George and Linda Harwell
If you had told me 8 years ago that I’d be spending time on a motorcycle let alone have one of my own, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet here I am having the time of my life making all sorts of wonderful friends, seeing the country the way it should be seen and thankful for every day I wake up and have the opportunity to make more memories. I am Linda Harwell and my husband George introduced me to cycling after he got the bug from a good friend. I already had it in secret from being exposed to a number of bikers that came in to the neighborhood restaurant I worked at back in 2001. The whole idea of being on the road “exposed” if you will to the elements---having the wind in your face---even the kinship of fellow riders that pass you and wave an acknowledgement had appeal to me. I even met women who rode their own ride and was so impressed by it that it gave me visions of myself doing the same thing. I never expressed this to George until that fateful day he told me he wanted a motorcycle---he asked me would I ride with him---well, that was all the prompting I needed. I immediately told him “sure-- but if we were going to do a lot of riding I wanted my own bike. The next week he already had me a little 250 Yamaha! ---He called me his little “Yamahama mama!” (Can you believe that?) I had no idea how to ride ---(That in itself is another whole can of worms!) The rest is, as you might say, history.
We started out on Yamahas and have ended up on Goldwings. During the time of the Yamahas we pretty much rode all over just the two of us. When we graduated up, it didn’t take long for George to find a group of people that we could ride with. We started with the Z2 chapter based in McKinney and stayed with them for several years. Along the way in our travels we met some of the people from G2 Greenville and were thrilled with their friendliness. They always invited us to meetings and rides and seemed so genuine that when we became disenchanted with where we were, we decided to try them out. We have only been on 1 ride with them as a chapter, but we have been to numerous meetings and several parties that they hosted. We have always had a good time and have felt so welcome there. It is our understanding that there are those in the group that enjoy taking long trips. Well, so do we! In fact we have probably been on several rides that total over 10,000 miles. One was down to Big Bend and over into the Guadalupe Mountains. Another was to Georgia then up thru the Carolinas and over into Tennessee. Also last year we did bike week at Daytona then rode all the way down to Key West before heading home. That one trip alone was over 3200 miles! I know I’ve really gotten a good dose of mountain riding and so did 2 of our grandkids who went with us a couple of years ago---when the Wing Ding was in Nashville. They had a great time.
We are hoping to be able to ride with this chapter frequently in the future and feel that we have made some real friends. We hope we can be an asset to the club. George still works 3-4 days a week and I am retired although I find plenty to keep me busy. I do quite a bit of church work and am also in the choir there. I’m not sure just how involved with chapter affairs we can become but we’ll do our best.
Thank you all so much for helping to create the precious memories we have. May God bless you and keep you in the palm of His hand.
George and Linda Harwell