Dear friends and family,

Another year has passed, and it’s time again for another Doug and Steph Novelette about our past year. I take full responsibility for this being a little late this year, it is my turn, and I haven’t gotten started until much, much too late.

For those of you who’d like to skip the details and still be able to fake your way through a conversation, here are the headlines:

• Chari graduated high school
• Shaun and Amber graduated into high school
• Doug survived six days of riding the length of Baja
• Adam got his driver’s license
• Adam’s car caught on fire
• We went to Europe a couple of times
• Steph joined a transportation consulting organization as director of marketing
• My grandmother, Lois, celebrated her 80^th birthday
• My parents re-married
• We traveled a ton
• We didn’t ride nearly enough

For those of you who keep telling us you actually look forward to these things, here we go.

1997 marked the first time in my life that I wasn’t in Iowa over the holidays. We spent the Christmas and New Year’s holidays in San Diego and Southern California. Although it still is a reach for me to feel like it’s Christmas when I’m surrounded by palm trees, I must admit it was a great time hanging out on the beach on New Year’s day, watching the surfers and catching some rays.

The trip home quickly brought us back to sub-zero reality, which we had the good sense to escape with a trip to a conference in Orlando. We went down a couple of days early and stopped to see my aunt Wanda and uncle Dick at their winter home. We also checked out the Tampa/St. Petersburg area a little bit. We found some really neat older (and "gentrified") areas in the downtown area. The beaches were inviting but as commercial as you’d expect in an area like this. We did manage a little beach time, which brought Steph much happiness, as she is in constant sun withdrawal during our "eternal gray" winters at home.

The highlight of the trip for me was the trip to the other side of the Florida coast to the Kennedy Space Center. If you have never visited, or like me, haven’t been in many years, make sure to check this out when you take the inevitable pilgrimage to Wally World. The tour is fantastic, with museums and structures scattered about the complex. Especially impressive was the Saturn 5 building, and the shuttle launch areas. We were lucky enough to be there when a Delta military satellite launch was taking place, so I have half-way fulfilled my ambition of witnessing a launch. I still want to return to see a manned shuttle launch to help realize a few of my childhood ambitions of becoming an astronaut.

We next ventured out on a classic road trip. We had secured a small 200cc dual sport motorcycle (Suzuki DR200SE) for Steph that promised to be lighter and lower than the DR250 that we’d tried before and Adam had inherited. The bike was in Kansas City, after being shipped that far from California. Steph and I hooked up the trailer, packed our bags for a weekend, and headed South. We spent a lot of time picking out CDs and loading the six pack CD carriers for the car. In what was one of the big highlights of the year for me, we didn’t even turn the radio on until we were about 25 miles from Kansas City, some six hours later. We had spent the entire time talking, about little things, big things, personal things, world things, and everything in between. In one long, organic, wandering conversation, we had covered a big chunk of the mid-west. It was one of my favorite experiences of the year, and reminded me of why you get into relationships in the first place. While in KC we shared our hotel with the Tennessee fans there for the NCAA women’s final four. We also stopped to see John and Sue Dawes. John and Sue grew up in Adel with me, so we spent some time sharing old memories, as well as getting caught up. Sue had just published her first book, "When Mom’s Happy, Everyone’s Happy," so we spent some time sharing book marketing war stories.

Our next big adventure was a vacation to the Southern tip of Baja, Mexico in Cabo San Lucas. Steph took the more conventional method of flying in and flying home. I joined motorcycling legend Malcolm Smith and sixty other borderline loonies for a 1,300 mile ride on dirt bikes from the top to the bottom of the peninsula. I won’t bother to recount the entire adventure here, you can read and view pictures of the entire escapade at www.egltd.com/bike_web/baja98; Just to give you a feel for it, I’ll provide you with a short excerpt from day one of ride:

"At mile 45.2, we met the water, but it wasn’t warm and there was no beach. As we pulled up to the river, the phrase "raging torrent" sprung immediately to mind. Four riders, linked arm in arm, were struggling across the river to reach our near shore. As they climbed out of the waist deep water, they breathlessly recounted the drill: "It takes at least four guys to carry the bike across, at least four to make it back. Don’t try to get out in the water alone, you’ll be swept downstream." We dismounted and joined in. The water was ice cold, but after a few seconds I didn’t even think about it. My mind was immediately consumed with the task at hand. Grab a bike, drag it across the river. Lean into the current about 45 degrees, keep the bike and your feet out of the big rocks about half way across, push it up onto shore, link arms, fight your way back across, repeat. I don’t know how many trips we made, I lost count at eight…

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Ferrying bikes accross a flooded river in Baja


…It was 10:30 am on day one. In four hours, we had faced rain, snow and sleet. We had forded three rivers, including one so strong and deep it took at least four men to drag a bike across and return to the shore. We had been lost, found, soaked, drowned, mudded and re-routed. We looked at each other and said "and we paid for this!" Laughing ruefully at this observation I tried in vain to wring out a pair of gloves. I’d started the day with three dry pair. In four hours I’d soaked every one."

In the end, we all made it to Cabo in relatively good order. Steph had flown in a few days early to hang out with some of the other girls who had guys out wandering the wilderness. They had a great time forging new friendships and scouting out Cabo. Once I arrived, Steph and I had a wonderful couple of days exploring the area before flying back home.

Our next major trip was to a conference in San Francisco. We took a couple of days to wander around one of our favorite parts of the world. Just to show you how neat life can be, while on the way to Napa Valley we drove by Sears Point Raceway, and it just happened to be AMA Vintage Festival West weekend (that’s an antique motorcycle race and festival to those of your who are not initiated into the cult of castor bean oil, positive ground, and lifelong quests for headlight bezels, zenor diodes, and other "whats-its" for obscure motorcycles from forgotten manufacturers of dubious significance). Steph had never attended one before, so we swung in. I tried to play it cool, all the while hoping that she’d collapse into a heap of whimpering passion at the first sign of a Vincent Black Shadow or skirted Indian. As luck would have it, Vincent was the featured marque, and she did get to see plenty of examples of them and other brands. Her favorite was, drum roll please, an early Indian, a make that I've long admired, even before they became all the rage.

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Steph and her favorite Indian

After watching a few races and wandering the swap meet area, we motored on up to Napa and revisited several of our favorite spots, including Meadowood, where were married a couple of years ago.

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Churning butter at Ft. Ross

The trip also included a road trip up highway one North. In all the trips I’d made to San Francisco, and in all the years Steph lived there, neither of us had been North of Stinson Beach. It was a fantastic drive, and I’d recommend it highly. We sampled the local delicacy of barbecued oysters, and found a wonderful little fish house where we picked up some smoked fish and other munchies.

We have our best luck when we let our noses be our guides, and this was no exception. We ended up at Fort Ross, which was built by the Russians, as a coastal outpost to provide grain and other supplies to the fur traders working the Aleutians and what is now Alaska. There happened to be a group of elementary school kids there, recreating the way of life in the fort for a weekend camp-out. In authentic period costumes, they churned butter, carried water, and hunted for food. It was fascinating to watch, and must have been an experience that these kids would never forget.

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Adam above the Mississippi

Once things warmed up back home, Adam and I did a little trail riding. We usually go over to some trails along the Mississippi in Minnesota, about 90 minutes South of our place. We tried some new trails that we’d heard about, and discovered some awesome views of the river and surrounding valleys. Great stuff, but pretty tame compared to Baja!

Soon the conferences called again, and I was obliged to give some keynote speeches in The Hague, Netherlands. We were able to get a deal where Steph’s ticket was free, so she came along and we explored that part of Europe a little bit. The Hague turned out to be a jewel, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wanted to explore the Netherlands and Belgium. It lacks the wide-open metropolitan offerings of Amsterdam, but frankly, we didn’t miss them, and ended up preferring it heavily over the larger metropolis.

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A tiny sample of the Keukenhof Gardens

We only had a few days, but managed to cram in a visit to the Keukenhof gardens (kitchen garden) and Brugge, Belgium. Fortunately, our visit was in the late spring, and the gardens were still open. This is an annual event in which the local purveyors of bulbs, flowers and other growing things, stage what is in essence a huge, outdoor trade show that is open to the public. Each grower has a section of the expanse to construct a growing, living display of tens of thousands of tulips and other flowers. It is indescribable, but probably best captured by saying that after four hours of walking around, we had barely scratched the surface, and neither of us really wanted to leave. Thanks again to our friend Sid Adelman for tipping us off to this treasure.

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Along one of the canals in Brugge

Brugge, Belgium was also incredible. A classic walled medieval city that is laced with canals, it exudes history, charm and romance. All in all, a wonderful place to spend our second anniversary, highlighted by a picnic along a canal with the resident swans.

In our remaining day, we visited Kinderdijk, an area of preserved, still functioning windmills. We were able to tour one, and discover the ways they made these devices work, and the way of life of the tenders. I could almost feel my departed grandpa Hackney next to me as I explored the mechanics of the design, high in the top of mill, the gears creaking and sails roaring through the air.

To give you a feel for how hectic this period was, we flew from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport directly to Chicago, for yet another conference, then flew home, grabbed the kids, drove to Iowa for the Memorial holiday weekend, drove back home, then flew to San Diego for Chari’s graduation. This pace was fairly typical for much of ’98.

While in Iowa, we were honored to attend a social function at the mayor’s residence. There, Jim and Pammy Peters hosted a party for a group of friends, which gave us the chance to see a lot of people I had grown up with. Great to get caught up, sobering to see how old some of our kids are!

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Sally (L) and Chari (R) at graduation

On to San Diego, where I got to see a big graduation, California style. Chari had over 600 kids in her class, so this was a large-scale event held on the football field. The usual speeches were mercifully short, and the musical acts that the seniors performed were great, especially the extended percussion session. Suffice it to say that after many years of practice, the administration has the process of graduating that many kids down to a science. Very smooth, fairly quick, and a proud moment for Steph, Chari’s dad Joe, step-mom Julie and grandparents.

The next week, Steph and I left for Europe, this time London, Northern England and Scotland. I had to shoot over to Brussels and give a keynote for a day while Steph cooled her heels and adjusted to the jet lag in our hotel in England. Upon my return, we headed North. First stop was the Imperial War Museum airfield at Druxford, where I indulged myself in a few hours of immersion in British and American WWII aircraft and armor. Highly recommended if you’re within a couple hundred miles.

From there we wandered the highways and byways of Northern England, generally heading for York, which Steph had picked as a likely spot to end up for the night. It turned out to be a fantastic stop, replete with huge Cathedral, walled old city, charming accommodations, interesting shops, and enough old world charm to carry us through the week.

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Steph among the ruins of Rievaulx

Upon the morn, we followed our noses North, doing our best to stay on the small roads and seeking out interesting sounding destinations on our maps. This method led us to some fascinating ruins of a giant abbey at Rievaulx. They were mysterious, imposing and filled with thousands of stories, just waiting to get out and be re-told. The strange juxtaposition of luxury and austerity inherent in these sites I find very interesting. Very worthy of a stop if you’re in this part of the country.

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Steph and a castle that is also a residence

All the time we had been wandering this end of the island, we had been running across motorcycles laden with typical rally gear. We had seen tents, backpacks, sleeping bags and all manner of accoutrements strapped to everything from Vespa scooters to hotted up Fireblades (900RR’s on this side of the pond). As fate and good travel karma would have it, we stumbled into the very village where the bi-annual All England Bike Rally was underway. They had seized the center plaza of the town for some of the activities, while the majority of the attendees were in a camp park outside of town. That things are a little different in rallies there was best evidenced by the act that was on the portable stage performing when we walked around the corner: a choir from the local children’s school was singing hymns, while the crowd of several hundred bikers of all stripes stood in rapt attention. Needless to say, everyone was very friendly, whether they were 6’5" and draped in tatoos and fringed leather, or astride a very serious sport bike with an attitude and skills to match. We loaded up on survival food (wine, goat cheese, pate, baguettes, smoked salmon, etc.) at one of the shops ringing the square, then headed on to the next castle, cathedral, charming village or other spectacular reward for letting go and letting the trip just flow.

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A fairly typical palace

That was next manifested at Scarborough Castle, a dramatic seaside stronghold that at its peak exemplified the vision that most of us have of a castle rising from the cliffs overlooking the channel. We had a nice picnic on the grounds, looking down the cliffs at the surf pounding the rocks, and trying to imagine what it would have been like to live here day to day, or better yet, to be scaling these cliffs trying to breach the walls. The big discovery of the day was the Bulgarian white that we’d picked up (Domaine Boyar, ‘96) with our survival rations. Who’d have thought you could get a great little white out of Bulgaria?

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Road sign in Northern England

Our next hotel was in Scotland, so we needed to head North, post haste. I had spotted a promising secondary road on the map, so we scooted over there and wound our way north along its twisty course. The land started to push up and heave here, the flatlands of central England giving way to rolling hills and ridges. Lacing along all of them were endless miles of stone fences. Untold millions of rocks culled from the fields had been stacked to form barriers and lines of demarcation that had lasted through the centuries.

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Road sign in rural Scotland

Inadvertently, our route somewhat randomly picked also took us to the highest waterfall in England. Like most parks and many points of interest, it actually lie in private land, but the owners, as is typical, allowed the public to walk down the path and enjoy the splendor. We were there just as it was starting to get dark, which at this latitude and time of year was about 9pm. Throughout the whole trip, we were still sightseeing until 11pm or so (sunset around 9:30-10pm), which was hard to get used to, but did allow us to see a lot in the few days we had to wander around.

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Steph and one of a million Scottish Waterfalls

We spent the next couple of days exploring Scotland, along with its whisky trail, castles, incredible scenery, pubs and people. We have drawn the following conclusions:

• Scotland has a unique beauty that is indescribable
• You can learn a lot about modern American politics by studying the Clan wars
• The quality of Scotch Whisky is due to generations of dedicated sampling and quality control
• Anything to do with staying warm and especially dry was invented or perfected by a Scotsman

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Dunnottar, the last castle ruin we visited, and the most impressive

All too quickly, our time ran short and we had to return to London so I could give another keynote. Our last meal in Scotland was at The Old Black Friars in Aberdeen. It was World Cup time, so we were pleased that it was a "soccer free zone," and overjoyed that it was hundreds of years old and had great pub food.

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Hadrian's wall

Once back across the border into England, we stopped at Hadrian’s Wall, which the Romans had built to keep out the Northern savages (remember the generations of sampling of the whisky?). It originally ran the breadth of England, some 70 miles. While miniscule in comparison to the Great Wall of China, it is an impressive engineering accomplishment, nonetheless. In one spot, I walked out to examine a portion that snaked up and down steep hills and traced along a cliff. It was raining, of course, and as I stood atop the wall, I was again amazed at the fortitude of those that built and manned these outposts so long ago. As I tugged my rain gear closer around me, I watched the load of local school kids who were mapping out the height and length of this section of the wall, learning the basics of engineering. Their schoolmaster was in shorts and a sweater, most of the kids didn’t even bother with jackets. "Acclimation is a wonderful thing", I muttered as I ran back down the hill to the car, with Steph watching warm and snug from inside.

We stopped for one last pub meal before getting too close to London. The pub was run by a charming and industrious couple, he a retired policeman from Sunderland. Here we learned the meaning of "Free House," which we’d seen on quite a few pubs. It seems there are two ways to run a pub: own a pub outright, and be able to pour whatever beer you want, i.e. a "Free House," or to run a company owned pub, where you simply paid a monthly lease for the building, the franchise, the beer, etc., but you were obliged to buy beer only from the beer company. This particular pub was a Vaux house, which wasn’t a particularly popular beer in this county. A couple of counties over, mind you, it was all the rage, but this was Bass territory. Nevertheless, we discovered a couple of interesting offerings, including a summer brew called "How’s your father?" All of the Ales were hand pulled from casks and served at a proper room temperature, just as God intended. I was in heaven. Steph, however, was in full on "bitter beer face" when she tried one.

A few more castles, a little more beautiful countryside, and before you knew it, we were back in downtown London. We did one quick shopping trip to pick up some "Europe only" CDs for the kids, and then were back on United for the long trip home.

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Our view of the Smashing Pumpkins

Now that the Summer was upon us, we tried to get some outdoor activities in during the brief period when the permafrost softens and the wildflowers bloom. One of the big highlights was taking Shaun and Amber to downtown Minneapolis for a free Smashing Pumpkins concert. Fortunately, we arrived early enough to stake out a section of guardrail that we could sit and stand on. Shaun and Amber soon disappeared into the crush of kids between us and the stage some 200 feet away. They eventually slithered their way up to the mosh pit and close to the stage. They eventually emerged, in mostly one piece, with tales of high adventure in tow.

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Amber and Doug on the St. Croix

Our neighbors, Brian and Cindy, also took us out for a boat ride on the St. Croix river. We’d lived next to this river for two years (me for three), and had never been out on this national scenic waterway. It was beautiful, and as I had feared, awoke all the longings to get out on the water that had been hidden away for so long. Having grown up with boats and water skiing, it is hard to live next to such a beautiful resource and not take advantage of it. We immediately launched into a long discussion about how much we’d use a boat, considering how little we used the bikes, etc. The issue was not resolved, so watch this space for further developments.

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Our nephew Vance. It's a gumball, no it's eye shadow, no it's a...

Other Summer adventures included a trip to the Taste of Minnesota (not bad, but a pale reflection of the Taste of Chicago), a trip to New York City, officially to give a speech, but actually to enable a visit to the "Art of the Motorcycle" show at the Guggenheim museum. As always, NYC was a blast. We also saw a fun play while we were there, "I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change." Recommended viewing for anyone in or contemplating a relationship with the opposite sex. We also saw "Saving Private Ryan" on the OmniMax screen at the Sony theaters at Lincoln Center. In my opinion, this movie should be required viewing for every American over 16. It really helps you understand an entire generation that fought and died in that war.

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Hackney, Larson, McKee clans gather at Bella Vista, AR

A trip to Arkansas for a Hackney/Larson/McKee family get together soon followed. We held it at Bella Vista, which offered golf, fishing, swimming and shopping, all the key summer activities. There is just no substitute for getting the family together and building new memories and sharing old ones.

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Steph at speed on her DR200

After we got back to Wisconsin, we finally got Steph out on her new bike. It turned out to be a lot more manageable than the 250, but still quite a bit of weight to pick up if she dropped it. We had a fun day trail riding with Adam and exercising the bikes a little bit. We even managed to get the street bike out for a couple of rides, a far too rare occasion this year.

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Doug's grandmother, Lois Strickland, celebrates her 80th birthday with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren

The Labor Day holiday had us back in Arkansas for my grandmother’s 80^th birthday. It was a wonderful event, with long lost cousins coming in from all over the country. It was interesting to see the passing of the torch to the next generation, from us to our kids. Sad, too, in that my cousins and I had grown up very close, seeing each other almost every weekend and sharing many adventures together. Now, most of us live many hundreds of miles apart, and our kids will never know what it is like to grow up in such a close family environment.

Steph and I had committed to exploring the twin cities more this year, and we continued that effort with a visit to the sculpture garden for a dance event and tour of the Guthrie Theater, going to the ballet, going to some theater, and by attending the Guinness Oyster Festival. I will personally give my highest endorsement to the last event. Featuring Irish music, entertainment, great food, and of course the staff of life: Guinness.

After four years of exile in Mark Kuyrkendall’s garage in Grand Rapids, MI, it was finally time to fetch the 1972 Norton 750 Commando. Steph and I again hooked up the trailer and set out on our second great "retrieve the motorcycle" road trip of the year. (The Norton has been my closet "restoration" project for about five years. It was my plan to finally get started this year. So far, it is still holding down the garage floor, but the winter is still young.) The trip to Grand Rapids was highlighted by our tour of the area in Mark’s 1966 Lincoln convertible. It was so much fun, I used the experience in one of my monthly columns I write for a trade magazine:

"It’s always the smiles that get you. Old cars have a way of generating smiles that is magical. On this day, the smiles were accompanied by stumbles, wide eyes, thumbs up and desperate attempts to catch us in traffic for a closer look. We were cruising in my lifelong friend Mark Kuyrkendall’s 1966 Lincoln close-coupled convertible sedan. That’s a car buff’s way of saying it’s a four door Lincoln convertible with rear suicide doors, most prominently burned into our collective consciousness as the car that President Kennedy was riding in on that fateful day in Dallas.

As we silently coursed the historic streets filled with Victorian homes, bathed in sunshine and warmed by the reactions of those we encountered, I pondered the position I enjoyed. With Mark at the controls, and my wife in the passenger seat, I enjoyed the expanses of the rear seat alone. I instinctively chose the right rear seat, and practiced the "screw in the light bulb" wave taught to every beauty queen, politician and minor celebrity who had ever shared in my experience of the parting seas of smiles and waves, rolling and spreading like a wake on each side of this most extraordinary automobile. This was the very same position that JFK was in. The target seat. The bullseye."

It is a beautiful ride, and it’s great to see it in the hands of someone who appreciates it.

Another big event concerning cars in 1998 was Adam getting his driver’s license. To date he’s kept his driving record clean and hasn’t been in any accidents (that we know about). He has, however managed to nearly destroy his Ford Escort.

One day, as Adam ferried his sister Amber and a couple of friends to school, they noticed some smoke coming from under the hood. Being dedicated students committed to academic advancement at all costs, and being about six blocks from school, they didn’t let a little thing like smoke keep them from getting to class. Onward they drove, finally pulling into the parking lot, at which point several of them commented to Adam, "Hackney, your car is smoking." Again unwilling to sacrifice a nearly spotless attendance record (give or take a dozen or so absences…) on the alter of a small column of smoke, Adam turned undaunted toward the Hudson High School institute of higher learning and marched to class. Shortly after arriving in his first class he was greeted with several shouts of "HACKNEY, YOUR CAR’S ON FIRE!!" Just in time, the Hudson Fire Department appeared to spring open the hood, cut the battery cables, and coat the engine compartment in ¼" of semi-permanent lime-green fire extinguisher powder.

This presented Adam’s mother and myself with an interesting dilemma. Between the two of us, we had just sunk around $2,500 (tires, wheels, rotors, drums, pads, shoes, shocks, struts, clutch, etc.) into this 1990 Escort, with an estimated resale value of $1,200 on a dark night from 50’ away. We had judged it a great starter car, and figured that we’d have to invest about the same amount in making any beater car safe and secure. Now we had a 1990 Escort with a perfect clutch, suspension, tires, wheels, etc. with a melted engine compartment and an estimate of $800+ to fix it. After due consideration, I made a deal with the local wrench. They spent about three weeks finding a junk Escort that we could strip (living in a small town has its upsides!), we pulled everything we needed from the donor Escort and got Adam’s now $3,300 Escort back on the street.

The blaze was caused by the alternator bearings going bad and getting hot enough to start the small wiring harness attached to it on fire. Perhaps if they would have pulled over and opened the hood when the smoke was first noticed they could have spit the fire out. Certainly if they had opened the hood at the school, the heat would not have been intense enough to melt the engine compartment (it never did get hot enough to blister the paint on the hood). Of course, we’ll never know. We do know, however, with some certainty, that Adam can now complete the sentence "Where there’s smoke, there is _____."

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Doug's aunt, Linda Larson, tries to convince Steph that college football is worth celebrating

As October’s Indian summer wound down and the autumn leaves appeared, the air carried on it the most powerful of scents, college football. I made it my mission to get Steph to Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City to immerse her in the pageantry, color and excitement of a college football game. The drive down along the Mississippi River was spectacular, with the bluffs covered in an endless patchwork quilt of brilliant, fiery maples and the deep colors of the hardwoods. Once there, the day was perfect, with crisp fall air and brilliant sunshine. The stadium was filled with loyal, excited fans. The student section stood the entire game to show support. The band played and marched. The team played hard, and aside from the Hawks getting crushed by Wisconsin, it was a perfect day.

My plan was as follows: just as I had taken her to Wrigley field on a perfect Summer day, sat her in the bleachers, plied her with a couple of beers and waited for the magic of baseball to consume her, I would sit her on the 50 yard line, let the pageantry unfold, on this, Keith Jackson’s last visit to Iowa City, and let the magic of college sports seduce her.

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Shaun and Chari at dinner in San Diego

November brought my annual pilgrimage to Southern California for the MSM dual sport ride. We always spend the weekend in San Diego, and I do the ride on Sunday. This year, due to Steph’s insane work travel schedule (she was on the road for over three weeks straight, all over the US and Mexico), she was just passing through San Diego.

From there we went to Arkansas for Thanksgiving at my mom’s house. We had a great time eating and visiting. It is so comforting to have food that tastes the way it should taste. There’s nothing like eating your mom’s dressing and your grandmother’s gravy!

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Dick, Barb, Doug and Steph post links

On these family get-togethers, Steph and I have usually ended up holding down the fort while everyone else plays golf. Steph’s been after me to get into the game for the last couple of years, so this holiday we decided to bite the bullet and go play a round with my sister Barb and her husband Dick. We borrowed mom and dad’s clubs and headed for the links. After some basic tips from our very patient instructors, we didn’t do too badly, and only lost a half dozen or so balls, and most importantly, had a ton of fun. We didn’t get in a full round, but got enough of a taste to agree it was something that we’d like to pursue.

On Saturday, my mom and dad were remarried, which drew even more relatives. It was a great day, and we all wish them much happiness.

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Avery Innis, a.k.a. Dr. DR, who makes our off road riding possible

The next big adventure was a trip to Baja for Adam and I for a two-day dual sport ride. It was Adam’s first trip to Mexico, his first trip into the mountains, his first dual sport ride, and his first trip (that he can remember) to Southern California. I wanted to show him around the area a little bit, so we flew in on Thursday. We drove around San Diego a little bit, and we hooked up with Shaun, Joe (Shaun’s dad) and Julie (Shaun’s step-mom) for dinner. Friday we stopped at the March Air Force Base museum on the way to LA to pick up the bikes. It was the first time I’d had a chance to visit an air museum with Adam and was a lot of fun. We made our way on up to pick up the bikes at Malcolm Smith Motorsports, then drove down to Mexico to the start point for the ride.

Tijuana was an eye-opener for Adam. I’m not sure he was prepared for the fortified border wall, the shacks and the shocking level of poverty South of the border. We barely made it to the hotel in time to meet everyone for the welcome dinner, then settled in for the night. It rained most of the night, bringing us a wet and muddy track for Saturday morning.

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Adam and Doug in the mountains of Baja

The fire road leading up into the mountains from the coast was a quagmire, and what normally would have been a 20 minute scoot turned into a two hour battle. The fine Baja sand that normally chokes you had turned into a mud that had the stickiness of plaster and the friction coefficient of axle grease on stainless steel. The reward at the top of the mountain for our struggles was a double rainbow and typically stunning views. The rest of the ride was more of the same, rain in the morning, sunshine in the afternoon, beautiful scenery and the usual mix of great people. This was a family ride, so there were wives and kids, and riders of all ability levels. Adam and I took mostly B routes, but I did take him through some reasonable A sections so he’d know what they were like. In the end, we came out in one piece, Adam went down in the sections I’d expected him to go down in, and he had some good memories and great war stories to tell.

His Southern California experience was a well rounded one. I managed to get him to Pacific Beach Sushi Club (our favorite sushi bar in San Diego), In and Out Burger (USA’s best fast food burgers) and Rubios (best fish tacos on the planet) as well as drive him along the coast, walk him along the boardwalk, show him a couple of college campuses, introduce him to many of my friends, including Avery Innis who has enabled most of our riding adventures, and show him an alternative way to spend the winter.

Steph and I wrapped up the year with a trip to Monterey, CA. She was in charge of a conference that she was running at the Inn at Spanish Bay, and I was invited out for a "spouse" event on Friday night. As part of her event, she had gone through the Golf Academy at Pebble Beach on Wednesday. I was really sick when I arrived late Thursday night, but I dragged myself out of bed Friday and took a couple of hours of lessons at Pebble Beach as well. We had a nice dinner Friday night in the library room at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. The evening was complimented with an impressive view of the 18^th green out the windows, along with the excellent company of Steph’s colleagues at her conference event.

Inspired by our instruction, I lined us up a tee time on Saturday morning. We had three choices for tee times at the Pebble Beach properties: Pebble Beach, which you have to reserve six months in advance, so that was out (Steph had tried); Spyglass, one of the five toughest courses in the world, so not an optimum choice for our first round of golf; and Spanish Bay, which won by default, and happened to be right outside our hotel room, between us and the Pacific ocean. I prepared by buying 36 balls, figuring that we could probably make it on one lost ball per hole for each of us.

We ended up being paired with a couple of guys from Paris, one of whom was a beginner like us, who provided comfort by comparison in our moments of pain, and one who was a near scratch golfer who provided both inspiration with his arrow straight shots and comfort in his rare miss-hits, thus proving that even the good guys muffed an occasional shot. We started slowly, even with our approach of not looking for lost balls and simply dropping and moving on. We tried our best to keep up the pace, but even so, we had the watchful course marshals closely monitoring our progress. At only one point, after the second hole, did they request that we speed up a little bit.

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Steph and Doug outrunning the NFL

Not that we needed any encouragement. The same weekend we were there, the hotel was hosting the NFL alumni association and their annual golf tournament. It’s stressful enough to be playing your first round of golf on a championship course, trying not to hold anybody up. Try doing it when the foursome cooling their heels in the tee box waiting for you to clear the fairway is likely to be Butkis, Bonnitcotti, Blanda and Belitnikoff. Inspired by our minders and the hovering hulks behind us, we caught the players in front of us by the seventh hole.

Of course, lacking any frame of reference, we had no idea if all courses were like this, with non-existent or spaghetti thin fairways, greens set into the ocean, more sand than Miami Beach, GPS pin distance monitors in the carts, and as many course marshals as players. One marshal we chatted with, upon finding out that it was our first round, assured us that we were playing a course that was harder than Spyglass (due to the profusion of out of bounds protected areas), had a higher slope rating (whatever that is) than the typical PGA pro tour course, and that wherever we played after this, it would be easier. What the heck, we didn’t know any better and were having a ton of fun.

We split our time between admiring the beauty of the course, watching the surf, trying to hit the ball straight, and encouraging our new friends from Paris. In the end, Steph made a double bogey, I made par on a par four, bogeyed three or four holes, we generally stayed in the fairway, we both used only one ball for the last five holes or so, and each of us hit at least one good shot with every club, so we judged our day a total success. As we sat in the clubhouse bar and watched the sunset colors fill the sky over the Pacific we decided that this golf thing was definitely worth checking out.

Our past year has brought us many adventures and many blessings. Our families remain in good health, we are blessed with our children and our friends. We are again reminded in what a state of grace we live, and how many are less fortunate than we are. We wish for you a healthy, happy, wonderful year in 1999.

Be well,