Shirley and I had a very nice surprise when we arrived at Carrows Restaurant Saturday morning. Ray Oeverndiek was at the parking lot standing by his rig to greet us. As most of you know Ray and wife Carol moved to the Phoenix area a few years back but he's never lost his allegiance to 2Q. He had a good excuse for riding up; apparently Carol didn't know her way up to the Bay Area so she drove while he rode the bike with trailer... Yeah okay, it's a reason. A good reason to stop by and join his old mates for breakfast and some laughs.
It was another good meeting, the folks who rode down to Texas earlier in the month to pay a visit to another long distance 2Q mate gave us a very nice report. Mark Kratz was a fantastic host and provided Jacque & Steve Foster, Bob Hole & Mike Reaves an excellent taste of his new home State. The weather on the trip back gave our folks quite a time with the turbulent wind and rain. But as we all know that experience is part of the fun... mostly when you relive it by sharing your experience with friends.
Our after meeting ride was to High Hill Farms for the Apple Festival. The route was to avoid the main highways as much as possible. It was a pleasant ride until we got off Hwy 99. That's when my GPS started acting up making the ride a bit more chaotic. I later determined that somehow the map data on my memory card had gotten corrupted. I've since had it rebuilt and it appears to be working normally again. Anyway, with some help from Bob Hole and Bill Androws, we were able to find our way and still have an enjoyoble ride with little traffic until... about a mile and a half mile to Apple Hills entrance the line up of cars began. Bob had already informed us he wasn't interested in taking part of the festival and so had peeled off for home. The group was unsure whether we were interested in staying either then Bob chimed in and invited us to his place for a barbecue. Well, that sounded good to us and we made a u-turn and stopped at the gas station to huddle up. During this time Shirley and I realized we could not spare the time as we had to be back to relieve our dog sitter. A few of the others had commitments too so we ended up having a quick meal at the local pizza shop.
I believe Bill & Linda Androws did take Bob up on his offer and were on their way. I have to say Shirley and I were disappointed that we couldn't join them. Maybe Bob can open another invitation for a barbecue some time in the near future. I'm sure there'd be a good number of folks interested.
Video clip of Ride
Ray with Shirley |
The transformation to being an Arizonian is complete. |
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