What's Been Happening 05/09/04

Today was the 60th anniversary of D-Day. It also turned out to be a beautiful weather day for us rough riders of chapter H. The weather was rainy all week and today it was suppose to rain in the a.m. but to no avail, it did NOT. Yippee!! How sweet it is!! Today's weather was an outdoorsman's delight, a motorcyclist dream, and it just does not get any better than this.

As always, we rendezvoused at Mickey D's about 0900hrs. Also, today was the day that we were chosen to participate in the Leaf River parade with our ponies. As it turned out, it was a perfect day for riding our ponies. Poor ponies were locked up in their stables all week with no place to go due to the rainy week that just passed.

Our rough riders consisted of; wimpy Les Chapman riding BLUE ANGLE, lucky Larry Greco riding BLACK BEAUTY (new name), doctor Cary Levin riding SEXY RED (new name), sergeant Russ Prichard riding RED DEVIL, jumpin Joe Hughes riding BLACK KNIGHT (ST1100), wild Bill LoBianco riding MIGHTY MO, fast Eddie Bowser riding MAGNUM V65, whispering Joe Mendoza riding PRANCER, dancing Dick Sieple riding BIG BERTHA, smiley John Francis riding MAGNUM FORCE (new name), gentleman George Riebesehl riding SILVER STREAK, professor Damien Shelton and daughter Rebecca riding GREEN BACKS, and yours truly.

Our chosen location for some fine dining was the Rockford, ILL area. I took the lead and sergeant Russ did his usual fine job of sweep, and its off we go, hi ho, hi ho. But first our ponies were fed some mighty fine octane with a big boost.

Our route took us west and eventually northwest, which took us through some mighty fine winding and twisting roads that curved and tethered up and down hills near some of the most wide open farm land available in the greater northern Illinois area.

Some of those roads got to be pretty squirrelly with plenty of dipsy-do's that were bending and twisting ever which way. Our destination had us traversing through many small towns, most of which we never heard of, because it was all farm land.

Upon arrival in the Rockford area, our groups split into two, one group went to the buffet at "Thunder Bay Grill", who consisted of wimpy Lester, lucky Larry, doctor Cary, sergeant Russ, jumpin Joe, wild Bill, and professor Damien and daughter Becky and other group consisted of fast Eddie, whispering Joe, dancing Dick, smiley John, gentleman George and yours truly went to the "Country Kitchen" restaurant.

We all had some great chi chatting with some mighty fine socializing. The coffee was poured, the vittles were served and the shenanigans commenced. We were sipping and slurping our coffee as the words were surfing, everything was all in good fun. It is time to depart and meet up with the other group were our ponies lay in wait by the local corral in the shade.

With the exception of whispering Joe, fast Eddie and smiley John, the remainder of us rough riders were able to participate in the Leaf River parade. Time's-a-wasten, no more huppen 'n hollarin, lets mount those ponies and ride.

I took the lead and sergeant Russ did the sweep, our route took us on U.S. 20 west bound out of Rockford to Illinois route 2, and the south bound to Illinois route 72. Our destination took us west on route 72 to the very small town of Leaf River, ILL. Population less then 800. It is there were we lined up in order of participation for this town's annual parade. All had a great time. And the funds that we received will go directly to charity for the Christmas holidays.

All in all, this day proved to be very worthy of a real fun time and some really great riding on our ponies which received much needed exercise. All of us wished that this day would never end, so be it!!

After the parade was finished, we departed east bound on route 72 to the small town of Byron, ILL. Does anyone care to guess what our next stop would be?? Okay, give up? Yep--you are right, it is our ICE CREAM refreshment stop. Yummy, Yummy, my tummy is happy.

Altogether, us rough riders managed to log in about 170 very safe and happy miles. The only thing that I had to do when arriving home was to clean all the bugs off of my pony's face and fairing--yuk.