loved to ride up, but there's just no place for bags on a sportbike! The weather was really great.
..a little on the hot side, but no rain. Friday we spent the day in town browsing all the vendor booths and taking in the events. The funniest part had to be the woman who was convinced Dave was NASCAR drive Tony Stewart (yeah, I know...it was at night and apparently she'd been drinking all day)! Saturday we took a back roads ride up to Dunnellon and went to Rainbow Springs. The ride was great...very scenic. We found a quaint little restaurant for lunch called The Front Porch Restaurant. The food was great and the pie was even better (I did not lick the plate, even though Dave says I did...I only do that in the privacy of my
own home!). Later that night we went to the racetrack in Bronson. It was really cool to see that kind of racing...where the driver is the mechanic and crew chief, too! Sunday morning we loaded the bikes back up and took the scenic route home down US27. It was a good trip and I look forward to going back again next year.
I can't believe this last weekend went by so fast! I had so many things on my to do list and wasn't able to get one of them crossed off. It wasn't for lack of trying, it was just that so many other things came up. Needless to say, Dave and I accomplished alot, just not the things I had planned.
We did manage to get the motorcycles out for a long ride on Sunday morning. The weather was so nice. We decided to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. There happens to be one about 20 miles from the house...but that's not the one we went to. We rode to the one about 90 miles away! We took the scenic route there and I actually saw two bald eagles sitting atop an electrical pole. On the way home, we took I-95 to make the trip a little quicker.
I'm just amazed sometimes at how quickly the time passes. I often find myself on Mondays wishing for the weekend to get here as quickly as possible, and then I realize, I'm wishing my life away! I really need to stop doing that! Seems like we were just celebrating New Year's and now it's almost May!
I recently joined the Florida chapter of the Chic Riders. Chic Riders is an all female motorcycle organization that was started by Jessica Maine, one of the first female stunters to make it big in the motorcycle industry. I kind of stumbled upon the whole thing by accident through myspace (click here to check out my page). I was searching for other sportbike riders in South Florida in the hopes that Dave and I would be able to find some people to ride with. We are always looking for others to ride with, regardless of what kind of bike they ride. For whatever reason, its hard to find people who enjoy the same kind of ride we do. While I don't want to stereotype any 
group, many sportbike riders are younger than us and want to do 120mph everywhere and all the time, and many Harley/cruiser riders want to do 5mph under the speed limit. Dave and I are kind of a mix of both. We really enjoy long rides...like putting time in the seat. We don't just wash our bikes and then show up to bike night and park 'em. When we ride, we usually do about 5-10mph above the speed limit, and are known to occasionally twist the throttle until the speedometer is reaching 130mph, but that's just when the situation is right! In any case, while I was looking for some other riders to possibly hook up with for some group rides, I found Jessica's page. I liked the Chic Riders message and what they were about, and thought this might be a good way to make some of the connections we were looking for. I haven't met any of the other ladies in person yet, but will soon. On Sunday, 11/15 there is a ladies only motorcycle run departing from different parts of the state and meeting up in the middle (Ft. Pierce) for lunch. The run is actually being organized by another group, but many of the Chic Riders will be participating. Dave will have to sit this one out, but I'm hoping to meet some women whose husbands/boyfriends also ride. I'll definitely be posting about the experience!
