Jokes, Jack & a Jeep

Saturday was Dave’s annual Memorial BBQ for his father, Tom. The weather didn’t cooperate at all, with heavy downpours for most of the day/evening. Not to worry; Dave’s got a large, ¾ enclosed back porch so we hung out and grilled in relative dryness, just out of reach of the hammering rain. We all hung out, shared some good stories and cracked many a joke.

We were joined by two attendees who were related to each other; Gentleman Jack, and Single Barrel Jack. On and off again, they were the focus of our attentions, as we raised many a toast to those that have gone on before us. (A funny point; we were using little dixie cups as shot glasses – no worries if they fall or ‘break’. The only down side? At one point, Dave was taking a bit long to savor his shot, and it actually dissolved the seal around the bottom of the cup, suddenly dumping the amber contents out through his fingers.)

Yesterday, myself, Dave, his son Dave Jr, and another friend (also named Dave…4 Dave’s together at once…what were the odds…) shot up to the Keene swap meet. Or, as K said; the “Swamp Meet”. I thought it was a good description, given the weather conditions. Yep; more rain. It was a wet ride up, but the number of bikes there was higher than had been there for the Spring version of this event. Which was nice to see.

Vendor offerings were up a little, too, but still; having had rain for several days straight made for an overall gloomy atmosphere. Not a lot of sales going on from what I saw. Lots of stuff covered up to protect it from the rain, etc.

After checking out the various sights, I bode my farewells to the other Daves and hoped back on the bike for the (wet) ride home. That was about it for the weekend.

On a completely different note; in the past three days, I’ve suddenly had people coming out of the woodwork regarding me not having a 4-wheeled vehicle (and needing something for the winter). A buddy of mine from work stopped by on Friday to see if I was interested in buying a used pickup from him. It’s a nice truck and he was asking low money but unfortunately, it’s only got 2-wheel drive, which won’t help me in the winter. Then, Friday night, my neighbor calls to say that she’s going to be away for the weekend, would I like to borrow her car since it’s going to be such lousy weather. She’s got a sweet ride – a Mercedes! But there’s no way I’d have dared move it out of the driveway, let alone take it out and about, so I politely declined. Saturday, another buddy of mine from work calls me up and says he knows a guy that runs an auto auction, do I want to swing by and check out what he’s got. Sure! So I talked to the auction guy and said I’d swing by today. Then, first thing this morning, another coworker comes by and asks if I’m interested in buying his Jeep Cherokee. He’d just bought a new car and was asking short (VERY short!) money for it, so I checked it out, took it for a ride and that was that. I now own a Jeep Cherokee. It’s not super good on gas, but it’s got 4-wheel drive and that’s what I’m talkin’ about. I’ll only need it for snow days, and in between rainstorms when there's salt on the road. Come April or so, I should be able to sell it easily enough.

Then I’ll start the whole process over again next Fall…

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Long and Short of it

Another long day at work, followed by short 'free time' at home. 13 hours today - that leaves me enough time to ride home, make something to eat, get stuff ready for the next day, and then hit the sack. (Not the fun sack, either.) Then it's up early, off to the gym, and the cycle repeats itself.

And it's getting cold at night, too! It was in the 40's when I pulled out of the parking lot tonight. I'll need to zip my liner into my jacket soon at this rate. Dammit.

But I did see my first jack o' lantern on the way home - too cool!!! It was sitting on a chair, on a porch with a nice scaaary face carved into it. There was a candle lit inside and everything. That brought a smile to my face. I love the Halloween season!!!

And then, on top of that, I get home and decide to do a quick check of things on-line, including The Rendezvous website. And whaddya know; tickets for next June are on sale! So even though I'm looking at something like 260 days until it arrives, I'm officially the proud owner of a ticket to the 2009 Harley Rendezvous!!

Not a bad way to end a long day. Not a bad way at all.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Autumnal Equinox

Happy Fall! (And I'm not talking about losing your balance and doing a rapid-descent to the ground). Summer is officially over, dammit. Some of the trees around here have started turning colors already, and I've even seen a light sprinkling of dead leaves on my back lawn. *Sigh*

There are still some decent riding things in the days ahead, though; Keene Swap Meet is this Sunday, and I'll check that out. Hopefuly the vendor will be there that I bought the riding gloves off of last time. You know; seeing as how my last pair somehow made their way into someone else's possession on my vaca trip, and I need another set.

Me and the guys are planning a weekend Fall Roundup ride for late October - shoot out to Western Mass (Mohawk Trail) and check out the sweet sites that lay in wait for us. Then we'll cut up into Vermont and head towards Woodstock for some mischievousness and mayhem, then back down the scenic highways and biways, to home. Here's hoping the weather cooperates for us.

Not bike-related, but another thing coming up is our annual pumpkin carving event. We'll pick up some orange gourds and wreak havoc upon their insides, all while knocking back beerverages and other similar concoctions.

And of course there's the annual Hyde Park Harley Rider's Halloween Run. They haven't posted the date for that yet, but it's usually two or three Sunday's before Halloween. That's always a good time, too.

So I guess I shouldn't be too bummed out - there's good things on the horizon. Good rides, good times, good friends.

Life could be a shit-load worse, right?

Ride Hard, Take Chances

3rd Annual Lance Crprl Shayne Cabino Memorial Run

The weather had been looking iffy, leading into the weekend. Checking three different weather web sites on Friday afternoon, I found three different forecasts. One said showers, one said only mostly cloudy, and the last said t-storms in the afternoon. No worries, we all had rain gear if needed. Some quick phone calls that night to make sure we were all working on the same plan, and things were looking good.

Greg was the first to arrive on Saturday morning, with Flex and Sue showing up shortly thereafter. Our flags were affixed to our bikes, our spirits were good, and we rolled out, picking up Ed, Sue and Kevin along the way.



We arrived at the Legion, set the kickstands to the pavement and registered. Still having some free time before the procession was to pull out for the run, we made the rounds and said our hellos to friends not seen for a while. And also to friends seen all too often – like the BAR! We grabbed several rounds and headed out back to relax for a few and share some laughs. An announcement was made that Taps would be played shortly, and that we should fire the bikes up as soon as that was completed.

Greg had stepped inside for a minute and happened to find out that we’d be without some of the police escort that had been anticipated today. Not a problem, we’ve done traffic-blocking before – just need to check with Danno to see exactly what he needed/wanted for assistance. We swilled the last of our beers and made ready to clear out.

Catching up with Danno and the m'cycle cop that would be co-leading the pack, I checked to see if blocking was needed. He said yes, but to check with the cop for specifics. Turning to said cop, I asked him if he wanted us to just block once and then pick up the sweep position, or make our way back to the front, to be in position to block again. The cop said to keep coming back to the front, that we’d be needed all day long. I smiled and said that that would require a lot of speeding and wrong-lane travel for someone that's not a cop, was he ok with that? He laughed and said “Raise your right hand, I’ll swear you in now!”

Quick run to the bike, fire it up, kick into gear, assume position behind Danno and the m’cycle cop, and we rolled out. The run would follow the same route as last years – free of highway travel (always nice) and winding through many different towns (also nice).

Greg, Brother Bill, Flex and myself took turns peeling off to hold traffic at bay, then hammering up the left side of the column and sliding into position again. I’m not going to lie to you; it was a rush and a half screaming up the wrong side of the road. For the most part, traffic coming the other way was already pulled over from when the cop (in the lead) had signaled them to their side. However, there were those that insisted on not moving over, even when we came right at them, leading to some adrenaline-fueled moments.

I tried snapping some pics as we were rolling along, but it was tough, as a lot of focus needed to be paid towards prepping for blocking, blocking, and then returning to the front of the pack. But anyways, here’s what I was able to get.

We made it back to the Legion after about an hour and a half, set the kickstands again, and settled into the BBQ (and beer).


Each of us had eagerly handed over some green from our wallets, in exchange for raffle tix, hoping to win some of the fantastic prizes up for grabs. Unfortunately; our group had apparently bought nothing but losing tickets. Good thing our beer tickets were all winners – each one of those yielded a tasty prize!

We did have one raffle winner – Greg had a winning ticket early in the drawing. He’d heard me comment about a signed Tedi Bruschi framed picture up for grabs, so get this; he used his winning ticket to grab the pic and then gave it to me. How cool is that? Thanks Man!

As the afternoon (and the daylight) began to fade, we parted ways; some of the crew headed home, but some headed back to the house. We fired up the chimenea to heat our outsides, and enjoyed many more beers which cooled our insides. Patty had brought a buffalo chicken dip and it was frikkin’ YUM, and I ate much more of it than I should have. (But if you’d tasted it, you would have, too.)

And that brought and end to the days events. It was a good day; we wound up with decent weather – not sunny, but no rain, either. Everyone made it home safely at the end of the day, and that’s what counts.

Our thanks to Danno and the Cabino family for putting this run on again. A lot of time and effort goes into putting something like this together; lining up the route, obtaining permission from the various towns, and securing support from the LEO's.


Our respect and our gratitude to Lance Corporal Shayne Cabino for his sacrifice towards our safety. Your memory lives on in the hearts and minds of your family, your friends, and those of us that ride in your honor.

http://www.shaynesrun.com/

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Wrapping up and moving on

I apologize; I've been dragging things out. I've had a ton of pics to get posted and I've been slacking in that regard. In my defense, I have been slammed beyond slammed at work. Long days...long, long days and many, many hours, but that's not your concern. Besides; time moves on, and I have a deadline of sorts which is looming on the morrow.

Tomorrow morning, a bunch of us are going to be gathering here and heading off to pay tribute to a brave Marine who gave his life, fighting in Iraq, in 2005. Tomorrow will be the 3rd annual memorial ride in Shayne Cabino's memory.

And I realized that I can't in good conscience, post a review of his ride, and then go back to posting more stuff from Sturgis. Which meant I needed to get off of my ass and get caught up with all the stuff that was still waiting in the wings.

So, that said...you folks have some reading/viewing to catch up on. I've logged a number of posts (9, I believe) showing all kinds of pics from our adventure. And some comments scattered here and there. I hope you enjoy. (And I hope you can get out there to enjoy the adventure yourselves, someday, if you haven't already!)

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Sequentially, this is the end. Or is it?

So this is the end of the pics - well, in a way. Those reading top to bottom have many, many pics still to view (because I've been busy tonight!). However, in the progression of things, this post would be the last of the Sturgis trip. Confused? Good. My work is done, here. So, to wrap/recap, here we go...

Here's Eddie. Mary's dog. Much too cool to be just a dog, though. On command, he would drag his balls across the floor (as seen in the pic). Cool, right? But it doesn't stop there. On command, you could also point your finger at Eddie and shout "Eddie! Bang!" and he'd drop, roll over, and play dead. Always a crowd pleaser.

Here was a herd of elk, hanging out in a field.
Here, Snoop was registering his complaint about the declining number of fries to be found in the Happy Meals nowadays.
GramMaMa, and her chic-cool riding goggles. Hey, laugh if you want, but if there's ever a flash flood, who do you think is going to be ready?
Jerry. Ahhh, Jerry. Always looking out for the troops. The rest of us were peeing on trees and making annoying sounds at any attactive lady folk that passed by. But Jerry? Jerry had gone inside the supply store to stock up on essentials. This is why we bring Jerry along on road trips!
A bit of explanation is due here. I've been coming up to The Clearing for 16 years now. During one of the earlier years, I realized that the boots I was wearing were far beyond their useful life cycle. So after a bit of thought, I also realized that a nice tribute to them would be to leave them on the rocks on the side of the clearing. With any luck, I'd see them again the following year. Little did I know that the boots would be there, untouched and unmoved, for every single year since then. Serving as sentries of sorts, and welcoming whomever makes it up each year.

Even better; I've found evidence of animal nests within these boots each year - proving that these boots were far from the end of their useful life cycle after all. So much for what I think I know, huh?

Suffice to say that these boots are one of the highlights I seek out each year upon my arrival. I know the day will come when they'll no longer be there. But that day hasn't arrived yet.

Here's The Clearing, shortly after the bike's arrival. Not a shabby setting. Not a shabby setting by any means.
Pic 2 of The Clearing with the bikes. And with some people mixed in. We're getting settled in!
A shot of the ocean, looking out from Rockland Harbor.
And here's Snoop, hanging out on the dock.


That's going to do it for the pics from our Sturgis trip, 2008...sort of. If you haven't seen the pics below this post?...well then, you've got some viewing to do, don't you?

Ohio, and the Biker Memorial

The directions to the Biker Memorial were a bit confusing, and we got turned around once or twice, but we managed to find it, and still with some daylight left in the sky.

Here's the opening shot. The memorial isn't large, but what it potentially lacks in size, it makes up for with devotion, and emotion.

Such detail on one of the main panels. Simply amazing.

This granite bike is a section, by itself. Whenever the most-recent granite block becomes full (of names), they move this granite bike out and add another section so that another section (for more names) can be added.

This memorial is commanding, both in it's simplicity, as well as in it's out-of-the-way location. I like to think that it's tucked away in the middle of nowhere to sort of make it worth finding. It would be too easy to stick this in the middle of a city or some other large metropolis area. But it's in the middle of nowhere. And that didn't take anything away from it at all.

If you're ever in the Hopedale area...scratch that...if you're ever in the Ohio area, take the time to check this out. Your initial reaction may be that this memorial is small and all. But if you pause to think of all the lost brothers and sisters who are remembered here, the gravity of the setting will become evident.

Nebraska

We were heading East, and soon found ourselves in Nebraska. Some long, scenic roadways loomed ahead of us...
Hold on here...hold on. We passed a sign that said helmets were req'd in Nebraska. Helmets?? C'mon, we've been riding without them for almost a week now, please don't tell us we gotta start wearing them again already?? *Sigh* Yeah, we gotta. Dammit.

Here's the only thing I think helmets are good for...

We managed to find a gas stop that had a great advertising campaign going on. Can you imagine my surpirse at finding out that all the way out here, they're advertising my balls?

Holy crapoly, some of these cross winds are out of control!!!!

Hang on, Snoop!!!!

Spearfish Canyon and Devil's tower

Snoop isn't sure where he is, but he's digging the multi-layerer rock. Seriously. This stuff is amazing!

Spearfish Canyon. Here's the river that ended up as nothing more than a dried up bed of stones. (An earlier post talks about where it went.)

Here's Snoop, soaking up some rays on the dried up river bed.
This was pretty cool; the rock in the middle had been worn down and wound up totally molding itself to the rock that Snoop is sitting on. (We didn't touch these rocks, this is exactly how we found them.)

Wide open roadways. They were simply amazing!!

Now where is this "Devil's Tower" we keep hearing about? Nothing so far, but extremely scenic wide open spaces...

Hey, there it is, way off in the distance. Cool!!! Right, Snoop?
Ok, so this pic is a bit out of order. Here, we were riding away from it, and I managed to catch both the DT and Zig in my side mirror, and I thought it made an excellent shot so I had to take it.

Ok, back to the correct progression of things. Here, we're approaching the tower...

And closer, againStill closer!... Even Snoop is in on the action.


And here you are; this is as close as we got. We could have paid an entrance fee to get to the other side, but after finding out that we'd only get to see the other side (but not get any closer), we opted to just snap some pics and then start rolling back towards the Badlands.

Rolling back the way we came, and stopping to snap some pics along the way...

We finally made it back to the KOA in the Badlands. But to get here, we had to ride for miles, and miles...and MILES!!! Long miles, where we saw nothing...not human, not animal, nothing!, for hours and hours. But we eventually made it back. We checked in, dropped off our shit, and headed off to the bar. What bar? Oh, how quickly they forget. I already did a write-up on the Horseshoe Pub. What a time that was!!!
Ok sorry, this pic is out of order. This is taken of the Badlands, on our way back from Devil's Tower, before we got to the KOA Kampground. But it is a hell of a nice shot.

Again; out of order, but a sweet shot.
Yep; out of order, but again; a nice shot.

When Zig and I were at the fun-as-hell bar (Horseshow Pub), he did a smart thing. He went outside and captured a few shots of the sunset. And they're very good - I'm telling you folks, you need to get out here and see what you're missing!!

Here is the bar (still in daylight - this was soon to change). The Horseshoe Pub. Oh, what fun was waiting within these walls for us to discover!