Friday, August 15, 2008 - Posts

Friday, August 15, 2008 5:24 PM

Gold Rush XXI: Day 4

Thursday morning opened with HighPoint #3 of my time at Gold Rush:  The Little Bighorn Battlefield.  My dad’s a history buff, and I knew that if I rode by the sight of Custer’s Last Stand and didn’t stop, I’d be in BIG trouble when I got home.  The ride to Little Bighorn took about an hour and we could easily have spent a better part of the day there.  I’m glad we'd watched a Discovery Channel documentary on the battle (even if it's findings are now considered controversial) before coming here.  The film followed archeologists as they used metal detectors after the recent wild fires to locate the spent shell casings of battle participants and to track the participants' movements during the battle according to the unique tracings left on each casing as it exited the weapon.  

Park ranger Michael Donahue (a Texas college professor who has worked every summer of the last 17 years at the battlefield) helped us understand the event by recounting the lives of 4 men who took part in the battle – a doctor, two young warriors, and a candy-maker.  Hammy was wearing her Yellowstone coonskin hat that day… she didn’t move an inch or lose focus one second during the ranger’s presentation.  He must make history jump right out of the textbook for his students... if only he taught history!  His specialty?... art!  He interprets drawings and pictorial maps (such as native battle accounts) in their historical context.  I also found a picture of him as a young boy in a coonskin cap; he was enthralled with Davey Crockett and the Alamo.  No wonder he commented on Hammy’s choice of hats!

The Battle of the Greasy Grass River (or Little Bighorn) was short and fierce.  As you climb Last Stand Hill, you get an eerie sense of what happened that hot day.  This is considered the most pristine battlefield in America.  White markers identify where a Blue-coat fell, Red markers – the location of a native warrior’s fall.  (Most of the warriors' bodies were removed from the location at the end of the battle.)  We located the names of Dr. George Edwin Lord, assistant surgeon, and Baltimore candy-maker Corp. George C. Brown of Company E on the white stone memorial at the top of the hill.  We visited the native Memorial and found the names of Wooden Leg's and Black Elk's companions.  If we’d had more time, I would have ridden the bike around to Benteen’s battlefield or walked the paved cement trail down by the canyon where the candy-maker’s body and those of his men were never found or recovered.  (One warrior had commented that if all the soldiers had fought as the white horse Company E soldiers in the canyon had fought, the day’s outcome might have been different.)  I would have liked to pause amid the markers overlooking the river and the site of the Indian village and near the hill where Wooden Leg and his friends had been watching over the horses when the first shots rang out.  Someday,  I’d like to visit again and take my dad.
 
We arrived back at Gold Rush in time for the Battle of the Regions.  Region C didn’t win, but we sure had a good time and we sure looked silly!  Next?  The Closing Ceremonies.  Hammy won the award for being the Youngest Rider at Gold Rush XXI.  She was also asked to draw the winning GWTA raffle ticket for a new bike or $10,000 cash. 

After we made our good-byes (which were rather tearful for Hammy and her new friend Teresa Larson), we quickly made off for Sheridan, Wyoming, due to the weather forecast and dark clouds.  U2 was the only one to rain-suit up before departure,  and yes, it did actually rain and storm so that the rest of the group had to pull over and pull on their rain suits.  (It's nice to be right every once in a while!  More importantly, I hate putting on my rain suit in the wind, so I tend to err on the side of caution.)  This leg of the trip home was our only bad weather on the whole trip. 

The next morning was sunny and a little too warm as we made our iron-butt run through eastern Wyoming and back to western Nebraska.  Every leg of the trip seemed to take longer and longer until our group finally crossed I-80 and shared a final ice-cream stop in Ogallala.  (There's another story there, but it will have to wait.)  Gold Rush XXI was the trip of a lifetime.  I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  If you ever get the chance to visit that part of our great country, grab it with both hands.  It’s worth the ride.

Mileage Total - Roundtrip:  1816
Miles To Billings (Through Yellowstone):  956
Miles While There:  195
Miles To Home:  665
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Friday, August 15, 2008 4:51 PM

Gold Rush XXI: Day 3

On Wednesday morning, Lyn and U2 participated in the SRC (Skilled Rider’s Course) two-wheel and three-wheel seminars and received GWTA Rider Education Program Level 2 rockers.  I really enjoyed the chance to practice the drills on a closed course without risking damage or injury.  In my three-wheel group, we had riders at all  levels of experience.  This is not a pass/fail type of course.  The drills meet you at your current level and provide you an opportunity to develop, fine-tune, and brush-up your riding skills outside of “real traffic” road situations.  The course instructors are there to encourage riders with tips and suggestions and keep you safe.

My favorite trike exercise was the circle drill.  All trike riders know how important it is to maintain awareness of the width of your rear fenders. (This drill is really beneficial to riders who’ve made the switch to three wheels after many years of riding on two wheels.)  Each rider entered into a 40-foot circle of orange cones and continued riding inside the cones in a circular pattern.  The drill instructor walked nearby and noted your outer rear tire’s distance from the cones as you passed each cone.  The object was to get as close to the cones as possible without knocking them down, while maintaining a smooth speed and looking ahead to the next cone – not down at the cone next to your fender.  This is one of those drills that you can’t really practice on the road, and it was great to have someone telling you exactly how close your fender was to each stationary object.   As I repeatedly circled inside the cones without looking down, the instructor would advise me to hold my distance or move closer to the cones until I was able to gauge my distance while focusing on the cones ahead and maintaining a smooth ride.  Each rider practiced this drill in both directions – clockwise and then counter-clockwise until he/she had a real sense of the trike’s width.  

Other drills practiced stopping distances, dodging road hazards, and emergency situations.  Have you ever tried driving directly toward a man in a bright orange shirt, accelerating and shifting up to a steady speed, and then waiting for him to wave his arm at the last minute so you can swerve left or right of him without hitting him?  Kind of like playing chicken, but I'm the one squawking... and I'm not the one in the orange shirt.

I would encourage all GWTA members to periodically take advantage of these SRC events and brush up your riding skills in a pressure-free, closed course environment.   Our group had a lot of fun.  Remember to bring your gear:  over-the-ankle boots, full-fingered gloves, a helmet, eye protection, and a long-sleeved shirt or jacket.  Safety first!!!  And remember, the guys who run this course gave up a good part of their day at Gold Rush to prepare and supervise this activity.  They deserve a pat on the back.  Way to go guys!  (Thanks Ronnie and Kathe!)

During the SRC, other members of our group participated in the Family Games.  These events are always lots of fun.  We always walk away from this event with good ideas for party games at home!  The most challenging game this year was the Rice Game.  Competitors were blind-folded and told to sift their fingers through a bowl of rice grains in search of the tiny safety pins.  The competitor who found the most safety pins won.  Youth was a definite advantage in this competition! All those age-related health conditions and calluses played a big part in your fingers’ ability to detect the tiny pins among all those grains of rice.  RoadRunner ended up getting second place in the adult category… and he only found two pins!  Hammy won the kid’s bean toss game.

Teresa became Chapter W’s hero for a day when she filled in for the absentee host of Wednesday’s Craft Seminar.  On the spur of the moment and with the help of a generous jewelry vendor (Thank you, Christine!), she put together a bracelet making activity.  Jacquie, Hammy, U2, and about 10 other women spent a few hours out of the heat and learned that making fashion jewelry was a fun and relaxing way to spend time with friends and add some more bling to our lives.

Wednesday ended with a tail gate party and a filled parking lot at Beartooth Harley-Davidson.  Ralliers enjoyed grilled hot dogs, chips, and Cold Stone ice cream while being entertained by a live stage band and a few gunfights performed by actors in Old West costumes.

Afterwards, we headed to the Billings ballpark but found the game sold out.  Gold Rush wouldn’t be complete without RoadRunner’s tour of the dicier side of town.  I don’t know how he does it, but RR always manages to find an interesting character during the week who wants to get up close and personal with the trike while RR's fueling or sitting at a red light.

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Friday, August 15, 2008 4:36 PM

Gold Rush XXI: Day 2

On Tuesday morning at a much-too-early hour, Doug, Bob, and I delivered our bikes to Real Ralph's booth for some custom hand-painted pinstriping.  It was time to dress up the trikes!  We’d watched this guy in action the previous day, looked at photo albums of his work, and browsed through bikes in the convention center parking lot. Ralph’s a seasoned pro.  He knows pinstriping, he knows color, he knows what works and what won’t work.  As customers, we had two choices:  A) give Ralph the specifics of what we wanted and where on the bike we wanted it and that’s what we would get -- OR -- B) recognize Ralph’s expertise and talent, communicate the price range and the look we have in mind, then stand back and let the artist work his magic!

Once again, we decided to go with U2’s gut feeling and chose Option B.  We listened to Ralph’s ideas, bounced back a few and found we were on the same page, then gave him the nod on his color suggestions (although he nearly gave U2 a heart attack with his first color selection – it was a joke).  After that, we walked away and did our darnedest to stay away until Ralph had micro-signed his name on the first trike.

While our bikes were tied up in the booth, we browsed the other vendors and caught up on our sleep.  Lyn and Teresa attended the co-rider seminar.   Teresa shared a technique she learned for taking control of the bike from the co-rider’s seat in the event of the rider having a heart attack or losing consciousness. 

Hannah played Dirty Bingo again and teamed up with Teresa Larson (of GWTA’s family of the year) to go swimming.  Those in our group with bikes headed downtown for the evening’s street fair and dance while the rest of us grabbed a pizza and checked on our bikes.  Unbelievable!  Ralph did an awesome job!  The pin-striping really popped in the sunlight.  The glimpse of color that caught your eye from a distance drew you in for a closer look at the detail, but it didn’t overpower the bike’s classic lines.   Mission accomplished!  We left our bikes indoors for the night to give the paint a chance to dry dust-free and safe from the threat of storms.

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Friday, August 15, 2008 4:08 PM

Gold Rush XXI: Day 1

After all our sight-seeing on the way to Montana, we needed every mph we could get to make it to Billings in time for the Gold Rush Welcome Banquet.  We did it with a few minutes to spare!  While the guys checked into the hotel, the gals grabbed our dinner tickets and tried to tame our helmet hair. We’d logged 956 miles between home and Billings.  One member of our group summed up the final two hours of the trip nicely when she said, “I no longer feel the need for speed”.  The evening was filled with western barbeque, brownies, hugs, and hellos as we met up with GWTA friends old and new from all parts of North America.

On Monday morning, we grabbed our registration packets and attended the Opening Ceremonies. Nebraska ralliers were easy to spot with our red bandanas and red shoe laces.  The Larson’s of Michigan were honored as GWTA Family of the Year, and the site of Gold Rush XXII in July 2009 was announced – Lexington, Kentucky!  As expected, the crowd immediately headed to the vendor area to pre-register for GR XXII, reserve a Lexington hotel room for next year, and get a look at all the bike stuff in the vendor booths.  Unfortunately, my plans for getting a new windshield and some chrome were not to be.  Most of the rallies were back east this year, and high fuel prices had made a big hole in some vendors’pockets.  Hence, the vendor turnout was disappointing, especially for those of us in remote locations who’d saved our pennies all year in hopes of finding new toys for our bikes.   That’s not to say we didn’t find some enhancements to liven up our rides.  

After lunch, some of our group headed off for a Mountain Riding Seminar.   While the rest of us spent the day visiting, signing up for the week’s activities, and preparing the bikes for the big night ahead, Hammy made a bee-line for the Dirty Bingo game-room.  Dirty Bingo always draws a crowd as people listen for their numbers, cross the circle of chairs, shake hands and introduce themselves to other players, and then proceed to steal their colorfully wrapped Bingo prizes.

Monday night was High-Point #1 of the rally – the light parade.  Long-time GWTA members said this year's parade was one of the best light parades they’d ever ridden in.  Over 270 bikes made a solid line of lights from a Billings neighborhood church parking lot all the way up to the top of the bluff over-looking the town -- five miles away.  As the lead bike hit the top of the bluff and turned around for the trip back to town, he could see the lights from bikes still exiting the church parking lot.  Awesome.  The police did a great job leading the parade and blocking off intersections.  What really made the parade was the number of local people out on the curb in their lawn chairs and standing along the parade route to yell and cheer as we passed by.  Billings loves bikes!!!  

The light parade ended at Cold Stone Creamery and we all lined up for the Ice Cream Eating Contest.  Employees worked late into the night serving and tallying up the ice cream orders according to each customer’s GWTA region.  Region C won 2nd place in this year’s contest, and we made it back to our hotels and camp sites by around 1:45 AM.

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