Bike Show Day

Cheryl: Frank took off for Blackthorn this morning with a backpack full of polishing stuff and the sign describing the bike. He'll enter Starship Snoopy in the show and have fun all day talking bikes. I'll drive over tonight in the truck for the BBQ and music by Tower Suite, a blues and rock band.

Since I've got the day to myself, I took advantage of a cooler morning with less humidity to take the dogs for a long walk. I stumbled on to the creek I've been trying to locate since we got here. I wanted to find the "swimmin' hole" mentioned on the map of the campground. The dogs and I walked for a couple of miles along the creek and found the beach. I eventually walked my way to the very back of the campground where the group areas are located, so we left the creek and followed the EXIT signs back to the trailer. I fed the dogs when we got home, and they've been peacefully sleeping since (of course that's what they do most of the time anyway).

Now that I'm caught up on my emails and have had a nap, I'll process some pictures to post here. We went to visit a lighthouse yesterday and took a driving tour of the sweet little town of Saugerties (sog-er-tees). We also watched the field events at the rally site - the slow race to see who can go the slowest on a motorcycle, the toss-the-little-airplane-through-the-hoop to test the passenger's aim and the rider's ability to control the bike while someone on the back is wiggling around trying to get a good shot in, and many more safe and fun events. In the bad old days, Frank and I participated in the beer can toss, and we have the picture on the wall at home to prove it. Hey, we were young once! After the events, we had another great m/c ride on the Norton back to our campground for dinner and then back to the rally site in the truck for social hour where we located our friend, Jim Comstock, and his family. If you haven't guessed by now, there's a lot of standing around shooting the breeze involved in these national rallies.

Tomorrow during the day this group of 400 Norton enthusiasts will get together for a group photo and then a big, loud blast as all those Norton's fire up for a group ride. In the evening the awards from the bike show will be presented during a banquet along with other awards for fun things like longest distance traveled to get here, oldest rider, youngest rider, and well, you get the idea. There are 14 guys here from the UK and 7 shipped their bikes over. Also, we've heard there are riders from Australia, Spain, Norway, and France! This truly has lived up to its promise of being the first truly international rally of the INOA. That's really impressive! The club has 1400 members now. Frank really started something BIG back in 1975!

Happily, my sweaty, but smiling husband just rolled in from the bike show. Looks like I'll have company on the drive over to the BBQ tonight. Cool! I love my guy.

Pictures coming soon!

Love from Rip Van Winkle and the sleepy three