Day 2-4: The Leisure Ride from Casper to Rapid City and Getting Back to Work at the 38th WOW International Ride-In™

Rest day has been a chill day. I hung out in the main lobby of the hotel and did some laundry in the laundromat down the street until my room was ready around 1pm. Took a nap until 7 and walked up the road to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

There's a running trend that the only time I eat at this restaurant is when I'm not in California or Texas. The closest Texas Roadhouse to me at home is 52 miles away in Corona so this was a treat. The fillet medallions were good, but man these Americans put way too much salt in their rice.

After that, I decided to be a baller and hire a private driver to acquire some supplies. In other words, I took an Uber to Walmart because I didn't want to suit up and ride there. People are nice and normal out here. The most common thread here is that nobody likes Colorado. It's okay, they're not my favorite right now, either. 😒🚘🖕🏼

Tomorrow's ride is a leisurely journey to Rapid City, SD to prepare for the 38th Women On Wheels® International Ride-In™ that starts on Tuesday morning and runs through Thursday. The route I'm riding is quieter and bypasses I-90 and Sturgis since I'll be passing them on my way out of town on Saturday when I start my journey toward Seattle/Vancouver.

I'm in charge of tech and livestream services this year so I'll be working all day Tuesday and the finale on Thursday. However, it's not really work if you enjoy it, right? It was also an experience creating this year's event program booklet. I'm looking forward to seeing it in print as it was done in small quantities for on-site perusal. An online version has been made available since the beginning of this month, and I hope that sticks in the future so that it's not something that people just ignore.

Honorable mention for the Sam's Club spotted at the end of the rainbow.

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Time to get to work. 💪🏼🏍️📹 I'm happy to be back here after nine years away from the Ride-In™ with all of my technology in tow.

Reunited with an old friend, the LCD projector I prepped for WOW events when I was still on the Board over ten years ago. This case was once strapped down to my bike on the way to South Carolina for its debut. Glad to see it's still going strong here.

Livestream setup for all meetings today. Kicking off things with Wendy Crockett and Cathy Davies, two Iron Butt Rally finishers. Wendy won the whole damn thing in 2019 on an FJR1300 and is the only woman to do so. So this presentation is being wo-manned by three Iron Butt riders because we know how to get it done. 😉

Treated myself to grilled walleye for dinner because we don't get this in California.

Got to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final during dinner. Major pucker factor. However, It's raining RATS 🐀🏒! Hallelujah!

Surprise guest for the night, @that_gay_girl_nurse, who's been traveling all over the country on her Ninja 500R stuffed to the gills since October. I met her through my old Ohio WOW friends who found her stranded when they came across their own issues on the way to Rapid City. My roommate didn't make it to her room last night, so I had an extra bed to offer. Her journey reminds me of my 2007 crazy ride and it was cool to see elements of my journey through hers. And she's very cool herself and is loving the adventure.

Speaking of my old WOW Ohio friends, it's Dru and Margaret from my former Columbus chapter that I founded 14 years ago when I was a weird outlier in the Buckeye State. The chapter is dwindling like my California one here, but I still have my friends and that's what matters.