Boudreaux almost made it but had to work. Brother Dick (Rocky) got the day off for it. Chief is the one that pushed me. Shooter is rolling in from Tawakoni. We four are together. Orion, Fireshot and Cheng are headed East to meet us in Cumby. And 23-26 has a 1/2 dozen rolling in. After a quick top off in Lone Oak, we roll out on 2 lanes to Cumby to the rest stop to meet the other folks. Now here's the funny part to me. I had no idea how big a deal this was. Already there are some Patriot Guard folks. American Legion riders are there. Vet themed MC has some folks there. And the CVMA's 23-11 and 23-26 make up about 25% of the total folks on hand. We've got 1/2 dozen LEO vehicles few Fire Trucks and.. the Semi with the traveling wall. This is getting kinda' cool. I'm thinking we're just going to roll down the Interstate and "drop it off" in Sulphur Springs. On no.......
Pre Ride Meet Up
When we'd get to Sulphur Springs, we do the scenic route through a housing area into the the downtown square. The streets are lined up for miles with folks waving flags, espousing Patriotism. Pretty much all of us on the bikes are Veterans or associated with veteran groups. The first group of motorcycles leading the semi are all Viet Nam era Vets. The second group, the younger folks? Well, we head downtown among hundreds of folks cheering us on and make our way to the High School on the SE part of town. Once there, dismount and .. try to stay dry. Two thirds through the 'parade' it began sprinkling. By the time we hit our destination, a light rain. Adults and kids endured it all with us, most without umbrellas or rain gear. Awesome! Given a chance in the future, I'll do this again in a second. Only thing I wish I'd had with me is a camcorder to get OUR view of them.
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| Rocky and I |
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| 23-26 / 23-11 |
Still, there's always one thing that bugs me .... When we got ready to leave the rest area, guy walks up and tells us the officer to the right of us in his SUV will follow the Trailer and we'll fall in behind that with him leading. He apparently knows more about all this than I do so I nod; all good. Well as we all start moving i realize something is off. The officer pulls in behind the trailer and this guy is back like .. .75' or so. By the time we hit the interstate rolling up to speed he drops back a lil further .. then forward.. but continues to leave huge gaps. I'm now riding side by side with him in the right lane of I-30 hugging my line trying to 'push' him forward to close the gap to no avail. After a few miles I start to creep up but he won't keep up. Eventually, I close in on the officer to a common sense distance and .. he's behind me. Way behind me. He's leaving too much room; hell a semi could pull in between us all. Eventually, Rocky says F' it and goes around him and we're now riding side by side.. with a huge gap behind us .. .all the way to Sulphur Springs. When we finally got there, he closed the gap as we were putting along. When we hit the destination, first thing the Chief says to me (whom was stuck behind him) was .. WTF? Hahahaha.. I look over an he's on his older Softail looking a lil butt hurt. There's always that ONE GUY in a group ride that just can't keep the correct spacing. But to be fair, I noticed the group in front of the trailer had one or two doing the same thing. Reminds me of the obvious; just because someone rides doesn't mean they have a clue? My biggest pet peeve in large group rides is correct spacing.
However, what an awesome day overall. Now, need to head over there this weekend to check out the traveling memorial when It's set up for the Public
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