I’ve been lax again, haven’t I? Well, working 18 hour days kinda saps my
energy for doing anything other than going home and getting some zzz’s. But the good news is that (hopefully) the
long days are over for this year and I can be somewhat responsible again with
getting posts up here. So with that
said, I bring you…
The 2014 Daytime Halloween Run
The weather looked to be decent for this past Sunday’s
Halloween run; a chilly start, but schedule to warm up quickly. I set to decorating the bike with the usual myriad
of Halloweeny items. However, there was
an added bonus this year; I’d been able to collect s bunch of old Halloween
decorations from work which they were going to toss away. Sweet!
Ok, I can’t get too carried away, but let’s see how I did…
First, a couple of mini skeletons on the crash bars, secured
with zip ties…
Check out the hair on that second guy!
I had a third little guy, but where to put him? Ahhh, here’s a cool little spot for him to
hang out…
With the quick detach luggage rack in place, I had the
luxury of adding a couple extra things this year. The skull must have been from some sort of
full-sized body because it had a section of square steel tubing sticking out
the bottom of it. I drilled a hole it
in, fitted an eyebolt and then secured the skull in place with more zip
ties. The vulture had wires coming out
of the bottom of his legs, so I wound those around the luggage post and then
used some mini bungee cords to hold him standing up.
The Haunted Hitchhiker made his customary appearance on the
bike. The wooden rack I rigged to his
back fit down into the slot between the driver’s and passenger’s sections of
the seat. Then a couple of mini bungees
to hold him in place and he was good to go…
Or was he? His hands
look pretty empty…
Ahh, much better; a spare crow wired and bungeed into place
and now we’re all set!
That was as far as I wanted to go for decorations. Much of this hadn’t been tested before and I
didn’t know how well everything would travel, so I didn’t want to push my luck
too much.
And that was it. Now,
just a matter of waiting to see who would show up for the pre-gaming. I’d sent the word out over email earlier in
the week, but since my phone was still non-operational, I had no way of knowing
if anyone had texted or called to say they were coming.
Not one member of the usual crew showed up – which surprised
me quite a bit. Usually this thing has a
good sized draw (Little did I know that this was a portent of the day to
come). At any rate, some of my new
brothers from the Riders showed up and we hung out and had some good laughs
before saddling up and heading over to this year’s rally point.
Arriving at said rally point, I was quite surprised to see
that the turnout was far lower than other years. What gives?
The weather is nice and sunny, the air is warming up well…huh. Oh well, let’s get some raffle tickets and a
beer and kick back for a bit. Maybe
there’ll be a last-minute rush of arrivals to bulk up the parking lot.
Nope. When it came
time to depart, the numbers were still quite dismal. And this theme carried through for the run
itself, too. Not only did we have far
fewer bikes than normal, we also had far fewer spectators along the route. Sure there were still folks along just about
the whole route, but it wasn’t the throngs and throngs that’re usually to be
found. Oh well, it was what it was. And I did get a kick once again with all the
kids pointing at my mask again this year.
I don’t know what it is about that thing, but kids (and some attractive ladies,
too!) always point me out. Maybe I
should leave the mask at home one of these years and show them what a really
scary face looks like.
When the run was over and we rolled back to the Canton Town
Club, we found our numbers had dwindled even more. Look at this pitiful showing…
Apparently a number of folks had peeled off along the
way. (Shrug) No worries for me, just improves my odds at
winning a raffle prize.
Let’s get some food!
Uhhhmmm…nope, not yet. The food
wasn’t even close to being ready. What
the? Who the hell is running things
around here? It’s a cardinal rule that
when a run is going on, the food is ready when the bikes return. It’s not like they don’t know the route the
bikes are going on, or don’t know how long the bikes will be gone for, or what
time they can be reasonably be expected to return. Whatever.
Let’s get a beer.
After about half an hour, the food was ready…and it was not
worth the wait. Pulled pork sandwich,
potato salad, bag of Cheetos. The pork
was bland and essentially tasteless. The potato salad was watery. The bag of Cheetos was the only tasty thing
there. Well, let’s see how I do with the
raffles.
Do I even need to tell you how I did with the raffles? All losing tickets again – for the whole
table of us. F it, we’d had enough and
decided to salvage the day by heading back to our Post to watch the end of the
Pats game. That was a good game to watch
so at least we had that going for us.
So there you go; the 2014 Daytime Halloween Run. Man, this thing is really slipping. It used to be an ENORMOUS run. If this year is any indication of what’s to
come, this thing doesn’t have many years left.
Which is too bad, because the funds raised always go to great causes.
Let’s hope it’ll return to its glory next year.
Ride Hard, Take Chances
