honda

There’s Always Something in the Woods

Last week was the first time I drove Bluebell (my mini motorcycle) all the way up the mountain to work.

I hadn’t driven her up there yet because:

a: I wasn’t totally sure she would make it. I had taken her up little hills before and she had struggled a bit, to say the least.

I had gotten stuck at the bottom of a hill in the 4th of July weekend crowd. Without anywhere to go but up and starting from a dead halt I had gunned it and had crawled up the hill so slowly that I crept up alongside two tourists and matched their pace, despite my full throttle action. I just looked over and gave them a nod. Yup, check out this hog, ladies. Pretty badass. I was going so slow that I almost fell over. I’m sure it was a scene from “Dumb and Dumber”, or the like, reincarnated. I couldn’t help but just laugh out loud since they only stared back at me, unimpressed by the sheer power they were witnessing.

Yes, that slow scale was situational but still, I worried. The way to work is 7.5 miles and the last 4 miles are a steady incline resulting in a 1,000ft. gain in elevation. I grew up basically at sea level so this gain to me seems pretty substantial. Needless to say, past embarrassments (or extremely cool events depending on how you look at it) taken into account, I was apprehensive, which was furthered by the next issue:

b: If she did make it, I had no idea how long it would take and therefore no idea when to leave for work. Things here are impossible to gauge. Less than 8 miles to work should take little to no time at all. Wrong. In a car it often takes 45 minutes. That’s almost to San Francisco departing from where I’m from in CA. Plus, even if I gave myself “plenty” of time there still was the possibility that she would break down and then I’d be stuck pushing her uphill and end up late to work.

I hate being late to work.

And so I avoided it for the first day I was scheduled to go up since getting Bluebell.

But come the second day of work and the second encouragement from The Chief that “of course she will make it up the hill” I decided to go for it.

I gave myself an hour to get there.

Or so I thought.

After packing for the day (meaning I packed a different shirt for if it got hot up at work, snacks to get through another 10-12 hour day, pants to paint in if the food truck was slow, bug spray, sunscreen, gloves and a hat and a jacket for the ride home and a change of clothes for the evening and an extra pair of socks. Seriously, you can never have too much along for the ride in Alaska. The weather changes faster than you can imagine)

I kissed The Chief goodbye and ran outside to greet Bluebell and head off for the day.

Wrong.

The little lady needed some fuel. So I ran to get the 5 gallon can of fuel.

Empty.

I rushed her over to the 55 gallon drum of gasoline in our driveway and pumped away, a bit too enthusiastically, resulting in gasoline spilling all over the both of us. Mmmm, gasoline in the morning (creepily enough, I truly love the smell but I’m sure it’s not the best aroma to serve food in). Then, on a whisper from my intuition, I checked the oil.

Good thing.

Almost gone.

I ran again to the shed where the empty gas can had been to find the oil. Empty bottles were everywhere, but a full one? That was a bit more of a search. Finally I unearthed some and ran inside to check with The Chief that I had in fact gotten the correct oil for her.

Check.

Back outside again I topped her off with oil. We were ready to ride. We just had to get her started.

Getting going is a five pronged process:

1. Turn on the fuel switch (I never even knew those existed)

2. Click the selector to RUN

3. (First find the key) Turn the key to ON

4. Wind her up with the foot crank

5. Pull the brake to start her

About ten false starts and some manipulation of the choke and she was finally off and on her way with me along for the ride.

At this point we had 45 minutes to get to work. I was calculating as I drove whether or not I would be late when suddenly a moose appeared in the middle of the road. She looked at me as I slowed down to give her space (moose are unpredictable and definitely something to stay out of the way of. A hoof to the face? No thanks) but instead of a standoff she just crossed and disappeared into the woods. Alright, 40 minutes to make it to work now. Unlike a vehicle we didn’t have to cross the bridge (meaning get out and unlock it, get back in, lock it again, check for other vehicles etc.) which takes longer. Nope, we just had to cross the foot bridge.

Did I mention it’s tourist season?

Bridge courtesy for motorized vehicles is to wait on the other side for others to cross or if you’re antsy to follow far behind (especially 4-wheelers since they can’t fit past a pedestrian). On the motorcycle I can easily pass someone but in the vein of courtesy, I kept a good distance between myself and the couple in front of me.

They slowly crossed without a care in the world, me behind them trying to keep my balance as I crept along. Finally we got across and we was able to move ahead on our merry way.

Sort of.

I should have known the holdups weren’t through with us.

Half-way up the hill I hit The Mudslide. I was at the bottom of it, heading up a short steeper hill within the 4 mile long hill and what was atop the steep little hill at the top of The Mudslide? Another dang moose.

Don’t get me wrong, I love moose, but they are a million times more unpredictable than a Whack-A-Mole and I had already ran into one that had been easy that morning. What were my chances of two? At least this one too was solo. Better than a mother and a calf.

This one was a teenager, through and through. It looked me up and down, considered moving and then considered otherwise. It paced back and forth along the road. I stayed at the bottom of the steep little hill, not wanting to have another incident like the one with the “Dumber” moment. If I matched its pace going uphill that was way closer of contact than I wanted. Ideally, I’d just zip past it, but since it was at the top of the hill and barely progressing forward, that was unlikely.

I honked my horn (it sounds almost exactly like the “meep, meep!” of the Roadrunner) and the teen just looked back at me, unimpressed. Did I just get dissed by a moose? I revved my little motor and the same look came at me again.

Finally, the teen moved into the woods. I cheered and waited for a moment before gunning it up the hill.

Success!

Nope.

As I peaked on the hill there was the moose. The teen seemed to levitate off the ground as I reached the top of the hill as it hadn’t in fact gone into the woods so much as up and over the hill out of sight and into the little pond alongside the road. I swerved to miss any incoming kicks and hauled tail up the second little hill in front of me, checking my rearview mirrors as I kicked up rocks and tried to steer clear of the big ones (the dump-you-off-your-bike-ers).

Ten minutes later I had finally made it to work.

What a day!

And it had only just begun.

We were busy busy busy and the day flew by. It was Friday, which means softball games at the ball field, games which I hadn’t gotten to play in weeks due to the tonsillitis events. I was stoked to get there. Just as we closed and started to clean in order to leave we heard a clap of thunder. The air shifted and the sky went black and it started pouring harder than I have ever experienced in Alaska.

Bluebell!

She was outside with her seat completely exposed (a seat which is currently only foam as the covering seems to have disintegrated over the years). I ran and covered her.

It seems a wet bum wouldn’t be the biggest issue of the night however.

I had forgotten my rain gear.

Rule #1 in Alaska: Layers. Always pack layers. And I had, all but one: my rain jacket.

Never forget your rain jacket. In Alaska it rains almost every day (or snows in Winter). Not always hard and not always long, but almost always a bit of rain.

This was a torrential downpour and I was caught without gear.

Oh joy!

My closing duties were done and the storm hadn’t moved down the mountain yet. Softball was still happening but if I rode down I would have been in town without warm clothes (my change wasn’t enough to get me through soaking wet) and soaked to the bone. So I waited for a ride from my boss and bid Bluebell adieu.

Well, she almost made her first full trip up to work and back.

At least she was left with a view

By the time we got down to softball the storm had reached them as well and the game was rained out.

The next morning we couldn’t get up to her before work but seeing as I didn’t have nearly as far to go to work that day (I work at two places: one is the food truck at the top of the hill, the other is a restaurant at the bottom of it) I decided to try a different mode of transportation: my bike.

Last year I had a hand me down bicycle which had tire and gear issues which we were never quite able to remedy. Riding up to the food truck town was pure torture as none of my gears worked but one and riding uphill in one gear for over an hour is something I’ll leave to the pros, thank you very much.

This year, I had borrowed a friend’s bike but it was too big for me. Every time I had to get off of it I would try to hop and propel myself forward and every time I got on I would try to get a sort of moving start and aim not to fall (which was a good aim but not always the reality).

Finally, my neighbor’s bike which had been stolen (here it’s called “borrowed” but without permission it seems a bit more of a steal) all winter reappeared. In its absence she had purchased another bike and so after having seen me and my don’t-fall-over tactics on the Too Big Bike she offered it to me.

It fit!

The gears were finicky and only sort of worked and the handlebars surprised me with a sticky residue nearly impossible to remove but it had more than one gear and it moved me where I needed to go. It was all good.

Except the seat: the seat would not stay put. I’d adjusted it and tightened it and tested it countless times. It would even sometimes stay for a whole day but then the next time I would ride it I would slowly feel myself start sinking down, down, down. And so I would ride with my knees basically in my teeth, huffing and puffing just to get it going down the dirt road.

But, I ran into a girlfriend the day after my Bluebell expedition and she somehow strong-armed the bike into staying put. The seat remained in place and I was able to bike and bike and bike.

Until the tire went flat.

Easy fix, right? I borrowed a pump.

Nope.

It had “special tires” and for the life of me I couldn’t find a “special pump”.

And so it sat with flat tires and I resorted to the next step: two feet as my mode of transportation.

I walked to work the next day and at the end of my shift, The Chief and I drove up and finally collected Bluebell.

Someone (who knows?), unaccustomed to the fuel line situation, had left the fuel on and so we worried she wouldn’t start but after a few tries start she did. I let The Chief ride her home since he hadn’t gotten any Bluebell time. Finally she was back home and my modes of transport were twofold again (legs and Bluebell).

The next day it rained and so I chose the less painful route of walking (water pellets hurt on a motorcycle). The Chief had the day off and spent it working on his own motorcycle which finally was resurrected.

Two working machines?!

We may not have a car that works but darned if we don’t have two machines.

That day I asked my girlfriend (the strong one) if she had a bike pump I could use and it turned out she did. I brought it home and pumped those babies up the next day before work.

Three modes of transportation?! (Legs, bike, motorcycle) This was too much.

And obviously it was too much.

5 minutes into my ride I started feeling myself slowly shrink.

The damn seat again?!

There’s always something in the woods. It’s always something when you live in the woods.

The day after The Chief got his motorcycle running he rode it into town. We got a ride home and the next day when he came back to get it he couldn’t start it, not even with a little help from our friends (Joe Cocker really rocks that version).

Even Cinda was up to help

This is a My Damn Bike Won’t Start face in case you’ve never seen one.

That’s just how it goes.

There’s always something in the woods.

Be it a moose or a holdup. There’s always something. No gas. No oil. Fuel left on. Rain storms. A dog that needs to come home so you leave a bike in town. A flooded pathway. A working bike one day followed by who knows what happened the next. A low rider bike. A wet seat.

But hey, at least it keeps it interesting. Between the dust and the potholes, two wheels and four wheels alike all have trouble at some time and if you can’t just throw your hands up and laugh along with Alaska then she will be on her own just laughing at you (in a kind way but still, you won’t be in on the joke).

I remember the first time anything big went wrong with my old car in California. The seat stopped adjusting (it was automatic) and my reaction was to almost be offended. How could this just stop working? I’m driving here, people. I’m so important, right?

Alaska doesn’t care who you are she just cares how you get through it and believe me, it’s not always with grace and ease and a song in my heart. But most of the time I can just laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. So many vehicles, so little movement. When half of your day is just spent hoping to make it to and from work and the other half is spent working, there’s really no time to be stay grumpy.

The road here is always bumpy and so one can either learn to avoid the big bumps and glide with the rest or point each one out (but that sounds very tiring).

And so who knows? Maybe this week I will find a way to fix the seat. By then I’m sure Bluebell will catch a cold or my shoes will go missing or our vehicle will start working. It’s a constant game of musical vehicles but hey, none of them have electronic seats, so at least that won’t go out.

Cheers to living on the edge and in the woods. Who knows what’s next? Fingers crossed and backpack packed (this time with a rain jacket).

Bluebell

I spent the later part of this Winter learning how to drive:

1. in the snow and

2. in a stick shift.

I patted my own back as I began to learn how to control a slide, to drive in slush and ice and everything not so nice and eventually, I took my first long voyage to a girlfriend’s house 15 miles away.

It was triumphant.

With the exception of the end.

Back then, Ole Lady Jack in the Box had little to no shocks and her back-end wobbled all over the road at the slightest interference like a less than predictable belly dancer. But just as I would feel about to lose control, she would snap back into action. It was my first time in 4th gear and my first time with passengers that weren’t my person (The Chief). Our neighbor and her pup and my other neighbor’s pup who relentlessly followed up for a few miles until we just decided to kidnap him for the day and Miss Cinda all packed into Lady Jack and headed to another girlfriend’s house on The Lake 15 miles away. It was relatively smooth sailing despite the rocky waters of The Road and the inexperienced Captain (yours truly) but we got there in one piece and high fives were definitely in order. All I had to do was turn around once we reached The Lake to face homeways before we trekked on foot across the frozen waters.

Funny thing was, I couldn’t quite find 1st gear after spending so much time out of it. With a cliff heading down to The Lake behind us and a 1.5 car road and blind turn in front of us, I set out to find 1st and right us in the direction homeward (that’s a thing out here. You always pull into a destination in a way so that you are faced homewards. I don’t know if it stemmed from fire trucks in our family or what, but it’s a habit and one I see almost everyone do out here and ya know, it makes a whole lot of sense).

7 tries later I finally found a little momentum. I caught the gear, a little too hard and flew forward enough to stall the car and land on the horn. The stall coupled with the high-pitched and long “meep” of the horn left us in tears from laughter. I swear the dogs were even laughing (after they were done rolling their eyes). A few tries afterwards I found 1st again and about ten minutes later we were turned homewards, without falling off the cliff or running into an oncoming car.

Success!

The rest of the day was spent spotting bald eagles and their babies and walking with the dogs along The Lake (we had acquired 4 more at this point. Outnumbered again.) as they found salmon to munch on and the ladies caught up.

I doubt it will ever cease to amaze me how flowing water turns seamlessly into a slippery highway.

Oh girl time, how I love thee.

That night, The Chief and my girlfriend’s husband ended up driving out to The Lake as well and due to a raucous party in my belly to which I had not been invited to chaperone, The Chief drove us home.

So, that morning was my last time driving a stick shift in any gear higher than 3rd on The Road. I’ve never even been off The Road, never driven on anything other than the fertile learning grounds of 60 miles of bumpy and deserted lands and thus have never entered a highway or driven in stop and go traffic.

But suddenly I was about to. You see, I spoke too soon.

And I should have known better.

The tonsils struck back.

After last week’s adventures in Abscess Land I figured I was free. Sure, the idea that they might come back again was in the very back of my mind but I haven’t organized back there in a while and it was easy to look past. All was good.

But again, I spoke too soon.

Just as I published last week’s post I felt it: the heat. My right ear started pulsing again and my ear and neck felt as if they were on fire.

Again?!

I called my doctor in California and she promptly advised me to “hop on a plane to California. The infection may be coming back and who knows where it will land next”. She would send in a referral sight unseen for me to see an ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat specialist) and I would likely have a Tonsillectomy.

I half choked on her words as I almost laughed a response out of nervousness. Hop on a plane? The nearest airport is 8 plus hours away. Correction: the nearest airport is 3.5 miles away. I can get there on foot. That being said, that airport brings in mail twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays on small planes packed to the gills. Those would be the only days I could potentially get out via air (if they weren’t already booked with passengers) and it would cost a pretty penny just to get to Anchorage where again, pennies would get even prettier as I purchased my way back to California. In addition to that, simply going to the high town here (at an increase of 1,000 ft.) made my ears go crazy so jumping in a plane sounded more like a torture chamber than a refuge.

But what could I do? Kaiser would only refer me to Kaiser and guess what?

There’s no Kaiser in Alaska.

Who knew?

Well, I for one did and I for one did nothing to start working out my medical situation in Alaska in anticipation of a future need for care.

Care I needed right then.

Plan ahead? That’s cute of you to suggest. No, I think I’ll go for the fly by the seat of your pants and potentially have to sell the shirt off your back to pay for it approach. Yes, that sounds much more serene.

After hours and hours and hours on the phone trying to figure out my best options through MediCal, Medicare in Alaska, Kaiser and Partnership (some go-between for MediCal and Kaiser that is confusing to everyone in the medical system) to get in to see an ENT, it dawned on me:

The Chief and I had basically spent the entire Winter with his ENT. Maybe they would see me.

No referral needed. They set me up with an appointment for that coming Friday.

Perfect.

Now then, our car was (and is) still broken and we can’t very well steal away in a Fire truck during a time of extreme fire danger, but make the appointment I did.

Our neighbor came to our rescue lending us his valiant Subaru steed and with that we were set. I called around for a vet appointment for Cinda as well as she had been having some older lady problems that we had been unable to get her in for and when you’re going to Town you pack in every appointment you can. Two birds? Why not try for 20 with one stone. Try we did.

Town Run.

This time, it was a Town Run on steroids.

Our plan: leave Thursday, return Friday night.

20 hours of driving in 36 hours.

And we were going to share the driving.

Gulp. Stick shift training in a hurry.

Why the rush? Saturday was packed to the gills: there was a Fire Department Kickball Game & Cookout Fundraiser and I was performing with the local band at the bar for our first gig. We had to make it back.

All week I made phone calls trying to finagle a way to ensure this visit and the potential CTs and Xrays the doctor had suggested would somehow be covered. Many times throughout the week, even though I still had to take loads of Ibuprofen to function and couldn’t make it through any evening event, I tried to convince The Chief that maybe we were wasting our time.

“Julia, you had an abscess on top of Tonsillitis which blew up in your mouth. We are going to the doctor.”

Fine, sheesh.

He’s good like that. You see the thing is, (gross part approaching) as I had guessed, the drainage of an abscess is supposed to happen in the hospital and then following the drainage, patient’s are given a high dosage shot of Penicillin. And it didn’t quite roll out that way.

I guess he had a point. Besides, my Mom was in California backing up The Chief’s every call with a Do You Need Me To Come Up There And Drag You To The Doctor Myself Mom Voice so I knew I was going no matter what.

But I was still worried about the money because who knew where in the system this was coming from but if it didn’t land somewhere, it was coming from me and me is not exactly rolling in the dough.

“You are getting the care you need. I don’t care if we have to pay it off for the next 20 years.”

I have never had someone so blatantly and selflessly throw themselves on the line for me (other than my Mom) and make me feel like we are in it together no matter what.

I was honored (though I still tried to get out of it).

But I didn’t get out of it and so we left Thursday, ready to return Friday and hoping the doctors wouldn’t require us to stay longer (we’d experienced that move before and were poised to debate it if we needed to).

We left with a zoom, as if we were gathering running momentum in order to pole vault ourselves back. A few times I thought The Chief might ask me to drive and I readied myself for the challenge despite the intense pain building in my ears as we went up and down and up and down the mountains. But he didn’t.

No driving yet.

We stopped about 4 hours from home at the nearest DMV. About a month ago I was on a Girl Trip day mission to the same town to get two things done: loads of laundry and licensing at the DMV. Since I’ve lived here since December (and you’re supposed to change over licenses after living somewhere for something like 30 days, I’ve just found out) I was way out-of-bounds. But I was hesitant. I liked my CA license. I’d never had anything else. It felt like I was saying “goodbye” and it made me apprehensive.

That is until we showed up at 11am on a Thursday and the DMV was closed. In that moment, I realized that a license is just a license and I needed my license in AK. My heart and at times my feet will always have a place in California but in order to get this whole medical shebang moving, I needed to come at it legitimately.

But living in small towns means small DMVs, DMVs like you’ve probably (I hadn’t) never seen before. It’s a one room tiny building with one owner/operator whom obviously (though it wasn’t obvious to me before arriving) is able to set her own hours of operation. 9-5? Think again.

When I saw that Closed sign I knew I wanted that license. Leave it to Alaska to give you just what you were secretly asking for, only to help you realize that you didn’t really mean it.

So, here it was, today was the day: legitimate driving in Alaska. I had waited a whole month to be able to get back here and I was stoked. I had studied online, found out all the paperwork I needed and I was ready. I came in, gave her my forms and identification and proof of residence and she looked at me and said:

“Oh no, you live at the end of The 60 Mile Road, don’t you?”
She recognized me from Winter when we came in for Fire Truck registrations on one of our trips to Town.

“You didn’t bring your passport or birth certificate by any chance?”

No, I had looked online and it asked for Identification. If it had asked for my passport I would have brought my passport. It was sitting in our kitchen drawer, four hours away. The Chief had suggested I call the DMV but I had stubbornly ignored his suggestion. If I hadn’t I would have known that apparently I needed my passport.

She knew we wouldn’t be able to come back until I could catch another ride into town who knows when but there was nothing that could be done. I took the test and passed (it’s an abnormally hard test for some reason so I was glad to make it through) and we placed all of my paperwork in an envelope for me to return with when I could.

Ugh.

Another DMV letdown. Man, I’m really going to have to work to prove to Alaska that I do want to be here, I guess. That’s O.K., I’m in.

Third time’s the charm?

The Chief kept driving from there and about an hour outside of Town we reassessed. He said he’d be fine to just finish it up (it’s like driving to L.A. from Sonoma County, not a small quest) and so we pulled into Town ahead of schedule and settled in for the night.

The next morning it was pouring down rain.

“Maybe I’ll just drive to the doctor’s office. Anchorage can get hectic in the rain.” The Chief offered. I was relieved. Stop and go traffic in the rain for the first time on a stick I’ve never driven that’s also not ours? No thank you.

We got to the doc’s office and the whole staff gave us confused looks as I entered as the patient instead of The Chief. He had one of the worst cases of sinus infections they had ever seen and so was remembered by the team. The doctor came in, evaluated my tonsils and ears and said:

“The infection doesn’t seem to be spreading. You still have Tonsillitis, despite the burst abscess so that’s why you’re still in so much pain but keep on the antibiotics and call me if you need more.”

And then:

“So, shall we take them out?”

Thank you! Finally, a doc who gets it. Personally, I am not one to jump at surgery (heck, I can barely get myself in for a check-up), but my tonsils scare me. They feel constantly on the brink of infection and this recent abscess on top of infection was enough to make me worry. I don’t want to be in the woods constantly dealing with Tonsillitis.

“Alright let’s schedule you in now.”

Now? Like next week? Oh heck no. I have a show to play tomorrow.

We asked if we could push it…to September and he gave us a look that meant “Sure, but your tonsils will decide”. So we scheduled for September so I could spend the Summer working instead of recovering from surgery (apparently it’s a pretty gnarly surgery for adults) and crossed our fingers that the infection doesn’t spread and my tonsils don’t start going for gold in the Tonsillitis Olympics again.

I left feeling heard, finally.

We had five hours to kill before the Vet which seemed like an eternity. Two errands later and we had 2.5 hours left. Time flies when you’re having fun in Anchorage.

The rain kept coming and first gear started acting up. The Chief kept driving.

Two more errands later and we were at the Vet. Poor Lou was so nervous and in so much pain when they even attempted to look at her lady bits that they had to give her morphine. It didn’t exactly calm her (she’s a dog raised in the woods without laminated flooring or leashes, it’s all unfamiliar to her) but it did deaden her senses enough that as we left she fell over in the car after we made a quick turn. The thud was both sad and hilarious at the same time but there she was, smiling goofily as she slowly picked herself back up. Triumphant T, the Hallucinating Husky.

With a Doped Up Dog and a Surgery Scheduled Sweetie on board The Chief drove us out of Town. We stopped for supplies an hour out and as he grabbed an energy drink he said he didn’t mind just taking the whole drive.

I’d love to pretend that I was a little disappointed but I wasn’t. Learning a new stick on a car I don’t own on big traffic-filled roads with a testy 1st gear in the rain in a rush to get home (as it was now almost 7pm and we were still 7 hours away) sounds 100% like a typical Alaskan learning experience but 100% not what I was up for at that moment. And so, I let go and let him take us home. Thank you.

We got in late but in record time and all in all we had made it out of town which was really all that mattered.

The next day was a flurry of activity getting ready for the fundraiser (though thanks to our friend almost everything was already in place, she’s awesome). I was down at The Restaurant and had just plated the last batch of cookies I’d made to bring up to the fundraiser. I walked outside to go the long way to the ball field instead of scaling the treacherous back way and just as I stepped outside, The Chief rolled up, horn meep meeping.

She lived!

A few months ago The Chief gave away the Honda to a wonderful mechanic friend. I was not excited. I loved that Honda and wanted to get her back to life (I’d never seen her in action), but we didn’t know to fix her and hadn’t had the time and so, in the circle of life things live around here, she was given away to hopefully be resurrected and loved by someone else.

For some reason though, as I said goodbye to her I knew I would see her again.

He pulled up meep meeping the horn and I almost threw the cookies in the air with excitement.

“It’s for you, babe.”

Our mechanic friend had gotten it working but decided he didn’t need it so he had sold it to his brother for $100.00. The brother had brought it to the Kickball game to potentially give it to another friend but when The Chief saw it he immediately ran and got his money. This is for Julia.

I spent the rest of the day smiling at her when I wasn’t riding her and getting bugs in my teeth my grin was so big when I was riding her.

She was a hit with the kiddos too.

At one point someone ran up to her and went to take her off her kickstand and I yelled across the field: “Don’t you just jump on Bluebell! She’s an old lady and deserves respect.”

She had a name. It had just popped out.

Bluebell.

At the end of the fundraiser I rode Bluebell down to the bar and for some reason The Chief suggested I take the key with me. We both looked at one another with our heads cocked as he said it (we don’t have a key to our house and we never lock anything out here. The keys are always inside everyone’s vehicles and there is just trust in the town for it to be so) but I did it anyways.

And it’s a good thing I did.

Sound check.

Hours later, after playing music for 2-3 hours and having an awesome night a local ran into the bar and said “Someone just stole your bike!”

Excuse me?

We ran outside and down the trail and sure enough someone had tried to steal Bluebell but when they couldn’t get her started they had thrown her in the bushes. I picked her up and dusted her off as The Chief hightailed it after the invisible thief whom had disappeared into the night.

Thank goodness we had taken the key with us.

That night as I drove Bluebell home (completely un-equipped in my dress and gloveless frozen fingers) I giggled out loud from happiness. I had loved that bike since I first saw her and to have her come back around full circle is what this place is all about. It makes my heart warm.

Her first time back at home. 2am and feeling fine.

And so, despite two attempts at the DMV and zero attempts at a stick shift in town, my driving karma has finally taken a turn with Bluebell.

Yesterday morning, I went outside to check on the garden.

I was almost to the ramp to indoors when I spotted Bluebell in her parking spot. I couldn’t resist. I fired her up (a process of five separate steps) and flew down the road on a mini joy ride down to the river before we left for the day, slippers and all. I just couldn’t walk past her without jumping on.

And so, Tonsillitis (which seems to be improving everyday) and Town Rampages aside, this weekend was one of the best I’ve spent here so far. I may not know how to drive a stick shift in Town yet and I will still have to make yet another trip to the DMV but I suddenly have the best rig a lady could ask for.

Cheers to resurrections of vehicles who have more lives than cats and cheers to The Chief for buying her twice.

Cheers to Bluebell.