First, let me say that I had a terrific time meeting each and every one the people in the NE who share my passion for these bikes, and also a few who ride different brands but who also are people with whom I wouldn't hestitate for a second to share more of my time "bench racing" again.
Thanks to everyone from that region of our great country who participated in this hopefully first annual meet. But, special thanks to Rob, Cathy and Bradley Johnson, who couldn't have shown this "interloper from the west coast" any more gracious hospitality(and BTW...FIRST RATE SCOTCH WHISKY...to say nothing of all the great chow supplied by them and Lee Forrence, who goes by the name of "the_other" on our site here) than was humanly possible.
The ONLY thing I regret about this past weekend is that Mother Nature didn't seem onboard with the whole thing, as I had held out hope that there would be some o' that there white stuff layin' on the ground that you guys usually live in this time of year there, so this native Angeleno would finally get the chance to ride one of them there SNOWMOBILES! But, EVEN with this little disappointment, I'll never forget the short hike up that trail we all took that led to both that historic old church and that view from a stone bridge of a absolutely beautiful meandering waterfall, and then later that evening sitting around that stone fireplace in that hundred-plus year-old barn, talkin' about almost everything under the sun and making fun of each other's accents.(however, there WAS this one dude from California who got just a little TOO passionate when the subject turned to....NOPE, not Dubya, believe it or not...but why the hell isn't G.M. making an updated EL CAMINO, for chrissake!!!!)
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BTW, this "interloper" ALMOST spent the night in Motown last night while trying to return home. Traveling as a NWA employee and going standby, the first flight out of Manchester at 9am was full, and I then got on the noon flight to DTW. After I arrived there, I got the LAST seat on the LAST airplane back to L.A., arriving back home here in CA at 10pm PST.
I told my wife Judie who was home, that it looked as if I just might make an unscheduled stop at the Detroit North American Auto Show on tuesday, seeing as how the chances didn't look very promising to get back home on monday night.
Cheers,
Dwight
(kind'a sorry in a way that there WAS that last seat on that last flight...I went to the Detroit Auto Show a couple of years ago and they sure "do it up right")
