DelMarVa Bike week a washout................

Got back Sunday night from the DelMarVa bike week event. I arrived Wednesday evening 9/13/2006. It was a nice ride of about 190 miles from my home base to the Bethany Beach area where my camper is located. When I left York, PA for the event, it was overcast with teh temps in the high 50's. Rain had been threatening all day. After taking off from work early to get all of teh last minute prep items out of the way, I dropped my son off at my sisters house and hit the road. I got lucky on the ride south even though I ran into some wet roads, the rain actually held off. And the further south that I travelled, the better the weather became. I pulled into the camper at about 8:30 PM. It was still in the mid 70's when I got there. I remember thinking that this may just be a half decent long weekend after all. Those thought changed after about an hour. The rain started. And it came down with a vengence. The light show and thunder was spectacular to say the least. I actually had pictures falling off of the walls. And I am not sure if it was the Vodka and Cranberry juice or not, but I swear I saw Noah's ark go past with animals lining the back shooting the finger as they went past. It was very wicked weather to say the least. So I just drank myself to sleep that night, and hoped that the weather would break the next day.

No such luck. Woke up thursday morning to monsoon style rains pounding off of the camper. And I had a hangover to boot. Luckily I had enough forethought to put the bike on the deck and under the awning. Good thing too, because the branch that was laying next to the camper where the bike had been was about 10 inches in diameter. It would have probably left a few marks on the Ultra, and that would have probably upset me just a bit. So I spent all day thursday polishing the Bike in the hopes that I could enter it in the ride in show that was going to be at the fair grounds. Didn't happen. It actually rained non stop all day thursday at the campgrounds. But the bike did look good.

Woke up to a light mist on Friday morning. I was going stir crazy from all of the time being cooped up in the camper, and even worse than that, I ran out of Vodka, Cranberry juice and Ice. And I realized that I had forgotten to pack towels for the trip. I usually have 25 or so there, but I had to take them all home during the last visit because I had company and they all got used at the pool. So I had to dry my 200 pound frame with two hand towels. Oh what the hell, I had been wet for two days running, who needs to get dry before getting dressed. When I finished up with breakfast, the sun finally came out. No time to waste. I hopped on the bike and headed for Ocean City Maryland. Even though they call it the DelMarVa bike week event, very little goes on in Delaware or Virginia. Almost all of the activity is centered around Ocean City Maryland. First place to stop is usually Ocean City Harley Davidson. It is a really good place to get the scoop on the activities that are scheduled and the majority of the major runs use the dealership as a starting and gathering place. Felt good to finally get back into the wind(and mist) and get some miles on. It is only about a 25 mile run from the camper to the dealership, so it did not take very long to get there. There were a lot of people there when I arrived, but the rain had put a damper on most of the scheduled activities. There were a lot of wet bikers there. And a lot of them had very miserable dispositions. Most likely caused by the lack of riding and the over-indulgence in certain high octane liquid refreshments.

........................ to be continued.

Lots of wet bikers at the dealership. The lot was still wet from the mornings rain. And when the sun did come out, it just cooked all of the standing water and raised the humidity level to the unbearable levels that are usually seen in late July. And along with the raise in humidity was a definate raise in the frustration levels of everyone there. The bikers were lets say a bit on the irritable level. And so were most of the biker woman. The vendors were even not that nice due to the lack of activity from the weather. People just parked anywhere they pleased, no matter who they parked in. After about a half hour of the attitudes, I was ready to leave. It only took an additional three hours to get my bike out so that I could head over to the fairgrounds where all of the high end vendors had set up shop.

I left the dealership finally and headed to the fairgrounds. I pulled up to the end of the line, and started to talk to the person on the bike in front of me. He said that from where we were sitting, there was a three hour wait to get in. Not my ideal of an activity that I was willing to participate in. And as I was sitting there for a few minutes, most of the bikes coming out of the grounds were covered in mud. Nothing like seeing $100,000 bikes covered in mud. So back to the camper it was. Stopped on the way back to grab supplies, Vodka, Cranberry Juice, and Ice. The rest of the weekend was nothing more than a drunken blur. Too drunk to ride, too wet to care. After the morning hangover on Saturday, I packed the bike and headed up the road. And of course it was raining. It rained 150 of the 180 miles home. I do have pics though, and as soon as they are resized, I will upload them. Hopefully next years event see's some sun. I have not had good luck with this event. If next years goes as bad as the last two years, that will more than likely be my last.

Wow, too bad for everyone. Maybe the thrid times a charm?