Donna-Rae illustrates and writes children books.  She illustrates them with watercolors, then writes prose to match the paintings.  She had completed two books while on the road over the last year, “Rocco The Lion,” and “Frazier The Friendly Moose.”  As they started their final leg around the globe she started another book, this one about three bugs, titled “Three Little Bugs.”  She gets some of her inspiration from small stuffed animals, like those seen attached to keys or hanging in car windows for good luck.  Gregory, posing as a hardened biker, playfully likes to test her stuffed animals when he finds them laying around unattended.  For instance, he liked to "see if Rocco the lion can fly” by tossing the stuffed lion across the room.  If in a grumpy mood he would see if Rocco “could stick to the ceiling,” and suggested a test for the stuffed moose to see if it could swim upstream by flushing it down a Namibian toilet.  Donna-Rae was mostly patient with Gregory’s efforts at black humor, possibly because she liked the company of men who behaved like men – being strong and childish.

       Often Donna-Rae would wake early in the morning and take her paints and stuffed animals into the bathroom or hotel restaurant where she could work while not disturbing her motorcycle pilot, Frazier the snoring moose.  Sometimes she would lie on her bed at night, writing or drawing, until her head would sleepily fall on top of her artist pad.  When the biker would find her with head down, quietly snoring on top of her moose or lion, he would try to sneak the animal away for another twisted dark humor test for it’s owner to find when she woke up.   On their way to the North Cape, Donna-Rae carefully protected her three stuffed bugs while trying to capture their poses and story for her new book.  This was the sixth in her series, the others being The Littlest Violet, The Calico Camel and The Shaggy Red Bear.   Hopefully some wise literary agent or publisher will help her artwork and prose entertain and educate children, as much as it did her biker pilot.

This is one page from Donna-Rae’s watercolor work while on the road north, Three Little Bugs.  While many motorcycle riders riding around the world write, type and plot to hopefully sell their diary in the form of a travel tale or coffee table picture book, Donna-Rae does books for children, each with a message about life and nothing about motorcycles.  She says that she has motorcycling all day on the back to experience, freeing her to think about the messages in her books.  Most of those messages are far more meaningful than what Gregory says a motorcyclist writes about his or her day driving a motorcycle.  Gregory, who had authored several books about riding, cautiously opined, “I’ve yet to read a motorcycle book that was done on the road that was much good.  What’s the message in ‘I went here, turned her, ate here?’  While I’d agree that every motorcycle traveler has a book inside them, that’s a good place for most to stay.  These children books Donna-Rae does are kind of neat, something with a message.  And I’ve learned from them, like Rocco the lion can’t swim, and bugs look best on your windshield.”  The two authors obviously have different outlooks on what they like to write about, but they both admire each other’s work.

Trying to beat the clock of a faster setting sun each day often meant long hours on the motorcycle.  Through northern Europe, then Sweden, Finland and finally Norway, the roads were smooth and well maintained.  Once a car driver pulled up next to Gregory at 120 kilometers-per-hour and frantically pointed towards the back of the motorcycle, suggesting was falling off.  Gregory thought some luggage might have come loose so slowed as he tried to turn his head around far enough to see what it might be.  It was Donna-Rae, sound asleep and lolling on the back, and something she often did, especially after eating a meal.  The combination of her Parkinson’s medicine and the full meal she needed to take them with often let her fall into a deep sleep.  While the car driver was worried she might be falling off the back, she and Gregory had worked out a system of riding together with luggage stacked around her that would keep her “locked” into her seat and position on the back.  Gregory woke Donna-Rae up and waved a “thanks” to the worried car driver. 

     Gregory said, “I’d know we had a problem of her falling off the back if I saw one of her boots at my elbow.  I never did, but once or twice I could see her helmet in my rear view mirror which met she was listing a bit too far to one side.  I’d tap her leg with my hand and she would snap right back up.  We never did get around to coming up with a plan for when I started to loll.  Once or twice I did choose to stop and take a nap, but those times were well before my lids closed.”

A worried Gregory at a tourist stop.  While Donna-Rae was “touristing” and shopping, Gregory was worrying about a change in weather from good to bad and the loss of dry riding time on the road as they approached the Arctic Circle.  One year earlier they had experienced snow and ice near the Arctic Circle in Alaska.  That was on a much lighter Kawasaki KLR motorcycle with tires made for wet weather.  This time they were on a heavyweight BMW touring motorcycle that was much happier on the dry autobahns of Germany.