06 Three HOG Rally Weekend Ride Report

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This weekend was one of the last ones for my ABC’s. Thats the ABC's of Touring a challenge that Harley has for its HOG (Harley Owners Group) members. You accumulate points by finding a town and county for each letter of the alphabet, you get points for each country, state, HOG Rally or other defined locations. Harley Davidson sends you free stuff depending on how many points you accumulated in the year. Members taking up the challenge send pictures that verify that your bike reached the locations. I really enjoyed participating in the challenge in 2005 and decided to pour all my efforts into the ABC's for 2006.

The goal for the 3 day weekend was to leave Kansas City, hit 3 HOG Rallies (MO, KY, GA) pick up my last continental state FL and get to Charlotte NC by Sunday evening. Monday morning I need to be in Charlotte to start a project for work. This was again a solo trip, just me and my bike a 2005 HD Sportster 883 Low ‘Effie’. I took Friday as a vacation day from work.

THURSDAY 7SEPT06
I left straight from work Thursday at 4PM, bike was packed and ready to go. I wanted to get past the Grandview triangle and the stadiums before 5PM rush hour. I was ready to go. Things were not working out well for the work I am to do in NC and I was ready to just be away and not hear the constant flow of bad news. The logistics of this job is a nightmare and nothing seems to just fall into place. We headed to St. Louis via I-70. Actually the St Charles convention center was the site of the MO HOG Rally this year. Registration at the rally doesn’t open until 9am Friday morning so there is no need to hurry to the convention center Thursday night as the banner probably won’t be up, but all the hotel rooms in the area will be expensive or booked up. I plan toi stop for the night before I reach the convention center.

I am actually getting a change of heart about the section of I-70 that connects KC to St. Louis. When I was working in FL so much, I would take a route through TX just to avoid that 4 to 8 hour drive to St. Louis on I-70. It was always a hard drive, it beat you up driving on it and that was in a car, packed with cars and big rigs, always under construction in multiple locations and usually a parking lot in at least 2 locations. Going thru St. Louis was a micro of the larger problem. But I have traveled this section twice in the last month and found that it was great traveling. Construction was still present but it was not down to 1 lane or stupidly backed up for miles like I had previously found. We went until we were less than 20 miles of the rally site, that was Wentzville. We stayed at the Econo Lodge there, no outside entrances to the rooms but they let me pop Effie up on the sidewalk outside the lobby, so she was under cover and under their care for the night. They were very nice and accommodating.

FRIDAY 8SEPT06
Since the registration doesn’t open until 9AM, I sleep in to 7AM, eat the one donut I’m allowed for my free breakfast, pack up Effie and head to the rally site. It was nice to sleep in but it was a bittersweet treat. There is over 1000 miles from the MO Hog to the GA Hog, I need to put in over 700 miles today and I am starting on it after 9am. My Quest GPS takes me to the rally site without incident. Having a GPS makes traveling so much easier. I have never been able to remember sequences of numbers so I always had to have an actual map or written notes to constantly look at. When I fly I write on my palm the terminal numbers, departure times, gate numbers and seat numbers for each flight this saves me from pulling out the tickets all the time. Numbers just don’t stick with me. Anyway the Quest is great. You have to keep on your toes and not trust a GPS all the time, as it will sometimes give you bad information, but after all the miles I have put in with it, I know when to pull over and give something a double check with the map.

We pulled into the MO St HOG Rally about 8:15AM. I drove around the rally site looking for the ABC banner, but couldn’t find any banners up yet. After parking Effie I went in and asked a volunteer working the ‘release’ table about the ABC banner. He called over the Rally Secretary (I am ashamed I didn’t get her name). She was great. I explained to her that I was in a rush to get to GA Rally before 3:00pm Saturday. She understood my mission and made finding the banner a priority. The Secretary disappeared then came back and told me where to find it and who to ask about it when I got there. Off I went. Of course the guy was there, but the banner was not. So he went to go find out about it and came back and told me to check with the hotel because they were supposed to hang it up somewhere. 30 minutes after I started this I go find the secretary again. She is coming out of the registration area with the banner under her arm, she was trying to go find me! She immediately starts saying how sorry she is for giving me the ‘run around’ it had not been intentional. She had another volunteer and they were ready to hold the banner by the bike for my picture. I had parked outside the door and it was a matter of a couple minutes before we were finding a third volunteer to take the picture. This year you have to be in the rally pictures along with the bike, banner and magazine. I think this is the 5th rally that has people holding the banner up behind my bike. The staff at all the rallies have really been great to get the banner for me if its not up yet. Anyway as I am putting my stuff up another ABCer is asking to get his picture in before they go back inside. He was from Chicago, this was his 23rd rally, I asked him if he was headed to the KY rally and he said he had just came from there. He was not going to the GA, “I have to work sometime”. This was my 17th HOG rally. I asked him how many pts he had and he said 130. We are close, I had 135 pts but who knows how many states or provinces he is still planning to get. I hope he is about done. At the AR rally, I ran into a couple older guys (from GA) that were working hard on the ABCs. After the AR rally (which they waited 3 hours for the banner to get put up) they were heading to the ND rally. That is a long boring ride, the area up there was scattered with storms and tornados that weekend. I had written ND off, it wasn’t worth getting hurt over. As long as I get a plaque this year I will be happy. I can’t go through all this and not get a plaque. Anyway right after the picture a hug for the secretary with my sincere thanks and off we headed, its about 9:30AM.

Any bad experience needs a silver lining. So if I have to travel I-70 between the 2 cities I take I-55 south instead of going through St. Louis. If there is no hurry I take ‘The Great River Road’ some great views along this road. But the main advantage to going south is Chester IL. Chester is the hometown of Popeye. There is a bridge (IL Hwy 150 or MO Hwy 51) that crosses the Mississippi at Chester, on the IL side of the bridge, right at the end of the bridge is the Segar Memorial park. The park is small but has some great features. There is a picnic table to sit at and watch the Mississippi. There is the life sized Popeye statue and plaque that tells you about the cartoonist, the real Popeye and the real Wimpy. There is a restroom although it is a port-a-potty, it is a big handicap one and always clean and well stocked with paper. Usually there is a couple vendors with stands at the park, selling anything from produce to knick knacks or t-shirts. A stop at the park for another picture of Effie in front of the Popeye statue to show how she has changed, this is always nice reason to give the butt a break. After the short stop we continue on to the KY Hog. Highway 3 out of Chester to Hwy 13 to I-57S to I-24E, Western Kentucky Parkway to some other hwy that leads to Bowling Green, KY home of this years rally. Effie had rolled to 59K miles somewhere in IL. It was about 350 miles to the KY Hog, I pull in there about 4:00pm. A little trouble finding the ABC banner, you know it was hanging up high and in plain view as long as you were looking for it from the front of the hotel. I had ridden by it twice with in 6 ft of the banner and never saw it. If it was a snake it would have bit me. So a 30 minute stop and off we went toward GA. After the trouble I had finding that banner I decided I might need to get something to eat as the donut from breakfast has given all it had. A stop at Wendy’s for a Fiscotta sandwich & to call the first jobsite in NC to make sure they know we are coming, they confirm that the new parts have not even been shipped yet, checking my phone messages I find 3 more messages with continued bad news about the NC job. When it rains it pours. Screw it, nothing I can do, so put it in ‘forget about it, your on a vacation day’ and rode on. This NC job is beginning to be the definition of a cluster f&^k.

I alter the route to GA so I stay on Interstate Hwys for the next few hundred miles. Its almost 700 miles between the 2 HOG Rallies I am going to need to drive until late tonight if I want to get to Jekyll Island before registration closes at 3PM Sat afternoon. I feel better following a semi at night if you find one that has a bunch of lights in back, it will light the road behind it up very well, allowing you to see obstacles in the road much earlier. Plus semis make a good deer shield too. I saw 2 dead deer this trip, and lots of dead armadillos. Anyone else notice all the dead armadillos? I have seen them all year. Good God they must be having a population explosion to continue to take these losses. I bet I saw at least 20 dead ones the previous weekend in AR.

I rode until 11pm and that left me 15minutes short of Montgomery AL. A Days Inn ($59), that didn’t have a parking spot in front of my room, so up on the sidewalk and Effie is right outside my window and under a hard cover. According to the Quest I have 312 miles to the GA rally and I would get there at 6:30AM in the morning if I kept going now.

I unload the bike, shower, check e-mail and phone messages, then hit the sack. A tad over 700 miles for the day and 2 ABC pts.

SATURDAY 9SEPT06
Starting off early we head for Opelika AL. This is an ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ city, #84. The time zone changes on the way so I loose an hour. The GPS says I will arrive at 1:45 CT (2:45 ET) this is not allowing for any gas or food stops. Registration closes at 3pm ET so I need to book it there, because that is cutting it too close for me. I don’t want to drive all the way to GA and miss the banner by an hour. I don’t remember all the highways and parkways we traveled, but it was some pretty country. From Opelika it was all smaller highways to Jekyll Island. I arrived with 45 minutes to spare. A couple guys walked up and asked me about
some of the modifications on Effie. I had thought about staying for the rally, but decided to head on down to the FL line and then to NC. I checked out the vendors first though. Effie has rolled to 60K miles on Jekyll Island. Hungry I stopped for a quick burger at McDonalds before hopping on I-95 toward FL. It’s a mere 38 miles from the HOG rally to the FL state line. At the state line is the WELCOME TO FLORIDA sign, its located at the end of a bridge. Now FL has it together, as usual there is the EMERGENCY STOP ONLY sign. Prepared as usual to ignore this sign, I was pulling over when I noticed that there was another sign under it “PHOTO OPPORTUNITY AT WELCOME CENTER”. I busted out laughing and decided that I would just take them up on their other opportunity. The Welcome Center did indeed have a photo opportunity, but to get Effie in the photo I had to park her between 2 cars in the Handicap spots. With this the last of the 48 continental states done, I am on top of the world.

Charlotte is where I am heading for the next weeks work but its too far to make it today, so I decide to just mosey on up there. I stayed on the interstate, but pull off for whatever suits me. One stop was for the Golden Isle HD shop. This dealer was having a big open house event today.. lots of food, prizes and games. I miss the whole thing by an hour. There ain’t nothin’ left. But people are telling me how much fun it was. I bought a shirt, because their back logo was just too cool to not have one. 20% off everything too, the discount was still in effect. The staff was very nice, but their cash registers were screwed up and it took them over 45 minutes to get the computer controlling them to get going again. Its one cool logo, I usually would never wait like this to spend my money.

Since I am heading into a work situation I have been staying in motels with wireless internet so I can keep up with the work thing. So tonight is a Days Inn, but I stopped early so I can download pics, get something to eat and just relax before going into this job in NC. The Days Inn is great, after I fussed over the desk clerks daughter, who was sick. Mom had her wrapped up in a blanket on the lobby couch. I gave her a pkg of peanuts from my saddlebags, with this so small act of kindness, the desk clerk couldn’t do enough for me. She was great. I was given a room with a ramp outside, so Effie could come up on the sidewalk and be under cover next to my window. I unloaded Effie and called a Mexican restaurant (recommended by the clerk) for delivery. It was so nice to not be hurried. This whole week was a rush, getting the 3 HOG routes and documents ready, packing for an extended trip, getting the labor in place, the schedule in place and fighting through all the petty obstacles that were thrown at me over this NC job. The week before wasn’t much better. I now had time to catch up on my XL-list emails from the last few days too. I’m less then 200 miles from Charlotte and I have all day Sunday to get there.

Sunday 10SEPT06
I slept in and then watched TV for awhile. There is a movie on TV that I have not seen in awhile, so I get engrossed in watching it. Check out time is 11AM so I have to call it quits before the movie is over. I am at the front desk at 10:50AM to check out. It’s a little cool so I start out with a coat. Stopping a couple times to snap a picture but its pretty much a straight shot into Charlotte. I get dowsed by one shower, but it’s a refreshing effect more than an annoying one. The boots didn’t even get wet inside, so I’m fine with it. I check into the Days Inn Sunset about 2:30PM. Run out and find the customer site for Monday and pick up some Bojangles to take back to the hotel for supper. I really like Bojangle’s wings and I get half a gallon of sweet tea. Yep, I’m back to the land of the sweet tea. Sweet tea is something you just don’t get in KS unless you mix it yourself. We don’t have any Bojangles in KC either and I had been looking forward to getting a big box of wings and chillin out at the hotel. When I get back to the motel, I check the oil level on the bike then eat. I check the oil level every night after the last ride of the day when the motor is still hot. After eating supper the bike is cool enough to put the cover on for the night. Within 5 minutes of getting her all tucked away for the night, the sky opens up and pours. It rains the remainder of the evening. Its not long into the evening when the rest of my crew start showing up and checking in at the motel. I concede and adjust all my clocks to ET, something I never do on my personal trips.... its back to work now. About 1700 miles and 4 ABC pts its been a good trip. It will be over a month before we head back home.

Cindy Dietz
05 883 Low Effie

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Photos

MO HOG Rally Photo
What a helpful Staff. Sorry I did not have time to stay around for the Rally, it no doubt would have been a great one.

Segar Mem Park in Chester, IL
Effie in front of the Popeye Statue.

Plaque on Popeye Statue
Thought it was interesting that Popeye and other charactors in that strip were based on real people.

KY HOG Rally Photo
Liked to never found the banner, it was hiding in plain sight.

Opelika, AL - IBE #84
Opelika is the 84th location that is mentioned in the Johnny Cash song "I've Been Everywhere". My local HOG group was challenged to find as many as of these locations as possible.

GA HOG Rally Photo
Last rally of the weekend. Great views from the Island.

Jekyll Island view of the Ocean
Don't ya wish you had the time to sit on the bench and just watch the ocean for a couple hours.

FL Vistors Center Photo Opportunity
FL was the last of the 48 continental states for me to visit. That was a good feeling to get them all this year.