Busy, Busy

I am certain that the title for this entry "Busy, Busy" has been by many bloggers for a lame excuse on why they have written nothing in quite a while. I am no different. I do have an an excuse, so, please, allow me to tell you what it is. After all, if an excuse told in the woods, and there was no one there to here it, was there really an excuse at all?

As you may know, I also write the blog for our local Tucson scooter club, the Sky Island Riders. Much of the stuff on the website is club specific: photos, video and our forum/bulletin board, for example.

In my mind's eye however, I have also wanted the blog, and it's associated data, to become a resource for people who live in, or travel to, Southern Arizona. Not just for scooterists, either. Motorcyclists, bicyclists or even people who just want to enjoy our state. That is one reason I started the "Ride Maps" tab. It lists maps of various rides around Tucson, but also include routes to Phoenix which don't require the interstate.

Three months or so ago, I thought of another idea. I thought of writing a series of posts about riding/driving in Southern AZ, which I have entitled "Riding SoAZ." I first defined Southern AZ, then subdivided that region into smaller areas to write about. I had decided to make each post about 1000 words long and add photos and hot links to the various points of interest that have websites. Most of the photos are my own. (Which means the quality isn't that great.)

Part VII is posted now and part VIII is almost complete. If you haven't already checked it out, you can find Part I here:

Riding SoAZ

I didn't quite finish writing about riding in Tucson, but felt like people who were reading to learn about outlying places might get bored, so I moved to the rural areas and I will return and finish Tucson later, probably after I finish the rural areas.

So, that is my excuse for not writing here lately. Is it a good one? I've written well over 10k words for Sky Island Riders, not to mention the time on the scooter to go out and get photos.

In other news, the editor of "Iron Butt" magazine had contacted me shortly after I completed the Saddle Sore 1000 and asked if he could publish my story. I thought long and hard about it (about 1 second) and said "Yes!" I have never been in a magazine before, so this sounded quite exciting.

Well, the day before yesterday, my copy finally arrived. He actually used my blog entry from this blog. I don't know what it says about my writing or his editing, but the magazine article is virtually unchanged from my original entry. So, without further adieu, here's the cover:

Naturally, I quickly flipped to the table of contents to find my piece.
There it is! Page 46! No picture here, but I flipped to page 46:
I am kind of flattered that it is called "Extreme Rides."

I really enjoyed the entire magazine. I have always enjoyed long hours in the saddle of my scooter. I don't put in the miles that the motorcyclists do, but I have put in some major hours.