I want to give the cockatiels a whole room to themselves again - I had caged them last June due to visitors and my girls want me to take back the others we had adopted and raised - they don't have time for them anymore (at least two of them must be 12 years old or more by now).
Motorcycle Chick had been a runt (chick number three in the clutch) that was a day younger & not getting as much parental food or attention. I stuck him in my ample bra and fed him every two hours. I had been riding with a group of people that summer & fall, and we all shared hotel costs on long trips. We had one more plan for a trip to Valdez but that morning one rider called to say, "see that termination dust on the mountains? I'm not going," implying that none of us would be, of course. She didn't know me very well
If she wasn't going, then Rob wasn't either, so DJ and I packed and went without them, with me and Motorcycle Chick en brassiere - he never made a peep. I fed him each time we stopped to rest. I never told DJ we had a baby along for the ride.
Weather got a bit peckish mid-way there. On the other side of Glennallen, it started to drizzle; we worried about being able to cross Thompson's Pass. We got through that with the weather calming down on the other side.and we got to a hotel in good shape. We each got our own bed, ordered a pizza, warmed up.and fell asleep - me with Motorcycle Chick under the covers in his own little nest, unbeknownst to DJ. Not. A. Peep.
The next morning I'm in the shower, DJ is banging on the door, "Have you looked out the window? Not a cloud in the sky!" My first thought it is totally overcast - he has a sarcastic wit.
Looking out - the mountains were spectacular with the most gorgeous blue sky ever. The kind of blue-sky and sunshine day that makes Juneau shopkeepers give everyone the day off work.
We packed, rode home through the fairytale scenery that is the highway north of Thompson's Pass - truly unbelievable, a feast for the eyes and heart unparalleled in any morning light anywhere - then stopped to fuel in Glenallen where a convoy of horsetrailers, hauling their precious cargo out for the winter, were dropping snow off their bumpers in the bright sunshine.
I hopped on my bike, hollered at DJ, "I'm riding through snow!" Damn you, he hollers back, and rides through it, too, and that is how the tradition of the "Go 'til it Snows Tours" began, way back then, and how Motorcycle Chick, unnamed then, MC for short now, became a biker cockatiel.
No comments:
Post a Comment