On our way back home tomorrow (just a quick note)...

The last part of our time in Port Aransas was mostly spent enjoying the MUCH better weather, the beach... and riding the motorcycle and saying "see ya later" to our friends. We packed up and left Port Aransas Thursday, March 25th and went to a motorcycle rally in Bandera, Texas (Thunder in the Hills)...had a good time, then Sunday morning, the 28th, on to Fredericksburg, Texas. This hill country is breath-takingly GORGEOUS!!! WOW!!!

Meanwhile, mostly no internet connection. :-(
I've taken a "kazillion" photos and will get busy sorting and editing them after we get home. I know...SO much updating to do!!! (I'm looking forward to it).

Hey, Al and Rick...now I know what you mean about getting that "itch" to return home...we have it. Lot's of things to take care of...then summer fun in Michigan...then winter in Texas again.

Will catch up with y'all soon folks, thanks for your patience...and a big friendly hello and thank you to our new "readers". :-)

New Leather :-)

Even though, to many people, it appears that William is a big, tough, not someone to mess with, bad-ass biker (he is),...he is also a big, kind-hearted teddy-bear. He surprised me Friday (3-12-2010) while we were out just cruising around. We were browsing in an Army/Navy Surplus store in Aransas Pass and he bought this new jacket for me (with a full zip-out lining including full sleeves). I love it! (and I love the smell of good leather!) Turns out, the guy who runs the place is also a biker and has a lot of jackets, vests, chaps and boots in stock...even name-brand Harley-Davidson stuff and RedWing boots and shoes. It's a cool store full of all sorts of things, including Tony Lama boots and cowboy hats, belts, women's and children's cowboy boots and clothes, lots of camping gear, all sorts and sizes of foam padding for whatever, knives, jewelry, the list goes on and on...some good prices and some way overpriced, but the jacket was a very good deal. We like to do things for each other "just whenever" and "just because". We both hate the commercialism of Christmas and all the other holidays. Getting together with family and/or friends once in a while on a special occasion over a good meal, sharing conversation and laughter, is what we both prefer. We quit all that present-giving nonsense a long time ago (because marketing/advertising companies tell you, you are "obligated to give because it's a holiday" and society in general has let itself be pressured by the guilt-feelings if you don't). Phooey!

Thank you, Jack Kerouac.

Simply, thank you, Jack Kerouc.
- Mary Ann









Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac
Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a French-Canadian family. He attended local Catholic schools and won a football scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsburg, and William S. Burroughs. He quit school in his sophmore year and joined the Merchant Marine, beginning the restless wanderings that were to continue for the greater part of his life. His first novel The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, first published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassidy, that epitomized to the world what became known as "the Beat generation" and made Kerouac one of the most controversial and best-known writers of his time. Publication of his many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered them all to be part of "one enormous comedy," which he called The Duluoz Legend. "In my old age," he wrote, "I intend to collect all my work and reinsert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy." He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.

Town and the City, the (1950)
On the Road (1957)
Dharma Bums, the (1958)
Subterraneans, the (1958)
Maggie Cassidy: A Love Story (1959)
Doctor Sax (1959)
Tristessa (1960)
Lonesome Traveler (1960)
Big Sur (1962)
Visions of Gerard (1963)
Desolation Angels (1965)
Satori in Paris (1967)
Vanity of Duluoz (1968)
Pic (1971)
Visions of Cody (1972)
Orpheus Emerged (2000)
Mexico City Blues (1959)
Scripture of the Golden Eternity, the (1960)
Scattered Poems (1971)
Old Angel Midnight (1973)
Heaven & Other Poems (1977)
Book of Dreams - Definitive, Unabridged Edition, the (2001)

"you pay through the nose for short-lived shows. . . ."
- Jack Kerouac

Just a quick one...having fun!

This photo was taken at Bernie's Beach House in Port Aransas, Texas
Thursday night, March 4, 2010 after riding on the Gaff Pirate Ship Pub Crawl as "Cowboy Biker Pirates". "AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!" Hahahaha!!!
We had a blast!
Lots of photos to come, as soon as I get around to it, that is.

Mary Ann and William (aka Big Will)