Great Weekend!

Well, survived another weekend! Actually I shouldn't kid about that but it was another full weekend. I left Friday at noon to help map out the Fall Leaf ride and got home Sunday afternoon with 985 miles on the odometer. Darlene had a busy weekend, besides trying to recover from her respitory problems, her and Ryan went to the football game Friday night then she went on the Girls weekend ride, the LOH LOH party. She beat me home by a couple of hours but didn't have as far to ride.

Our ride took some new roads for the Fall ride and I guess that is why they do the pre-rides. The fall ride is one of the larger chapter rides and we are expecting upwards of 60 bikes this year. New location, two nights in Ft Smith AR, instead of one night in Mena, and one night in Hot Springs.

First stop in OK was a problem, not enough gas pumps and certainly not enough toilets. The three gas stations in Tishamingo each only had one toilet, not even a mens and ladies rooms.

We lost Cowboy briefly at this stop, Ray Caul received a police escort back to our pod, and Marv somehow passed us as we went to the third station. Onwards to the lunch spot, where we had lunch last year, and lo and behold they had decided to shut the doors.... There was a sign announcing a new name, but no other information. Fortunately there was another restaurant in town that should be able to accomodate, however the parking was not great.

Talimina highway. Great weather, for a change.. and no traffic. Awesome ride. We only went half way then headed north on.... some state road. Finally got into Ft Smith around 8 pm then on to the restaurant. In bed by 10:30, or at least some of us were, myself included.

Morning came too early for some, but not all. Barnes had three routes mapped out, we decided on the mid lenght ride as that was the only one that went to the Pig Trail dealership.

More great roads, with terrible infrastructure for a large group. One stop even had an outhouse.... not gonna happen. Some some creative planning still to occur. Some ideas though, maybe multiple routes with warnings..

Only incident happened on this leg as Matt had a starter problem. He bump started and we got to the dealership. Very great service later, was only a bolt missing, that also provided the ground. We all met up with Rod Dean who none of us have seen since he left AE. He was very happy to see us all and we now have a lunch spot as the owner of the dealership commited to hooking us up for lunch, no doubt he will sell a few t-shirts!

Back to the hotel and a couple of miles before we arrived we had a chance to clean out the carbon so to speak. Bobby was riding the Joker bike and when he cracked the throttle, that thing barked and took off... nuff said right here but sufficiently high speeds were obtained.

This time I was in the some who decided to stay late. I got up at 8 am, on 4 hours sleep... Great ride home, did the other half of Talimina, not quite as good an experience as the trip up but fun nonetheless. And best of that, some great rides in north east Texas that I was unaware of.