It's What Time??

Good lord it's late! Another successful pig roast (and the luge leftovers are on the fire)...time for a bit of sleep...

Shining In The Moonlight

King's bike in the night light. The other bikes are behind his. The weekend has started.

The Olean Curse Continues

Once again; we were supposed to have great weather today, tomorrow, and for the weekend. And once again; the skies look terrible.

The Olean crew is on their way...

Frank's Ride

Saturday's forecast had been calling for heavy rain and wind all day long, but we'd talked it over ahead of time; rain or shine, we were riding.  Our American Legion Riders brothers in Waltham were holding a memorial run for the chapter president's brother (Frank), and we'd show our support.

The morning dawned very wet and grey, but the forecast was now calling for a bit of a window in the middle of the day.  With any luck, we'd avoid most of the nasty stuff - and as things turned out, we didn't do too badly.

Arriving just before KSU time, I rolled in just behind a couple of other bikes.  We set our stands and shot the breeze a little while we waitied for the other two members who were going today.  One of the guys we were waiting for (Ed), was our newly-elected Road Captain, and we joked about whether he'd be ready for this, his inaugural ride in that position.  When he pulled in, I asked him if he had a route picked out for us and he smiled and pulled out a printed sheet of directions from his pocket...which he'd only printed out a few minutes earlier.  (He admitted later that as he was walking out the door, his wife happened to ask him if he knew how to get there and it hit him that he'd be leading and needed to map out some directions, pronto.)  But all was good, we finished our water/juice/coffee and headed off to Waltham.

Pulling in, there was a decent turnout there already, given the uncertainty of the day's weather.  We parked and then made the rounds, saying hello to the Waltham officers and making small talk with other members who were milling around the parking lot.

There were the usual pre-run announcements, a quick prayer, and we were off.  Now Waltham is a city - not of Boston size, but heavily populated none-the-less.  Instead of scenic roadways, they have stoplights and lots of traffic.  Fortunately, they had secured 5 or 6 motorcycle cops to do blocking, and between them and the support from local township cruisers, it was a smooth run - roughly 35 miles, and we only hit sprinkles a couple of times.

Arriving back at their Post, we all dismounted and scattered - some for the portas, some for the inside lounge, and some for the food line.  When we took our spot in line for food, we encountered something we've never seen before; they were serving a hot turkey dinner!  At a bike run!  Now I've seen all kinds of food at runs before, from the usual burgers and dogs, to chicken, pig roasts, clam boils, etc.  But never a hot turkey dinner.  Green beans, mashed taters, stuffing, thick slabs of turkey, gravy, butter and rolls, and mini pies!  They had a fantastic assembly-line kind of setup, with a person at each of the food stops, serving each food and keeping things moving extremely fast.  We were quite impressed, and will be tossing this idea around for our next big run.

We looked for a spot at one of the tables, but since we'd been one of the last to hit the food line, they were full up.  All the better, actually, as we we're used to being relegated to the outskirts (dirty rotten unwanteds that we are).

And after the food, it was beer time!  Mmmm, beer!  (Ed, having had a rough evening the night before, looks on with uncertainty, but he gathered himself together and settled right in with the pace.)

The occasional sprinkle had picked up to a light, but steady plink-plink-plink, so we made our rounds again and then mounted up to head back to our Post for 'one' self-congratulatory beerverage.  As we were pulling out, the skies opened up and we thought for sure we were in for a good dousing.  Thankfully, though, it petered out quickly and we dealt with little more than a steady drizzle on the ride back.

A couple of the riders had other plans for the remainder of the day and hadn't returned to the Post, but the three remaining Amigos assumed our spots in the front, as usual.

A quick shot of the pantlegs for posterity.

See? Not too wet, overall.  It was a decent half-day excursion and we'd shown some love to a fellow Post.  Good things go back and forth, and we look forward to seeing them in a little over a month's time for our own support run.  Hopefully we can have better weather on that day.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Ya Gotta Regatta!

This past weekend found us out in one of our favorite spots in the world; Olean!  How did we find ourselves there once again?  Last year, Myszka was talking up this event that he's done in the past.  It's called the Great Valley Fireman's Regatta.  It's a fundraiser for the fire department and attracts people from all over.  After looking up the website (www.yagottaregatta.com) we said absolutely!  We gotta check this thing out!  But, we didn't want to drive all the way out there on Friday, only to get there on Friday night all tired from the road, and still needing to set up camp.  Ok, the decision was made to head out on Thursday...sweet, an extra day!  And to make things even more enjoyable, Mark and  Mary opened their house to us again - all 8 of us!  (Ok, there were 11 of us that made the Regatta, but three folks weren't able to get out there until Friday.)

After a "rather" uneventful trip out there (we had a quick pit stop to change a blown trailer tire), we pulled up to the spot where the Thursday night partay was going on.  And what was there to greet us?  Why a load of folks already kicking things off, tables of food, a grille all fired up and ready, tents set up for us (so we wouldn't have to break ours out just for one night), chairs surrounding a fire pit, a giant tub of frosty beers, and a huge jug of "Yucca"...which contains grain alocohol, vodka, Jack Daniels, and some other ingredients that I don't remember.  (I asked where the name "Yucca" came from but I don't think anyone knew.  If I had to guess, it came from the sound you make when you throw up after drinking too much - which is exactly why I stayed away from that stuff!  One taste and I knew it would be nothing but trouble!

Ok, let's throw some pics in here...

First, the festivity grounds...

Yay, tub of beer!

The aforementioned jug of Yucca juice...

And all of that was just on the outside!  Inside, there were bottles of various alcohols lined up for the ready.  And we soon made ready with them!

Apple Cinnamon Pie!!  Yeah, this stuff didn't stand a chance with me and my giant forehead around!

Of course, no party at Mark and Mary's is complete without a fun game of hide-the-beer-cans!  They were ready for us to some degree, though.  There was a very large mixing bowl they had recently acquired, and which they had secured flat to the ceiling as a means of storing it.  Well, it was an obvious mark to hit with an empty or two, but low and behold, when we took it down, what did we find inside?

Ha ha!!  Love those guys!  But since they were willing to step up their game, I had to step up mine!  I present to you, the latest version...

That's right; putting them into Mark's vise and crushing them flatter than a drink coaster.  Now I can hide them almost ANYWHERE!  MUAH-AH-AH-AAHHHHH!!!!  Mary has already been posting the ones she's found.  I hid three flattened ones and I think she's only found one so far.  They'll find the second one in due time, but the third one...yeah, it'll still be there the next time we're out there.  Oh yeah, Bill crushed a can down into a cube and stuck it into one of the ice cube spots on an ice tray in the freezer.  (Is it any wonder they keep inviting us out there?  Actually...yes, we sure wonder, LOL.)

Ok!  After a long-into-the-evening partay which found Mary the sole survivor/last person standing at something like 4am, it was time to get up and hit the road the next morning.  We had a regatta to head off to!  After hugs and handshakes all around, we were soon on the road and following Myszka off to the campground for the next stage of this grand adventure.

Before long, we arrived, got our registrations taken care of and began setting up camp.  One of the Myszka's friends (Everett) has an old parachute he sets up every year.  It offers great shade from the sun, as well as protection from getting wet (provided it isn't raining TOO hard), and, if offers a perfect landmark for folks looking for the campsite.

We soon had that set up, the tents set up, the boats loaded into Steve's rented truck (what a great idea!) and were kicking back into party mode.  Wait - before we do that, there's the issue of securing a porta-john for the women.  Ok, wish granted; Everett drove up to where the porta-john was located, hooked a rope up to it, and dragged it back to our camp site.

Only when he got back did he realize he probably should have checked to make sure there was nobody inside it first!  (Luckily, no one was.)

So we had the porta john, but how to hide it so folks don't know we stole it?  Let's hide it behind the rental truck and then wrap it in a tarp!

LOL, yeah, that'll fool everyone.  Nothing to see here!  Certainly not a stolen porta-john!

Anyway, now it was full-on time to get the party going.  Oh, did I forget to mention that Sped (Special Ed, a buddy of Myszka's) had brought over 1,000 jello shots??  Good lord, son, it's only a two-day event!

Never one to miss an opportunity, Aaron was soon launching the jello shots to everyone within slingshot distance.  What's that?  You've never heard of a jello-shot slingshot?  Neither had we, but where there's a will, there's a way...

Nothing beats taking a bit of a rest after all the work we'd done so far.  And what better way to kick back than having a seat in the biggest camp chair in the world...all while wearing a 70's-themed wig on your head, and cradling a pink headpiece in your lap...

Once we'd gotten a bit of happy-place feeling going, it was time to do a walkabout in the other, main camping area, and see what the freaks were up to.  Most folks had either not arrived yet, or were still in the setting-up process, so there wasn't much to see at this point.  (We did go back once it was dark, and the party was in full mode.  One thing we all seemed to come away with for an opinion; what a sausage fest!!!  Thankfully, the women came out in force the next day, on the river, but at the campground?  Yeah...whole lotta men.)

Anyway, we did spot a very cool smoker;

There were some sick puppies out there, too!  Check out this debauchery!

And who the hell thinks up something like this???

LOL, ok that second one was at our site.  And since we weren't content to leave well enough alone, we had to step it up a little;

But don't worry, we didn't leave the poor sheep alone with the blow-up doll.  I taped him to the front of my kayak and withstood some interesting comments from folks along the route the next day.  But that's ok, because it's the regatta!

Oh yeah - King's daugher Marsha was in attendance, too.  She and her friend Kimberly have apparently attended this for several years, but haven't done the river, proper, yet.  They avowed they would do it with us next year, though!  We did catch up to them on Friday night and they joined us for the late-night walkabout on the campground.  It was a long night night of more fun and frivolity for all!

The next morning, we were up and ready - excitement filled the air!  It was regatta time! We packed up our coolers with food and beer...mostly beer...and it was off to the "crick" we went!

I'm afraid I don't have any pics from the regatta, itself.  Cindy had her waterproof camera with her and was snapping a lot of pics, but unfortunately it fell out of her pocket at some point.  :-(

So here's a quick description for ya; you put in with 2,500 of your newest, best friends, and then spend the next 7 hours smashing into each other and smashing the hell out of your liver.  The water level was quite low (we were told it was the lowest they've seen), so there were a number of spots where we had to get out and drag the boats across rock beds, but there were also spots where it was deeper, and moving fast enough, that if you didn't pay attention, you'd wind up in the drink.  Especially the end spot - there was a huge tree hanging out into the water, and it claimed probably 40% of the boats that tried to maneuver around it.  We all agreed that next year, we're going to have to bring scorecards with us and flash scores like a panel of judges.

I did well on the day, I only flipped into the water once, and that was because I leaned too far to catch a jello shot that someone had lobbed at me.  I overextended and the kayak rolled out from under me...but I made the catch and held on, coming up out of the water with the jello shot held high, to the delight of those around me...who then dismissed me completely as they continued on down the water, leaving me splash to the banks where Zig was waiting to help me flip and drain it.

When we finally did come back out of the water at the end, Myszka's brother was waiting with the rental truck (did I mention what a great idea this was!) and then we boarded a bus to bring us back to the campsite.  We cooked up some much-needed food, and then headed up to the fire hall to check out the band and do a little dancing.

We had one last surprise waiting for us up at the hall.  Bryan was manning the back entrance, so we popped back out to say hello and shoot the breeze a bit more.  He looks so official in his uniform - you wouldn't know we were partying with him just two nights ago.

And there you have it!  The 2013 Regatta!  It was our first, but it absolutely won't be our last!  We're spreading the word as much as we can - who knows how many folks we'll drag out with us next year!

Paddle Hard, Ya Gotta Regatta!

Bleeding Out

The days have been sunny and warm, with temps in the high 60's, even touching an occasional 70 now and then.  Beautiful!...but decpetive at the same time.  Clear skies in the daytime allow the sun's rays to come in at full strength (for this time of year) - that's the upside.  The downside is that clear skies at night allow the ground, still cold from the winter months, to purge it's cooler temps, leaving us with quite frosty mornings.  I'm talking; frost on the blades of grass and vapor crystals when you exhale.  It makes for some invigorating rides in the morning.  But, come the end of the workday, the gear is stowed, the thin gloves are donned, and it's an enjoyable cruise along the streets toward home (and then beyond, to whatever the night holds).

So bleed your cold temps out, Mother Earth.  We're on the downslope toward summer and can withstand chilly mornings for a bit longer.  Soon, the winter riding gear will again be collecting dust in the back closet, and we're all looking forward to that.

Ride Hard, Take Chances