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Published: December 7th 2009
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12-06-09
It was early when I got out of bed and headed out to the Shadow, not only early but cold. As I walked down the front steps the thermometer caught my eye; 29 degrees. It was a good thing that I decided to layer my clothing. Under my winter motorcycle gear I was wearing a pair of long johns; long sleeve t-shirt, mock turtleneck, and a neck warmer. On my feet I had on two pairs of ski socks, and on my hands I was wearing go good pair of deerskin winter gloves, with liners.
I had to use the choke to get the bike started. Before I got to the end of the driveway the Shadow coughed so I switched on the reserve fuel. Five miles down the road I pulled into Bunky’s for a fresh tank of premium fuel and a cup of coffee while I waited for my friend Tom to show up on his Harley Ultra Glide. We were headed off to meet with the rest of our Blue Knight friends as we prepare for the 2009 Toys for Tots charity ride. Tom showed up at 9:15 and we were on our way to
meet our buddies at the Pepsi Plant on North Main St. in Columbia, SC.
The
Blue Knights is international law enforcement motorcycle club. We are members of South Carolina’s largest club, BK SC1. For the past 26 years our chapter has held a charity ride to assist the United States Marine Core in collecting toys and raising money for their
Toys for Tots campaign. The Columbia Pepsi folks have been nice enough to let us use their facility on North Main St. as the staging area for our event. On top of this Pepsi also donated hundreds of cases of drinks for the riders. This year
Columbia Power Sport pitched in and set up two tents for coffee and some really great food for the rally percipients. My hat goes off to both these great organizations; Thanks a lot!!
At about 10:15 the bikes started to trickle in. By 11:00 the entire front lot was full and we had to start parking bikes on the side drive. By noon we were parking bikes in the rear lot and by 12:45 we were looking for just about anywhere we could put them. The only problem we had, which was handled without much problem, was when
an outlaw motorcycle gang showed up and wanted to start a little trouble. Dave, our president and a veteran of many many years of law enforcement, handled the situation, with a little back up of course, without much hassle. By blast off time we had squeezed 2575 motorcycles in the parking lots, at the staging area.
With the help of both the Richland County Sherriff’s office and the Columbia Police Department we were safely able to make it from the staging area to the Colonial Life Insurance building off Colonial Life Blvd. Once there, each rider presented a toy or two to the Marines and our Chapter presented them with a check for $1866. Well done everyone!!
After an hour or so of visiting with new and old friends I hopped on the Shadow and headed back to Eastover, SC to spend the evening with my wife and our church group at our annual Progressive Dinner. That was also a lot of fun!
Total miles ridden = 61
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Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 23; dbt: 0.028s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
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I love my ride
I own 4 writing services here in LA and as a fruit of my labor, I bought my self a new Harley... So sweet ride..