Frenchy's Rant

The waiting is over. The countdown has reached zero. I am officially starting to ride the Road to Wrestlemania today.

If you are having trouble sleeping, feel free to follow my ride at this link.

Updates to follow on the off chance that anything interesting happens between now and Sunday.

Is it just me, or are the years flying by quicker than ever? I can remember being seven years old, and it seeming like the summer would never end, each and every day a perfect eternity of youthful, blissful ignorance. Though less blissful these days, I’m still pretty much as ignorant as I was back then, but now it seems the days, weeks and years are blurring past at a frightening pace.

Case in point, it seems just yesterday Dark Meat Snack and I were gearing up for the Road to Wrestlemania XXV ride. Now, here it is, already one year later, and on Wednesday, I’ll be setting out on the Road to Wrestlemania XXVI edition.

Unfortunately, Dark Meat Snack won’t be joining me on the RTW XXVI this year. Why? Well, seems he lost what little remained of his mind and went ahead and got married over Christmas. Since I’ve already been down that dead-end road before (and yes, just in case Sleeping Beauty happens to read this, I may yet go down that road again… someday….) I already know what that means – he’s pretty much done as a riding buddy.

Life goes on, as they say, and so does the show. Wrestlemaina XXVI is being held at the University of Phoenix on Sunday, March 28th. If you’re not planning on attending, make sure and buy the Pay Per View, a T-shirt, and souvenir Championship Title Belt – such generous contributions keep yours truly employed, and I have my heart set on buying a nice Dual Sport this season and getting duuurty in Baja. Sleeping Beauty will be joining me on the second half of the trip – the Road Home From Wrestlemania on March 31st.

Yesterday, freed at last from the garage for a four hundred mile test ride to San Diego, Rain Cloud Follows proved more than ready to go. During our solo jaunt, I promised my faithful Yamaha that on the Road to Wrestlemania XXVI we will go as far as we can.

I further promised Rain Cloud that since this leg of the Road to Wrestlemaina XXVI will include just the two of us, we’d seek out as much strangeness as we could. Strangeness like this grammatically challenged yet inviting place:

In last night’s lonely, Macallan enhanced stupor, trying to stay true to a promise that I made to an inanimate, beat up hunk of metal, worn out rubber and scratched plastic, I came up with the lamest Map-kin yet:

Yes, all the money I spent on art class would have been better spent on a Dual Sport bike. Here is my proposed ride explanation, subject to change based on whim, whimsy, weather or hangover:

This Wednesday, I’m aiming Rain Cloud Follows north, with Death Valley squarely in my sights, stop off in Vegas to win several million dollars at a penny slot machine, drop down into the forbidden city of Bisbee, AZ, visit a real, live nuclear missile silo, stare at some real, live cacti, bust a few real, dead ghosts in their towns, look for the end of the universe at the Kitt Observatory, go peek inside a gigantic hole in the ground left by a chunk of rock that fell from space, repeatedly toast the Best Day Ever, and then finally amble to Phoenix to do a little show called Wrestlemania for 75,000 of my dearest friends.

Once it’s all said and done, and another Wrestlemania is safely in the history books, I’ll brain-vomit out another ride report to kick off the rapidly approaching, and, if time speeds up any more, almost already complete  2010 ride season.

It’s been a while.

Not only has it been a while since I’ve written a blog post, but since I’ve donned a jacket and helmet and gone for a ride. Maybe that’s what’s been wrong with me lately. Today, I set out to find out.

First I had to round up all my gear. My tankbag was well hidden under some Christmas stuff. My helmet visor needed a good dusting – never an encouraging sign. Slithering into my riding pants, the zipper of the fly bursts off, which is absolutely not a good sign. Rain Cloud Follows, my trusty and faithful Yamaha FJR, sat dejected under its dust cover, still dirty from the last ride – which was so long ago I can’t even remember what it was.

(I exaggerate. I remember it well. The last long ride Fiona and I took on Rain Cloud Follows was to Napa and Oregon – which means the last real ride report I’ve done – a long, long time ago – can be found here.)

Biggest Cell Phone Tower in Paris

It’s been a whirlwind, as traveling with me always is. I have to say I am proud of Sleeping Beauty for keeping up – in fact a lot of the time she’s dragging ME around! It’s been planes, trains and more trains as we bopped from place to place on Europe’s fine rail system. Haven’t gotten lost (much) or ended up in the wrong area (often) which has been a treat. We’ve mastered most of Europe’s complex shower and toilet systems, and even figured out how to order coffee in three languages.

Today we’re off to Belgium, because we hear they make killer waffles up that way. Our trip is nearly over, but the picture sorting and blogging has just begun!