Backroads With Betsy

Wow. The holidays come, and the holidays go. The Lord gives, and he takes away. Its a seemingly chaotic blur going on around us through the holidays. Busy people with too much to do, with too little time and too little resources are all angrily fighting for parking spaces. The days are cold and short on sunshine. Cold and flu season sets in while everyone eats, drinks, parties and shops their way through the madness.

Well, if bigger is better, then the Love Ride keeps getting better and better. And if there is one thing most women worldwide can agree on, it is that bigger usually is better—like with closet space and stuff. When the Love Ride began 25 years ago, it was a small event raising much-needed charity funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

With the countrys economy and political status full of uncertainty, a majority of the population is cutting back. They are cutting back on all spending, but in particular, on anything that involves gasoline. This doesnt work for me, as many of my favorite toys are powered by gasoline. It is most certainly logical to cut back on things that seem to be a luxury, but I have always considered travel to be more of a necessity than a luxury.

Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life. As I near midlife, I feel like I have spent the first half of my existence trying to be a warrior on the exterior. It is my intention to spend the second half of my existence working to become a warrior where it matters most—on the interior.

Samantha Morgan had many friends in the motorcycle industry. We contacted a few of her close ones to contribute their thoughts on the woman who touched their lives so deeply.

My little brother, a deputy sheriff in Lander, Wyo., took me way back into the deserted mountains of Wyoming to look for wild horses. After many hours of searching we found just two. There is beauty in this element of freedom that is unequalled. Wild and free is not something you see, its something you feel. That is what it was like to watch Samantha Morgan in action.

In my lifetime, I have experienced the pleasure of simplicity many times, and I have appreciated it many times. But have I really learned it as a way of life? Apparently not, because it seems I have to keep relearning it.

Yesterday while watering my yard, I found a baby bird that had fallen from his nest, struggling for his life. I live on more than an acre of land, and there are at least a dozen bird nests hiding in the corners of my Spanish-tile rooftop. Every spring there are several casualties.

Last year I dedicated a column to my relationships with the best friends with whom I have been fortunate enough to share the best years of my life. I was on the plane en route to Katmandu to attempt to climb Mount Everest and was feeling particularly grateful for the people who have been with me through thick and thin and the challenges that life inevitably presents us with.

If religion is for people afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people who have already been there, then I have a distinct need for both. Most people who ride a motorcycle are extremists on some level. I have a hunch that most riders have seen a little of their own personal hell in one facet or another.