This morning, my wife, Donna, and I went on a "motorcycle escort" ride which welcomed and escorted the travelling Viet Nam Wall war memorial to Southwestern Michigan. The ride started early, with the two of us signing in at 6:30AM at the Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo, Michigan. We parked the Ural in the line and then headed inside to find the complimentary "free" breakfast. Having no luck inside, we went back out. The parking lot was filling up. Breakfast was outside. A croissant with ham and cheese inside plus coffee. We also got casino baseball caps, plus pins, patches and keychains from the group organizing the exhibit and the ride, a local charlity of verterans called, Lest We Forget. Their mission statement is: "To brighten the future we must illuminate the past." Their website is http://www.lestweforgetusa.org Just outside the area where they were serving breakfast, the armed forces had a Humvee and a big truck. The State Police were also there, providing a squad car and six motorcycle escorts. The whole ride consisted of the motorcycle escorts, followed by the Humvee and truck, then the two semi trailers carrying the wall replica, followed by all of us local motorcyclists (over a hundred bikes, I think). The whole event was coordinated with the local towns and we rode a winding route through the countryside, going through all twenty towns, cities, and villages which are in the area we call Southwestern Michigan. One hundred miles. It took four hours to complete the ride, which ended at the St. Joseph High School's Dickinson Stadium, in St. Joseph, Michigan. Then, watching the six o'clock news, we spotted ourselves for an instant in the video promo for the news spot of the ride. Fuzzy screen capture from the TV (that's us in the center):
Got the Herald Palladium today and we were in the picture on the front page! (we're in the sidecar) Here's an enlargement of the section with the photo
Talked to Mark Parren today. He's the photographer who took the photo which was in the paper and purchased the photograph in 8x10, and he also made us a photo where he cropped and enlarged us and the bike. Here it is (the cropped photo: