2010 Unity Ride

The morning dawned wet and grey. Stepping out to the garage, my bike and I exchanged wary glances as I slid the garage door upwards. Rolling her out and setting her back on the stand, this is pretty much what we were greeted with...
But, we made do the best we could. The flags were mounted (!!), we geared up and headed off to Danno's for a bit of pre-game warmup.

We pushed things as close to the deadline as we dared, finally firing things up with scant time to spare! Quick, hit the roadways!! Pound the throttles!!! We gotta get there, Dammit!!!!

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Hearts hammering, sweat pouring from our brows, we wrestled those iron steeds for all they were worth, finally pulling up sharp...a staggering 3/4 mile down the road.

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The guys in charge of getting everyone safely parked had their work cut out for them. Luckily, we were able to find a small patch of open space to tuck our wheels into.

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Here, you can see the sheer mayhem that was the parking lot. We had to call on every ounce of nerve and endurance to navigate this madness.

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating things a bit. It seemed the weather had kept many folks away, which is a shame, really. C'mon you people, get on those bikes and get out there and support those that need it!!

We registered, picked up some raffle tickets and milled around a bit until it was time to mount up and hit the road. We had plenty of LEO escorts for this, what with two cruisers and two motorcycled cops...all to handle only 35 bikes. Oh well, the LEO's made the most of things by riding on the wrong side of the yellow line and forcing all oncoming traffic into the fields and driveways on the opposite side of the road. Good for you, guys! Way to make unneccessary complications!

Anyway, here's an action shot for you...

We made it safely back to the beach area and chowed down on dogs, burgers...and cookies! But no beers. Dammit, I thought this place had beers last year, but I was reminded that we'd packed our own last year. Oh well. At least they had a decent band to keep us entertained.

I felt badly for these guys; they'd come out in the bad weather, taken the time to set up shop and rock out with us, but the attendance was pretty bad. And once the raffles were done, the place cleared out in no time.

Speaking of raffles, check out this thing we won! An aw-then-tick Harley Davidson pic-a-nic basket/cooler type of thing. Came with plates, cups, a set of utensils, even salt and pepper shakers. (I must admit that I was disappointed to find the HD logo was missing from the utensils. That would have been pretty cool.)

From here, we said our goodbyes and made our way back to Danno's for the apris party, where we knocked back some warm milk and cookies (pay no attention to those blue cylinders scattered about on the table...).

Can you see the bottle of amber liquid on that table? Danno brought that out to tease us. It's a bottle of honey mead, straight from England. Apparently the makers of this fine libation travel to Scotland, where they lay claim to some authentic Scottish honey, which they then bring back and incorporate into their mead. MMMMMMMMMMEAD!!! We kept asking Danno if he was going ot open it, but we were only kidding him...or were we... Anyway, today was not the day for the insides of that bottle to meet the insides of my liver. Danno said he was working on obtaining a second bottle, which would be brought to next year's Cindo de Roasto event. I guess we'll just have to wait.

Once the Bud Lights...er...milk was gone, hugs and handshakes were exchanged and I rolled back out of Danno's driveway and headed back to the homestead.

This brought the 2010 Unity Ride to a close. Unfortunately, the weather scared a lot of folks away, but those that came out were treated to a not-too-shabby day, overall.

361 days until the next one. That gives you folks that stayed in because of the weather, plenty of time to grow a pair.

Ride Hard, Take Chances