The Adventures of General Tso and The Wisconsin Cheese.

General Tso (winner of best gorilla-look-alike)

There are a multitude of questions to be asked here. Why are Kaytee and I wearing do-rags? What are those helmets for? How is the sky so rosy? And most importantly, why are we wearing long sleeved shirts and long pants on the hottest freaking day of the hottest freaking heat wave of the summer? also it was humid.

The Wisconsin Cheese (winner of most awesome helmet)

Well, the answer is we were taking a Basic Rider's Course. The things that were basic were Kaytee and me. The things that were ridden were death-traps-your-mother-warned-you-about; also known as motorcycles. Kaytee needed to take this class because she foolishly decided she didn't want to live anymore bought a scooter and use it as her primary mode of transportation. I was there because I have been wondering for the longest time if bicycling would be better if you didn't have to pedal all the time (short answer: it is). Successful completion of the course and evaluation gets you a motorcycle license when you present your certificate of completion to the Delaware DMV.

If you squint into the background, you can see our motorcycles parked out on the lot.

On Thursday (my birthday) we spent 3 hours in a room at the DMV learning about what parts are what on a motorcycle, protective gear, motorcycle specific driving rules, etc. I have no pictures of that because while informative it was also boring.

On Saturday, I took all these pictures. Another explanation of the pictures: I didn't take any of us on the motorcycle because whenever Kaytee was on a motorcycle, I was too, and they discourage one handed motorcycling. We had to get there at 6:30am sharp instead of the original 9am-5pm because if we started at 9 we would have to motorcycle in the more extreme temperatures of an already exceedingly hot day. When I left the house at 5am it was 84 degrees out. When I got back home, it was 102 degrees out with 70% humidity (heat index of 116 degrees). This explains why our pictures look like they were taken at the crack of dawn-because they were.

From 6:30 to 11am we drilled mercilessly on stopping, going, turning, and any-and-all unholy combination of the three. I personally drank half a gallon of gatorade, and then half a gallon of water in the stifling heat- all of which managed to migrate back outside my body through my pores. After a short lunch break, we reviewed more of the Motorcycle Safety Federation Rider's Handbook and took a written test. I don't want to reinforce any stereotypes, but I ravaged the test with a score of 100%. I'd like to credit my high achievement on being adequately hydrated and the fact that I am a professional student/test-taker.

If it weren't for evaporation, Kaytee's whole shirt would be dripping with sweat.

Before:

After:
You can literally see my belly filling up with hydration- the key to good written test taking

Long story short, on Sunday(today) we did a bunch of motorcycle exercises and capped it off with an evaluation of our skills on the motorcycle. I passed and I am now the proud owner of...

A Motorcycle Basic Rider's Course Completion Certificate and Card! also, a motorcycle stand puck(not pictured)!