Several weeks ago, Dave mentioned he wanted to go to Santa Maria for Motorcycle Madness. We decided we wouldn't be able to go for the whole weekend, but a day trip would work. The timing of the event was perfect, it fell on a weekend that my son would be away and I didn't have to work. We talked to the boys and asked who wanted to go, of course they were all in. It would be me and Dave, Cowboy, Bones, Wolf, and Dale.
As the day got closer things were falling into place. The weather had been awesome, and temps were expected to stay up in triple digits through the weekend. Dave finally bought a sissy bar and new pegs for me, so the ride was sure to be a lot more comfortable. And thanks to advice from my blogger buddies, I found some pretty comfortable underwear. :)
Around the middle of the week Cowboy decided not to go, he has a pretty long trip coming up so he had things to do to get ready for that. About that time a friend of Dave's told him he had discount tickets for the event if we wanted them. Rather than just taking the tickets, Dave asked if he wanted to ride with us. One lost, one gained.
Saturday finally came, and I woke up with the same excited feeling I used to get when I was a kid and we would wake up before the sun to go on a road trip. Bones called and said he was out, not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that his wife's birthday is Monday and he didn't want to be in the doghouse.
We met the guys at 6:30. It was already a beautiful day, which is unusual for us, our mornings are usually cold and foggy no matter what. It was going to be a great day to ride.
The ride down was great. Perfect weather, nice views. The best part was riding through Pismo Beach. The ocean looked beautiful, and smelt awesome. We made a couple of stops on the way down, for the usual stuff. A little over three hours and we were in Santa Maria.
Motorcycle Madness, I was looking forward to some madness. Unfortunately, it was in short supply. The rally was not what I expected. It was very tame, I was hoping to get some outrageous material to share with all of you. It actually was a very family friendly environment, the only rally that I have been to where I would feel okay taking my eight year old. There were lots of vendors, some nice bikes, and a pretty decent band. But that was about it. Oh, then there was the "barley nothings lingerie fashion show". We were looking forward to it, but it was a bust, and not the good kind.
With that said, I am a firm believer that you make your own fun, and I was there to have fun. I met Michelle Smith from American Thunder, and got a picture with her. I offered to take Dave's pic with her, but he said no. She was very nice, even though I accidentally grabbed her butt, not once, but twice. Then we just walked around and checked out the bikes, bought a couple of T-shirts, and ate lunch on the grass listening to the band.
When we were getting ready to leave, we walked by the Army recruiting tent. There were three guys sitting there in uniform who looked hot, bored and lonely. We decided to go and say hello. I asked if they would mind taking a picture with me, they kind of looked at me like I was crazy, but said ok. There were three, but one jumped out of the picture at the last minute. Still trying to figure that one ou
t. The ride home was great, although it did get a little too hot at some points. We made an unexpected stop in Atascadero to strip off some of our clothes before we died. It just happened that the exit we took led us right to a Harley dealership. Gary Bang's Harley. We went in and cooled down a bit and looked around. It was the nicest dealership I have been in, but the people were not nearly as friendly as at our local dealership.
We decided once we got home, we were going to go to Dave's shop to get a nice cold smoothie. Well, by the time we got there the temp had dropped about 30 degrees, so we decided on coffee. We were standing outside drinking our coffee and two bicycle cops came up and started talking to us. They were very cool and we had a great time visiting with them until they got a call that there was a bank robbery down the street. The one cop sped off, but the other one looked at us and said, "Yeah, that's funny, a bank robbery, the bank isn't even open right now." And off he rode.
We finally said our goodbyes to the guys and they headed home. I don't think either Dave or I were ready for the day to end, so he suggested dinner. We rode into the sunset to a romantic dinner at Taco Bell. It was delicious!
All in all the day was great. We took a ton of pictures, I'm sure Dave will be making a video for his blog, so I only included a few here. There were several times during the day that we commented how much more fun it would have been if all our crazy blogger friends could have been there with us! Anyone want to go to Sturgis?
