Monday, August 31, 2009

Saturday BBQ & Sunday Ride

We were invited to a send off BBQ at our friends house in Molt. Gary and I have never been to Molt, thank goodness for google maps. We got the directions to the house. The BBQ started at 5:00 pm.

We left early so that I could get my haircut. That was one of things I was going to do for my dental therapy but didn't get done.

We found the place with only one glitch. We missed the turn off to their house. We did find all the little roads but who would think to put up balloons or streamers for people to know which house is yours. We weren't the only ones who missed it. We were so glad to find people we know. Had to turn around and head back. There were no markings to say where you were. In fact I barely saw the sign for the road they were on. All it was was a small white square sign.

The BBQ was a send off for their son who left for boot camp yesterday. He will be stationed in Georgia. They had a good turn out for it. About an even number of oldies and young ones. Must have been about 20 of us in all. It was a very nice evening. We got home around 9:00 pm.

Sunday we decided to take a ride just because. No particular reason. The hardest part was figuring out where to go. We finally decided to go to Forsyth because we haven't been in that direction yet on the Harley and it really wasn't too far. Gary is still not quite up to par battling his infection.

We had a nice ride, weather was great and the temperature was very comfortable. We ate lunch in Forsyth at the Dairy Queen. That was a busy little place for a Sunday afternoon. Many people stopping in for an ice cream. After lunch we headed back for home.

We did stop at a rest area for a small break and visited with a couple from St. Paul. They are bikers and they were taking a five week trip. They are pulling a 5th wheel trailer with a garage and had their bikes in the back. They did give us a short tour of their trailer and how things fit in the garage. Not a bad set up, but he did say that it is a bit heavy. They were making their way back to St. Paul, but taking a very scenic route.

We do have alot of washing to do on the bike. It is covered with bugs, every inch of it. Don't think there is a space that doesn't have a bug. Good thing Gary was wearing a helmet. He got hit by a grasshopper. Those things are loud, I heard it when it hit. They also hurt when you get hit with one.

Tonight Jennifer and I are taking Gary out for dinner at the Mexican place in town. He is whining how we are going to abandon him for 11 days and this is the least we can do.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Dentists

On Thursday I had a scheduled dentist appointment for a cleaning. My teeth are now nice and shiny for Ireland.

Wednesday Jennifer and I went to Billings to get some shopping done for our trip. We needed to get all the small stuff. I did manage to find a passport security carrier that I can wear around my neck. I wanted one like Jen has, but couldn't find those. I wanted one that has zippers and finally found one. Was going to buy an inflatable neck pillow, but decided against that. My carry on bag is pretty small and so far it has alot in it.

We had a good time and enjoyed ourselves. When we got home Gary was not feeling well. He wanted me to make him a dental appointment at a dentist that advertises that cowards are welcome. He said that he has a toothache all day and now he is feverish and just not feel well overall. I convinced him to see my dentist since I had an appointment anyway.

On Thursday morning, Gary was in so much pain and his upper lip looked like he had taken a botox shot, it was very swollen and he was feverish. We left early and my dentist did manage to squeeze him in. Gary ended up getting his tooth pulled, he has an infection and has to take some antibiotics. My appointment went very well. The dentist gave me two small tubes of toothpaste for my trip.

Needless to say I didn't get any therapy done on Thursday. Gary was just feeling too run down and crummy to do anything. All he wanted to do was come home and get some sleep. He is now feeling better, but still gets run down in the evenings.

My dentist was going to tease him that his wife handled the shots better than he did. Gary was ready for it, but he didn't get teased at all. We were in rooms next to each other and I could hear him moan a little when he got the shot in his mouth. Because of the infection it took a few more shots than normal to get numb. Gary did say that the extraction itself wasn't bad at all, just getting the shots.

Gary also said that from now on he will not longer tease me about not being able to eat. Today he is much better and we are trying to figure out where to ride to today.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Charity Ride

Yesterday Gary and I rode on our HOG chapter charity ride. It was a poker run and all the proceeds went to support the Title I schools in Billings with school supplies for the students. Since we both can't participate in the MDA charity ride, we did this one.



It was a beautiful day weather wise for a ride. Just enough cloud cover to keep the heat out. Very comfortable for riding. We signed up and paid our $20 for the poker hands for the day at the dealership in Billings. We received our poker cards. They are kept in a sealed envelope with numbers all around it. At each stop you pick out a chip and they will punch the corresponding number. You will not know what your hand is until the very end.



Our first stop was at Sid's Place in Laurel. We had to take a detour because of road construction, but we caught up with a group so we all rode together. There were 11 of us in our group. Our second stop was at Two Bears Tavern in Fromberg. Never had the occasion to stop there, but it is a nice small town bar. Our third stop was Bearcreek Saloon in Bearcreek.



We decided to eat lunch as a group in Red Lodge at the Red Lodge Cafe. This turned out to be a huge mistake. They were pretty busy all day long but it took us over an hour to get our food after we ordered. We didn't get a very good waitress, she told us that large orders generally take longer. We weren't actually a large order, just a bunch of small orders. We were there for just under two hours. We stood in line to pay for over 15 minutes. This was after we were told that someone would be right with us. I was to the point were I was going to make my own change, when one of the waitresses came to take our money. Boy did she have an attitude. She was complaining the whole time about being busy and swamped and no extra help was on hand. I just took my change and left. Each stop had a two hour time limit, but the organizers had each start time in half hour intervals. For instance the first stop was open from 9:00-11:00, the second from 9:30-11:30 and so on. We had to be finished by 4:00 pm.



Because of the delay in Red Lodge, we missed the dealers at the next two stops, so we just went on into Billings at the last stop at the Squire Lounge. We were supposed to stop at the Lost Junction in Roberts, which we did stop but the dealer was gone, then we were supposed to stop at The Caboose in Laurel. The dealers at The Caboose waited there for riders, but nobody stopped. Got to the Squire Lounge and managed to get our cards completely punched. Gary and I both had nothing.



We bought tickets for the 50-50 raffle and they also raffled off some t-shirts, hats and shot glasses. I won another t-shirt. Gary said that they aren't going to let me play anymore. Since November I have won something off a raffle every month. I won some big ticket items too, like Denver Bronco tickets, $50 gift cards, $60 cash, not to mention t-shirts, hats and neck scarves.



The people who won the poker hands all donated their winnings back to the schools. In total our group raised $1200 in cash and a big box of school supplies for the Billings schools.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Travel Documents

I received our travel documents for our trip of a lifetime today. I was supposed to get them last week, but my travel agent didn't get them until Monday, then she wanted to read the itinerary and go over our flight schedule one last time to make sure everything was ok. She also was going to try to get us an earlier flight out of Billings, as she wasn't comfortable with our 35 minute layover in Salt Lake.

We all got a very nice leather travel wallet, has a zippered compartment and also a couple compartments to stuff our boarding passes and other important stuff we will need. We have our airport shuttle vouchers and a list of the motels we will be staying at. There are also copies of the motel list to keep at home for our family and friends. I already mailed Grandma a copy of our itinerary and the motel list today.

We will be visiting the cities of Dublin, Kildare, Waterford, Kenmare Bay, Limerick, Galway and Sligo. Some of the sites we will see are the Irish National Stud Farm; Japanese Garden, a Norman Castle, Waterford Crystal Factory, Blarney Castle and kiss the blarney stone, the Ring of Kerry, Adare, St. Mary's Cathedral, King John's Castle and the Treaty Stone, Bunratty Castle and folk park, Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, Knock, Drumcliff, Boyle, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Phoenix Park, Trinity College, Old Jameson Whiskey Distillery.

There will be alot to see and do. We will also have optional excursions at an extra cost and I hope we do a couple of these. One I would like to do is the Irish Ceilidh Evening. That is traditional Irish music and dancing and maybe see the Glen of Two Lakes. We will get to see monastic sites dating back to the 7th century.

With the three of us we will have a ton of photos to be posted and shared.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Weekend Update

Gary and I both took Friday off from work and we made our way to Meeteetse on the Harley. We left Hardin around 8:00 am. We went out for breakfast, then came home and packed up the bike. The weather was great. It was on the cool side, but very comfortable on the bike.

We met the Grandmas at Lucille's Cafe for lunch, then we went up to the house to unload the bike and regroup. About an hour later we decided to make our way to the shooting range so that Grandma could watch her Regulator friends shoot. However, when we got there they were done shooting and the guys were waiting for their ride back to their motels. Grandma did get to visit for a few minutes. It was kind of funny because when we pulled up she said that she didn't know any of the guys, but they sure knew who she was. They all were very pleased to see Gracie.

We then made our way to the Oasis to find out what the schedule was for the rest of the day, by this time it was starting to rain. The guys said that they would see her at the Taste of Meeteetse and the women had gone into Cody for some shopping. We went back to the house and visited and then watched the storm roll in. We got pea sized hail. Glad we weren't on the bike when this hit.

We made our way back to town for the Taste of Meeteetse. The Grandmas thought that it started at 5:00, but when we got in town nothing was set up. Found out at the chocolatier's that it didn't start until 6:00. The only thing to do was go to the Cowboy, have a drink and wait. There were only two stations for the Taste of Meeteetse and both were good. The duck group had pieces of chicken marinaded in two different kinds of sauces. One was a rum marinade and the other was a whiskey marinade, plus they had vodka slushes. Those were good. The Mason group had shrimp scampi, fry bread and tiramisu cheesecake. Very tasty. Gary and I did the correct thing and put in equal amount of money in the cans. Then we ate supper at the Cowboy. After supper we then made our way down to the Oasis to sit by the bon fire. Grandma sure enjoyed herself visiting with everyone.

Saturday morning, Gary and I went to Cody to stand in the flag line for the Patriot Guard on the WWII Memorial dedication. We were going to eat breakfast at Lucille's but they were swamped, so we just had coffee then we made our way to Cody to eat breakfast. The Grandmas stayed and ate breakfast at Lucille's. It was pretty cool for the dedication, but at least it didn't rain. There was a large crowd for the dedication, the guest speakers were the Governor, the Wyoming National Guard General and a Bataan Death March survivor. The memorial is very interesting and very large. Just last month they only had the base done and now it's a full memorial. I have posted photos on picasa. After the dedication was over, we made our way to Billings. We got into the end of a rainstorm at Chief Joseph. It wasn't bad and we didn't get wet much. It was the tail end of the storm. Looked like it had rained pretty hard earlier. Glad we missed that.

We decided to spend the night in Billings as we planned on going with the HOG Chapter ride to Absarokee on Sunday. We stayed at the Quality Inn and enjoyed it. They had a big hot tube and pool which was very relaxing after a ride. We ate supper at the Outback. The motel had a "Raid the Fridge" night. At 9:00 they had popcorn, graham crackers, makings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a snack mix with a cajun kick and iced tea. For breakfast the hotel serves hot breakfast, eggs cooked to order, pancakes, toast, your choice of bacon, sausage links or patties. Very delicious. They also had the regular continental breakfast with cereal and breakfast rolls.

On Sunday we met the HOG group at the dealership for a ride to Absarokee. The route we took was the back road to the other side of Laurel, on to Joliet and then the road over the hill into Columbus. Gary and I have never been on that road and it was nice. Not very much traffic. We had our meeting in Absarokee, then decided to ride to Roscoe for lunch. It was raining in Roscoe, so the group decided to eat lunch in Columbus. We raided the restaurant. Afterwards we all made our way back to Billings. The couple who was leading us took us on the old highway to Laurel and then we were turning onto roads and going in the wrong direction to get to Laurel. Turns out that they were taking us to the new house they are having built by the golf course in Laurel. We all got the tour of the house and they can't wait to host parties for all their friends. While we were having the tour it had rained. We missed it, which was great. That rain cloud was just hanging over Laurel. All around was nice blue sky.

We had a great weekend and trying to figure out if we will have time to take one more ride before I leave on my trip.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Wii Game System

A couple weeks ago, we bought a whole new tv system for the household. One of the funnest things we bought was the wii game system.

We had been wanting one for quite some time and decided to get one this year for Christmas, well Christmas came early.

We spend about an hour a day playing the games and all of us are getting better at the games. I do have to admit that baseball sucks and golf isn't much better. We still need more practice on these games. Our favorite is the bowling and tennis. You should see us in the livingroom, we really get into the games and are moving around alot.

We bought an extra remote so that it is easier to play two players on the games and it also came with a game call wii play. On this game our favorites are tanks and laser hockey. We do enjoy playing the shooting game and the game where you run over scarecrows on your cow.

We have been talking about getting the wii fit, but not for quite some time, need to save our pennies for that one. We have heard that it is mean, if you miss working out it will let you know about it. Sounds like something we need.

Today we played the games for two hours. It is so easy to get addicted to it.