Instant Summer!

That's what it felt like. Thursday I heard the first robins doing their monotonous and repetitive chirp when I went out to get in my car to head to work. Although the "powers that be" tell us when the first day of spring actually is, the song of the robin is my yardstick.

Well, apparently we went from Thursday being the first day of spring to yesterday being the first day of summer! Okay, well, It sure felt like it...

When we got up yesterday, me and Suzie knew we would be on the Harley at some point during the day. The weather report pretty much explained that to us. While she was anxious to go for a ride in nice weather for a change, she still didn't have much biker lady garb yet. After all, she only had new Harley boots and a little leather ponytail wrap. While we were sitting there drinking our morning coffee and talking, we formulated our plan of attack to get the day going. The first order of business was to make a stop at Eagle Leather and buy her some chaps. As it turns out, we drove into their parking lot just as the doors were opening at 10 o'clock. After getting fitted for some nice chaps, we wandered over to another section of the store where she picked out some nice deerskin gloves.

We made a stop at the Tacoma Mall JC Penney store on the way back home. They had a shoe sale going on and I wanted to scope out their stock. I tried on a few things, but I didn't find anything that totally worked for me. They had a half-off sunglasses sale going on too and Sue bought a pair of sunglasses for her son so the stop wasn't a waste of time. He had been wanting some for quite a while.

We buzzed home and got ourselves all decked out biker style. Suzie looked really good wearing her new chaps and new boots! She still doesn't have a new jacket yet so she wore the fringed one that I have here from an old Ebay purchase that didn't work out. The look was really complete (at least in my opinion) by the leather hair thing around her ponytail. She looked good and it was apparent that she was feeling good too. I planned on us hitting the Harley dealership in Tukwila for lunch, and I also wanted to check on a couple windshield parts. On the way there we stopped at R&R American Cycle and bought her some new riding sunglasses. Hers were not doing the job at all because they weren't close enough to her face. Even though we had only been on the bike about 5 minutes when we got there, she already had watering eyes. While I was there I verified that my new tires were in. When we hit the road again we were both happy to learn that the new glasses were doing a great job. After all, what good is having all the right riding apparel if you're miserable and can't see? Now she was really feeling good about riding--Everything was working for her. The first time she rode with me she was miserable. Cold weather coupled with not having the right clothing, and having watering eyes the whole time. I'm surprised that she even lasted through that ride.

I wasn't prepared for what greeted us when we rolled up at Downtown Harley in Tukwila. I knew it would be busy because the weather was so nice and they always have free lunch on Saturdays, but I didn't expect the crowd that was there. As it turns out, it was an anniversary bash. The line for lunch was long, and had I seen that before we parked I probably wouldn't have even stopped. Suzie got into line while I went inside to use the restroom. While inside I also bought a few hardware items to help me with my detachable windshield installation. Suz had a great time people-watching and was feeling good about her new look. When you start wandering among a crowd like that you start to realize how "slapped together" some people are and everyone knows how ladies like to compare things. After having ourselves a good little bite to eat we again hit the road.

We wound our way eastward with the intention of putting a little more civilization behind us, and for the most part it worked well. It was a very good ride, especially when we put most of the traffic behind us and the speed limit inched its way up to a better level. We basically did a sweeping loop that took us to Suzie's neighborhood. Her son lives just a few doors down and I wanted to give her the opportunity to play show-and-tell with her new biker persona. As luck would have it, her daughter and her husband were there also, and everybody got a kick out of it. Mom's a biker! We hung out there for a little bit and everyone decided that it was a day for a barbecue. We went back to my house, where we switched back out of our leather goods, once again becoming ordinary citizens.

A stop at the store and we headed back up to Denny's house. It was a most excellent way to complete the day. Good food, good people... Good times. I must say though--I never would have predicted in a million years that I would ever take part in the act of rolling a full-size trampoline over a house! Yes, that's what I said. Sue had a trampoline in her back yard and they had determined that we would turn it upside down on top of my Neon and drive it down the street to Denny's house where it would live out the rest of its useful life. Trouble is, it wouldn't fit under some of the structure that went over her driveway alongside her house. What to do? We could take it apart (which is how it went in there after all) but no, that would be too much trouble. We decided to stand it up on edge like a coin and with two people on the roof, rolled it up onto her house, over the top, and down to a couple of us waiting on the ground in the front yard. We then finished the original plan of putting it on my car and driving it down the street. That was wild. The whole thing was documented on Suzie's camera, so it's possible that we may see as slideshow of it in the future. I know we certainly got some good pictures. I'll bet the neighbors probably got quite a kick out of that one!

I was picturing in my mind the lady up the street that Suzie lovingly refers to as Gladys Kravitz (remember her on Bewitched?) for her snooping and meddling.

"Abner, come look at what they're doing now!"

What a killer day!