http://tayaratravels.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-news-letter-2010.html
Season's Greetings to you on this last day of 2010. We hope this finds you well and happy.Our year has revolved around two passions: music and motorcycles.
Allen's Landing Band is going strong, with frequent performances at Hickory Hollow and a show at a higher profile venue, McGonigel's Mucky Duck.
Bettie is now writing songs as well as performing, and the band hopes to make an all-original CD next year.
Motorcycles are taking a growing part of our lives. I've ridden nearly 30,000 miles in the two years since I began. When people ask why I like motorcycles so much, I answer that if you have to ask, you'll never understand. If you enjoy dance, think of that; or downhill skiing; or horseback riding. It combines adventure, challenge, excitement, pleasure, discomfort, and fear in constantly varying proportions.
Amazingly most of those 30K miles have been in day-trips within a hundred miles of Houston. (Want to know about back roads? Ask me.) My one big step-out from Houston was a ride to Colorado (see trip blog) in August with a fellow fanatic. We rode 3200 miles in 8 days, and it wasn't enough.
But the big news is that Bettie saw all the fun I'm having and jumped in herself. She took the motorcycle rider school in October and bought a learner bike, a Honda Nighthawk 250.
Only a month later she felt she was ready to move up, and traded for a new BMW G650GS. This is an "enduro" bike similar to my own, but a bit lower, lighter, and more manageable.
We are in the steps now of adding this and that to make it capable of long trips. We recently did our first overnight to Rockport
and we plan go west (New Mexico and beyond) sometime in the spring.
Together, we've bought/traded five bikes in two years. Some people might feel that to be excessive; they would be wrong. A true motorcyclist would only ask "why didn't you keep the other three?" All of this takes the place of the international trips typical of our previous years. In a way we feel quite smug: we are not troubled by "enhanced pat downs", x-ray strip-searches , crowded tourist class cabins, cancelled flights, etc so common to air travel these days. There is wisdom in the old Firesign Theater (remember them?) line about "getting high on the real things: a clean windshield and a full tank of gas."
Other activities continue as before, things we've described in our letters from 2009 and 2008, so I won't repeat.
And may 2011 be happy for you all.
Leigh and Bettie Anderson
Bettie is now writing songs as well as performing, and the band hopes to make an all-original CD next year.
Motorcycles are taking a growing part of our lives. I've ridden nearly 30,000 miles in the two years since I began. When people ask why I like motorcycles so much, I answer that if you have to ask, you'll never understand. If you enjoy dance, think of that; or downhill skiing; or horseback riding. It combines adventure, challenge, excitement, pleasure, discomfort, and fear in constantly varying proportions.
Amazingly most of those 30K miles have been in day-trips within a hundred miles of Houston. (Want to know about back roads? Ask me.) My one big step-out from Houston was a ride to Colorado (see trip blog) in August with a fellow fanatic. We rode 3200 miles in 8 days, and it wasn't enough.
Only a month later she felt she was ready to move up, and traded for a new BMW G650GS. This is an "enduro" bike similar to my own, but a bit lower, lighter, and more manageable.
We are in the steps now of adding this and that to make it capable of long trips. We recently did our first overnight to Rockport
and we plan go west (New Mexico and beyond) sometime in the spring.
Together, we've bought/traded five bikes in two years. Some people might feel that to be excessive; they would be wrong. A true motorcyclist would only ask "why didn't you keep the other three?" All of this takes the place of the international trips typical of our previous years. In a way we feel quite smug: we are not troubled by "enhanced pat downs", x-ray strip-searches , crowded tourist class cabins, cancelled flights, etc so common to air travel these days. There is wisdom in the old Firesign Theater (remember them?) line about "getting high on the real things: a clean windshield and a full tank of gas."
Other activities continue as before, things we've described in our letters from 2009 and 2008, so I won't repeat.
And may 2011 be happy for you all.
Leigh and Bettie Anderson
