Laughlin, for the Love of the…Ride

Laughlin, for the Love of the…Ride (2018)

The gang at Cool Springs
(photo on Karen's phone with Crazy Ray as photographer)

For the love of…

…good wine. Some of us enjoy the fruit of the vine and we go places with friends to share it in new ways and perhaps to raise the level of appreciation for the really good stuff in one or two others.

…good friends and what each of them adds to the other. We like to celebrate – celebrate life and loss, laughter and grief, while we tell old stories and are busy making new ones.

…new love, because some have found it in unlikely places, or so we think, and others of us like seeing it happen. Dilly dilly.

…old friends, rekindled love, and feeding of the flames for both.

…a spacey friend even if you had to get there in a cage.

…local color and spice in the form of friends at the destination.

Even familiar roads are a joy for us because we remember a good time we had here, a curve we had a fright on there – and aced this run through. Topock, AZ provided our lunch stop while we talked and watched coots and grackles on the water and in the air as they angled for food all while we were perched on seats that gave me the best looking butt I’ve had in some time. (see the photo below) A common feeling was that breakfast last year was better than lunch this year.

We left Topock only roll past another Victory group rolling in. They took a longer ride and basically only in reverse of our direction. We had tinges of regret that we could not hang out with our friends for the meal break. Such are the vagaries of the road.

We passed through Oatman without stopping, parking being a pain there on Saturdays. The donkeys were out in fine form. Very fine form indeed, much to the delight of all who passed by the young one just hanging out in the opposite lane from us while bringing traffic in both directions to a stop. Amazing.

Cool Springs was our official rest and exploration stop. The place is under new management and netted us a new friend in Crazy Ray. They have big plans for Cool Springs as a destination and place for great fun and experiences. Best of luck to them. Our group photo was taken there by Ray and you should note the similarity to ‘Radio Springs’ from Cars. Disney used this location as the model for their movie and theme park section at California Adventure.

We had a sober reminder of the serious nature of riding while at Cool Springs. Within minutes of our arrival first responders arrived from both directions to give emergency aid and transport a sport biker who’d gone down and over his bike. Good Samaritans had brought him to Cool Springs in their car. We reminded ourselves and each other to stay sharp on the road as we left a few minutes after the emergency crews. Amazingly, as we road along in our tight grouping the downed rider’s two buddies zipped past us doing 90+ and over the double yellow lines. It erased any surprise we might have had that one of their party would have gone down.

Now, more of the love of… I asked for a couple of direct quotes from some of the group that I’m in regular contact with and here’s what I got:

For the love of…

…the road and camaraderie. (Shawn Frausto, my roomie)

…the laughs and smiles of good friends. (Kevin Shaw)

…spontaneous actions and revelry. (JSPriders)

…dilly. (Tim Robertson)

…the time we have on this earth with good friends. (Bev Hope)

If I might expound, and I will since it’s my blog, let’s explore ‘dilly, dilly’ if only because I love the exploration or words. If I were any smarter and disciplined I would do amazing things with words and their meanings. Dilly-dilly, as the Urban Dictionary describes it, is: “A word that shows approval of an action.” “The best kind of person or thing.” “an interjection used to declare some a 'true friend of the crown'.” They have others but they’re unsuitable for my post.

Budweiser would have us believe that this phrase originated in the time of and by the original Shakespeare, the more eloquent and handsome Shakespeare, I might add. I am now off to verify the origins of Dilly-dilly and may not return for some time.

And finally, for the love of…the ride. For us, there’s nothing quite like it. We can’t exactly explain it, certainly not in a simple blog post. Even the movie Why We Ride and the Facebook page of the same name leave us wanting further definition. If we could tell others why and adequately define it, we’d probably stop riding. Every time we say “this is why we ride” we find something else that makes us put the kickstand up and roll.

Remember to ride well, so well that others are inspired to a rousing “dilly-dilly!” Keep the iron side up my friends.

Jerry ‘Shakespeare’ White

The butt seats at Topock, AZ. Oh, and the very cool view.