The Beauty Around Us

In today’s blog post I want to share with you the motorcycle ride that Bob and I went on with some of our friends today.  The friends we rode with we have ridden with on Wednesday nights on our ice cream rides.  Recently we gave our riding group a name.  We call ourselves “2 Scoop Cycletherapy”.

Today’s ride began at 10:00 am from the North Warren playground parking lot. Bob and I almost didn’t go on this ride. It rained around 9:30 am, and the roads were wet. Paul, the ride organizer, convinced us to go. It really didn’t take too much persuasion, though.  We were really keen on riding today.  The weather outside at 9:30 didn’t look that great, but the forecast for rest of the day didn’t sound bad.  There was only a slight chance for rain.  No storm cells appeared on radar anywhere near us.  Paul said I made his day, when I said that Bob and I would go on the ride.

Six motorcycles and 12 riders went on today’s ride. We did start out on wet roads, but the roads were dry shortly after leaving Warren. We rode first to The Willows Restaurant and Bar, a restaurant located on Route 346.  We made one rest stop along the way.  Boy was it buggy at that stop!

We made a brief rest stop en route The Willows.

The tiny black gnats were BAD!

Holding your hands in the air will help keep the gnats away.
(Photo by Paul S.)

It was during this brief rest stop that I discovered I had not brought along an SD memory card for my camera.  All the photographs in this blog post were taken with a camera phone.

The plan was to go to The Willows for lunch. The Willows was closed. We learned that the restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.  After a short discussion, we decided to go to Bear Mountain Resort in Salamanca, NY for lunch.

Bear Mountain Resort

We ate lunch outside, on the deck.  We occupied three tables.

This was Mandy’s lunch.

This was my lunch.

We even had live entertainment, while we ate lunch.
This duo sang country songs and sounded pretty good together.

We spent longer than expected at our lunch stop. The restaurant was busy, and service was slow. The food, however, was good, and the view was excellent.

From Bear Mountain Resort we rode through Ellicottville to Randolph, where we stopped for ice cream at Peaches & Cream.

Peaches & Cream Ice Cream Stop

The mums were beautiful!

Everyone ordered ice cream
except for Mandy.

Mandy said she felt “less full” eating chocolate candy.

One thing I like about my 2 Scoop Cycletherapy friends is that we laugh a lot.  When Mandy said she felt “less full”, Bob and I thought she said she felt “lustful” eating chocolate candy.  You should have heard the laughter!

Mandy and Shawn make a great-looking couple!

This is Paul, our 2 Scoop Cycletherapy ride organizer.
He does a GREAT job organizing our rides!

From Peaches & Cream we rode through Conewango Valley, Ellington, Gerry, Falconer, and back home.  We returned home around 5:00 pm. All total we rode about 150 miles. I am happy that Bob and I decided to go for the ride today. The day turned out to be dry, sunny and warm. Paul said that I made his day when Bob and I decided to go on the ride. Well, Paul, you made our day as well! It was a wonderful ride and an exceptionally good time with friends.