Last nights ride out of Mikes

I arrived at Mikes at around 5:15pm after topping off the fuel tank for the evening cruise. Dave Adams called me earlier in the week to see if I would be willing to lead the ride since he has been under the weather. After riding into work in the rain during the morning rush and the weather predictions coming over the radio, I pictured myself sitting in the Harley Parking lot, all alone, on my bike, in a squall with the water running off the brim of my cowboy hat. This was not to be, during the day, Dale called and asked if I wanted him as a tail gunner, I told him "that would be lovely". As I arrived at Mikes, the grill was running, pushing out tasty hotdogs and each was being individually wrapped with its roll in aluminum foil and there were four bikers in the parking lot and a couple more inside.

I pulled in, walked over and talked to Joe Knutson, I asked him about the party they had that closed rte 184 the day before. It turns out it was not a motorcycle accident it was a three car. A woman sitting waiting to turn left into Mikes, a young lady texting on her way east, who, slammed into the back of the woman waiting, who was driven across 184 into a head on collision with a woman coming down the hill.

The bikers in the parking lot were not joining us on the ride. I asked them if they really rode all the way from Virginia to have one of their bikes serviced at Mikes. What happened was they are on a "bucket List" ride, and they arrived at Mystic and decided to take a couple photos of the bikes with the Old Ships in the back ground. Done taking photos and looking around they jumped back on their bikes and headed to Rhode Island and Ocean State Harley Davidson. Unfortunately, as with most motorcycle adventures something went wrong. (That's why they call them adventures). One of the Riders had a newer Ultra, a "fob" Ultra, and somewhere tween where they were now and where they were then, he dropped his keys, fob and all. They tried the security override by using the last of the vin and 1-2-3-4-5, but seeing as the owner was not the previous owner he had no idea what the code was. So $500.00 later and a few pictures standing in front of the Mike's sign, the bike was having a new security module installed.

At 6pm with no riders showing up, Dale/Melinda and Myself headed off into the sunset.

As for the Riders from Virginia, they were going to eat in Mystic, cruise route 1 to Westerly and 3 to Exeter, cross Rhode Island off their "to do" list, then ride back to Mystic to sleep before heading to Washington DC in the morning.

Mikes Hotdogs?  Gone...The Hotdog cook was more than happy to give the dogs away, the riders from Virginia were more than happy to eat them while they waited for the bike to come out of the shop.