On the road again...

Well art day turned into motorcycle riding day. Which I'm not complaining about at all. Especially since it's been about a year since we went on a real ride. It was a lot of fun, to be out on the bike again, and for the most part I did okay.

It was actually my idea to go on a ride believe it or not. It all started when we had to take the car into the mechanic. Matt rides the motorcycle and I drive the car. Well on the way home, it felt so good to be on the bike that I suggested we extend the trip beyond the mile it takes to go from the mechanic to our house. Of course Matt agreed.

We stopped at home first to eat and shower and during that time, I started to get nervous. All of a sudden I was scared to ride again, where just 30 minutes earlier I was ready to ride up to Oregon. There is something to be said for spontaneity let me tell you.

Anyway, we started our journey up Hwy 9. Now the beginning was okay, but as we rode up the mountain towards the 236 stretch that I used to hate, I started to get more and more nervous.

For the record, I wasn't scared of riding the bike, I was scared of how to handle my anxiety on the bike. My thoughts started to go along the lines of, "what if I freak out, and can't hang on., what if I start to feel strange or dizzy?" etc. Honestly I thought of a whole slew of nasty things that I can't really remember, but believe me, they were nothing I should have been thinking, especially on the back of a motorcycle.

One of the key things to being a passenger on a bike is to relax. You really can't worry about falling, or any other disasterous situation. If you do, you are liable to do something stupid, and possibly cause an accident. It has never really been a problem for me in the past, but now it's differnt since I'm scared of so many things.

Needless to say I was somewhat un-relaxed going up 9. It is really hard to distract yourself from anxiety on a motorcycle. You can't talk, listen to music, play games, or do anything that you would normally do in the car to keep the brain busy. You have no choice but to listen to the nasty things your mind is telling you.

Now In the old days, I would sit back, and enjoy the ride, and do some of my best thinking on our trips. Good stuff, not bad. I always got stuff accomplished when we rode, and it would relax me.

Not today though, about halfway through the 236 stretch I had Matt turn around. It really wasn't worth it, as I was just too nervous to enjoy the ride at that point. Of course once we turned around I began to relax. It figures. I didn't really feel like going home, so we decided to keep going towards Santa Cruz.

By this time though, it was crazy hot in our saftey gear and all I wanted was to be wet. It was Matt's idea to try Highland Park in Ben Lomand, and since we've never really properly checked that place out I thought that would be a good idea.

It was a great idea! The creek is awesome and deep enough to swim in. There is even a little waterfall area that you can stand under and jump from if you want to. I can not believe we haven't been utilizing that place in the 3 years we have been here.

This is one of the things I love about living up in the mountains. Cool stuff like that is practically in your backyard. It reminded me of our trips to Oregon, and it was so much fun to splash around and explore, I felt like we were on vacation again.

We played around for about an hour and then went to find some food. This isn't easy up here. One thing we are not known for is good restaurants. We ended up at Maya's in Scotts Valley which is good Mexican food, but not great.

After lunch we went home, and by the time we got back, I was roasting again. So we went swimming in our little green pool. Hey it's no different than the creek right? Both have slime and alge in them right?

By the time we were done splashing around we got a call saying the car was done, so we put all our hot clothes back on for the motorcycle ride back to the mechanic. Boy was I happy the A/C got fixed in the car, because I had a lot cooler ride back than Matt that's for sure.

So after all that hullabaloo, we finally managed to make it downstairs for an art evening. I'm done now, but I did manage to almost finish one of my collage challenges. It's so frustering, sometimes, when you want to do something, but no matter what you do it doesn't come out right. I was struggling too much, so I called it an early night. No sense in getting irritated. I'll just try it again tomorrow hopefully.

All in all, it was a very good day. Some anxiety, but that's to be expected since I haven't riden the bike in so long. I think now I would be okay, as I spent the majority of the day on it, and I'm used to it again. We'll see, maybe later this week we will go on another ride. I sure do miss all the fun times we had exploring the moutains and creeks on that thing.