2 Lessons Learned
Last weekend I rode with my HOG Club to Tombstone, Arizona. It was pretty fun. We left Friday morning and made our way west via the back roads; riding through Columbus, NM, Douglas, AZ, Bisbee, AZ, and finally up into Sierra Vista, AZ, where we had our reservations. Everyone pretty much went their separate ways for dinner that night because there were so many of us.
The following day brought us a host of scenic views and good eating. The local HOG Chapter (Thunder Mountain) hosted a few rides through their rustic setting and made arrangements for lunch at a local golf course – the only place that could host a crowd our size on such short notice. After lunch we rode into Tombstone and enjoyed the sights and shops as well as dropped a few coins into the pockets of the shopkeepers. That night our chapter had a huge cook-out and invited Thunder Mountain to partake. Sunday morning it was KSU (Kick Stands Up) at 9AM as we took to the interstate for the ride back.
Herein lies the lessons I learned. First, never, under any circumstances, put a breath-right strip on your nose if it happens to have a bad sunburn. Ever. When I awoke Saturday morning and ritually tore off the strip from my nose, the strip insisted on taking the skin with it. Boy did that burn! It burned worse when I proceeded to take my shower. And then a bit more every time I generously applied more sunscreen to my raw nose-meat. When I returned to work that Monday, people were asking if I fell off my bike.
The second lesson I learned is never take an MP3 file that is made with the express intent of putting you to sleep in your playlist for a road-trip. This was an accident. I have this recording that is designed to put me to sleep and it does a pretty good job of it. In order to place the MP3 on my iPhone so that I can listen to it easily at night, I have it rated as a 5-star song (I only sync 5-star songs to my iPhone), insuring that it stays on the iPhone. Imagine my surprise as I’m riding down a long stretch of road rocking to the likes of Sevendust, Tool, and Fair to Midland, when all of a sudden this put-me-to-sleep song comes on. The worst part of it all is that my iPhone is tucked securely in my leather vest’s inside pocket. I was using in-ear-canal headphones that have no controls on them. I was not able to skip to the last song. I had to endure 15 minutes of this sleep-inducing music and sounds. If you’re interested in the sleep song, I got it from pzizz.