This isn’t the same stretch of road as my original Dakota Roads post from 2006, but if my memory serves me right I believe they may both be Highway 1.

A beautiful black road like this is not a common site in North Dakota, since various transportation and road departments have a chip-seal fetish that I can’t explain. Actually, as a motorcyclist, I resent it. It seems a shame to cover a beautifully smooth, sticky stretch of blacktop with a damaging abrasive, one especially hazardous when it’s first applied and left to sit for a week or two. As a result, a nice black road like this one is particularly noticeable and wonderful to me.

Oh, man. I can still feel the burn of the habanero sauce I pigged out on yesterday, when our office had a Taco Del Mar taco bar delivered. I’m chided on occasion by my friends because our office always has food handy. I know they’re just jealous. Doesn’t every office have lunch catered from time to time? I suppose that’s just one more way in which I’m blessed at work.

I first wrote about Taco del Mar in March, 2007. A friend of mine asked me to meet him for lunch there, and I hadn’t even heard about the place. I’m glad he invited me, because it’s now my favorite spot for lunch!

Not only are the owners super nice folks, but the food and service at Taco del Mar are fantastic. They have an enchilada sauce I love so much I’m at a loss for words. The atmosphere at the south store, next to the Dairy Queen by the south Wal-Mart, is really cool in a surf shop sort of way. I haven’t eaten at the north store, part of the Conoco on State Street and I-94, because I always make a short bee-line for the south one!

Ask your boss if he appreciates you. If he answers in the affirmative, encourage him to show it with an office lunch from Taco del Mar! If he says no to either, then stop at Taco del Mar on your way to Job Service during your lunch hour! They’re quick as well as courteous!

Sunsets are pretty elusive these days, as the sun tends to have set before I can stagger away from work! Today’s sunset photo was a nice opportunity… my camera and I were actually east of town taking more pictures of spiky frost on the fences.

This was a nice shot because that red sunset gave the wood a nice warm tone, yet the frost and background were still a nice bluish white. In the past year and half since I started photography, I’ve learned that a good photo requires being in the right place at the right time. Tonight I was there.

Those little spikes are absolutely amazing! I’ve got some closeups, I’ll have to post one or two. One thing about a macro lens is that it’s got a very shallow depth of field; once I focus on a point, anything minutely closer or further away from that point are blurred. It’s neat for some things but a challenge for shots like this. I love a good challenge…

Yes, I’m starting off the week with one of those post-race motorcycle entries instead of something local. Actually, since I’ve talked to the guy on numerous occasions over at our home track in Brainerd, it feels local. This weekend was the deciding race in the MotoGP World Grand Prix Championship. If you watch SPEED Channel, and you really ought to, they’ll be talking about this all day Monday.

Nicky Hayden, one of three roadracing and dirt tracking brothers from Owensboro Kentucky, has been racing in the most advanced series in all of motorcycle racing for a few years now, and his hard work has finally come to fruition with a world title. This has been an up and down year for him, with tbe biggest downer last week: while in the points lead for the championship, he was t-boned by his own teammate and didn’t score any points at all. He basically had to win or crash this weekend, and had to beat his championship rival by a certain number of positions to wrap up the title. And he did. Misfortune plays no favorites at this level, and his rival, Valentino Rossi, crashed early in the race. While he was able to get back on the bike and continue, he was unable to catch up and earn a points position that would preserve his lead. Nicky had a disaster last weekend, the tables turned this weekend.

Michael Jordan was in attendance, of course. You see, MJ is a huge motorcycle fan and sponsors his own team. While he was playing professional sports, his contracts prevented him from riding motorcycles. Nowadays, however, he not only rides, he sponsors a team of his own. So it’s a given that when we’re at the races, he’ll likely be there. A lot of times he’ll be joined by some of his NBA friends, too. There’s not a lot of overlap between NBA and Superbike, so he doesn’t get mobbed too badly…rather, he’s just been accepted as “one of us.”

This is MJ’s black Ducati that he’s got all tricked out – I’m not sure if he has a new one since then, but this wasn’t the newest model when we took this picture. Having a good motorcycle isn’t about having the latest & greatest – it’s about having one you like, customized to your tastes. In this picture I was doing some video/photos for the Ducati factory from Italy, and they were about to give MJ and some other Ducati riders a couple of laps around the track during intermission. Later on I met with the Italians about a possible Ducati dealership here in Bismarck, but never moved ahead with that. If you wanna help me finance it, send me an email.

This is back when Nicky raced in the AMA series, so we could talk to him here in the garages. When things allow, he’s here to watch his two brothers race…although that doesn’t always work out, with his races being all over the world. All three of the Hayden brothers – heck, their whole family, really – are really nice people that you want to know. I remember seeing them all in the chapel service in the racers’ lounge every Sunday before the racing started, and that leads me to my next point:

I want to quote an excerpt from Nicky in the post race press conference. Rather than talk about himself, he’s really all about the people who surrounded and supported him. Racing is a team effort, and it’s not just the rider, the mechanics, the designers…it’s the synergy of all those people, plus the family who’s stuck by him from the start. Nick was uprooted from the AMA series and placed in an environment where he faced language and cultural barriers, a microcosm where Americans aren’t always looked at favorably, and the most intense pressure to perform that a rider could ever face. Thanks to his character and that of those surrounding him, he has performed and matured admirably. In the post-race press conference, he was eager to give credit where he feels it’s due: …my friends, my family, everybody back home in Kentucky, to the Lord, too…man, I’m so blessed, and so fortunate that I’m just really humbled by this, and it’s a great day for me.” As a Christian, I’m pleased to see that he’s still sure of where all good things come from. While a vocal Christian is hard to find in Nick’s environment, the character of the Hayden family is known worldwide. They have a great testimony, and I’m grinning ear to ear as I report his success this weekend.