They Look Great! (So Leave Them Alone!)

I'm putting on my mom hat for this one...actually, my band mom hat, and it might turn into a rant, so hang on!

As some of you may know, my daughter Haley, is a senior at the University of Oregon, and she is a member of the Oregon Marching Band. She plays alto sax, and like all her 250+ band mates, she works her butt off. School just started yesterday, but the members of the OMB have already put in 96 hours of practice, played at pep rallies, the freshman convocation, and appeared at three football games. On game days, the band arrives at the stadium many hours before the game starts. They practice on the field, they play to the tail gaters in the parking lot, they play to the crowd waiting to watch the big screen at the baseball field, they open the football game with a pre-game show, (...that includes one of the best renditions of the National Anthem that I've ever heard. You can listen to it here.) they play in the stands during the game, and of course, they play the half time show. This Friday, the band members will board buses, ride to Seattle, perform their half time show at a high school football game on Friday night, go through the whole game day routine on Saturday, ride the buses home on Sunday, and attend classes on Monday.

Over the last three years this band has been to two Rose Bowls, and one National Championship Game. They've played at Disneyland, Santa Monica Pier, the Phoenix Zoo, and marched in the Rose Parade twice! These kids work hard, they love what they do, and they're good at it!

When the football team is ranked, and doing well, the band gets more exposure, and when the band gets more exposure, the nasty comments start flying about their uniforms. "Oh dear! Did they lose their uniforms on the way to the parade? The poor things are wearing their warm up suits." or "Why can't they wear traditional marching band uniforms?" or "They're wearing baseball caps!" Here is a picture of Haley, and some of her friends, wearing the current uniform.

The uniforms are designed by Nike, and given to the band. Each band member also gets a spiffy pair of Nike shoes, designed specifically for the band. They get a brand new pair each year. Haley now owns four pairs.....well, three pairs, She gave her freshman pair to me. Nike also designs the Oregon Ducks football uniforms, and the the cheerleaders uniforms.

The band uniforms are not traditional. They are somewhat athletic looking. (Ask any band member, and they will tell you "Marching band is a sport!") The band does a lot more than just "march"; they do a lot of running, jumping, dancing, pelvic thrusting, ahem, and marching, so why shouldn't they have a uniform that is comfortable, and easy to move in? The uniform is bright yellow on the front, and green on the back. When the band makes quick front to back movements, the yellow flashes for high impact.

The football team has evolved from this:

To this:

Nobody is suggesting that the cheerleaders need to look more like this:

The cheerleaders have become way more athletic too. Now they look like this:

So why would people want the band to look like this:

The OMB is no longer a wool clad, shako wearing, militaristic, marching band of the past. They're blazing a new trail, they're bringing marching bands into this century, and they look great! (So leave them alone!)

Motorcycle Escort

Let me get this straight, you're going to pay me $200 to ride my motorcycle around Mt Bachelor all day? Well, heck yah, I'll do that! And so began my adventure as a "Motorcycle Escort" for the Leadman Triathlon.

The details were a bit sketchy; I was told to show up at the Cultus Lake boat ramp at 7:30am on Saturday, and be prepared to have a passenger. When asked earlier if I was comfortable riding with a passenger, I answered "Yes, as long as they aren't too heavy". When I arrived at the boat ramp, I was the only female rider, and all the passengers appeared to be larger males. Hmmm. There were eight hired motorcycles; (though, I'm sure I counted ten) our job was to carry the officials, and professional photographers around the bicycle part of the triathlon course. One motorcycle, carrying one official, would be dispatched for every forty bicycles that left the staging area. We lined up at the bicycle staging area, and the officials picked their ponies. One of them decided he was going to ride with me. I have no idea why. There were larger riders on bigger bikes. Not being male, I don't know what is worse from the male point of view; riding on the back of a motorcycle with a female at the controls, or riding behind another dude. Maybe this guy thought I was the lesser of two evils. Having only ridden female passengers, who were all about my size, I was extremely sceptical of the impending situation, and I was right. My bike is somewhat top heavy to begin with, and when Mr Official got on, we went over...like a lead balloon, as the saying goes. Plenty of people around to right the motorcycle, no one hurt, and no harm done, but we mutually agreed that this was not going to work. Mr Official hopped on a Gold Wing with another male, and rode off.

We were told at our very brief briefing, that if we didn't have a passenger, we were to ride as decoys. "When the bicycles hear you coming, they won't know if you are carrying an official or not, but they will assume you are, and if they are doing something illegal, they will stop. If they don't stop the behavior; call them on it." Yeah, 'cause I know all the rules of triathlon bicycling. I bid farewell to two Harley riders, who also had no passengers, and set out to be a decoy. Realizing I wasn't wearing my sunglasses, and needing them badly, I stopped at the end of the road to Cultus Lake to put them on. I was instantly approached by a wirey guy with a large camera, asking if I had room for a passenger. I asked him how much he weighed, and explained that I dropped my previous passenger on his backside. He wasn't fazed by this information, and only outweighed me by thirty plus pounds, so we decided to give it a try. He introduced himself to me as AJ, hopped on the back with a lot more skill and finesse than Mr Official, and away we went! We stopped at several points along the route, so AJ could take photos as the bicycles went by. I enjoyed these stops, because the people who were congregated there, wanted to talk about my motorcycle. I had a golden opportunity to talk up our business, and hand out fliers. At one point during the day, we rode past Mr Official, and Mr Gold Wing. I gave a hearty wave, and they looked somewhat surprised, or amused see me with a photographer hanging off the back of my bike.

It was a beautiful day for a ride, the course was great, I was done by three in the afternoon, and supposedly there is a check for $200 in the mail for me. Would I do this again? Probably. Just need to keep my eyes open for a skinny photographer!

Here are the athletes swimming laps in Cultus Lake. I know they were wearing special suits, and the lake water was probably warmer than the air, but there is no way I would be in that lake! The air temp was hovering at 32 degrees, just before the sun was fully up! Brrrrr!

Bicycles waiting for freezing cold swimmers to emerge from the lake, and ride them.

This sign made me giggle like a 12 year old boy, but I wasn't the only one who took a picture of it.

A bicycle rider getting ready to mount. The shoes are already attached to the pedals, so they just slip their feet in. Notice how the people in the background are dressed.

One of our photography stops. Interesting people, nice dogs, great view of mt Bachelor in the background.

One of the photographers chose to ride backwards, in order to get some good shots.

...and away they go!

Handing off water to thirsty cyclists.

Red, taking a break next to Devil's Lake.

Benham Falls

Yesterday I needed to get out of the shop, and have a change of scenery, so I packed up the Camel Back, and went for a walk. I guess it was really more of a hike, but hiking to me is more strenuous walking with elevation changes. This hike was relatively flat, and about 7 or 8 miles, depending on which sign you believe.

I parked the truck at the north end of Sunriver, and headed for Benham Falls. The trail winds through the forest, and along the Deschutes River. It's narrow and dusty, and a favorite with mountain bikers from Sunriver. I was hoping that since it was Labor Day, maybe the tourists were heading home, and the bike traffic wouldn't be too bad. I did encounter a few, but they were huffing and puffing along at a slow enough pace, that I could easily get out of the way. They do kick up a lot of dust, though.

I saw this purple flower growing out of a rock formation.

I saw some great views of the river.

....and then I saw THIS!

Okay, it's a little blurry, but it's a bag of dog poop by the side of the trail. We interrupt this hike, to bring you a dog poop rant. Who does this? I saw more than one of these yesterday, and I've seen this many, many times when I lived in the city. I'll be the first to say that I don't like dog poop on the trails or sidewalks, but at least it IS biodegradable. By putting it in a bag, and leaving that bag in the woods, you are insuring that it will be around for my grandchildren to enjoy. This defies any logic. If you're the kind of person who carries a bag, and picks up poop, you should be the kind that takes it to a garbage can. If you don't want to carry it; make the dog carry it. If you want to leave it in the woods, then don't put it in a bag. Push it off the trail and cover it with some dirt! Okay, I'm done, but sheeesh, who does this?

The next part of my journey took me over this bridge.

The trail from here to Benham Falls is wider. A sign said that this used to be an old train track in the early 1900's. It was used to move lumber, before the highway was built.

The next picture is of a sign you don't want to miss, if you're in a boat....

....because it is at this exact point, that the river goes from flat and lazy, to white and crazy!

Benham Falls isn't so much an actual waterfall, as it is a chute of fast moving, churning, white water. The lava rocks form a deep, narrow canyon, that the water travels through with frightening speed and force.

Whew! I hope you remembered to take your boat out!
Once the river has passed through this turmoil, it calms down again, and flows through a volcanic rock area, with a great view of the mountains in the background.

I walked a little further down the river before turning around, and heading back to Sunriver. On the return trip, I came across this little guy.

He had a big mouthful of pine cone, and gave me a serious scolding. He screeched and yelled at me for several minutes. Maybe he thought I left a bag of poop in the woods!

Fall Is In The Air

September first. I can feel the fall in the air. The days are getting shorter, the nights are colder, and today is the first Duck football game of the season. I love the Ducks, and I love football season, but I am not ready to say goodbye to summer. We typically have some warm days in September and October, before the real cold sets in; we're even hoping to get one more river float in, but there is no denying the change in the air. The squirrels seem extra busy lately. There is a squirrel nest in the tree next door. The occupant has been up early every morning this week, making that strange noise that squirrels make, and running from tree to tree. I think he is gathering and storing for the winter. Most of the fawns have lost their spots, and the does are starting to look motley as their fur changes to a winter coat. Our vegetable garden is showing signs of frost already. I'm not ready for summer to end; not ready at all, but I will say this: GO DUCKS!

Lookout Mountain

I went for a ride today! Now you're saying to yourself "You rent motorcycles, and you have seven at your disposal, you probably ride every day!" Well, I don't ride EVERY day. Actually most of my job is at the computer. I answer emails from potential and future customers. I answer their many, many questions. I get their insurance and SPOT devices set up. I add stuff to our website, make sure the calendar is up to date, put pictures on facebook, and interact with other motorcycle minded facebook pages, for exposure. I fill out a lot of customer paperwork, wash bikes, make sure all the stuff that goes on the bikes is in order, and spray Lysol in returned helmets. Most of my riding is to the gas station to fill up a bike, or to Pro caliber in Bend, to order parts, or to pick up parts. The truth is, I could jump on a bike, and take off into the mountains any time, but when I'm here by myself, I just don't...very often. I'm not afraid to ride on the pavement by myself. I've ridden between Bend and Portland, alone many times. It's the off road stuff that isn't such a good idea to do alone, but today, I went for a ride.

I wanted to go to the top of Lookout Mountain. It isn't very far from our house. I see it all the time. I know there is a Forest Service road to the top, because I've seen it on the map, but I've just never been up there, and today I had a bug to go.

I chose our smallest bike. It's not our shortest bike, but it is light, and only has a 250cc engine. I love my BMW, but if I drop it alone, I can't pick it up. Well, I did pick it up once; the Rawhyde guys made me lay it on its side...gently, lay it on its side. I wasn't riding it, or anything...it was just for demo purposes, to prove that I COULD pick it up. Anyway, it took me three trys, and I about hemorrhaged, but I got the thing picked up. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it again, and I don't want to try. I know I can pick up the KLX if I had to, so that was to be my trusty steed. I packed some water and a granola bar, and off I went.

The Forest Service marks their roads with a stick that looks like this:

 They don't survive the winters very well, and the Forest Service isn't very prudent when it comes to repairing or replacing them. Many times, the number on the road, isn't the same as the number on the map, sometimes the number decals fall off, leaving only a partial number, and other times the shrubs are covering the marker all together.

 It's always fun to play Where's Waldo with the road markers from the back of a motorcycle in the forest. 

Despite the challenges,I managed to navigate my way to the correct road. On the way up, I encountered some logging.

 I'm always amazed that pictures of steep roads, don't look steep. The next picture is the road to the top. I thought it was kind of steep-ish.

At the top, I parked the KLX in the shade, drank some water, ate my granola bar, and had a look around.

I thought with a name like "Lookout Mountain" there would be some kind of lookout at the top. That seems like a reasonable assumption...of course not. THIS is what's at the top.

 Solar panels, a very tall antenna, and whatever that white shed is. This isn't the first time we've ridden up a mountain only to find a big ol' pile of technology at the top. Oh well. 

I took a picture of this:

I'm not sure what these are called. They're common here; we even have them in our yard, but they usually grow straight up. I've never seen one do this before.

I didn't spend a lot of time at the top of Lookout Mountain. I decided it looked like the kind of place a bear, or mountain lion might call home, and I didn't want to be the thing they called lunch, so I hopped on my bike and headed back down the trail. I stopped half way to take this picture:

I had a great ride, I didn't drop the bike, and I now know what is at the top of Lookout Mountain.

 

Oh Recycling We Will Go!

Every couple of weeks I need to take care of the garbage and recycling around here. That doesn't sound very exciting, or blog worthy, but in Oregon, we take our recycling pretty seriously, so come along and I'll show you how it's done.

First of all, we keep the returnable bottles and cans, separate from the household recycling. We had a party last weekend, so we have a few bottles and cans to return.

In Oregon, you pay 5 cents deposit per can or bottle. This applies to soda, beer, and water. We get the 5 cents back when we return the empties to the store. I think this is supposed to deter people from littering, and encourage recycling. It does work, but not always the way it was intended. There are lots of folks, like us, who save their cans and bottles until they can't stand to have them around any more, then we take them to the bottle return at the store; but there are still lots of people who litter, or just throw the cans and bottles away. This has sparked a cottage industry amongst the low income, and mostly homeless, who have rigged up bicycles with trailers, and go digging through trash and recycling bins. This isn't a problem, really, the stuff gets recycled either way, but sometimes they do their prowling late at night, and if the garbage bin is right near your bedroom window, it can wake you up and make you crabby. I know this for a fact.

Household recycling is all the paper, cardboard, plastic, glass jars, etc. Boxes, like from cereal or mac and cheese, are folded flat and recycled. Junk mail is recycled. We even recycle the cardboard tubes from the toilet paper.

To answer the question on everyone's mind...no, we did not drink a case of Crater Lake Vodka; that's just the box we keep in the closet to throw the recyclables in.

After all the bottle, cans, and household recycling items have been sorted, we are left with this:

A bag of real garbage. This is mostly comprised of kitchen scraps, cat box scoopings, and used tissues. Mostly cat box scoopings. This bag is heavy, and it smells bad.

Once the truck is loaded, we head off to the recycling center at Sunriver. It doesn't cost anything to leave the household recyclables.

Here are the bins. There is a place for glass, a place for large flat cardboard, and the rest just goes together in the bin.

Next, we go to the bottle return at the store. Every grocery store in Oregon has a bottle return. It is usually located somewhere outside the store. Most are kind of smelly, and there are usually a lot of homeless, at least they look and smell homeless, folks hanging around. In the busier areas, you may have to wait your turn. I love the bottle return at Sunriver, because it's kind of an upscale place. They keep it really clean, and it doesn't really attract too many of the previously mentioned sort.

At the bottle return, you place your cans or bottles one by one in the hole, the machine reads the bar code, and gives you credit. The cans must not be smashed. The machine will smash the can after it reads the bar code. When you are done, push the red button, and a ticket will be generated that looks like this:

This ticket says I had 52 cans and bottles, and I get $2.60 back. I took the ticket inside the store, and handed it to one of the checkers, who gave me this:

Not too bad. I could almost buy a couple of cans of soda, and start the whole process over again!

Thanks for recycling with me!

It's Been an Interesting Year!

After a few attempts at recovering my password, I've opened the squeaky door, and blown the dust off my blog. I started this blog about a year ago, when I thought I had time, and interesting things to comment on. Then, life got busy. Oh so busy.

It all started one day last fall, when Billy called me and said "So what do you think...should we start a motorcycle rental business? I found a great first bike on Craigslist." Well there I was, standing in the middle of the Portland Flower Market, with my co worker, Heather, cell phone in hand, saying "Sure, that sounds great! Buy the bike!" I hung up the phone, turned to Heather and said "We just started a business". It wasn't quite as simple as that. Billy and I had been talking about it....oh, maybe for a week or two, but sometimes if you talk about something too much, you might just talk yourself right out of it. So on that day, Oregon Dual Sport Rental & Adventures was born.

Let the work begin! There are all kinds of things you need to do when starting a new business. We had to apply for an LLC, get a tax ID number, find out about insuring all the bikes, and since the business is located at our house, figure out how to insure our house and property. We had to make business cards, fliers, join the Chamber of Commerce, buy more bikes, set up a website??!! Holy cow! We did all of this through the winter and spring, while working  our "real" jobs in the Portland area.

With the business to be located at our house in Bend, one of us would have to move there full time. Since Billy's real job pays more than my real job, I would be the one to move. So last May, I bid farewell to my co-workers at the flower shop, packed up the cats, and moved to Bend. Billy commutes between Portland and Bend, twice a week on his trusty F800GS "Darth". He should be getting his 200,000 mile patch from BMW very soon!

 We have met some really nice people who work in motorcycle related businesses here. Giant Loop is in Bend. They make travel bags for motorcycles. Atomic Moto is also in Bend. They have some great gear for riding. High Desert Adventures is a dual sport touring business in Prineville. They sometimes rent bikes from us for their tours. Moto Fantasy is a motorcycle rental business near us. They rent street bikes, and also have a great bed and breakfast lodge. All really nice people, and we're starting to feel like part of the community.

 The motorcycle rental business is slowly taking off. We have been getting busier as the summer progresses. Our customers have all been great. We had our first international customers last week. A couple of really nice guys from Nova Scotia. They enjoyed a day of riding, and then went with us to an ADV meet up dinner in Bend. We all had a great time. We have only had one miss hap, so far. A customer from CA went riding alone, and had an unintentional dismount in some deep sand. Five broken ribs, and a bleeding lung; two nights in the hospital. Thank God he's mostly okay, and thank God for the waiver. Every one of our customers signs a waiver saying they take full responsibility for their actions. They acknowledge that what they are about to do is very dangerous, and they cannot sue us, and their spouse, kids, grandkids, future kids, cat, dog, bird, and/or neighbor can't sue us either. Period. Billy and I have found that we work really well together. He has a head for numbers, facts, and figures, while I am creative, and have learned how to manage our website, and make our business visible. We both wrench on the bikes....well, he does most of the wrenching, but I do some too! Together, we make a good team, and at the end of the day I still love him more than ever!

So how has my summer been? Great! I love living in Bend! In June, my parents took the family on a fabulous Alaskan cruise, to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful time, and saw lots of beautiful scenery. (I will try to put up some pictures in a future post.) In July, eight of my childhood girlfriends came to visit. We had fun catching up on each others lives, and did some sightseeing around the Bend area. August brought our 3rd annual Deschutes River Float and party weekend. We had a small group this year, but we all had fun! We all slept on the patio, and watched the Perseid Meteor showers.

My son Cody, lives in Bend now. He works at Izzy's Restaurant, and is planning to go to Central Oregon Community College. We get together and hike, or just hang out. That has been really nice. My daughter Haley, is going to be a senior (how is that possible?) at the U of O. She is involved in the marching band, Gama Phi Beta sorority, and now she is also employed at an Izzy's Restaurant in Springfield.

So that's what's been going on with me this past year. I will try to get more pictures up in future posts. We had a major computer melt down over the summer, and most of my pictures are stored other places, but I should have some on this new computer soon. Stay tuned!

Stacie