Those Infamous Words .... I DO

Have you ever heard of the old saying "rode hard and put away wet"?  It's a cowboy thing.  If you rode hard causing your horse to sweat a lot and then put them in the corral while wet, they always looked terrible in the morning.  That was us back in the day.  Not many people still alive know about this story.

It's how I came to meet Patty and Dan Chance and become lifelong friends.  It all came about because of motorcycles.  So when Dan called to say he was coming down to trade in his older bike on a new one, the Kissack Hotel opened up wide. 

Dan and Patty built Jamestown Harley Davidson up in the mountains.  Obviously he has connections, which is how THIS beauty landed in his trailer.  This thing has a better stereo system than the one in my house.  

She's a beauty, to say the least.  He unloaded it into my garage for some added necessities.  SO much bigger than my Harley I sold a couple years ago.  This thing is a thoroughbred compared to my pony.  SO many buttons to push!!  It would probably serve you a cold soda while going down the freeway.

Dan is taking off this morning for a thousand mile ride, then returning for all the necessary oil changes and adjustments before heading back to Arizona, so there will be more pictures to come.

In the meantime, here's the backstory.  Very few people alive today know about my heydays riding motorcycles.  Yup ... that's Dan on the left and Patty in the middle.  Can you believe we were that good looking and SKINNY???  Not to mention all the hair we had.  The guy on the right?  That was my husband.  

Yessirree ... see that bouquet?  It's a long story.  Harley Davidson came up with a cruise to the Caribbean for its dealers and owners.  Weird for a bunch of motorcyclists akin to the Hell's Angles, but we all signed up.  That's when someone ... I think maybe Patty and Dan ... came up with the idea we should get married on the ship.  

I don't know how they pulled that one off, but when we arrived and went to the upstairs bar ... come on now, this was a MOTORCYCLE group ... there was a minister ready to marry us.  Sadly, my expensive wedding dress was in my lost luggage that never got delivered to our room.  So here you have it, my official wedding photo after saying I DO with best man Dan, Matron of Honor Patty and us, just before the ship sailed off into the sunset.

By the way, the minister said I shouldn't worry about my wedding attire since you should never be dressed better than your guests (as he looked around) and you seem to fit in just fine.  I think I still have that T-shirt somewhere.  The picture above was AFTER my luggage was finally found.

So there you have it ... we went on to ride hard and get put away wet for years.  It's amazing we are still alive considering some of the stuff we did, including sleeping next to Hells Angels and partying with the roughest of them.   Unfortunately, my husband and I parted ways down the road, but my love of motorcycles has lasted forever.

I'll post a few more pictures tomorrow just for giggles.