Well what a busy couple of days. It's all change in the Mills-Backhouse household. After nearly 3 years of loyal service Donkey (or 'The Donkster' as he was more recently known as (hey - it was a Buell we had to make him a little more hip and cool y'know?!)) was put out to pasture - to see out his days in a more relaxed and better place than hanging off the back of the RV for about 35,000 miles!!
And of course y'all know better that Chris isn't saying goodbye to one motorbike without welcoming in a new one! Yes we welcome a new (as yet un-christened) motorbike - a Honda CBR1000RR (Fireblade). To me it's a large shiny red and black thing. It has a higher pillion seat making it more difficult for me to clamber on and off but it IS much smoother ride, less vibrations and it sounds nice - much less like a Harley, much more my thing. Chris, well he's just spent the last 24 hours wandering around with an ear-to-ear grin - it's beginning to look a little scary, you know - village idiot look!It wasn't REALLY that planned an event. He'd hankered after the 2007 model Fireblade since last November just before we left Texas when he saw they'd been discounted over $2000 on the new price (there's a new model out now which he prefers less). I reigned him in at that point but there'd been various mutterings over the past months and finally I suggested he phone round the Austin dealers 'just to see' if they still had any in stock in his colour choice. So all we'd really gone into the showroom for was to see what kind of trade-in price they'd give us on Donkey. He'd had a hard life, several scuffs and all and we'd been offered just $1000 last November which was a joke. When the guy looked at the bike and offered us considerably more than what we'd even hoped for we didn't even look at each other (we just knew it was good!), and pretty much signed on the dotted line right there. About 45 minutes later Chris rode out the door on the new bike!! I got all upset about Donkey - poor old thing. I was probably more fond of him than Chris (being the underdog, and I never really appreciated all his faults and shortfalls than Chris found so frustrating). That was all yesterday. I like to think that it was his birthday present - that's what I'm saying anyway - because that makes me sound like a really cool, understading wife!!
Today we're staying with friends John & Michelle and their kids Kate & Callum in Austin. Started the day off watching a VERY exciting little league Baseball game that Callum was playing in. This is WAY more interesting than grown-ups baseball and I even totally got the hang of the scoring, along with a little screaming and cheering! John & Michelle took us out to lunch for Chris's birthday. It was a scorchio day and what better place to be than down near the water - Lake Austin to be precise. There was a great Hawaiian themed place called 'The Hula Hut' (though I'm sure most of the food was TexMex) right on the water and we sat out drinking cold beer and margaritas on the deck before eating a late lunch.
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