06 EASTER EGG RIDE

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I have been on a very few rides with the Central Midwest HOG group of which I am a member, the ABC ride, Poor Boy dinner ride, one breakfast ride and the Toys for Tots ride. The weekend poker runs and many of the events seem to always fall on weekends that I had other trips planned so I could not attend. I made it a point to get to the Easter Egg ride. As a thank you to a couple guys that watch my house when I am out of town I invited them to be my guests for the ride. Darrel who went to the Toys for Tots ride with me jumped at the chance of coming out with HOG group again. Darrel rides a 1982 Yamaha Maxim. Mack was less eager and nervous about being on a rice burner among all Harleys. Mack rides a 1987 Kaw Vulcan. Mack and Darrel had never met each other.

Check-in was well organized and instructions were clear on what we needed to do and what we should expect. For the Easter Egg Ride we were given directions and a simple map to the next stop. At the second stop we would be given the directions and map to the 3rd stop. Incase our navigation skills are lacking we were told where the last stop was so we wouldn't have to miss the prizes and chili that was waiting for everyone at the end.

With maps in hand we headed out for the first stop. With in a couple stoplights we found our group was behind Gary Palmer and Rick Tates group. We were totally prepared to just follow those guys to the overlook which was the first stop. Okay so we followed them until they pulled over to get gas, which by the way really threw us for a surprise! We found the overlook fine on our own though with only one u-turn and pulling over twice to check the map. On arrival Darrel even climbed to the top of the tower to enjoy the view. Mack has bad knees and I was just too lazy. The second stop at a town square required an additional 2 u-turns and a gas stop at a closed gas station, another one at an open gas station and a few map checks.

After we left the town square is when our navigation skills declined drastically, (believe it or not). The u-turns and map check stops were too numerous to report. We laughed more and more at our ability to get completely lost in our home state. As we realized we were indeed totally lost and the map was not helping us at all anymore, we decided to back track and see what town we had just rode through. We found much to our amazement it as Tongie which was the location of the park for the 3rd stop. We thought we were miles NW of it when indeed we had been SE of it. Once we figured out the county road we were looking for was actually miles back, we had missed it and so had accidentally taken a short cut to Tongie. We decided to just find the VFW park that was on CR5 which should be just around the corner from where we were.. CR5 is not well marked on US24. We were within 2 miles of the Park and it took us about 20 miles 3 u-turns, and 4 map stops to give up. We finally found it by cheating and asking directions to the park from a resident. But we had a blast looking for it. Having arrived I told a HOG member we had to work for this stop, but didn’t elaborate on exactly how bad our navigation skills had been. Enjoying the long stop and visiting with the other riders that were accumulating at this stop, we stayed for quite awhile. Roger took a pic of our group for me.

The last leg to Kobies ended up being the worst yet after the second map stop and not really knowing where we were at the time. Darrel declared he didn’t need a map to find Bonner and off he lead us. We found Bonner but only by going back to Kansas City and traveling several miles westward through Edwardsville to get there. We did indeed arrive at Kobi’s and a few minutes later the prize winners were drawn. I haven’t laughed so much in long time. Both the guys said it had been lots of fun. Macks’ wife who is a good friend of mine, told me she was told a couple times about the outlook stop when a Harley rider walked up and talked with Mack about his Vulcan. It is sometimes the small things we do that can make the biggest impact. I want to thank the crew that organized the run and the volunteers that helped implement it. At least 3 people had more fun than you could imagine, thanks!

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Photos

EASTER EGG RIDE TEAM
We weren't the greatest on navigation, but I bet we had more fun getting lost then some did finding the sites right off. Thats Darrel, me and Mack with our rides.