The Stickboy Chronicles

To preface all this, I could be a little inebriated... 3 St. Pauli's Girl could do that to a little guy like me that doesn't drink much!!!

It's Monday evening for at least another 40 minutes or so... I've been out riding with Paul the last 3 days... Saturday I was a little sunburned on my forehead. Sunday I just hurt on my face and my neck and shoulders are somewhat uncomfortable. Shock and surprise to anyone who knows me I decided to wear a helmet this evening to prevent any further pain from sun exposure on my face... I have enjoyed just getting out and riding. Tonight we decided to take the "old Glenrock Highway" to Wyoming Highway 94 and in turn to Wyoming Highway 93 into Douglas followed by Interstate 25 back to Casper. Just over 100 miles but a hell of a lot better than sitting around doing nothing. It's Highway 93 that brings the blog out in me tonight!
Let's start with the fact that it wasn't all that long ago when I thought it impossible for a vehicle to hit a bird while driving down the road. That changed one day when I was driving from Moab to Cortez and happened to hit a bird in a big-ass conversion van that I was driving at the time. Given the size of the vehicle and the amount of driving I can accept the probability of the van and a bird trying to occupy the same space at the same time. After all, life is just one probability after another, right?... Fast forward too this spring and me watching "Wild Hogs" (good movie if you want to watch it)... I'm pretty sure in the previews you see a couple characters all bug splattered followed by John Travolta's character running into a bird... I was still of the opinion that the probability just wasn't there for this to actually happen... You know movies doing things that don't really happen in life anyway...
We stopped at the junction of Highway 94 and Highway 93 for a few minutes to rest. Needing "rest" on a motorcycle is only going to make sense to someone who has done any amount of distance on a motorcycle. For some reason it really wears on you...I take the lead and head into Douglas on Highway 93. I wouldn't give myself more than 6 mile down the road when a bird swoops down in front of me and hits my helmet. Look back and see it hit the ground, presumably dead... OK... Back to odds... Eventually my helmet and a bird are going to try and occupy the same space at the same time... I accept that... Within 5 minutes another bird smacks into the front tire of the bike (what are the odds) and gets thrown to the ground behind me. At this point I'm pretty much freaked out that I have just tried occupying the same space as 2 birds over a period of 5 minutes. The odds really can't be that high for that scenario...
We get to Douglas and I have to stop to verify with Paul what really happened... We agree that one bird hit my helmet and that we weren't sure what happened to the second until inspection of the bike... Feathers all over the tire pretty much suggested that the second bird hit there... After admiring the BMW for a few minutes we decided to get back on the road and head back to Casper... We both agree that hitting 1 bird, let alone 2, was just really freaky!
About 10 miles out of Douglas Paul had taken the lead and was headed up a hill. At first I figured his bike was geared too high and so the loss of power up an insignificant hill didn't really mean anything, after all he is riding a Harley... Of course it is going to break! So there we were on the side of Interstate 25 fixing his air filter... Neither one of us heard the Highway patrol guy till he talked... Highway patrol agreed without actually saying that the only reason we were having a problem was the name on the bike... "Harley"... He checked to make sure we didn't need any help and waited in his cruiser till we were back on the road. kudos for WHP!!!
Paul and I continue down I-25 and get off at the first Glenrock exit to take the old Highway back to Casper from there... Having safely made it through Glenrock and down to about 14 miles to go back to Casper we have incident number 3 happen. I was once again in the lead and had a bird swoop down right in front of my helmet. I didn't hear a hit nor did I see the bird meet the ground behind me so I'm going to call that one a miss... Paul was for sure that it had flown into me...
There we have it... 2 confirmed kills and 1 near miss all contained in one 100 mile trip... I have over 3700 miles on the bike since March 22 of this year... Really now, what are the odds???