Tuesday, August 03, 2010

A visit from former neighbors

Two weekends ago, I get a call out of the blue from my friend Gary who works for Frontier Airlines.  He and his family used to live in the house next to mine and we'd missed them when they up and moved to Missouri to be near family.

Gary told me he was in town, waiting for a flight back to St. Louis, along with his two kids, Carter his son and his younger daughter Ryan.  I quickly invited them over since they had time to kill before their evening flight as we'd not seen them in quite a while.  I believe the last time I saw Gary was when he came over for a day of riding my motorcycles right about a year ago.  LINK

They show up in this relic from the 80s van with a funky paint scheme and fully decked out interior.  It sure brought back some memories of growing up in the 70s and 80s for me!


The van is owned by a fellow pilot and is used in common by the pilots who share a "crash pad" near Denver International Airport as they all live elsewhere about the country.  DIA is their home airport so they come to Denver to fly their flights.

Ryan, it turns out, had always wanted a ride in a motorcycle sidecar rig!  That day she would be checking off that item from her "bucket list".

We visited with them for a while, shooting the breeze and catching up on each family's doings.  Then, it was time for a short ride for Ms Ryan.

Ryan is one happy looking girl isn't she?

Backing out of the garage

The only way to ride with kids!

After a few circles about the parking lot while Gary shot pictures of us, we headed out of the neighborhood.  It was a pretty short ride, less than a couple of miles tops, but I think Ryan had fun.  She was still all smiles when I brought her safely back home to her dad.


Still smiling in spite of my motorcycle handling skills!

Gary and crew left soon afterwards to ready themselves for their evening flight.  Thanks for visiting and lets not wait another year before doing this again OK?  If you come in Winter and there's snow on the ground, we're talking donuts in the sidecar!

7 comments:

SonjaM said...

Some girl got bitten by the bike bug ;-) smiling from one ear to the other.

Unknown said...

Dom:

I want a sidecar ride too. How long would it take for you to ride up to British Columbia ?

bob
Wet Coast Scootin

redlegsrides said...

Sonja, gotta start the brainwashing young....

Bobskoot, hmmmm, I've seen your visage, that's a long way to go....and I wouldn't want to inflict said visage to readers on this blog! : )

Chris said...

Kids love the Ural!! You can do donuts in the loose dirt if you have some nearby. No need to wait for snow. ;)

Bob, Vancouver is a mere 3000km from st. paul. You should be able to do that in a day and a half according to google. If you leave your helmet on, I'll give you a ride in the Ural. haha! :)

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Charlie6 (Dom):

Take a closer look at the expression on that poor little girl's face. She is embarrassed to death. Her dad promised her a ride on the back of a real BMW and you took her out on the Russian Maytag. Was the poor kid sitting atop the 90-pound dead loss battery in the side car? At what point did she have to run back to the garage, carrying the sidecar axle in her little hands?

How do I klnow all this? She was texting me from the sidecar the whole time.

(You know I am just polking you to get a reaction.)

How this summer treating you?

Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads

redlegsrides said...

nice attempt to poke, Jack...however note the clean little hands on young Ms Ryan....no parts fell off Natasha....

summer is ok, damn hot at times with all the gear on but what can you do.....for me its atgatt.

looking forward to your next article....that stuff is gold!

Chris said...

Dom, JackSASS is just jealous he hasn't gotten to ride in a Ural yet.