The rain finally stopped, because yesterday I drove to Seattle and spent $200+ on rain gear. You are welcome for the no rain – I hope you used the dryness well.

The recalling of the rain was for mostly selfish reasons though, because today was the reboot of my motorcycle class. We had to postpone two weeks ago because of the snow, and I was NOT looking forward to mastering two non-scooter wheels in a fucking monsoon. The purchasing of rain gear was to appease the weather gods, and they were evidently satisfied by my foray into a terrifying store for hunters (it was FULL OF GUNS and there was a huge display at the back of the store featuring THINGS YOU CAN KILL WITH THE GUNS seriously what the fuck. It was like being in an enormous MEC or REI, but replace all the cyclist gear with camouflage and everything else with guns and crossbows and ammo and Ted Nugent) – it was an expensive gesture, but it worked so I guess it was worth it (and now I have my first raincoat ever and rain pants I’ll never remember to wear).

Riding a motorcycle on a lovely day is SO MUCH BETTER than riding in snow! Who knew? We got a lot of practice in, and ended the day doing our motorcycle skills test – the very test that I’ve been having nightmares about, and have failed once already. The orange cones were a enormous obstacle for me to overcome, thanks to some awesome mental blocks I put in place. Every pass we made at the cones resulted in my running them over with extreme prejudice – hell, even as I was walking into class today, I tripped over an orange cone. I hate them. They’re trying to kill me.

.. but that’s all in the past now, because I passed my skills test! I am now one step closer to being truly legal! Tomorrow I’m going to upgrade my yellow paper license to a slightly better yellow paper license, and then we practice actual road riding for two nights. I’m much, much less concerned about the road test than I was that stupid skills test, so I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I’m still not sold on motorcycles versus scooters, but that isn’t what this is about – I just want my full class 6 license, and then I can do whatever I want. After today, I am more than halfway there. I’m sore and bruised (I dumped the bike on a really bad turn attempt) and achy and exhausted in six new exciting ways, but I’m also pretty pleased with myself. I did it! Go Team Venture!

let’s go rent some guns! except no, because that is terrifying.

awww look at all the examples of wildlife .. that you can kill with our many, many guns. want to know how to kill the noble moose or elk? we have specific ammo for that!

I LOVE GUNS YEAH WOOOOOOOO and it comes in pink, for the ladies!