FAVORITE RIDE: All my rides have good and bad in them but I guess my favorite, at this time, would be my recent vacation ride to Sturgis SD. I was really reluctant to go to Sturgis but I found out that I really enjoyed myself there. I enjoyed the 8 day ride to get there via: Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. Yes, there were problems but the problems were very small and corrected in a timely manner.

WORST RIDE: At first I was going to say the 95th Anniversary ride in all the rain but then I remembered the ride around Mount ST. Helens. I was a very new rider and had been on my own bike only 5 weeks when we decided to join the chapter in a ride around Mt St Helens. This ride was just after the flooding where many of the roads had been closed. The leader of the ride said he knew all the roads and we wouldn’t have any problems. First mistake, believing that there would not be any problems. I found out that you can ride on 4 wheel tire tracks as roads and that there were one car only roads on the backside of the mountain. To make a new rider even more nerves is to add higher than posted speeds to the ride. People on baggers were going into the on-coming traffic to get around corners. I was in the beginning of the pack so I didn’t see a lot of the problems. I did take a 35 mile an hour corner at 50 and that is when I decided, even if I didn’t know were I was at, I was not going to put myself in harms way anymore. Just after I took the corner, I heard a sound that didn’t sound good. The group stopped going around the corner so I stopped also. I got my bike turned around, after having to pick it up because I dropped it. I asked on of the other members what had happen when he said that “an older white haired guy went down”. I soon realized that he was talking about Jim. After taking the fairing loose from the frame, Jim, with just few bruises and I was able to get home, IN THE DARK. Those that know me know that I don’t do well in the dark, so I guess that would be my worst ride.

HUMOROUS RIDE: The funniest ride was really the most miserable ride. It was the last day of the “Ride Home” on the 95th anniversary of Harley Davidson. We were camping at the KOA just inside the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In the middle of the night, I woke up to the sound of rain…again. We had been riding in the rain a lot on this ride. When we got up it was still raining and I decide to do the laundry to wait out the rain. Well, the rain eased enough for me to get the bags packed and then it really started to rain hard. I was so tired of rain but we had to get to Milwaukee by that evening. About 50 miles later and soaked to the bone, we stopped at a rest stop. There were several bikes parked at the rest stop and when I got off my bike, it was either cry or laugh. That is when I started laughing, an uncontrollable laugh. We were riding with a couple from Canada and when I got off and started laughing Anne started laughing also. Irv just thought we were crazy. How could we laugh so hard at this miserable situation? Anne and I finally got our emotions under control just before we entered the rest stop building. What we say was a room full of wet, miserable and cold bikers. Irv, Anne, Jim and I just looked at each other and then Irv said “If we knew we were going to have so much fun we would have ridden in the rain sooner.” Then we all started laughing and before long the whole building of bikers were laughing.

RIDE MOTTO: Always realize that God is the rider, you are the passenger. Also, find the humor in even the worst of times.

RIDE ADVICE: Always keep alert!!!!