Sunday, May 29, 2016

I know I was excited, but it wasn't supposed to be THAT interesting.

  As usual, a few bikes showed up for Rolling Thunder.  It was way too sunny for my taste, but some people like that sort of thing.  They were even giving out some bandanas, but they had been died red in a less than through way, so they leaked pink when they got wet.


  Here was supposed to be the super fun footage of out trip in HD and showing Meg's first time riding her own motorcycle in the parade.  Too bad things were too exciting.
  When we got to the bridge where people would spread out and get to speed up.  This was all going fine until someone in near the end of the bridge slowed down quickly.  No idea what it was, but this caused a lot of the people to have to stop quickly.  The people next to Meg braked a little too hard and locked his back wheel.  To try and avoid hitting the person in front of him he went to move to the side to go around them.  Somehow the bike ended-up flipping and rolling over them after she went flying over his head.  I didn't see it happen since I was trying to not body-check Bill while we slowed down.  I only saw them on the ground and the only thing I could think to say was "Oh no!"
  Bill pulled over and hopped off to help them.  He helped make sure that no one tried to move them or anything.  Other people helped moved the bike out of the way, and some others stopped the traffic.  It was nice how everyone's first thought was to go help them.  A helicopter was flown in to get them help.
  I reviewed what I had been recording and I had gotten it on tape.  I turned in my SD card so police could have the footage.  A bunch of other people gave their account and SD cards.  I was glad I could help, though I sort of hope to get it back with the footage.  The first part is of Meg's first time pulling out of the North parking lot.  I know it is a silly thing, but it's my way of dealing.

There are so many things going through my head, I just hope they are both going to be perfectly fine.



Sunday, May 22, 2016

Bike Weekend

 
  This is us getting ready to leave.  Most of us were riding on motorcycles down to Myrtle Beach for the first weekend of Bike Week.  It was going to be about an eight hour trip and I was really nervous because I had never ridden on the back for that long before.  Luckily some of the ladies were taking a car, so I had another option in case I couldn't make it.
  During the ride I was thinking it would have been cool if I could have gotten some pledges for the ride.  That way I would have had extra motivation to stay on.  The ride was nice until the last hour and a half.  While we were getting some lunch we heard someone say that a bad storm was on the way.  There were reports of hail.  We waited around and while there was a lot of rain, there was no hail.

   She was hanging out and crocheting a water bottle holder near where we stopped to get some lunch.  I was too shy to go and actually go talk to her though.

  Some of the things I learned on my long ride was that the back-rest made a ton of difference, the wind will move your helmet a little over time, and lifting your butt off the seat a little will definitely help.

   This is the first thing you saw when you walked into the house that most of the group was renting.  I thought it was funny that the house was telling you to escape the second you walk in the door.

  The whole weekend was spend looking at a ton of cool and pretty bikes, hanging out, and trying new things.  It was the first time for me, but some of the other people in the group have already been before.

  At one of the places we stopped for lunch two of us got interviewed and then we got to see some of it on the local news later.  That was a lot of fun too.

   This bar was really interesting.  They had some funny signs on the outside seating like "What goes up, must come down. Don't feel the birds." The bar is called Dead Dog Saloon and the pictures on the wall of the inside are all of dogs who have passed away. I think that is very sweet.

   Another very interesting place we went to was called Suck Bang Blow.  They have a booth with clear sides so you can see what is going on in the inside.  The gimmick they have is that you suck down a beer, throw your bike into first gear while your front tire is touching the back wall of the booth, and then you go so that you make tons of smoke and noise.  There is one blind guy who works there.  He gets it going and will regularly blow out the back tire to try and get more people to do it.  The joke is that his bike is the only one to have 80,000 miles on it without ever leaving the pit.

  I had brought some knitting with me, but I never had it with me when we had our few moments of down time.  I think I will bring something small with me next year, that way I can have it with me most of the time and won't have to worry about not grabbing it at any point.

  There are a few things I have finished, but it has been so rainy and gloomy that I have not been able to get any good pictures of any of it.  Hopefully those will come soon.