The Harbinger

It was a bright and sunny day, the kind everyone loves, including lovebugs. We arrived at Kerr’s Wing House in Altamonte Springs for Shannon Burke’s 2^nd annual Real Ride. The charity this year was the Boggy Creek Camp for kids, a very good organization to donate to. By the time we showed up the place was crowded with motorcycles already. We were in our Prius. It turns out we were the only ones that donated that weren’t riding bikes.

The check-in process was fairly simple, followed by a good breakfast provided by Kerr’s. They don’t usually do breakfast, so this was a special meal for them. We ran into some of our friends, and some of the “talent” and their guests. We got to meet Kate’s parents for the first time, and also Daniel’s father. Dan’s father is actually shorter than him.

After breakfast, we went to check out the bikes. There were bikes of every kind, make and color outside. We saw some trikes too. Kate was showing off her new helmet, which had Hello Kitty on it of course. Burke was there with his chopper. SBK and Steadman were going to ride in some beautiful Mercedes convertibles. Leading the pack was “HotPants’ next truck”, a really nice Ford F650 dualie.

They called everybody together to get lined up. We saw our cue and got and the car and got in front of them. We hauled ass up to the rest area near SR 434 and parked where we could see the convoy go by. We watched the traffic slow down from the rolling roadblock the troopers set up. Finally we saw the dualie and Mercedes, followed by Burke, Russ and the rest. The convoy looked like it was a few miles long, most of the bikes side by side, all in the left lane. It was a great sight to see. When we could see the end approaching, we took off and joined in in the right lane. It took us about 30 minutes to slowly pass everybody. Since the convoy was lead by a trooper, people were afraid to pass him, even though he was driving 5 mph under the speed limit.

We got up to I-95 on our way to Destination Daytona. As we passed the interchanges in before DD, we noticed the troopers were preparing to close them down to protect the convoy. We got to DD and parked to watch the Ride come in. It was awesome! It gave Shannon goose bumps.

Once we parked, we sought out the rest of the party. We ran into Howey, and got a key to the party room. We ran into Sue and George and Nikki and Joey and Julie and all the others. Included with the ride was BBQ and sweet ice tea, so we grabbed that before we had any drinks.

The Monsters were setting up, and there was a pool available, and a certain person forgot to tell his beautiful wife that she needed to bring a swimsuit, so we set out to buy one. Didn’t find any, but we found the bike dealership.
Shannon broke down and said she’d still not allow me to ride a bike, but she’d go for a trike. Maybe one of these years, we’ll get one.

The Monsters started earlier than listed, so we raced back to the party room. Black Bean was missing, it turns out his car got towed. He got there by the third song. The music was rocking and the crowd was loving it. I moved back and forth from the room to the crowd to press palms and greet the spouses. Drunky crowd surfed up to the room, but without Mongo there, he got pulled up into the wrong room. The concert ended and Bubba hauled ass, as he had another gig to play.

During the show, I ordered one of Absinte drinks. Everybody tried it, and I don’t think anybody liked it. I ended up finishing it off myself. After it was all over, we hung out in the party room, and then headed down to the pool for a bit. There was a BBQ place right next door, so we grabbed dinner and then started the long drive home. My car was covered with love bugs by the time we got there.

Overall, it was a great time. The ride had about 600 bikes in it, raising a lot of money for charity. We got to see a lot of nice bikes, hang out with friends and see the Monsters play. We were ready for the next show… Rennigers!

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