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2006 Wing Ding Motorcycle Rally Blog - Day 2

This year I'm publishing highlights of the 2006 Gold Wing Road Riders Association (GWRRA) Wing Ding rally, day by day in a blog. Wing Ding was scheduled for July 3-6 this year. The blog will also include my preparation in getting ready to take the ride to Nashville, TN and my observations while there.

Well, readers of my previous Americade blog will remember the misadventures of Jane and Walt on their trikes. We started out the trip to Wing Ding in the same vein.

I had just backed out of the garage so I could put my car in. I was standing on the driveway watching Jane back her trike out. Then, out of nowhere, a can of Mother's Cleaner fell off the shelf and rolled across the garage floor in back of the trike's wheels. The can was headed right for Jane's left rear wheel. I yelled at the top of my lungs, "STOP, STOP, STOP!" Too late. The can burst in a hundred pieces and sprayed its contents all over the tire tread and the undercarriage of the trike. We were already late in getting on the road and now we had a cleanup to do. 10 minutes and 25 sheets of paper towels later, the mess was mostly gone and I was in a sweat in my jacket. But finally, we were down the drive and moving in the right direction toward the WaWa.

Five miles down the road we got to the street on which we would later find the WaWa, only to see a cop just pulling his cruiser across the road to block the intersection for road construction about to begin. One minute later and we would've had to take a detour, further delaying us.

We arrived at the meeting place and found our leader had returned home because he forgot some flags needed for ceremonies at Wing Ding. So we were all going to be starting out later than we thought.

The group got on the road about 9:15 a.m. With all the rainy weather we've had recently, we fully expected to find more rain and flooded streams. Didn't happen. We had great weather the whole day with sunny skies and temperatures in the high seventies. The trip was about 280 miles to LaVale, MD.

When we arrived at our motel, we were assigned a room in the most remote location in the motel. When I got to the room, I immediately setup the laptop and tried to establish a wireless connection. Wouldn't work. I called the front desk and was told that our room was so remote that the wireless capability advertised for the motel didn't reach our room. I was transferred to their resident Internet expert who suggested that a signal boosting antenna might help. That's plugged into the computer to gain a better signal. They sent the pool boy down with the equipment. I was skeptical. But he was able to somehow get me a strong signal and it started to work. Currently, as I'm writing this, it is intermittent. I may eventually have to walk down to the pool area with my laptop to get a regular strong signal that 85% of the other guests are taking for granted. Such is my luck.

So far, the trip has gone well. No breakdowns and we keep moving down the road at the speed limit. When I got to my room I also noticed that my left hand had dried blood on it. I kinda remember my hand hurting some as I was riding. Maybe I cut it on the gas filler door when I was filling the trike with gas. Who knows.

Tomorrow, we will be up at 6 a.m. to load the trikes and have a quick breakfast. Then the caravan will start up again for day 2 of the ride to Nashville. We will be staying in Morehead, KY tomorrow night.

The picture shows us getting ready to depart this morning. The right side of the picture is the van wherein the "3-chicks" reside.

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Photo © 2006 Walter Kern

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