Day 5-7: A Day Off at Wall Drug, a Cat Cafe, and Closing Out the 38th WOW International Ride-In™

Usually, when I work a Ride-In™, I'm at the event site the entire time. Thankfully, due to schedule changes over the years, I had a free day to go play and do stuff in the area.

So I returned to Wall Drug, SD for the first time in 17 years but with a friend this time. 😂

Tana earns her "Where the Heck is Wall Drug" bumper sticker just as Eleanor did those many years ago.

I guess meeting up with a fellow WOW Orange County Spirit Rider means riding nearly 1800 miles to the start point.

Couldn't quite replicate the jackalope ride due to maintenance...

National Park Service: Do not hug the fluffy cow.
Me: Rides to South Dakota and HUGS FLUFFY COW 🦬 🤗

It's behind us, isn't it? 🦖 Not pictured: the very confused Amish family watching the animatronics.

Updating the Sheriff with my other trip antics.

"I'm from Los Angeles. Of course I know how to use a rifle."

This Buttercup is smaller than that jackalope on Route 66, but there is still fuckery to spread.

Yeah this is a much nicer foray back to the Ride-In™ 😌

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Been on the road for a while, so I needed a fuzzy fix since I left all my personal fuzzies at home.

Thanks to a billboard on I-90 returning from Wall Drug on Wednesday, I found out that there was a #catcafe here in #RapidCity. Originally, I had planned to visit after the Ride-In™ festivities were over, but Rebecca wanted to join in so it turned into a quick ride. Or so we thought...

So we rode over to @coffeeandthecats.sd and enjoyed delicious breakfast sandwiches (for lunch) and awesome coffee drinks. All of the drinks on their menu are named after varieties of cats. I got the "Ragdoll" which was a mocha with graham cracker flavoring and toasted marshmallows placed right in the drink.

Their cat room is completely enclosed with their own ventilation system, and you have to spray your shoes down before coming in. You pay admission to enter the room ($5/30 minutes) and interact with the kittehs. The adoptable ones come from the local humane society, and one of them is a permanent resident who just hangs out and does his own thing. The place has lots of play room for them and seats for the hoomans so the lap cats can join you.

After that, we headed over to @blackhillshd to acquire a rainsuit for Rebecca and was hit with an absolute downpour on the way here. Rebecca's prosthetic leg was wrapped in a trash bag and masking tape so it wouldn't get wet during the ride, but I wasn't spared. Of course, once she was fitted in the right rain suit, it stopped raining and the clouds parted. 😐 That's how it works, right?

On a similar note, the rats at home are fine because my volunteers are taking care of them so it's all good.

Today's my "off day" before leaving tomorrow morning to journey toward Seattle/Vancouver by way of Montana. It's so fitting that my first extensive motorcycle ride since 2013 retraces the journeys I took before my personal life went into a tailspin at the end of that year, which jumpstarted the chapter of my life that's actually turning out pretty cool now.

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WOW Orange County Spirit Riders (CA) 🤝 WOW Arctic Foxes (AK)

One last ride before we went our separate ways. Jaunts to Sturgis to see the H-D shop and public art along with a little shopping before heading to Devil's Tower just over the border on Wyoming. We ran into some WOW Ohio friends in Hulett so we all ate lunch together at Red Rock Cafe. The Cowboy Burger was pretty tasty.

I had custom silicone bracelets made for @southbayrodentrescue, and they arrived before I left for vacation so one ended up on my bike. I passed it on to my Alaska friend, Patti, so it'll continue roaming the country with her on one of her bikes. I have more where those came from.

We split off at Devil's Tower, with myself returning to Rapid City. I did a nerdy thing and stopped through Belle Fourche, SD to visit the Geographic Center of the United States before zooming back to ship my camera gear back home and do some laundry.

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.

Iron Butt BunBurner 1500 from Los Angeles to Casper, WY (June 22-23, 2024) - Going for Gold, Seeing Where it Lands

Vacation planning has been in the works over the past several months. The most logistically involved portion is the opening frame from LA to Casper, WY to be completed within in a 24 hour window to earn a BunBurner Gold 1500 certification. Worst case scenario is that I complete a BunBurner 1500 Silver, the same distance but within 30 hours, which would make it my second one of that type of ride lifetime. (I completed one in 2011, but the Silver certification didn’t come around until several years later, so it’s still labeled as a standard BB1500.)

Several factors are in play including start/end times, weather, and pacing. To pull this off, there needs to be very few issues so lots of prep is involved. Also, my stops must be calculated and quick while factoring in documentation.

There is a science to all of this. Perhaps this is why I enjoy the mental challenge. Also, I have a lot more technology tools at my disposal than I had when I first started doing these types of rides so it helps a lot. This is also one of those times when having both iOS and Android devices proves advantageous due to the types of apps I need both for planning and for tracking the ride.

Planning software: InRoute (route planning) and WeatherOnTheWay (real-time weather tracking based on traveling route)

GPS Tracking: Real-Time GPS Tracker, Garmin inReach

On-bike navigation and trip computers: Google Maps, DMD2

The entire route laid out. Stop points were approximately 125 miles apart.

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🎶She packed her bags last night, pre-flight. Zero hour, three AM.🎶

This is another trip planning app I use called Weather On the Way, only available for iOS. It's how I can appropriately schedule departure times for the mildest weather.

Weather was relatively mild for the most part, but there were a couple surprises in Colorado.

The nice thing about most Iron Butt rides is that you set your own parameters so that the ride is more likely to have the least number of complications. Based on data, I'd rather find myself at a Denny's early on Sunday morning, hours before check-in to my hotel, than baking in the heat during the day. And I did check that there's a 24-hr. Denny's in Casper, WY.

It's not my first time here, but the very first time I arrived in Casper in 2007 resulted from a scary experience of accidentally riding US-16 through the night. I underestimated my distances between cities. In that part of the US, everything is pitch black once the sun goes down because you're in the middle of nowhere. Alternatively, I can probably chill in a park with my camping chair.

Anyway, I'm leaving four hours earlier than originally planned. Because research and experience.

So that part where I said that I'm riding straight from LA to Casper, WY in 24 hrs. to kick off my vacation? Just did that and it was a hell of a journey.

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This Iron Butt attempt was a doozy, but I was trying for a pretty challenging achievement, 1500 miles in 24 hrs. I left a little after 3 am and just kept moving east. Temps ranged from 52°-98°F but the winds were cooperative. I even set a personal record for the fastest completion of SaddleSore1000 of less than 15 hours. However, there were several factors that I couldn't control that affected my BunBurner Gold attempt. Some of these things included a traffic jam on I-40 that cost me over 20 minutes in standstill that I couldn't lane split, a rain storm at the New Mexico/Colorado border on I-25, and some aggressive dick in a car who brake checked me on I-25 in Thorton, CO and proceeded to drive their car straight toward me as I was speeding toward the nearest exit and then swerved away at the last second to continue down the road. I didn't even have enough time to use my horn.

The last incident with the car affected me mentally and I had to refocus to complete the remaining 250ish miles to the finish line. But I did. And with time running out, I made one last valiant effort to make up for lost time with a spirited run through the Wyoming section of I-25 in the night. Despite all the crap that hit me, I only missed BunBurner Gold certification by TWO MINUTES. Not even joking.

But I'm okay with this. I earned a second lifetime BunBurner certification and lived to tell y'all about it. You can't keep a motorcycle girl down, even with a little rain and attempted vehicular assault.

Two minutes too late for the Gold status, but I got here alive and that's the most important part. I know what I accomplished. Paper is paper.

Iron Butt SaddleSore 1000 to the Last Blockbuster (June 3-June 5, 2019): Part 3 - Sacramento, San Francisco, and the Ride Home

Note: This is the third part of a three-part blog series. Click here for part one.

The next morning, Edwin and I geared up and got ready for the last stretch toward home. But first, we had to eat breakfast. We escorted Amanda and her Honda Hawk to Flapjack's Diner that was just down the street from her house. Amanda hadn't ridden her motorcycle for a while due to an ankle injury and wanted to take the quick jaunt to breakfast, so we made sure that happened safely. She was very happy to be back on her bike again.

After a nice meal, we returned to her house to load up the rest of our gear, say our goodbyes, and ride off to our next planned destination, the headquarters of Clearwater Lights in nearby Rancho Cordova. The owner, Glen, contacted Edwin online the day before and offered to treat us to lunch and a tour of the factory since we were swinging through the area anyway. I myself was excited to visit this place as I had sold many sets of these premium lights when I was still working in the motorcycle industry. Glen ordered sandwiches for us and while we waited for the food to arrive, we got to see how these lights were made firsthand. I don't have any photos of all that because, well, it wouldn't be nice to give away industry secrets. But here's part of the selection of their world-famous, high quality LED lights that they manufacture here in California.

We ended up staying there so long that I bought a set of Darla lights for Eleanor and made the choice to forgo the original plan of returning home via US-101, opting for the faster I-5. After our stay at Clearwater Lights, we cut across Sacramento westbound to swing down through San Francisco, the next of our planned stops. Of course, an obligatory photo of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Battery Spencer side was in order before crossing it (we were entering the city from the north). I even got myself a Magikarp that washed ashore in the process. AR jokes on Pokémon GO never get old.

We continued across the Golden Gate Bridge and through San Francisco, heading back onto US-101 for a short while. Our second to last fuel stop before returning to Los Angeles was a Costco in San Jose where we relaxed for a little bit and had some pizza in the food court. For motorcyclists who are travelling through populated areas, Costco stores are wonderful places to take a break. We then continued down the 101 for a little while before cutting across Gilroy on CA-152 to jump back onto I-5. The rest of the ride was exactly as we had started it, through the night and in uneventful darkness. It had been a long day so we traded off conversations back and forth to keep ourselves awake. We split off at the 405/5 interchange in Sylmar and were at our homes around 2:30 AM.

Final trip mileage after the three day journey.

So yes, that's the end of an epic three day ride across two states. At the time of this blog post, this IBA SaddleSore 1000 ride to the last Blockbuster on Earth has been officially certified and my physical certificate will be arriving in the mail soon. What makes this even cooler is that the certificates that Edwin and I will be receiving will note that our destination for the ride was "the last Blockbuster Video store on Earth." What a fun notation for a very unique endurance ride. Now to think about the next long-distance jaunt. For me, I've been contemplating a reattempt at a BunBurner Gold 1500 (1500 miles in 24 hours). Who knows? Anything is possible.

A huge thank you to Edwin for inspiring me to get back into long-distance riding form, Amanda and Emory for the hospitality in Sacramento, Glen at Clearwater Lights for the cool tour, Robert (my mechanic) for making sure Eleanor was ready for this whole ordeal, and everyone who watched our journeys online and cheered us on.