Motorcycle Bloggers Intl is Going Dark

Read about it here on the Sojourn Chronicles.

Good Morning America on Iditarod Training

This should be the link to the story for Karin Hendrickson's story on ABC's Good Morning America.  Aired October 18, 2008, about her rookie Iditarod training.

ABC News

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Blue on Black Kennel Update - Iditarod Training

This is an update from my friends in Alaska who run a small Kennel and are training for the Iditarod dog sled race this year. We all went to junior high school together, that's where I know them. Check out their website!


Varan Hoyt & Karin Hendrickson
18024 Birchtree Street Chugiak, Alaska 99567
907-688-3306 www.blueonblackdogs.com

October 13, 2008

This is the year that we run Iditarod for the first time! Karin is officially signed up – see her profile on the Iditarod website at www.iditarod.com. The challenge of this race is so big and looks nearly impossible from here, but we just keep taking each step as it comes. Right now, that means running the dogs and getting them in shape to run a 1,000 mile race.



Training with four-wheelers began in early September, and the team looks really great. The team currently consists of 20 dogs and we’ve been hooking them all up at once. That is a whole lot of power, but the dogs have been very cooperative and are working well together. Last year we had mostly yearlings who had a lot to learn. This year we have experienced, motivated, educated sled dogs that are ready to run! Our two yearling girls are fitting right in and are already trying their skills as leaders.

There are many challenges in addition to making sure the dogs are trained and ready, like collecting all the gear and equipment for a race of this magnitude, finding the hours needed to train and care for the dogs on top of working full time, and of course working on sponsorship and funding.

Maybe the coverage on Good Morning America will help bring us sponsors! Look for us on Saturday, October 18 (GMA Weekend Edition). Who knows what kind of coverage they will decide to include, but we sure had fun sharing our dogs with them!



Please pass this newsletter on to anyone who might be interested. We’d love to hear from you, and we can always find time to share our wonderful dogs and this amazing sport.

Dog Sponsors
Gwen Rodman – Sponsoring Luna, our entry fee, and MANY other things!
The Domonoske Family – Dan, Sara, Colin, Heather – Sponsoring Alis
Joan Presecan, Sandra Baldonado, Marilyn Dale – Sponsoring Angel
Linda Frost – Sponsoring Chase
Bea & Darryl Churchill – Sponsoring Gringo
Marta Escanuelas – Sponsoring Maggot
Danny & Missy Poore – Sponsoring Scooby (plus lots of promotion help!)
Richard & Sandra Hendrickson – Sponsoring Shotgun
Auntie Carol – Sponsoring Voodoo

We still have several wonderful dogs looking for a sponsor. Check them out on the ‘Dog’ page of our website!

$100 (or more) Sponsors
Bob Sept, DVM
Bob & Nancy Strickland
Bruce & Diana Moroney
Chuck Owen
Cindy McCartney & Bob Borba
Dale Barwick
Doug & Sue Brandt
Harry & Barbara Senn
Haulin Hsu & Bob Wingard
Kim Arriaga
Mammut headlamps
Martha Ethridge
Mary Bennett
Mary Johnson
Mt Baldy Visitor Center Crew
Rayma Zack
The Wingates - Richard, Sheryl, & Evan
The Wood Family - Holly, John, Helen Catherine, & John Wesley
The Mt Baldy Community

A Previous Motorcycle Adventure

3-25-2004

Rialto man killed in motorcycle crash FONTANA- A 20-year-old man was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and crashed on the Interstate 10 early Thursday morning. Samuel Sikes of Rialto was riding a Suzuki motorcycle on the I-10 east at 12:20 a.m. Thursday when he lost control of the bike and slammed into the center divider at the Cherry Avenue over crossing, according to the San Bernardino County Coroner's office. Paramedics responded and pronounced him dead at the scene. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident.



4 years ago this week, I awoke to a phone call from my little sister at 4:30am, telling me about the above accident. Sam was our baby brother.

I had spoken to our mother the night before, and she was worried that he had told her that he was "going to buy a motorcycle". He had just moved into his first "place of his own" with his girlfriend, and they were going to sell his car and he would ride a motorcycle to save some money, as they were both students. He was a very talented basketball player who had recently received 2 full-ride scholarship offers to large universities, and those were just the early ones. He was young, felt invincible, and had a lot of people who seemed to think he was a pretty nice guy. I was going to call him the next day and ask him about the bike and see if he wanted to go riding with me.

He had already bought the bike when I talked to mom the night before. His friend picked the bike up for him and brought it to his work later that night. I can list pages of things that he did wrong after that. I got my motorcycle license in 1988, when I bought my 4th bike (a CB-1...miss that thing), and had lived bike-only for about 8 total years of my adult life. I may not be a pro, but I know a thousand things that can go awry when riding a motorcycle. Everything from his gear (gloves and helmet only), to his helmet being too big for his head (it came off his head after he hit the bridge support...the strap was still strapped, and didn't break). He was not stunting or racing, he just didn't know what he was doing, he thought he could handle it, and lost it on the freeway. Fortunately he didn't hurt anyone else.

Anyone who knows me from forums or meatspace knows that I am not someone who tends to whine or complain about much of anything. You also know I don't like getting attention about things like this. While a handful of people on here were aware of this, I only really talk about it with either people who are very close friends, or when I think telling someone about my experience may be of some small benefit to them in some way. I've never hidden it, I just never sought to get a bunch of attention over it, and I don't want it now. But I know I am not the first person to lose someone close to me, nor will I be the last.

I am the last person to ever discourage anyone from riding. Even after this happened, it never occurred to me to give up riding. I rode to the funeral home in Fontana to make the arrangements for his remains and funeral, and then rode again to pick up his cremated remains, and I didn't even think not to until people started asking me if I was going to give up riding. I know some people stop riding for their own reasons, and I have no problem with that. It is a very personal decision, and it's up to each of us. I will ride as long as I am physically able to do so.

When I picked up Sam's Katana from the impound lot in Ontario, there were only 12.7 miles on the trip meter. Those are the only miles he got to ride the bike. Nobody in our immediate family wanted anything to do with the motorcycle, nor would they have known what to do with it had they had to deal with it. Mom just wanted to not deal with it, of course, so she told me to do whatever with it. I wondered what to do with it, and because of the way the accident happened, and being a katana, the damages weren't really THAT bad, all things considered. I finished putting it back together in June of that year. I figured I'd get enough enjoyment out of it for the both of us, since he didn't get a chance to. Hopefully he was along for the ride in some way.

So the bike was in less than ideal condition, but I scoured ebay to buy what was easy, and ordered up the rest of the parts I needed to make it mostly whole again, so it could be ridden. I was only going to restore it this one time (since it was just a Katana, I mean seriously!), and determined that other than regular consumables, I wasn't going to put any money into it ever again. I wanted to ride it into the ground and get as much out of it as I could, without much more of any kind of a "plan" than that. I had no idea it would be so hard to destroy the damn thing.

This was the first ride other than test runs, down the street to the Rock Store. The other side had most of the damage originally, but it looked the same. I put stickers over things I didn't want to fix!



I sold my other bike, as it had been ridden daily for too long, anyway, and began to ride this bike daily. It became sole transportation (I prefer living bike-only when practical-ish). My commute was 3 miles each way at the time, but I managed to put 20k miles a year on it for the next couple years.

I used to help a couple people I know do "n00b Rides" in the canyons of SoCal. We all know there is an abundance of squids with sportbikes that go tearing up the canyons and invariably winding up on the losing end of a guardrail made to keep cars from going off cliffs, but not necessarily designed with the near-naked human body being flung into them at high speed in mind. We spent a lot of time doing what we could to help new kids who wanted to learn to see that gear was actually good for them, not just to "look cool", and the track was a lot more fun than the canyons. But we knew they were going to go ride the canyons anyway (hell, we did, too), but since most of us had buried friends, family, and seen other friends and fellow riders in various states of disrepair, we figured it couldn't hurt to help some of the newer kids learn how not to kill themselves. I don't wish anyone to see their mother sobbing so badly that it makes the coroner's eyes well up, because she's trying to decide if she doesn't sign the paperwork to claim her youngest son's personal effects, that "maybe he won't really be dead". These days, I do what I can in other ways.

We got to see a lot of great places just doing that in and around the canyons of Southern California.


Sometimes, we even got "weather"




In addition to my whopping 3-mile commute, and the n00b rides, there were long travels to find new roads to ride, new places to eat, new sights to see, new friends to make. California does have such a diversity of terrain and places to see. If you haven't been there, you really should try. Adventure around every curve, and all year long...here are some of the places that Katana took me.







Okay sometimes winter gets to be a bit much in some places...


Not the best tires when it's cold enough to make icicles on your bike and ice over the road (yes, we both crashed here...minor).



That put lots of miles on it, and the thing started every day. Hmmm...I wonder what a pretend sportbike can do at the track? I did quite a few of them on that bike before I finally pushed past the limits of the street tires and/or my own skills at tossing around a bike with a dry weight of 471lb and not even meant for the track (Just Diablos, never put race rubber on it).

Willow Springs


Pahrump a couple times:


And I finally tossed it at Buttonwillow.




I may have outridden the brakes, slightly. I had to be a late-braker to get around the literbikes that would park in the turns. They weren't this color when the session began...


But, remember, I wasn't going to spend any money on this thing. So I chopped it up a bit, made it a ratty street fighter, and rode it another year. Damn thing wouldn't die, even after the 75mph toss through the dirt. Rode it from Los Angeles to Monterey that year for the MotoGP. Direct route is about 4 hours. We did it in 10. All loaded up, waiting in Gorman.



Up near Big Sur, stretching our legs...


A couple more minor changes...


Before finally deciding to part it out and sell it off, the motor had over 60,000miles on it, ran like a champ, and could have kept going for at least that many more, I think.



There is little room for error on a bike. Sam only made a simple one, wasn't riding "reckless", and is dead because of his mistakes. I am pretty confident that I am well aware of the consequences of things going wrong on a motorcycle, and not just based solely upon this experience. But I have always had a passion for riding, and I do my best to be as safe as I can, weighing the consequences of everything I choose to do based on no scientific formula. I know what CAN happen, all too well. And I accept that. I'm certainly not trying to lecture anyone (especially here), but I still get occasional messages from n00bs from forums the original draft of this in 2005 or see it pop up somewhere I'd never been where people had cut and pasted it, so if it helps someone in some way, so be it.

My life has been very fulfilling so far, and I don't regret a moment of it. I know what it is to know true joy, and I extract every bit of it from this world that I can. I've been blessed with much more than I ever would have had if I had chosen my life myself, and everything that happens from here on out is just a bonus.

Life is short. Don't take it for granted, because every moment is a gift. Make the call to tell someone what they mean to you today...don't wait until tomorrow. (And yes, I actually typed that, I didn't just cut & paste it out of a chain letter lol)

I can't bring my brother back unless I figure out that whole time machine thing, and I got outbid on the last one I saw on ebay a couple years ago. I believe something good can come out of everything, and I found my way into several motorcycle forums while looking for parts for rebuilding this bike. People there have become some of my closest friends, and "family". It truly has been an amazing Adventure so far, and I look forward to whatever happens next.

Florida Keys, Day 4, really

Since Maria's friends left the night before, right after we had dinner, we really had no plan at all for the day. We had just figured there was bound to be something to do, and it seemed a waste to spend new year's eve driving home all day, so we went back to the guidebook.

Bahia Honda, for the win! We tried pretty aimlessly to find a place to eat breakfast, only to end up with McDonald's, since no breakfast places on Big Pine Key were open (3 had actually shut down recently, according to the crazy local guy who'd been living on his boat for 30 years).

So we tried to find some key deer since we were there. It was too hot, so we only saw one, hiding in the shade.





Then it was on to Bahia Honda State Park. If you read the earlier parts, I had said that we'd be standing on that section of bridge later. This is where that bridge was. This is a section of Flagler's railway that didn't need use for trains anymore, as they never rebuilt the railway after the 1935 hurricane. So they used it for the Overseas Highway. This bridge was so narrow, that passengers had to be told to keep their hands inside to avoid hitting the trusses. Not wide enough for 2 car lanes...so they built the road on top of the friggin' train trusses...the VERY TOP!









Now I'm sorry, but can I get a "HELL NO!!" to driving over the top of those rusty-ass steel train trusses put there almost a hundred years ago? THANK YOU for the new road!

Absolutely spectacular view from up here, though!







It's hard to see in the picture below, but there is a shark in the water, just above and parallel to the shadow of the bridge. The water here was a bit clouded today with some weather coming or something. Not only did we watch him swimming around for a bit, but about 30 feet to the left of that little breakwater wall sticking out to separate the lagoon from the channel, he TWICE jumped completely out of the water like those damn crazy Great Whites do in South Africa!?!?! We were like WTF?!?!? I know damn well it was no dolphin, and am 100% sure it was a shark, and that sumbitch breached the surface TWICE inside of 5 minutes. Not just poke his dorsal fin out of the water, but jumped, whole body out of the water about a foot, jumped!

It was amazing to see.



Then we saw a Spotted Ray swim toward us and out under the bridge. You see it real good when he was in the shadow.












So I decide to go snorkeling over in that lagoon down there. I went as far as the breakwater, but I still couldn't see too good in that water, and I knew there were sharks in the water, and the jellyfish were everywhere, too. So I didn't go out past the swim bouys or anything dumb(er) like that.









Then it was time to get gas and head back to the campground to clean up before going to Key West for New Year's Eve!



We had a Cheeseburger on the balcony overlooking Duvall Street as the sun was setting. The crowds were just starting to come out. Our waitress told us all the places to be, but it was still very early.





Since there was hardly anyone out yet, we decided to walk to the South end of Duvall, as we hadn't been there, yet. There was not much going on, so we walked over to the Southernmost marker again...just because I could see it a block away, so why not?!





They were practicing the lowering of the slipper (with a transvestite in it) with the CNN camera crew in front of the Bourbon Street Bar.



Walked back up to the North end of Duvall (hey, the island is only 2 miles x 4 miles LOL), saw where the original Sloppy Joe's was, a half a block from it's current location. Legend has it the owner told his customers to grab their stools one night, as they were moving, and they walked to the new place, over a rent increase dispute. Now it's Captain Tony's. According to Pirate John's guide (which I got the info about the barstools from!), Captain Tony is an interesting character in his own right! I must go back...too much to see!



Walked around a bit in the darker corners, and found a lot more cool stuff to check out. It was all closed, but even more reason to go back.





And on the back of the obelisk:



We went back over to the harbor to see the lit up boats. There were a LOT of VERY expensive yachts in town. By expensive, I mean multi-million dollar yachts that cost more than every house you've ever owned combined, expensive. They apparently lower a wench at this party.





We had more Key Lime pie to kill time until it was close to midnight, then we decided we'd be at Sloppy Joe's to watch the dropping of the Conch at midnight. Caught a few sets of beads for Maria, got a champagne overspray, but otherwise it was a good time to be able to say we'd done it. Neither of us likes crowds, and I don't even drink, but it was fun to say we'd done it once. And now I never have to do that crap again :-)













We had been finding good parking everywhere we went, and never paid for parking. This was no different, and we got out of town pretty quickly, despite the crowds.

The next day, we woke up to 2008 to break camp finally, and head out of town...The sky was beautiful as we got up early. We drove out of town, and off the keys, only stopping to gas up or go to the restroom. Weather was turning, as that cold front that had been threatening us down here finally decided to turn toward us. It rained on us as Maria took over the driving (first time she'd driven the truck), but we didn't care, as vacation was over...and we like the rain. When we saw the Skyway bridge, we knew we were close.

Just another beautiful day in paradise...