TALLADEGA SCENIC HIGHWAY ON MT. CHEAHA ~ ALABAMA ~ photo taken by Dianna Stover
All material posted here is the original property of Lady R, author of this blog, unless linked from another source or otherwise noted. All material and photos not to be reprinted without permission.

Monday, October 31, 2011

PIC OF THE WEEK - GHOSTS OF HALLOWEEN'S PAST

GHOSTS OF HALLOWEEN'S PAST


Freddy Fudpucker and his Zombie.

They've been know to hang around good folks, but they can be a strange pair. Best to stay clear of them. I understand that the Zombie can get pretty... spooky! (That's her story and she's stickin' to it!)


Be afraid... be very afraid! Muwahahahahahaha!

Be safe and watch out for the kids!  Let's keep Halloween fun!

Lady R

Author's note: Be sure and check out my Friday's post BOO!! WHAT SCARES YOU?  Do you have a favorite Halloween memory?

Friday, October 28, 2011

BOO!! WHAT SCARES YOU!!

Halloween is upon us!  That's right folks, we are just days away from the annual invasion of ghosts, goblins, and little Lady Gaga's!  Okay... throw in some princesses and cowboys too, cause they'll be right there, with the witches and warlocks, scaring the crap out of the neighborhood cats and making all the dogs crazy.   

"Trick or Treat! Smell my feet... give me something good to eat!"

Truth is, I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays because I get to play dress up.  Adult Halloween parties can be a blast, but I think I get more enjoyment out of seeing all the kiddos.  Even if I'm not going anywhere but to the front door (11 thousand times!) I'll often dress up to make coming to my house a bit more interesting for the little beggars. Working for a dentist has great advantages.  He makes great fangs and there's nothing funnier than watching a kids eyes grow wide with uncertainty when he sees those sharp points peeking out from under my lip. Muwahahahahahaha!

I wonder... what is your favorite Halloween memory?

Harley and I know a married couple who host a Halloween party ever year.  This is always grand annual event for them and there is usually a big crowd that looks forward to this and everybody comes decked out in some of the best costumes I've ever seen.  The refreshments were always fun because our hostess would label everything to fit the mood.  Pigs in a blanket were called mummy fingers, meatballs were monkey brains, and spinach dip would be marked as bat shit.  (Yeah... I'll take some of that!)

It was back in the late 80's when Leather Face made his comeback in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.  The party was in full swing with drinking and dancing and some of the prize producing games had already begun.  We were wall to wall with merry makers when all of a sudden the front door slammed opened (that's what happens when the door gets pushed open with such force that it crashes loudly into the inside wall) and in came Leather Face... wielding an extremely loud chainsaw over his head and yelling at the top of his lungs.

  
Haaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!  (and the chainsaw goes...) Bbrrraaaaaaaaa, bbrrraaaaaaaa, braa, braa, braa!!

Mayhem ensued!! It was a sea of assholes and elbows trying to escape the terror.  Drinks went flying, women were crying and men screamed like little girls.  I think we even had a few pissers, but I can't be certain. It was pretty wild!  Thankfully, our hostess is a party throwing professional so she had already cleared her home of valuable breakables, so a busted out screen door at the back of the house ended up being the only casualty.  (Besides a few broke fingernails and a poke in the eye!) 

It was quickly revealed to us that there was no actual chain on the chain saw, but it still took over an hour for everybody to settle down enough to get the party back to a somewhat normal gathering.  Needless to say, ol' Leather Face won the "Best Costume" prize for that year. Imagine that!

So... what is your favorite Halloween memory?
Lady R

P. S.  For all my readers who thought they weren't going to get their FRIDAY FUNNY... here it is!

FRIDAY FUNNY - I DO
 
(photo taken from the web)
No... this wasn't a costume contest.  It was their real wedding picture! TRICK OR TREAT!

Monday, October 24, 2011

PIC OF THE WEEK - BLANKET OF BEAUTY

Back in the fall of '09, Harley and I rode the Glides up to Chattanooga, TN for a family vacation to celebrate his Stepmother's 70th birthday.   We had really pretty weather during ride, it was just cold as hell!  You can read more about that trip in my post  "To Ride... Or Not To Ride.  Is That Even A Question?"

I was able to capture these great pictures from the deck of our rental cabin, right on the Tennessee River. 

BLANKET OF BEAUTY

Harley and I have been back up in that area a couple of times since then.  It's one of our favorite places to ride. We nearly froze our butts off on our return trip though... it was 35 degrees freezing the morning we left to come back home!  Brrrrrrrr!!

Have a great week everybody!

Lady R

Friday, October 21, 2011

FRIDAY FUNNY - THE SAVINGS PLAN

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today!

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would
have $33.00 today.

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have $0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for the recycling refund, you would have received $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle.

It is called the 401-Keg.

And as a bonus...

A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found that on average Americans drink 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means that the average American gets about 41 miles to the gallon!


Makes you damned proud to be an American!

Happy Friday y'all!!

Lady R

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

GLIDER RIDER WELCOMES YOU TO... SOUTHERN COMFORT

Just how does a mid western Iowa girl end up living in the south? Well, she did exactly what her momma did (she grew up in Wyoming)... falls in love with a sailor and moves far away from home!

Actually, the moving away part came first, when I enlisted into the Navy and went to Orlando, Florida for boot camp.  That's where I first met Harley.  While in boot camp, they pair up two female units with two male units and they are considered your "brother and sister" units as we all go through our training together.  That just means every time we eat at the chow hall, perform calisthenics on the field, march, worship on Sundays or just whatever... you'll usually do these types of activities with your brother and sister units.

During meals, Harley and one of his buddies would come over and sit with me and my bunk mate, Darlene every time he got the chance.  Seems he was smitten on her, but she had her eyes set on some other dude with short hair.  Pfffttt... Ain't that just the shit?  Anyway, being raised in Iowa (where they do a great job of talking normally), I was fascinated with this stranger spewing a foreign language from his tongue.

"Hey y'all." 

What the hell did he say??  My pal, Darlene, who was from Tennessee says to me... "he said hi."

"Oooohh." I responded in my Iowan long "o" fashion, to which she looked at me like I was the strange one. Good grief, I thought he was talking about that stuff horses eat!

And so it goes.  Before long I realized that if you were fix'in to do something, you didn't really need tools, you just needed to be ready.  I don't have to worry about ever walking anywhere, cause someone can carry you anywhere you want to go. (don't worry... there is a vehicle involved!)  And soda is not just for baking.  Speaking of sodas... they don't sell pop in the south.  Just sayin'...

Well, to cut to the chase, we all (or most of us anyway) made it through boot camp hell and were soon disbursed into several different directions to our perspective "A" schools or duty stations.  I had chosen the dental field so after a short leave back home to Iowa so my parents could see that I survived my first leg of my Naval journey, I was off to San Diego, California.  Guess who I should run into on my first day there?  Yep... that foreign speaking southern boy (whom I now affectionately refer to as Harley)!

I walked up to him when I spotted him and said, "Hi! Remember me?"  He just looked at me and grinned from ear to ear and said, "Some others are goin' over yonder to the Enlisted Club. We could go meet 'em... yon't to??"  I looked at him a moment and reminded him that he was after my bunk mate, the last I heard.  He gave me a cockeyed grin and looked at me with the sweetest blue eyes and said... "I thought you were a foreigner."

And the rest is history!  A year or so later, I married that southern boy and after we played sailor for awhile, we settled down right here in the sunny south... a thousand miles away from home. Just like my momma!  Oh, well... she got 50 happy years out of her sailor before he left this world.  I've got a long way to go yet, but after 31 years... I 'm not doing too bad!

Adjusting to life in the south has not been terrible.  There is a great reference to help you along in this process in the form of a book titled, "How To Speak Southern" by Steve Mitchell. It's a really great read and totally reliable. The heat took a little getting used to, and I miss the snow at Christmas!  However, as far as riding motorcycles and playing on the lakes, living here has been awsome!!  For the last 8 years of our riding days, we've been able to ring in the new year... on the Glides! How cool is that?

Glider Rider is sad to bow out, but Southern Comfort is more than willing to step up and take it from here.  This is the same blog with all my archived posts still intact, I'm just giving my blog the freshening up it desperately needed. Stay tuned for more tales from Southern Comfort.

Y'all come back now, ya hear?
Lady R

Monday, October 17, 2011

PIC OF THE WEEK - FINDING YOUR POT OF GOLD

A few weeks ago, while Harley and I were exploring in our new Jeep, we drove past the Kilby Correctional Facility, one of the maximum security prisons not too far from our home. We noticed this rainbow after a brief storm blew through, and even though I've gotten many great rainbow pics before, my sick sense of humor just couldn't leave this one alone. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

irony na manner of speaking or writing in which the meaning literally expressed is the opposite of the meaning intended and which aims at ridicule, humor or sarcasm.

FINDING YOUR POT OF GOLD
The state of Alabama has 7 State Prisons and 2 Federal Prison Camps, so it's not unusual for us to pass one of these facilities when we venture out of the city limits in any direction, since most of them are near Mongtomery.  For some of these poor dudes, chasing rainbows to obtain their pot of gold didn't turn out so well.

I'm pretty sure I would hate prison life.

I've often wondered what goes through their minds when Harley and I would pass by on our Glides (which we did... often!) and they would be hanging on the fence... looking... watching... dreaming.

Freedom! Freedom! How I wish it were I... freedom!

Have a nice week everybody! Ride free!

Lady R

** Author's note:   Be sure to check out yesterday's post and don't be surprised if things look a little different soon. GLIDER RIDER is getting a new makeover and a new title!  Stay tuned...

Sunday, October 16, 2011

CHANGES ARE COMING!!


It's time!  I've been toying with the idea of changing things up a bit, and after almost 4 years of blogging, I figured now was as good a time as any.  When I started this blog, it was all about motorcycles and riding. Being able to share my passion with others, while sharing where I lived, has allowed me to show you all just how beautiful our sweet home Alabama really is.

Our lives are always changing, however, and after the summer I've had, I've decided that I can either point this blog in another direction, or close shop.  Well, I don't want to quit writing, nor do I want to lose touch with my blogging friends, so... 

I'm giving the GLIDER RIDER a much needed facelift and a new name!

Don't fret now! I still have a hoard of motorcycle related pictures and experiences I want to share, but I'm also planning to expand my blog content to include other exciting "adventures" as well.  Before we acquired our two motorcycles, we used to have a pontoon boat that kept us on the water every weekend.  Trying to camp on it with two giant sized German Shepherds always proved to be a mistake... that we never learned from.  Before we had a pontoon boat, we used to "tear up" some woods in our little '78 Ford Courier, jumping ditches and dodging quicksand, as we tried our damnedest to beat that truck to death.  We lived in Puerto Rico for three years where we got to spend Christmases on the beach, but had to share our house with lizards the size of alligators!

Now... I have a Jeep.  I've never owned a Jeep before and within the first few miles of getting to know this vehicle, I quickly realized that this was going to allow me to tap into a whole 'nuther avenue of "fun times".  And it goes topless!  All I can say about that is... Woo Hooooo!!

I know some of you look forward to the Pic of the Week on Mondays and my weekly Friday Funny, so that will not change.  Bringing you every day life in a Wanda Sykes kind of way, however, will be my new goal. I hope you'll all find my blog to be even more entertaining than before, and I look forward to your continuing comments.

Stay tuned folks. Lady R's... "Southern Comfort"  launches her new look later this week.

Southern Comfort...
Where the Belles are Southern and the 'Necks are Red!

Y'all come back now... ya hear?
Lady R

Friday, October 14, 2011

FRIDAY FUNNY - THE DENTAL VISIT

The man says to the dentist, "Doc, I'm in a hurry! My two buddies are in my truck waiting for us to go bass fishing, so forget about the anesthetic. I don't have time for the gums to get numb. I just want you to pull the bad tooth, and be done with it!"

Noticing how surprised the dentist was at his request, the man explained, "We have our feeders set to go off in thirty minutes. I don't have time to wait for the anesthetic to work!"

The dentist thinks, "Wow, this is brave man asking to have his tooth pulled without using anything to kill the pain."

So the dentist asks him, "Which tooth is it?"

The man turns to his wife and says, "Open your mouth, honey, and show him."

Have a nice weekend everybody! Yee Haw!!

Lady R

Author's note: Christmas is right around the corner you know. Be sure and let me know if anybody wants to order the "Duct Tape Push-up Bra" for the sweetheart on their list.

Monday, October 10, 2011

PIC OF THE WEEK - TRANQUILITY

This pic was taken last year around this time at one of our favorite resting stops, Hatchet Creek.  I know I've posted pics of this area before, but it's always so peaceful and quiet here.  I decided it will be okay to share it once again. 


TRANQUILITY
I looked up the word tranquility in the dictionary. It said... the stage or quality of being tranquil. 

So... (of course I did!)
Tranquil - adj., free from agitation or perturbation.  Peaceful.

I agree... and that's our lesson for the day.  Have a great week everybody!

Lady R

Sunday, October 9, 2011

... AND THEY CALL ME MAXINE

One of my favorite character's is Maxine.  She's refreshingly honest, quick witted, and sassy as hell.  I've always said that I want to be just like her when I grow up.  I guess I've done just that. 

When we bought our Jeep, we were told by many, that it was just like owning a motorcycle.  The vehicle was just the beginning... accessories an add-ons to break the bank, will soon follow.   They were not kidding!  We already bought a soft top for it (ordered that the day we drove it off the lot... cha-ching!) and my eyes continue to dance with excitement as I skim through the pages of Mopar's Jeep candy catalog.  I didn't realize how much cool stuff there was to buy for a Jeep!

Never having owned convertible before, I'm all about riding around with the top down and taking off to the woods.  I just have to be very careful with sun exposure. I have a skin condition called Rosacea, so with that in mind, my first piece of Jeep gear was a hat.  Not just any hat mind you, but a really cool "outdoorsy" kind of hat.  Something that said... adventure!  I had ball caps galore, and fancy dress up Derby hats, but I needed something that would not only keep the sun off my face, but could also withstand the attacks of dropping do do, and the ability to stay on my head during extreme wind conditions.  I thought I had the perfect solution.  I told Harley I wanted a fishing hat.

So, on our first topless outing, we stopped in at Camo Country in Wetumpka, a great little camping supply store stocked with everything from boots to hats and lots in between.  I walked in... shopped...  paid for my purchase and walked out smiling... in less than 2.5 minutes.  How many women do you know can do that??

Back in the Jeep, I plopped my new hat on my head and asked Harley how I looked.  He studied me for a moment, stifled a good laugh and said...  "What took you so long?"

Well, for the rest of the day, my hat served it's purpose.  We had a great time riding around the countryside in our topless Jeep, and I avoided sunburn while snapping pictures of our favorite roads.  I was very pleased with my new prize.

That following Monday, while talking with my co-workers about how we spent our weekends, I made a comment about getting my hat for the topless Jeep rides. They all froze at the same time and gave me this look.  You know... the kind of look that made me wonder if I had broccoli in my teeth.  Or worse yet, a booger hangin' off my nose!  I'm the oldest of my co-workers and the only one without teenagers at home to supervise my sense of fashion.  I'm also the only one who doesn't really give two shits about all that anyway, but that's beside the point.  I like to be different, and as long as I'm not taken for a total freak, I'll continue to march to the beat of my own drummer.  With that said, I looked at their bemused faces and told them... "I'll show you.  Before the day is over, you'll all want one!!"

So I did... and they laughed! They took one look at me and my hat and said... "You look just like Maxine!"

 

Maxine... my heroine!!  To be able to go through life, doing what pleases you, without the shackles of worrying what others think sounds mighty nice. I've discovered that the older I get, the easier that becomes.


So... thank you ladies!  You've made my day.  And in the words of my role model and favorite lady, Maxine...
 
Lady R

Friday, October 7, 2011

FRIDAY FUNNY - HOW TO GET MEN TO WASH THEIR HANDS

I stole this from a friend's FB page... who got it from a friend... who got it from a friend... who got it from, yet another friend... you know how it goes. (Thanks K!) I thought it was just too funny not to share.

HOW TO GET MEN TO WASH THEIR HANDS
Harley was looking over my shoulder when I was posting this pic, and he said... "I'd go to the one on the far end. She looks ready." Buwahahahahaha!!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Lady R

Monday, October 3, 2011

PIC OF THE WEEK - AUTUMN CONFETTI

Autumn is my favorite time to ride. The air feels cooler and the leaves start falling, coloring the ground with red and yellow confetti. Laying calm and still along the highway, they swirl to life when a gusty breeze from passing travelers pick them up, allowing them to flutter around before floating to a new resting spot.

While following Harley on the Glide, I could watch the leaves twirl into a frenzy around him as he passed by. I used to laugh and tell him it looked like he was dancing with leaves!

Come on... follow me down this little country road and enjoy the Fall!

AUTUMN CONFETTI


There... wasn't that nice?

Have a great week everybody!

Lady R