Brandon O'Brien

Wednesday, April 30, 2014 @ 4:49 PM in General Travel

Last May I dropped my motorcycle off with Ryan up in Denver so he could keep it locked up safely in his storage unit while I was traveling around Europe. I thought I'd be moving up there right after I got back from my travels but due to the housing situation I wasn't able to get rid of my place, so I'm still here in Albuquerque.

That created a little dilemma when I wanted to ride since my bike was still up in the storage unit. Between my schedule and Ryan's schedule we were both pretty booked through early June so rather than wait until then I decided to do a mid-week one-way flight up there to get my motorcycle and ride it back.

The tires were in pretty bad shape so I had to order some of through a bike shop up there so they could install them before the ride back. I took care of the ordering last week and then on Monday I got on a flight to Denver. I actually found out I can take buses from my house all the way to the ABQ airport for $1. Much better than trying to park my car at the airport and then figure out how to get it back later.

I got up there on Monday night, rode my bike (for the first time in almost a year) from Ryan's storage unit to his house. On Tuesday morning I had an appointment to get the new tires installed so I had that done, then rode around Denver and up to Red Rocks to make sure there weren't any issues with the bike before a 7 hour ride back to Albuquerque on Wednesday morning.

Everything went fine even though it was extremely windy up in Denver. I was on my motorcycle by 7am on Wednesday morning, in the freezing cold, but I was on my way back home. It never really got warm for the duration of the ride back to Albuquerque. I hit a lot of wind, a lot of cloudy skies and even a little rain and snow north of Santa Fe.

The roads were basically empty since it was the middle of the week so I made pretty good time. I'm back in Albuquerque now and I'm just crossing my fingers this crazy wind stops soon here so I can get out and enjoy my motorcycle again!

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Tags: motorcycle, red rocks

Posted from: United States

Tuesday, April 22, 2014 @ 8:15 AM in General Travel

This past weekend a group of us piled into my Volvo and headed out to Oklahoma City to visit some friends and check out a city none of us had ever done anything but pass through before. It was me, Luiz, Bethany, Moses and Kevin that ended up going.

We left at 7 on Thursday night and stopped in Santa Rosa for dinner at Carls Jr. We stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX with some friends who were helpful enough to stay up until 12:45am when we finally rolled up. After showers and coffee we went for breakfast at a local Mexican place. I got some skirt steak with eggs and beans which ended up being really good.

It was a 4 hour drive from Amarillo to OKC. The drive was uneventful and we made it to OKC in pretty good time. The first thing we did was stopped at a bar called Skinny Slims in Edmond. We met the GM of the local Hash House Harriers group there and hung out for a while before dropping our stuff off.

Friday night we went bar hopping and tried several local beers or at least beers we couldn't get in Albuquerque. At the end of the night we stopped at a hole in the wall taqueria that had some great food. Even at around 1am it was still packed which shows how good it was.

We took it pretty easy the start of Saturday. Once we all got up and moving we went to find some coffee and ended up at a really new and fancy Whole Foods where they had cheap coffee. After that we went for a late lunch / early breakfast for some birria at a place called Birrieria Diaz.

Luiz wanted to meet with an old friend in the afternoon before the running/drinking event at 3 so we drove quite a ways outside of town so he could spend some time there. While they were catching up, some of us went to a local liquor store and picked up some local beers to bring back home.

The Hash House Harriers there were having their Easter run that afternoon so we went there and I checked in my 500th distinct beer on Untappd! The run was pretty short but it was a nice one. We ran through mountain bike trails searching for Darth Vader head shaped easter eggs that were either filled with candy or if empty, you'd get a tiny shot at the end of the run.

After the run they were having a big party at the GM's house so we went there with some wine and hung out for a while. We were all pretty tired since we had several nights of less sleep than normal so we headed off to sleep. In the morning we got up for breakfast at a local place that served good food and then hit the road.

The drive back went pretty smoothly. We hit a few rainy patches but other than that it was easy going. We stopped for lunch at the Big Texan in Amarillo. Unfortunately no one was doing the huge food challenge. I had a buffalo burger since all the steaks were really expensive and I didn't really want something that heavy.

We got back to Albuquerque just in time to meet up with some more friends and watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones. It was a fun weekend but I think all of us were glad to be back home and get a good night's sleep.

Tags: easter, oklahoma, big texan

Posted from: United States