Blog Archives
How’s Your Riding Season?
That’s a question posed by Donnie Smith today on Facebook. Although the weather has been great, our riding season has not been so terrific. My husband has been ill most of the summer. Although he’s been able to ride his Victory to work about once a week, it’s spent a lot more time in the garage than we had originally planned.
On Sunday, we skipped church to take a ride out around Lake Minnetonka. It’s the first time I”ve spent more than 15 minutes on the bike this year. I definitely don’t have my riding muscles in shape! It was good to get out into the country and measure the progress of the corn and soybean fields (despite growing up in Northeast Minneapolis, I’m a farmer at heart), to sniff the fresh lake breezes and feel the sun on our faces. The sweet scent of red clover hovered along the roadways. It was glorious!
Heavy rains have kept the big boats off of Minnetonka. It seemed odd to see a just a few fishing and sailboats out on the lake. The big cruisers are all parked at the dock, waiting for a day when the water level goes down enough so they can go fast and leave a wake.
There’s still a lot of the riding season left. As summer progresses into fall, we’ll try to put more miles on the motorcycle, discovering new places to ride.
Harley-Davidson in Blaine called to re-order Ride Minnesota. Get your copy while the riding is good!
Packing Up
With temperatures edging up into the 40s and 50s, you can bet that motorcycles will be cruising around the Twin Cities this weekend. I know Ralph will be out in the garage installing new turn signal lights on his Victory cruiser. As for me, I’ll be at the Donnie Smith Bike & Car Show at the River Centre in St. Paul.
I have a case of shiny new copies of Ride Minnesota out in the garage. Today, I’m packing up my “show box”, filling it with more copies of the book, bookmarks for giveaways, extra pens, my cashbox, signs and an easel for displaying a poster-sized version of the book cover. It’s the biggest event I have attended as an exhibitor — more than 18,000 are expected to attend. (Gee, I wonder if I have enough books? Yikes! I’d better pack an order form, too.) I also have to make sure my cell phone’s charged and my card reader is ready to go.
Thanks to Audrey Johnson of Motorcycle Life EXPO for inviting me to share her table. We’ll be at Booth 22 on the main floor of the show.
The streets and highways haven’t been cleaned yet. Watch out for gravel and keep the shiny side up!
Signs of Spring
I am so sick of this long Minnesota winter I could chew roofing nails! It definitely was a lot more fun when I was a kid and played in the snow and didn’t worry about breaking my bones. Ah, but there are signs of spring, despite below-zero temperatures (at the end of February? Ya gotta be kidding me!).
The first sign is a review of Ride Minnesota in the March issue of Thunder Press, a tabloid that reaches some 60-70-80,000 Harley Davidson owners. I can’t wait to see it.
As a result of that review, I received a call from Audrey Johnson, who organized the Motorcycle Life Expo that Ralph and I attended earlier this month (in a snowstorm). She’s got a booth at the upcoming Donnie Smith Motorcycle Show at the St. Paul River Centre, and asked me if I’d like to join her and sell my book at her booth. Would I! I’m already checking my booth supplies. I think I’ll need to order more books.
The third sign is an invitation to do a reading of Ride Minnesota at Eat My Words Bookstore here in “Nordeast” Minneapolis. I’m so excited that Scott and his son, Peter, are hosting this event. It happens at 3:00 p.m. on March 22. The store already has copies of the book on consignment, but I’ll bring more copies.
I’m revving my book marketing engine. By the time the snow melts and Ralph and I can get on the highways, it’ll be in high gear.
Ride Minnesota 