First; the daytime run. It was for a fellow motorcyclist that was killed a few months ago when a cage pulled out directly in front of him. I didn't know Bear personally, but apparently many of my friends did.
A few of us met up at Ed & Sue's beforehand to head over together. When I pulled up to their house, I got a nice surprise;
Mike was in town! He'd come up from Jersey to join us on the run, and to also attend the Post party that night. Sweet!
From there, we rolled on over to the rally spot; Buddy's Villa, in Easton. The weather was great, and the turnout; even better.
It was tough to find a spot to park, so we tucked ourselves way in the back, by the dumpsters. (Ed commented that it was a fitting spot for us anyway, hanging out with the dumpsters.)
Today's event was a poker run so we registered and collected our playing sheets. My lucky streak remained intact as my first card pulled was a lowly 6. Damn.
And with that, we were off to our first stop. Here we found there were tons of other riders that had already left the starting point before we had even arrived, and who were now all kicking back and enjoying the first stop on the day. Nice, let's get to it!
My second card was a 10, but still; the shadow of my initial 6 hung over me, most likely eliminating me from any serious contention. Might as well console myself with some joking and laughing with good friends, like Ed, Sue and Mike!
I'd never been to this place before (Monponsset Inn, in Halifax), and it was very cool, being situated right on a beautiful lake.
On the far end of the deck, I spotted a sign which just spoke directly to me. So, I had to answer in my own way...
From there, it was another stop, for another (crappy) card, and then a third stop, for yet another (crappy) card. Neither of these spots had any great scenery to offer for taking pictures of, so I just settled for an action shot inside the third stop, to show how packed in we all were.
Lastly, it was back to the starting point for the cookout, raffles, and last card. I shared a good laugh with the girl running the card table when she saw my hand (I'd wound up with nothing at all), so I made do with jumping in line and getting some grub. The fare was the usual; burger and dog, beans, and a bag of chips. Certainly good enough for me!
The information on this run had claimed there would be visits by both the Jaegermeister Girls, as well as the Captain Morgan girls. Well, apparently the Jaeger girls bailed, but the company had sent a bunch of t-shirts for the organizers to sell off. They were asking for any donation we wanted, so I tossed in my payment and grabbed a shirt.
The time wore on, and we were beginning to think the Captain Morgan girls were also going to bail, but then, about an hour later than advertised, out they came. Two of them, each with a tray of Captain shots. Well, 'kinda', anyway. Seems the shots were mixed with ginger ale, rather then being straight shots. Oh well, they still tasted pretty good anyway (probably because they were mostly ginger ale). When I went back for a second one, I found out that the girls had come out with one tray each, and when their trays were empty, they'd split. Wha? So they were there for about 10 minutes, made a pass through about half of the crowd, then left. Whatever.
I strolled around the parking lot to see if there were any decent bikes to snap pics of. There were some cool paint jobs, but for the most part, it was all standard offerings. No customs or garage-builds, but that was ok, it was still a decent day...
...and that's when my travels brought me around to the back. Ya see, we'd parked way out back again to make sure we were out of the way and wouldn't get boxed in by the other bikes. So imagine my surprise when I found that two trikes had indeed boxed me in - parking directly in front of me.
WTF? A guy happened to see the consernation on my face and came up to offer his condolences. He said he'd talked to the guy on the front trike when he'd parked, and suggested that he may not want to block me in. The guy on the trike claimed he was only going to be there for a short time and that it wouldn't be a problem. Somehow, this led to a bit of a conversation about riding and the trike owner was bragging that he had 13,000 miles on his ride. Well, that's all well and good, but what year was the bike? It was a 1998. A 15-year old ride had only 13,000 miles on it. Egads. It would seem the bike wasn't good for riding (but apparently was perfectly good for parking in front of bikes that do ride).
Whatever. I wasn't ready to leave just yet so it wasn't a problem at the moment. (And when the time did come to leave, the trikes were in fact, gone.)
After listening to the band for a while, and then the raffles being drawn off (Ed won a mint Budweiser aluminum cooler!), it was time to head off to the Post for the Auxiliary's Margaritaville party. Pulling in, I found the parking lot moderately filled...
...but as the night wore on, the folks kept trickling in and by the time darkness fell, it was a full-blown par-tay! The crowd was great, the DJ even better, and there were even a number of songs that I got out there and danced to. It was a great ending to a great day.
So in summation, I had an enjoyable day. It would have been awesome to have been out in Olean, celebrating with many friends out there, but that just wasn't in the cards this year. Next year should be different, though, and I look forward to returning to that tradition.
Here's one last pic I snapped as I was hanging out at the Post. The sun was beginning to set and the air was clean and cool. I'm not sure what it was about the image, but when I saw it, I was filled with longing for the road.
Seeing my bike sitting at the ready...it's hard to explain, but I felt a complete contenment pass through me. A contenment in being blessed with the ability and freedom to ride. Part of me wanted to just go fire her up and take off...to where? It didn't matter. Just to feel the road beneath me and the miles ticking by...
...but I opted instead to return to the laugher and revelry behind me.
The road is a tempting mistress, but so too is the company of great friends.
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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