A Salute To Veteran's Parade, Riverside, Ca. on April 18th, 2009

I'm starting the best stuff first, and believe it or not, this might be a brief post.
I said MIGHT. (nope, but I am doing something different and giving a quick recap and info for any other motorcycle group who may consider parade participation, then the long wordy version afterwards.)
The group shot before stepping off for the parade...tell you a little later how we got a couple of volunteers from another parade entry to carry the banner, which, by the way, was a stroke of GENIUS on someone's part to bring it!!!
Website: http://asalutetoveterans.com/
Flirty; Barry, Jim, Paul, Chuck, Wayne, Richard, Rick's friend, Rick, Stan, Cinnamon. Notice that all the guys are wearing their "I served" medals. WAIT A SEC, whereinthehell is Dave Culmer??? DUDES, I gotta photoshop him in there SOMEWHERE. Maybe the pic after this one will suffice, if you squint and don't look to closely...

Our leader, the one who made it all happen, Stan the Man. Nice pose, Stan, do you do lingerie as well?

Here's the short version of the day-well, shorter than I normally do:
-If you have a banner, bring it: if you don't have one, MAKE ONE. It helps because even though the reviewing stand has your information, the people 2 1/4 miles before the reviewing stand have NO IDEA who you are. It gets the word out. An idea for banner bearers might be to bring a couple of pillon riders (you know, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, whoever doesn't ride their own but usually rides with you) and have them wear sturdy tennies and make sure they KNOW what they're getting into .

-If you have colors, wear them. If not, get with the other riders and wear the same thing. Better for parades, makes a nice showing.

-Have business cards in your wallet to give out to people if you take their pics (or they take yours) so you can exchange information.

-GIRLS-see if you can get by with a wallet-a purse is a PAIN. I brought my tank bag, that was enough.

-GIRLS-I have one of those little leather tool kits on my handlebars ( I call it my makeup bag) and I have some small sunscreen packets, lip chap stuff, some eyeliner and undereye concealer, a small brush and one of those T-helmet holders.

-It's a good thing, if you have enough riders, to do your own entry vs. riding with another group.

-If you have add'l pillon riders, they can be waving flags and waving at the crowd. If women/girls, wear makeup. (see below)

-Probably a good idea to buy those flag holders that clamp onto the back of the bike and put flags on. They can always be used for Memorial Day, 4th of July, or all the time.

-Have everyone in the group know where you're going and the staging area number. We were F-108, and I had looked us up, so when Stan told us to go ahead into the staging area, I knew our staging area and could go there.

-Dave had his stereo going, which was VERY COOL and playing Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries". Next time maybe have him put Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" on his MP3-CD. The Liberty Bell March, by the way, is also know as the "Monty Python Theme Song".

-Got there early, had time to walk around, get pics, get volunteers to carry the banner.

-Have a plan for lunch afterward, to discuss how well the parade went and what to do for next year. (figure that there will be some riders who will SWEAR to never do it again because of the heat, but they'll forget.)

-Prepare for the possibility that a couple of the bikes MAY overheat at parade's end, so have a luncheon backup plan. It happened to 3 bikes, and luckily Rick saw a Carl's Jr. 1 1/2 blocks away.

-Even though the roads are closed off, it's ok to go thru the barriers if you're in the parade, vs going around legally. What are they gonna do, pull all of us over? All the cops are at the staging area, either being in the parade...ok, THEY WERE ALL in the parade.

-We were in a 1-2-3-4-1 formation (Christmas tree) with Stan at the head. Discussed different formations, like side-by-side; 1-2-3-3-2, etc. We were going to have the entire street, so we figured the pyramid +1 would work. Have a formation in mind. EVEN BETTER, get the riders together a couple of days early to practice formation riding. EVEN BETTER BETTER, have the best riders to a little fancy-schmancy ride demo. Or at least the ones that don't fall over, which lets ME out. And Felkel.

-The engines would get hot ; we'd start, stop, start, stop, and the stopping with the hot engines burned some riders' legs. I put my left leg down and put my ride leg on my floorboard so I didn't have my leg so close to the exhaust or the engine.

-It's not allowed to throw things to the crowd, you have to hand them out.

-It was totally sunny, 88 degrees, I brought sunscreen. Afterwards, I was so sweaty I could've entered a wet T-shirt contest. Bring extra deodorant next time.

-Vet riders WILL be saluted by the crowd, and so they need to be able to salute back.

-GIRLS-Wear makeup, even though you have sunglasses on. You can always take the sunglasses off, for the crowd photo ops. Just make sure you check the weather and use waterproof if it'll be hot.

-I took a page out of Barry's book and wore a L/S t-shirt under my thermal t-neck under my jacket, plus brought lighter gloves. I could've worn a S/S t-shirt, but the MSF training kicked in and so I wore the LS Pink STAR T-shirt. The guys mostly wore S/S T-shirts.

-Word was that helmets were optional in the parade. Sometimes they aren't optional in other parades. I wore mine anyway, being a half-helmet, but didn't wear gloves.

-When we'd stop, that's when the "Parade Wave" came out-'Wash the window, touch the crown, touch the pearls, blow a kiss, present'. (It's like a Disney parade float princess wave-I learned that when I went to a Disneyland audition about 500 years ago)

-Some of the guys' clutch hands and forearms were cramping up from the constant clutching 1st-neutral-1st-neutral. I'm used to it due to riding to work in rush hour traffic.

-I have a sense of history, so I take lots of pics of everything, then sort them out later when I'm editing/colorizing/cropping, etc. Plus if I take pics, I don't have to be in them.

-In the pocket of my vest, I had an extra SD memory card and an extra camera battery. We stopped quite often, so I was able to switch memory cards when I felt the other one was getting full.

-I had my camera on a long cord around my neck and wasn't wearing gloves, so I could grab it, take a photo or video, and then just let it drop back down. When we were riding regular, I'd just tuck it underneath my shirt/jacket so it wouldn't blow around.

-If you're going to post stuff on a blog, CONSTANTLY save your post after each few pictures, each video, and each paragraph or two. TRUST ME.

-When you stop (during the start-stop-start-stop parts of the parade), COULD have a pillon rider jump off with the camera and take photos/videos, then walk on ahead and catch up to the next stop. Better still, perhaps have one of the pillion riders (or if you have more than one, they can switch off) walk next to your entry to watch the riders; pass out things (if you have them, like flyers about your group); take pics, etc.

Here's some video below of our group in the parade. Yours truly zoomed ahead, parked the bike, and ran back so I could capture the guys on vid.


Ok here's the long version now.

We all got to Starbucks by 8 am as requested by our fearless leader Stan, and I was amazed that SO MANY BIKES WERE there to go! Turns out there were guys for the pre-ride for the club there, so that's why it seemed like more were going that actually did go. There were 11 of us-Stan the Man (of course!), Jim R., Bubski, Chuck, Richard VL, Wayne, Paul, Rick S., me, another rider friend of Rick's whose name I will get before I put this post to bed, and Dave C.
We left DEAD ON at 8 am and got to the staging area around 9 am-it was a little hard to find our staging area since all the freakin' streets were blocked off, but we made it, with Jim Rawlinson as our group leader, since he had a GPS. He did a wonderful job. (Jim, that is the ONLY compliment you're gonna hear from ME, dude, so don't get used to it.)
We got there, plenty of time, and draped the banner across Jim's bike. I was wondering how we could ride with the banner showing, and my anal and evil mind started buzzing.
Our suggested arrival time for our staging area/parade number was 8:45, and I figured that if there was a 30 second lag time between parade entries, we'd be stepping off around 10:45 or 11 AM, given the parade would start at 10:00. BINGO. So I had about 1 1/2 hours to be-bop around, see the other entries, kibbitz and schmooze with the other groups. One of the LARGEST GROUPS was the Patriot Guard motorcycle riders. What happens is that the Patriot Guard always has an entry and they invite other vets who ride bikes to ride with them. They must've had at least 100 or so bikes. They were the last group, so I'm glad we as a club were entered instead of going with another group.

Chuck practicing his 'parade wave'.
More parade entries.






Jim "Dorkbreath" Rawlinson.















A church group-cool float!
Below, the Patriot Riders, and a bicycle built for two plus dog. (The dog even had goggles)

You can see the size of this little motorized jet, and above are the Syndicate Roller Girls Roller Derby team. I was on the lookout for a group of a lot of kids, and these folks were close to us, so I walked over to their advisor and asked if they had a couple of spare girls who would like to march in front of our group and be bannerbearers. Had 5 girls run up and volunteer really quickly, so I grabbed two (they were going to ride in the stakebed truck and didn't have their street skates) and brought 'em over, gave them some "D-Day Doll" pins for helping out (more on the D-Day Doll in a little bit) and they were awesome carrying our 230 banner. Their group was F-98 (we were F-108) so they were only 10 ahead of us and could wait. At the end of the parade, all their friends were taking pics and videoing their buds. I'd like to publicly thank Flirty and Cinnamon, our banner women (Flirty and Cinnamon are 29 and 31, respectively!!!!!) and their coordinator, Lauren.

Below, video of some of the mini-subs.


Tank and below is BERT!!!

The ladies below are the (is the?) Women in the Wind, Chrome and Leather chapter ladie's riding club. Hmmm, they seem very interesting...Below also, I thought the younster was SO cute, wearing his dad's "I served" medal. All vets got them, so all our guys who were riding got them.
Below left, I'm doing what I do best (or at least MOST)-take pics.

There were about 30 old cars.

Below right, Flirty and Cinnamon again.


We're lining up, then we step off. They let us go at 30 second intervals.

On the parade route, coming up to the courthouse and the reviewing stand.



Chuck steals my idea and takes pics during the parade.

Below, video of the D-Day Doll, a lady combat vet from Vietnam in a C-53 cargo plane Below right, video and pictures of the Women in the Wind coming off from the parade.






A well-deserved lunch at Carl's Jr.

Video of Rich leading a 'hip, hip hooray!" for Stan for planning this whole shebang.

We were comparing notes and I think I won the 'Most Restarts For Stalling the Bike" award. DUH. If I ain't falling, I'm stallin'.

HEY that rhymed...untentionally.

I can't believe they had pay toilets at Carl's.

Some of the entries (and there were about 130 in all) were...
104 F Civil Air Patrol
105 F (Band) Riverside Concert Band
106 F MOAA
107 F Janet Goeske float
108 F Star Riding & Touring motorcycles
109 F Corvettes West
110 R Wings & Rotors Float
FLYOVERS
Ryan PT-22 trainer
Cub L-4 observation plane
Wings & Rotors Huey (these guys were cool-instead of a machine gun coming out of the door, they had a big American flag AND they waved back when I waved! Of course the pink shirt helped too, since everybody else was either in camo/green or red/white and blue)

'THANK YOUS' TO:

*Stan the Man, of course, our StarVet Rep for all his planning at putting this on;

*Jim, for his leading us fantastically and correctly, no U-turns, no getting lost (and I've seen it happen, EVEN when the leader has a GPS);

*Rick, for suggesting Carl's Jr., having coupons for food, and being our Tailgunner;

*Chuck, for taking my pic with Lambie (do me a favor and send that sucker to me, 'k?) and riding in the back with me;

*Wayne and Rick's friend for coming out and making our group very special;

*Richard for taking pictures and taking the ONLY one (so far, that I've seen) of me, for coming out and also making our group special, and for bringing your pillon rider "Wild Thing" (your gorilla on the back of your bike), so Lambie didn't feel so lonely then;

*Paul, for quietly keeping us safe and forgiving me for bumping the back of his saddlebag with my engine guard;

Dave, for the excellent music and making our group more special-we had our own music!

*and Barry, for putting up with my 'Alpha' ways and allowing himself to be 'volunteered' for this mission. Thank you, honey!

Ride for April 25th or May; Borrego Springs at Anza-Borrego State Park

I was thinking that this ride would be a good one, albeit long. But we're here to RIDE, not necessarily sightsee on this one; we would, however, stop at some vista points for photo ops.

Lunch would be in Borrego Springs in the Anza-Borrego State Park. Projected temperature upon arriving would be 71+ degrees.

Temperatures on the route:

Corona 62+

Escondido 63+

Ramona 59+

Ranchita 56+

Warner Springs 58+

Pala 62+

Corona on the way back 67+

(NOTE: temperatures were projected for April 11th on April 8th, and will probably be warmer getting closer to the 25th)

The route, mileage and travel times (times have been rounded off to the nearest 1/2 hour):

Brea/Fullerton to

Corona (28 mi, 30 minutes) to

Escondido (67 mi, 1 hour) to

Ramona (18 mi, 30 minutes) to

Santa Ysabel (16 mi, 30 minutes) to

Ranchita (22 mi, 30 minutes) to

Borrego Springs (14 mi, 30 minutes)

Leaving at appx. 8:30 AM, we would arrive appx 12 noon-12:30 PM to Borrego Springs (including gas stops, not including photo ops), have lunch for 45 min-1 hour, back on the road via

Borrego Springs to

Aguanga (47 mi, 1 hour) to

Norco (61 mi, 1 hour) to

Chino (17 mi, 20 minutes) to

Brea (19 mi, 20 minutes)

Home around 5 PM, including gas stops, not including photo ops.

Total mileage 305 miles, 6 hours per mapquest, not including lunch or gas stops.

GAS STOPS-this would be a tad tricky, because of the small towns we'd be going through, and the availability of acceptable gas stations, BUT if it works out, we would gas up in:

**Escondido after 89 miles (or Ramona after 107 miles) from Brea;

**Borrego Springs after 72 miles from Escondido, because it's 66 miles on top of those 72 to get to Temecula and our tanks would only do about 120 safely, also given the fact that we'd be going over mountain-ish roads, which would use up gas a bit more;

**Norco after 108 miles (from Borrego Springs);

**Brea just to always top off even though it'd be only around 36 miles.

I wish to publicly give credit (or blame) where it is due regarding the name "Alpha Bitch"

Mr. Johney Hammack Harper came up with the moniker, "Alpha Bitch" for yours truly, referencing the alpha or lead dog of a sled team.
Since I'm the lead in the groups that I take different places, hence the 'alpha' part of the term; the "bitch" part of the term just seemed to fall into place. I got back at the guys, by the way, because since they follow the AB, I call 'em my "Muttz". Seems to fit, n'est-ce pas?

He tells me that it's a term of honor and that I should wear it with pride, and others agree.

And I do. See the picture below.

Only a motorcycle rider understands why a dog puts it's head out the car window.

San Diego/Balboa Park 04-04-2009

I'll start out with a negative: The Alpha Bitch goes down hard, Pt. II. I fell while walking towards the San Diego Museum of Man. Only thing that hurt was my pride, ALL DAY, because whenever we'd come to a curb or a bump, everybody'd say, "Lynne, watch it!" or "Lynne, take the handrail!". Gee, thanks, FRIENDS.
Now for the good stuff! On Saturday morning I called Rick Negrette, a coworker who rides a Harley and asked him if he wanted to go, he said yeah, give him about 1/2 hour, which was perfect due to the club meeting, which Terry conducted. Rick got there, was able to grab some coffee and wake up. During the 230 meeting a weird, WEIRD thing happened. Barry bought, oh I don't know, $10 or $20 worth of tickets, and won the first prize that they drew for. I went up, got it, drew the second ticket, and it was Barry's. Again. So he gave it to Ken Yunk. Ken drew a ticket, and it was BARRY'S TICKET AGAIN. He gave it to one of the new guys. That was totally weird. Why can't that shit happen when we ride with the Riverside 345 club? THEY have a 50-50 and give out CASH!!!
The meeting broke up, Barry, Rick, Johney and I got on our bikes and zoomed off to the 5 freeway around 8:45 AM. I had Johney lead a lot since we might've had to stop on the way down for something and I wanted him to decide where. (do ya get it??!!) Got gas at the Shell station off of the 5 and Old Town Road, then got to San Diego Old Town at 10:20 AM, a leetle bit early. Went into the restaurant and waited for Johney's friend Karen Neely, who works at the San Diego Zoo, and her granddaughter Jakaida (PLEASE LET ME KNOW THE SPELLING, GUYS!!! I know I'm screwing it up!) The food was pretty good, not too bad, but we said that next time we came down, Karen knows of a really good place. Hey, she's the San Diego expert, her judgement I trust.
I will tell ya that Karen and Ja (that's how I'm gonna refer to you hon, unless you email me differently) are the SWEETEST and coolest people I've met! Plus they laugh at my jokes. (example-I told Karen a 'zoo' joke-"Karen, did you hear that the Warsaw zoo closed down? Their clam died".)

First stop in San Diego, the Old Town Mexican Restaurant. We got there uber early, around 10:20 AM, so I probably could've/should've done a little shopping.
Below, the boys are (as boys always are when it comes to women) impatient. (Or Johney's doing an imitation of a blowfish)

I have NO CLUE why Barry's getting a pat on the head, but in the next pic they seem to be buddies.

Karen and her granddaughter.

(Johney) "I don't know what's good, maybe the chili colorado" (like he orders it EVERY SINGLE TIME)

This is a GREAT pic of Karen and Johney. They both have the GREATEST smiles, don't they?!

1/2 of my Gordo burrito-YES, I ate the whole thing. And regretted it the next day.

After lunch, onward to Balboa Park. I had never been there, despite living in SoCal XX years, so I looked up all sorts of stuff online, found out that there was a Science Fair that day and some of the museums would be free, so that was cool. Had to park in the SD zoo parking lot, due to the Science Fair at Balboa park. I don't think we did too badly, actually, but Rick was saying we could've gone way far up and parked there, but either way we'd-a had to walk it.
To the right, Rick, Johney and Barry, and they're waiting impatiently again for the AB.

Johney was the only smart one in the bunch; HE brought tennies to walk in! (I think Karen warned him) The rest of us were feeling it by the end of the day when we left, wearing our heavy clomper motorcycle boots. While walking to Balboa Park proper (the SD Zoo is right next to the park and is part of it), Karen was telling us about the zoo origins, the park origins, and generally being a wonderful tour guide. See, didn't I TELL you she was great! And pretty, too!!! (Karen I mean)

First stop, the Museum of Natural History: cool stuff in there.
WELL, OK, the first stop was TECHNICALLY right in FRONT OF THE MUSEUM. Above right, see the green van? Behind it there's a curb. The curb is marked. Even though it's marked, some AB's are so engrossed in other stuff that they totally miss the fact that the curb is there and DON'T miss it with their foot. This is when the AB went down HARD. Only thing bruised was my ego, but that's ok, we were laughing about it the rest of the day. I was, anyway.

This first museum was HUGE, and I loved the 'cutaway' views of the sea cows and the shark.

This is ONE WEIRD animal. I couldn't figure out if it was, indeed an actual animal (or a mock-up) or someone's LSD trip, but it is (was) an actual 'Clam sucker and fish chaser'. Oohhhhh-kkkkaaaaayyyy. Right.
Moving on to the outside, decided to go to the Reuben H. Fleet Space Museum, really high on my list of priorities. Unfortunately, the line to get IN to the place was longer'n heck, so we said we'd stop by it on the way out. We didn't. Oh, well, next time I have to do that museum FOR SURE.

Interesting architecture, isn't it? Karen was telling us that the builder got PO'd at the City fathers who were telling him what he could and could not put on his building, so he put these under the eaves. Of COURSE everyone who knows anything will look up there and see them! I noticed that the figures were anatomically correct, in that gravity as usual has the last word. If I ever look like that, I'm getting (bigger) implants.

The main plaza, above. Talk about crowded, but it wasn't as bad as Disneyland. Karen was telling us that around Halloween it's really cool. Since Halloween and April Fool's Day are my two fave national holidays, I gotta come back and check this place out.

Aren't those azaleas beautiful? This is right by the Japanese Friendship Garden. Wanted to go in there, but Karen was saying it was mostly a chick type of thing and guys aren't really all that in to it. Usually I stamp my foot and just freakin' go where I want to, but this time I caved and let the boys off the hook.

Now, THIS NEXT MUSEUM WAS THE BOMB!!! The Railway Museum. Somebody told me that it was fantastic, and IT WAS. I wanted to take pics of the little details and the size of some of the layouts. I love those little touches, like the guy below who let the forklift get away from him . Where are the EMT's? Hmmm, that would be a cool touch, have an action shot, then have 'reactive' figures.

Below right, you can see the size of some of these layouts!

I loved the drag race to the right, with the girl in the middle giving them the 'green light', and the cotton puffs as exhaust. THAT was some out of the box thinking, there.

See the two little motorcyclists waiting for the train!! And to the lower left, Karen checking out the work-in-progress room where they in the process of building more layouts. One of the gentlemen up there told us that they would have to break the sets apart if they'd have to move them out of the facility. They also told us that they lay the tracks FIRST, and THEN build around the tracks. Kinda makes sense, especially with mountains and things.

Yeah, I guess I like trains. A LOT. I mean, come on, 5 videos??

Above is a view of the San Diego 3 Tracks layout and the other video is a shot of the train-cam that was on the monitor in the first video. Our Dad (Tori's and mine) raised us on N Gauge trains. While he didn't have such a spectacular setup, it was pretty cool around the Christmas Tree, especially when we made tunnels and mountains of the Christmas presents!

Check out the little cars and the drive in! A member of our party wanted to see if anyone in the cars was making out. I told him that I thought I saw one or two of the cars' windows kinda fogged up; other than that, can't see shit. But you KNOW there were...

To the left, I was asked, "Where are you going NOW, Lynne?" and I said "Up the stairs to take pics, you dorks!" So I did.

The next museum was pretty cool, also, the Automotive Museum. They were having a special exhibition, "Hot Rods Then And Now" which had some pretty interesting cars in there. I took pics of the stuff I felt was really neat, like the 55 Chevy with the dice in the window and the drive-up car window tray. Below, Barry and Rick are looking at a Black Vincent, I believe it is.

Check out the old Jack in the Box drive through speaker box! Haven't seen one of them (or prices like that!) since gas was 45 cents. Below is a scooter, don't know if you can see it, but there are about 20 plus mirrors on it.

The flying car, below.












Now THIS car was pretty interesting. This car could go cross country without stopping. Like, NO STOPPING FOR GAS, NO STOPPING FOR POTTY BREAKS, NOTHING. There was everything in this car, it would be refueled on the road, there were 'catwalks' on either side of the car for guys to walk back and forth, even a mounted shower. I'm assuming there was a catwalk to get to that, too.

Unfortunately, couldn't get into the San Diego Air and Space Museum because they were having a special event that night and closed at 3 PM. We got there around 3:30 PM. Oh, well. Put that on the list of next time, along with the Space Museum. This was kind of cute, it's a 'self-guided tour' car.
Below, the lily pond and entrance to the Botanical Gardens. That was so wonderful and about 15 degrees cooler than the outside air. I go into these venues mainly to see the water features i.e. waterfalls, streams, ponds, etcs. Hey, I'm a water sign, Pisces, the fish.

The botanical gardens lily and koi pond. Below, we're walking to an end destination in the San Diego Zoo (Karen was able to get us in for free!), namely adult drinks at the Zoo at Albert's, a restaurant that seemed part restaurant, part treehouse.

The adult watering hole-'Alberts'.

And so ended the day, except for the ride home, which was crowded a lot in North San Diego County, but we followed Johney in between the car lanes. Barry doesn't like it, Johney doesn't like it, I'm not too crazy about it, but we did it or overheat the bikes. The nice thing is that with someone in front of me, the cars will see HIM first and not come over until we all pass.

Hopefully.

So far, it's worked.

I will say that on the way home I kinda reined in a bit, going 70-75, and I'm glad I did because two CHP motors whizzed by us in South OC and frankly came out of nowhere.

Glad I wasn't doing my usual 80.

We got home around, oh, 6 PM-ish, give or take a few minutes. Nice ride, nice day.

Next week/next ride, more technical, less 'to-do' stuff, except I had a request to NOT do a, what was it called, oh yeah, to not do an 'ass freezer'.

I will take that into consideration, friends. If you still want to ride with me.