August and its time for A Laid Back Affair motorcycle rally. I admit I had been looking forward to this year’s Affair all summer. I had the time off to go, the Harley was in the shop my mid July to get its fluids changed & tuned, Urchin had the time off to go &Urchin’s fella was coming too. Way Cool.
Enter Reality. The Harley needed a new coil along with fresh fluids and new plugs, points & condenser. It wasn’t ready to roll until Thursday morning of the ALBA & it still needed insurance, registration & an inspection. Scratch the HD for the rally. Urchin had developed a nasty cold/sore throat/whatever & wasn’t in any shape to ride her Ninja anywhere. Scratch Urchin. No Urchin also meant scratch Urchin’s fella.
OH well, its going to be a very different rally than I had planned, but my friends of many many years will be there so off I went Thursday noon in my truck to ALBA. I went over Snicker’s Gap to Elkton then up the valley along the Blue Ridge on US 340 to Greenville near my parish. From there I cruised on up US 11 to Lexington, hung a left onto US 60 over to Buena Vista, picked up food at the local grocery & then cruised into the Glen Maury campground. The drive was beautiful & the temperature mild.
I entered a crowded Glen Maury campground. OMG. A very, very crowded Glen Maury campground with only 4 motorcycles in sight and many many tents, trailers and one massive class A RV parked right where the ALBA camps. People everywhere. Kids everywhere. There were more bicycles than motorcycles in camp. ????? Seems the campground had double booked the pavilion & camp area with a family reunion, a very LARGE family reunion. Mind you, they were nice, shared the pavilion with us, invited us to their big dinner at the event pavilion down the hill, played cool music live in the evenings. But it made for a very strange Affair.
JP & Serena were there but sans bike – JP’s trike ate its transmission 60 miles from his house Wednesday morning on the way to the Affair. Paul had double booked himself & had to work the weekend. Mikey came but left Friday afternoon. Jo has been tied up with her new house all summer & was still too tied up to come. Several regulars hadn’t planned to come this year, they were on their way to Sturgis. Several more got delayed by in the truly awful thunderstorms & wind that hit the Washington-Baltimore area Wednesday & Thursday, then decided to just skip it when they heard about the Family Reunion Hoard. (A polite Hoard but still a Hoard.) About half a dozen other riders arrived, saw the super crowded campground and headed on down the Parkway for their own Affair. Can’t say I blame them. All in all we had 20 registrants & 15 motorcycles, 5 of which arrived Friday evening late. Well there were plenty of door prizes for everyone.
This year was a Black Tie Affair, we all got black ties as Rally pins. Some of us were more inventive than others in wearing our ties – yes friends, this man keeps the interwebs running in a big way. I went swimming in the Maury River, took a nice ride in the country Friday and caught up on all the news from the folks who were there. I do think we should consider a change of venue though – this isn’t the first time in recent years the campground has “forgotten” about our reservation until we actually arrived.
The lemonade was excellent.
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