The Olean crew arrived safely on Friday, and they even brought a great surprise with them. Myszka! Apparently he made a last-minute decision to make the trip out. And when I say "last minute", I mean it; he took off on Friday morning and rode all the way to Cobleskill to meet the rest of the crew - who had spent the night at the 'Vous motel - and then made the rest of the trip with them. Now that's riding!
They also had another surprise for me; bottles and beer signs! How cool is this!?!? Talk about going above and beyond!
After they got settled in and set up, we headed off to Chickie Flynn's for dinner and drinks. There was a nice collection of bikes in the parking lot when we arrived.
After our bellies were filled and our livers were kickstarted, we headed back to the homestead for some one-card and laughter lasting long into the evening - far longer than was wise for the evening before the annual Cinco de Roasto!
Oh yeah; Bob and Zig had some helmet stickers made up to help mark the event. Check it out; 12th year pig roast stickers!!
The next morning, the rooster crowed early. (I'm not sure, but by the sound of it, that rooster didn't have much life left in him.) Anyway, we met up with Nellie, Scott and McCarthy at the farm to pig up the pig. The customary morning beeverage, and things were moving along nicely.
From there, it was back to Walpole, and the customary breakfast...
...after which, it was time to get the last minute touches done and out of the way. Stock the ice luge table...
...and get the pig going. The sun was out, the food was cooking...it was gonna be a great day!
I think the only hiccup in the day was when my can opener broke.
Which of course happened right when I needed to get the beans ready. That wound up costing a few precious minutes, as I had to use my P-38. Every try to open three huge, thick metal cans with a 2 inch piece of metal?
Anyway, soon the food trays were laid out and the lines were moving well. Scott and McCarthy did a great job again and as usual, and everyone commented on how good it was. Thanks guys!!
Another great surprise on the day; Russ Jr pulled out a little something he'd been hanging on to; an official homebrew bottle from way back in the day when King used to brew! King was also impressed with it, and said it's quite likely the last one in existence, as all the other bottles have probably long since been broken or tossed out.
Here's two awesome bottles that my buddies got me. First; Joe and Artie procured this tequila revolver (I used the Crystal Head vodka as a prop to help hold the revolver up).
And Aaron came through with this semi-auto (also Tequila filled) rifle. How cool is this!
The rest of the day went well (as you can see from the photos all over Facebook), and we were soon stacking more wood onto the fire to ward off the encroaching darkness. When it was just past dusk, we held our moment of silence...which was the best one yet, because there wasn't anything silent about it at all! Folks were tossing out names left and right, and it was great to hear so much participation!
After that, it was time for the Toast of Life! But in my eagerness, I jumped the gun; I'd forgotten to call all the virgins up to the front! So we had to slam the brakes on, get everyone to surround the newbies, and then we all belted out a raucous rendition of the beloved poem.
Normally, that is pretty much the end of anything coordinated, and the rest of the evening is just folks kicking back and having fun. However, my friends had a surprise in store for me. Remember the Easy Rider, Captain America helmet I blogged about a couple weeks ago? Well apparently they felt that just the helmet alone wasn't enough, they now needed to get me the jacket as well. So as I was preparing to release the crowd to their own doings, Aaron stepped up and gathered everyone's attention and then presented me with the coolest jacket in town! (They made me go in and get the helmet to put on, too.)
I'll tell ya, that was very moving and made me step back and really appreciate how lucky I am that I have been blessed with the best group of friends around. Thanks to everyone!!
With that, it was then time for everyone to enjoy the rest of the evening as they saw fit. Jerry recited some stories for us, there was laughter aplenty, and the ice luge weathered the onslaught for long into the evening.
As the time passed along, more and more folks made their exits, and it was soon just a handful of us assembled around the fire. We agreed we were all set with the luge for this year, so a little more wood was tossed on, I grabbed the luge, and it was tossed into the pit. Cinco de Roasto 2013 was officially complete.
A bit later, I took a stroll up through the house to make sure everyone that had been tucked in already, was still doing ok, then strolled out front to check on the bikes. It was a nice scene, the sky in the background was starting tho show signs of brightening, slowly illuminating the bikes in the driveway...wait...brightening sky? What time was it? I checked my phone and saw it was 4:30 - yikes! I been running low on sleep for the past week already, and now I'd pulled a 24-hour stint. I needed to get me some shut-eye! I said my 'nites to...I think it was just Bob left at the fire at this point, and then I headed in and crashed out hard.
A mere few hours later, it was time to get up and start the cleanup process. There were a few bodies already out there, helping out, and I'm very appreciative of that! When things were squared away nicely, we rode over to the breakfast place again with the NY Crew to grab some grub. Oh yeah - Myszka had allready left, earlier in the day. He was doing a straight-shot back home and needed to get rolling. (He arrived home safe and sound.) As for the rest of the crew, we had a nice hearty breakfast, ambled out to the parking lot for the customary morning-after photo, and they were off.
Back to the homestead with the rest of us, we did a little more cleaning, then headed off to the Post to watch the B's play another great game of hockey (now leading the series, 2-0!!). When the game was over, I felt my body really registering the exhaustion from the past week, so I bade my farewells, headed home for some dinner, and then sacked out hard.
Word on the street is that everyone had a blast. Final headcount tally (from memory and looking at Facebook photos) is 140 - the highest number yet. Let's see if we can break 150 next year!
Word on the street is that everyone had a blast. Final headcount tally (from memory and looking at Facebook photos) is 140 - the highest number yet. Let's see if we can break 150 next year!
It was another successful Cinco and I can't wait to do it all over again next year! But there's no time to sit back...we ride for DC in 4 days! And then on to NC from there! Wa-Hoo! Miles and Smiles are a-coming!!
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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