My Fiancee: Biker Babe

Due to some ongoing technical difficulties with my mobile phone, I recently had to exchange it for a new one. Before the exchange, I was removing all vestiges of my personal life, and had quite a smile and laugh when it came time to clean out the photos I had taken. The one below is from a trip Meghan and I took over the summer to Quebec City (please excuse the poor quality, I forgot my ?real? digital camera and had to resort to inferior camera phone technology), and seeing Meghan in her biker garb inspired me to chronicle our Canadian Expedition.

This trip was one filled with near disasters. The weather conspired against us on every day that we were riding, my Magellan-esque navigation skills were not up to their usual par, and we were challenged with avoiding what seemed like a mass migration of God?s chosen people. This trip was one of those experiences that I?m sure happy couples everywhere can relate to. When circumstances conspire against you, the average pair of people will wear down from the strain and be at each other?s throats. During the challenges of this trip however, even when drenched and faced with near death at the hands of a Quebecois-style construction site, Meghan stayed positive and we were allies in a battle of ?us versus the world.?

The plan for the trip started forming in my mind early in the summer, when I traded my 150cc ?around town? scooter for a 650cc Suzuki Burgman. While the Burgman shares the step-through configuration and smaller wheels of a scooter, the similarities end there, and the machine is readily capable of cruising along the highways at a comfortable 70-80 miles per hour. I had been caught up in the romance of the open road, and Meghan and I had enjoyed a few scooter trips around the back roads of southern Connecticut, so I decided it was time for an upgrade. I took a solo flight up to New Hampshire, and figured this long distance riding thing was ?A-OK? and perhaps it was time to ?fly? with my favorite co-pilot.

Meghan and I are both Francophiles to some extent. She lived in France for several months, speaks French fluently, and now teaches French. I eat a lot of French Fries, and in my case ?speaking? is too strong a word to describe my attempts at stringing together disjointed and seemingly random French phrases in a haphazard manner, much to the chagrin of whoever happens to be at the receiving end of my nonsensical babble. We first met in Montreal, so Canada has a special place in our hearts as well, and francophone Canada seemed like the perfect place to visit for our first long-distance scooter tour.

Having already visited Montreal, Quebec City fit the bill nicely. Quebec is about 500 miles from our point of departure, so I planned on taking two days to get up there, and two days to return. I booked a nice romantic hotel in Old Quebec, and planned on finding in-transit lodging ?on the fly.? Abundant motels flanked both sides of the Canadian border, so we could ride until tired, rest up and hit the roads the next day when riding to and from Quebec. Based on some unanticipated free time at work, we had a limited amount of advance notice but the scheduling seemed to work out. A plan was hatched.

This being a longer trip, it made sense that Meghan should have a full complement of motorcycling safety gear. I ordered a jacket and pants for her, in blue and black, to match her helmet of course. One lesson any experienced motorcyclist learns rather quickly, is that manufacturers of motorcycle gear are all anorexic midgets. I warned her that sizing was a little ?funny,? but nonetheless, the day before our trip all her gear arrived, and it was all too small. Folks that know Meghan realize she is anything but a large woman, but to the Oompa Lumpas that manufacture this stuff, apparently she was a giant.