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| The "Run for the Hospice" is a fund raising run that benefits the Snowline Hospice in Placerville. | ||||
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| The day began just like a regular work day - alarm set for 4:30 am! Up, 3S's, roll Dannie's custom softail out... Dannie brought her bike over the night before so she would not have to play musical cars in the morning trying to get her bike out of the garage... roll my bike out... load TWO coffee thermoses. No warming the bikes up, not at 5:45am, at 6am we fire up and idle out of the neighborhood and ride s-l-o-w-l-y on side streets out to Jefferson Boulevard, quick stop at the piggy bank, gas at Chevron, 50 to Watt and arrive at Lyons by 6:30am and break out the coffee. Hey... this is NOT Lyons anymore... it's Stonebrook now... oh well. Directly Steve and Martha arrive, then Dave, getting close to 7am and everyone who had said they were coming were there, but, wait until 7am to leave in case someone was coming that had not called... no one else arrived. Up 50 to Chevron on Forni Road in Plasterville, Mike arrives at 7:45am. | ||||
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I suggest Mike take point position since he lives in Plasterville and rides and knows all the roads, he agrees
and we split for the Snowline Hospice store on Placerville Drive. Registration is from 8am to 9am, and the parking
lot is already about half full. Free Starbuck's coffee and donuts (donation jar if you are so inclined (we were
so inclined)). Annied up $30 per head, got run pins, T-shirts, neckerchiefs, flyers and out poker run score cards.
As we finished our donuts and drank our coffee we watched the parking lot continue to fill up, and, kept moving
our bikes so we would not be blocked in as new arrivals began double parking and triple parking!
First stop was Mike's Cycles, little more than a block from the hospice store... "WHAT A RIDE!" Wait in line for about ten minutes for a 9 of puppy feet (clubs), oh yeah, off to a good start - NOT! |
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| Next stop was up 50 to Missouri Flat to Motherload to PJ's, a biker friendly bar, wait in line for about twenty minutes for a xxxxxxxxxx, great, goes will with my 9 - NOT! Ahhhh, but you can buy another draw for a dollar, in fact, for $52 you can have anything you want! Well that might have been nice to know at the first stop, but, with a 9, well, I don't care. Now we were in for a bit of a ride... back into Placerville and north on 193 to George town, a really windy road with a lot of 15mph and even 10mph turns. Mike sets an easy pace, some bikes caught up with us but no body passed. I only drug my floor boards twice in the turns, loud enough scraping that others in the group heard it, Dannie said she flinched on the first one. I had never been to Georgetown before, nice town I reckon, maybe three or four blocks of buildings, that's it. Wait in line about twenty minutes to get into the bar in the xxxxxxxxxxxx for 3rd draw, then... | ||||
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| ...walk up the street to the xxxxxxxxxx, another bar, a wall of pictures of men in red shirts is a dead giveaway that this is a Clamper joint, only a five minute line here, then snag an old fellow (that can't out run me when I hand him my camera) to take a group photo. | ||||
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| We take Icehouse Road out of Georgetown towards the next poker run stop in Icehouse, this is a nice gentle sweeping turn road... | ||||
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| ...again, Mike set an easy pace, an easy cruise at 50mph and 55mph without having to grab the binders... | ||||
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| ...again some bikes catch up with us, but... | ||||
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| ...the only ones that pass were a few crotch rockets looking for a cliff to launch from... | ||||
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| ...We stop at Stumpy Meadows, Dave and Steve park in a striped portion of the parking lot next to a handicapped parking place and Mike tells them of the $348.00 ticket he got for parking in a striped portion of the parking lot next to a handicapped parking place... | ||||
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| ...they move their bikes.... | ||||
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| ...We were probably at Stumpy Meadows for half hour of communing with nature and general shooting the bull, notice the smoke lingering in amongst the hills and trees from the wild fires burning in the west,... | ||||
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| ...a good opportunity for us to all get to know each other a little better. | ||||
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| We continue on toward Icehouse, Mike setting an easy pace again,... | ||||
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| ...I only hit my brakes about five or six times and one on those times was at a stop sign... outstanding ride! | ||||
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| At Icehouse we wait in line for about twenty minutes for our last card, I drew a xxxxxxxxxx, the volunteer asked if I wanted to draw again... I said with what I have so far it doesn't really matter, just having a good time on the ride. We visit the adjoining store for, in my case a Gator Aide, Sharon got ice cream, and we sat around outside for a while chewing the fat and checking out the bikes, including a B'mer which was completely fully fairinged! Now maybe there was some place where you could check the oil, but, there was no part of the engine that was visible from any side or top view. |
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| Leaving Icehouse we cruise the approximately ten miles down to 50 and down 50 to Camino and to the Rainbow Orchard for the Bar-B-Q and music and raffle. Good timing on the arrival for getting food, there were only about two people in line at the time, and the tri-tip sammich... huge, by the time I finished the beans, salad, sammich, chips, oatmeal cookie with flies in it, and coke... I was stuffed. Not very good timing on the band, heard about two or three songs and then Walt Gray began to MC the raffle prizes from local businesses and Harley dealers, and which included a quad runner WITH trailer. Dave's fun meter maxed out before the raffle was over so he split. Dannie had to serve as medical attendant at a pre-season football game so she split... | ||||
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| Raffle over, no, none of us won anything, but, not due to any lack of things being raffled, the band was on again, three folks, drummer, harmonica player and old raspy voice dude on lead guitar... good sounds, Bill, the ride organizer did well on the band selection, and said that there were about 450 bikes this year (that's about 100 more than last year). Mike is going to stick around and help on clean up (last year he had to take a BUNCH of beer home to get rid of it!). Steve, Martha, Sharon and I split directly and head back down to the Chevron on Forni road for more push water. Sharon and I are home to our happy puppies in time to get into the pool, cool off, and, reflect on what a neat ride this was, and benefits a really good organization too! | ||||