As most of you know my husband has a new toy. In December we took a road trip to Tulsa to Myers-Duren Harley Davidson to look at a new bike for Gene. For the most part, Gene has had a motorcycle since he was 18 years old. He had a rocket when he and I first got together and sold it not too long after because he said he was tired of it. He made it about a year or so and he was ready for another one, so he bought another one. It was a really nice bike...brand new, blue and yellow (which was a rare paint scheme) and he loved it. Well, he had only had it a couple of months when he went riding with the guys one Sunday morning and ended up totaling it out. Yes...totaled. That poor bike looked so sad, and my husband didn't look much better. He ended up breaking his foot in multiple places (the same foot he had already broken in a previous m/c accident) and had horrible road rash on his legs and his hind end. He was off work for about 7 weeks, and out another motorcycle. He said over and over again on the way home from the hospital that he was never going to buy another rocket. Of course, that didn't exclude a Harley...which he now wanted! Anyway, so we went to Tulsa and when we walked out of the dealership he had a bike on order. Oh boy. A really good thing about Harley Davidson is if you're a police officer, firefighter, or in the armed forces you can order what they call a Peace Officer Edition bike and save about $5,000. That's why he was able to get a brand new one!
He is now the proud owner of a 2008 Harley Davidson Road King! His bike really is beautiful, it's black with a blue pinstripe. When Gene bought the bike I had never once even sat on any type of motorcycle...let alone ride on one. Before his bike came in he was planning a trip, and wanted his good friend, Steve, to go. He had talked Steve into going and they had decided they wanted to ride old Route 66. Steve's wife, Jennie, had decided she was going to take off work and go with Steve, therefore Steve wanted to know if Gene's wife was planning to go. Yikes!!! A long road trip on the back of a motorcycle that I had never once ridden. Sound like a disaster?! Ummm..yes! I was extremely nervous, and when Gene first mentioned it I said, "NO, thanks though!" Ha!
The more he talked about the trip and the closer it got the more I thought about it. Steve kept telling Gene that I really needed to go to keep his wife company and that we would really have a good time. Did I mention they also were planning on camping out? And when I say camping out I mean TENT AND SLEEPING BAGS! In the middle of July might I add!! I was so out I was almost back in again. Camping is not my thing...unless you're talking about a cabin with running water and electricity!
So, I had already talked to Mom about the dates and if she would be willing to keep Grace for a week and of course she said yes so I couldn't use my child as an excuse not to go! I also had talked about the trip at work, and everyone told me I was crazy not to go, and that it would be such an adventure! Yea....quite an adventure, and adventure in me sweating and whining! However, I put in a request anyway for the week off from work and was approved for the days off, so I told Gene I was in! Still nervous...the closer it got the better I got. Another issue I had was packing. Hello! One motorcycle + 2 people = not much room for luggage! Especially considering we were going to be gone for 7 days. Luckily, another good friend of Gene's who is also a biker let us borrow his motorcycle bag that hooks on the passenger's back rest. I was able to get a whole week's worth of clothes plus toiletries into the bag! I didn't have to share it with Gene because he packed all of his clothes in the saddle bags. We also had a sleeping bag in one saddle bag and a tent hooked onto the bag. We did pretty good!
I'll save all the details of the trip for a later post because this one is turning out to be pretty long, but we ended up having a GREAT time and I'm soooo glad I went. Plus, we didn't camp one single night!!! We stayed in a room every night! That was especially great!
Having said all of that, I'll get to the actual thing I was going to post about. I'm such a rambler. There are so many custom accessories you can get to go on your bike, and while we were on our trip we stopped in several different Harley dealerships. In every store we went in Gene was looking at the Willie G. Skull collection of accessories, and kept eyeing the same thing. He already has the highway pegs that are the skulls and was wanting the passenger footboard covers that matched. I'm not normally a fan of skulls, but I like the way these look and they make the bikes look really sharp. Anway, this past Saturday, I checked the mail and there was a Harley Davidson catalog in it. I took it in at work and while I was thumbing through it I found the footboard covers he had been wanting. I then looked them up online and since I had some extra money this paycheck I ordered them for him, along with a shifter peg to match also! He's been working so much lately, I wanted to show him how much I love him and thank him for supporting our family so well! They ended up getting here on Tuesday, so when he got home from training I gave them to him. He was sooo excited!! He asked me what I had done, but then he came over and kissed me! I think he liked them!
This evening after he re-cooped from our trip to SDC, he went out and put his new stuff on his bike. I didn't get a picture taken of them, but I will and post them on here so you can see how good it looks!
This picture was taken on our trip, but it's not a really good close up of it.
1 comments:
Sounds like you all had a great trip despite your reservations. And the picture of your husband's bike is great. Like that it is parked in front of an old-looking gas pump. So classic. Just returned from a visit to Branson and went down to Eureka Springs. Beautiful country and great riding roads down there. Wish we would have had more time to stay and get more pictures. Anyway, if you have time, you may want to join the new BikerCamps.com forum where you could share some of your pictures and notes about motorcycle traveling - what to bring, pictures, great scenic Arkansas routes and stops, stuff like that.
Post a Comment