Summer Days!Friday I went to the Boston Bears' happy hour at The Alley (my usual thing to do at the end of work on a Friday on the rare occasion that I remain in town!) -- I hung out with Arnie (whom I do not have a photo of!) and then Dave arrived! I got a little tipsy, but it doesn't take much to do that nowadays!
Saturday started off early with a Burger King breakfast (yum!) from someone who had an attitude that would have been better suited for working in the penal system. She goofed up Dave's order completely. Hopefully, this would be the worst thing to happen today!Ear plugs in place, Dave and I took the motorcycle from Quincy, MA to Deep River, CT for D.R.A.M. (the Deep River Ancient Muster), which has over 100 corps marching this year!!
There was a little bit of everything from the most elaborate uniforms, to pirates, seamen (don't get any funny ideas), to simply t-shirts. The groups ranged in size from two marching guys with a drum and a single fife to a brigade of at least 25 people!There was a LOT of eye candy -- woofy bears, half-naked men, some guys playing bagpipe, it was simply amazing!!
My buddy, Ken Barlow was NOT able to make it there this year, which was a bummer, but he gave me some hints and tips as to what to expect! Dave and I really enjoyed ourselves; even though Dave seemed unsure that he was going to have a good time. (I think he had a different idea of what this event was going to be like...)
I would go back to D.R.A.M. again, and recommend it to others!
Sunday morning we headed out to Framingham, MA for the Xtreme Riders, M.C. "Fun Run" -- a long back-road motorcycle ride to "Tee-Off At Mel's", a mini-golf/go-kart place in Litchfield, NH.We gathered at 9:30AM at the Ace Hardware in Framingham -- the "Red Bull Girls" showed up to hand out some of their "go-go juice" -- it was wall-to-wall leather bikers, bikes, chrome, you get the idea! Dave and I saw some really nice bikes!
I saw the first Tom-Tom navigation system for a motorcycles I'd ever seen! It was this geeky leather-biker-bear's cool toy of the year!! What I'd really like to see developed is a static force-field that displaces rain, so I could drive in the rain and not get wet! (I'm not holding my breath for that though!)
Even Carlton Andersen, the owner of Andersen Cycleworks (where I bought my Road Star), was there! (Photo on the left, in the blue shirt.)We lucked out and got great weather! At about 11:00 we got a wonderful ride blessing from Preacher in memory of Eddie, whom the fun run was dedicated to this year. Eddie Schiller, the Fun Run's creator, was killed last year. About 11:30 we got a police escort to the edge of town from the Framingham police!
We had a GREAT ride, and a BIG kudos goes to the men and women that were our safeties -- zipping ahead of over 50 motorcycles riding in formation to get to the next intersection to block traffic so we didn't have to stop at any red lights, intersections or stop signs! Thanks guys -- you made the ride easy and safe!!
or here for Xtreme Fun Run! (Additional photos added 02-OCT-06!)
After lunch with some of the riders at "Tee-Off At Mel's", Dave and I headed back towards the Massachusetts boarder, with a stop-over at my friend
loxie's home to spend some quality time and chat with her, her mom and Emily! We had a great visit, and this was the first time Dave got to meet Robin and her family.