Just in Time for April Fools Day

Got this in from Wile E ...

Florida Judge Sets Atheist Holy Day:
In Florida, an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination lawsuit against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge and after listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring,"Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood, objecting to the ruling, saying, "Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair and said, "But you do have a holiday. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant."

"Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists," said the lawyer.

"Then you better do better research next time," said the Judge. "Most calendars say April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture.

Bike Week 2009 - Wednesday, March 4

Brillant sunshine, but cold. 36 at sunrise and it topped out at about 60 degrees. Sherry, the GM of the White Eagle Lounge had called the day before sayin' she needed some more magazines so I figured I'd get up there early and deliver some. But instead of takin' the ten ride straight over, I figured I'd go to her place up Hwy 1 from Ormond Beach to check out how the traffic was and see what was happenin' on the Ormond Strip. Man, that was a big mistake.

It was about 10 o'clock and it was relatively easy drivin' through Ormond Beach and north on Hwy 1 past the Deadwood Saloon, Broken Spoke and Finnegan's Tavern area. But holy moly when I got within a half a mile of Destination Daytona, traffic stopped. . .
In addition to the normal lane closure so bikes could get over into a bikes only lane, they'd closed off the right lane for some reason before I-95 so everyone was tryin' to jam over into the left hand lane. What a mess.

And it wasn't too much easier for the folks headin' south on the other side of the highway.

After about thirty minutes I made it through the quagmire and continued north the five miles to the White Eagle. US 1 was wide open with little traffic and there were lotsa folks headin' south. I managed to get this guy on an old WL model just crusin' along.

The White Eagle had a pretty good crowd on hand even though it was only around 11 am ...

... and folks headin' south on Hwy 1 had clear highways. Many of them are Bike Week veterans, however ....

... and pulled in at the White Eagle for a cold one before hitting Daytona.

Then, rather than run the gauntlet through Destination Daytona or the Ormond Strip, they'd take off down Old Dixie Highway towards Daytona.

Many folks don't know it, but the eastern portion of The Loop will lead you directly to Main Street 12 or 13 miles south of the White Eagle. It is a relatively traffic free ride and only has 4 traffic lights until Main Street. How 'bout that.

I didn't continue down Old Dixie Highway through Tomoka State Park, though. I turned off on Walter Boardman Lane to head back to the house, get rid of the truck, catch up on some paperwork for our April magazine and go out later on the bike.

Though it was chilly, Spring is in the air here and the oaks covering Walter Boardman are puttin' out their new leaves so the 'tunnel' effect is already there. The swamps on both sides of this portion are dry, however. We need some rain!

At the stop sign I hung a right on Highbridge Road to head over to the ocean ...

... where there were lotsa of folks ridin' or takin' advantage of a kodak moment ...

After finishin' up work, I saddled up and headed south on A1A-Oceanshore Blvd-Atlantic Avenue towards Main Street. I figured if I was ever gonna do Main Street today would be the day since a hundred thousand folks were out at the Cabbage Patch for some chilly cole slaw rasslin'. Big mistake.

Ridin' down A1A I noticed lotsa vacancy signs. The one below is only two blocks from Harley Heaven at the Ocean Center and three blocks from Main Street ....

... and traffic was another absolute nightmare. Over thirty minutes wearin' out the clutch and cookin' the valves in the stop n go ...

... and the vendors had already cut their prices! Normally we all shop on the last Sunday because that's when the prices are cut to the levels below. Folks must be holdin' on to their wallets pretty tightly.

But some folks must be doin' okay cuz I saw these young guys pull outta the Hilton on thier 'next gen' bobbers. They were screamin' north.

After sittin' in the traffic I decided to blow off Main Street. No pictures this year! And kept right on goin' up to Hwy 92-International Speedway Blvd. I stopped at the top of the causeway to take some pictures including this one of the Main Street Bridge (that's Seabreeze Causeway in the background) ...

... and these folks headin' west up the ISB bridge ...

At the bottom I took a right and headed north on Beach Street and shot the west end of the Main Street bridge while waitin' for the light ...

Okay, a new plan. I'll head up to the Ormond Strip and see what kinda evening action they have goin' on. So I took Beach Street all the way north - no traffic! - to three blocks north of Hwy 40 Granada Blvd., hung a left and rode the three blocks up to Hwy 1. Hung a right and headed north to the Ormond Strip and avoided all the traffic at Ridegewood Avenue and Granada Blvd.

"I really haven't had a chance to get a pictures of the hotties workin' the beer tubs," I thought to myself as I headed north. "Maybe tonight's the night ..." Not.

I got past Nova Road, rounded the bend and saw traffic backed up all the way to the Tomoka River bridge. Holy crap! I ain't messin' with that tonight. Besides, I rationalized, it's cold (it was around fifty and the sun was settin' quickly!) and the girls are all gonna be wrapped up tight. Maybe tomorrow. I pulled over in to a cutover through the median and shot a couple of pictures. This group was blastin' by at about 60 mph only to ...

... hafta hit the brakes hard a hundred yards up the road!

I wasn't gonna get involved in that mess for the second time in one day. I got back on the Dixie Glide, fired it up, took one more picture ...

... and joined the tail end of this group headin' south. It was back to the house, got in the garage, unloaded all my junk from the day's adventures, had a conversation or two with Mr. Cuervo then got in the hot tub.

Tomorrow is Willie & Company's Old School Show and I can't wait. It's supposed to warm up!

Bike Week 2009 - Tuesday, March 3

Today we tried something new and something that I thought probably wouldn't work out too well -- a Bike Week Poker Run. Boots talked me into putting it together, Ronnie at Deadwood Saloon threw in free biscuits and gravy and we advertised it in our Bike Week 2009 Guide. Well knock me over with a feather cuz we had 41 people and 24 bikes make the ride. For a first time venture, I'd say that turned out pretty good. My skeptism was turned on it's ear. Things didn't start out too well since I'd hadda helluva time gettin' a battery installed in the Sporty the night before, and morning of, the Run so Pup could ride along. At the last minute we got it installed and she and I bundled up in layers to head to Deadwood Saloon at 9 am. It was cold, but sunny and the breeze off the ocean wasn't too bad. We got to Deadwood Saloon - there were already several bikes there -- got some free biscuits and gravy and a couple of bloody mary's and set up our registration stuff.

This was a simple run. It was free; about a hundred miles; a group ride to show folks some wide open ridin' and shortcuts around the northern Daytona area; I took the cards with us and we drew at each of the stops. First to register were Armando and John from Chicago (below). "We saw the ad for the run in your Bike Week Guide in our hotel room when we arrived last Friday and swore we were gonna make the Poker Run. It sure sounded like fun and after using your maps and advice in the Bike Week Guide the past few days, we knew you knew what you were talkin' about," Armando said.

"And this may sound silly," he told me later in the day when we were shootin' the shit at Trader Jack's, but before we left Chicago, a friend of ours that couldn't make it this year gave us a copy of your magazine from last year and the Bike Week Guide and we went over it for two hours and mapped out our plans for this year. It was a great help!"

Well, that's the point of doin' it, y'all. But thanks for the kind words. We sure appreciate it.

We didn't have many of our local readers out on the run, only one or two, but we had folks from all over the country! I guess puttin' our bike week guide in the hotels and motels definitely pays off cuz that's where they all read about the run (we didn't advertise it anywhere except the Bike Week Guide and our on-line calendars of events). Below are Mike, from Cleveland, and Renee and Charles from Ohio, too.

We finished up registration and I made some announcements and we saddled up for the first stop on the Run -- the White Eagle Lounge in Korona. This is normally a fifteen or twenty minute ride straight north up US Hwy 1 to Korona, but that wasn't how I planned the ride. I wanted to show folks a little of the scenery and avoid the traffic bottlenecks at Destination Daytona and show folks how to get around it for later in the week. I'd planned each ride to be a bout forty-five to sixty minutes with a one hour stop at each location.

Anyhow, as we're loadin' up Pup goes to start the Sporty and there's nothin' there when she hits the starter button. No click, no headlight, no nuthin'. Oh well, "I'll just hop on Boots seat and ride two-up, Monk," she said good naturedly. "No problem. I've never ridden behind you and it'll give me a chance to check out the scenery and relax all day." So that's what we did.

We left outta Deadwood and headed north on Hw1 about a mile-and-a-half and took a right into the Village of Pine Run. Three miles or so later and it was a left on Old Dixie Highway and the western end of The Loop. Five miles further on it was a right onto Walter Boardman Lane for the northern portion of The Loop and instead of getting off on High Bridge Road, we continued north at the stop sign (Walter Boardman Lane becomes John Anderson Road again) and rode six miles to Hwy 1 in Flagler Beach. At the light we hung a right over the Intra Coastal Waterway Causeway to Hwy A1A at the ocean. Another right and we cruised along the Atlantic Ocean for six miles until we hung a right on High Bridge Road in teh middle of the North Peninsula State Park. Twisty's along the canals brought us back to Walter Boardman Lane, left back out to Old Dixie Highway and then a right onto the White Eagle Lounge about three miles further on.

I led everyone through the front parking lot (below) to the larger, grassy area out back. No sense in parking in the lot out front when it's much easier to get in and out of the area in the back if you know about it. We unassed the bikes, I pointed out the Crapper Drag Strips, made an annoucement about the races tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday and set up the cards so everyone could draw their next card. Dave Carroll, half of our Brevard team who had ridden up with some friends from Cocoa, helped me out all day with the raffles and poker hands. Thanks, bro!

After a couple of cold ones, we loaded up for the run to Trader Jack's in DeLand right at 1 pm. The sun was out and temps were in the high fifties, low sixties, and a couple of the braver ones left the leathers strapped to their bike or in the saddle bags. Not me! I did take off my beanie and put on a regular hat, though.
From the White Eagle we headed north about a mile and took a left on County Hw1 304. An absolute straight shot of country road for eight miles brings you to Hwy 11 in Cody's Corner. Straight across and two more miles straight as an arrow through cattle country -"Beef. It's what's for dinner." - brought us to Hwy 305. We hung a left for another ten miles or so of ridin' through cattle country til we hit the flashin' light at Hwy 17 in Seville. We hung a left, rode this nice, traffic free country highway through Pierson, Barberville and Deleon Springs and made it to Trader Jack's Roadside after 20 miles or so.

This guy, on the phone, who was ridin' an old Police Road King, helped us out with some road guard work (as did Armando and Dave) along the way. I never got his name, but Pup called him Jersey for the day since he was from New Jersey.

Lisa, the owner of Trader Jack's came out and greeted folks, gave us a couple of tees for the raffle and pointed out it was one of their "Theme days" - namely a Daisy Duke's day. Pretty chilly, but some of the bar maids did have 'em on. Unfortunately I was too busy shootin' the breeze with folks about this and that and I didn't take any pictures. Stupid me. Sorry.

From Trader Jack's it was a short ride north to ride over to Reynolds Road through some back country around ponds and lakes and out to Hwy 11 headin' north. We got to Hwy 40 (Granda Blvd.) and hung a right to head back to Ormond Beach. As we got into the outskirts, about a half mile before I-95, I led the group left on Tymber Creek Road. Two miles up and we hung a right on Airport Road which, after about four miles of traffic free country road brings you directly to US Hwy 1 about a block south of the Deadwood Saloon. Once again I led folks to the large parkin' are out back, got out the deck of cards and finished up the poker run.

Mike, from Ohio (above with his wife Theresa), and Kurt, from Ormond Beach, on left below, both had A-5 straights so they cut cards and Mike won $50 for high hand. Kurt settled for $25 and Bartman, from Longwood, on right below, took $25 for worst hand.

That pretty much finished up the day. 101 miles of unstressful back roads ridin' (a couple of the participants were pluggin' in GPS coordinates along the way: "Man, we gotta do this again!") and when the sun set we knew it was gonna get COLD! Pup, below with Michigan homies, Max and Queen from Detroit, got a little help from Dave and his road bro (Sorry I forgot his name) and they managed to tighten up the battery on the Sportster and we made it home safe and sound.

Got the bikes unloaded in the garage and while Pup is tellin' Boots how great the day was, I was pourin' a couple of shots of Patron to warm up our bellies. It was about ten degrees cooler in Ormond than it was in DeLand. Got the shot down and while Pup's still ramblin' on about all the folks she met and how great the ride was and yada yada yada, I was gettin' naked and hoppin' in the hot tub. Had to warm up these old bones, that's for sure. But I guess y'all probably didn't need to hear about that, huh?
I think we're definitely gonna hafta put this one on the schedule for next year.

Bike Week 2009 - Monday, March 2

I didn't post anything about what was happenin' on Sunday, March 1st mostly cuz I didn't go out. We had a nasty front move through between 7 and 11 o'clock in the morning with lotsa rain and wind. It coulda been worse though, cuz the snow line was in Atlanta and that's only about 400 miles north. After the front moved through, the sun came out but temperatures sank like a 12 pound rock in a bucket of water. The high was 69 at 8 am and by 4 pm it was 50 and still droppin'. So call me a pussy, it's okay, but I hung around the house, wrote up our party at Trader Jack's Roadside (Bike Week - Saturday, February 28) and prepared stuff for the rest of our week.
Yesterday morning it was 33 degrees here in Daytona, but the I-95 corridor up in the northeast was gettin' pounded with over a foot of snow. Poor people - I feel for the folks drivin' to Bike Week. At least it was super sunny here, though it was chilly. Boots and Pup drove me down to Crank 'n Chrome to pick up the Dixie Glide and I figured this was probably a good day to go check out Beach Street, Main Street and areas south. I detest ridin' there, especially during Bike Week, but figured I owed it to our audience to check it out and give my impressions.
There were lotsa bikes parked along the east and west sides of Beach Street ....
.... and I squeezed the DixieGlide in a slot as someone else was pullin' out. You can pay $5 to park off the street a couple of places but then you have a long walk to the vendor and display area.

If you're a little patient, someone will pull out and you can pull in to the now vacant parking spot. I took off the leather, put it in the saddle bag and walked down the street towards Daytona Harley. They've leased the lot across the street this year and there were probably twenty of thirty vendors along the riverfront. I checked out the Chamber's Official Welcome Center, picked up some reading material and moseyed into the vendor area.

I detest goin' to this part of Daytona during Bike Week for a couple of reasons: traffic, posers and wannabees, and the absolutely ridiculous rip off prices. I've written about it in the past, but here's the pictures from yesterday. First up when you walked in the vendor area:

$5 for a cup of coffee. Then walk a little ways towards the end and you could pick up a souvenir from Jesse James ...

... or go across the street and get a whole pizza for $25 (And you saved $7!) or get a 12 oz. can of Coke for $3 (a 12 pack in the 7-11 was $2.99) or a bottled water for $3 ($5.50 for a case of 24 in Wal Mart) ...

... or a Bike Week special waffle for $8 (Waffle House All American Meal is $6.95 and ya get a waffle, two eggs, hash browns, toast, sausage or bacon - you get the point) ...

... and you can wash your waffle down with an ice cold beer ...

... or, if you prefer non-alcoholic beer, Root Beer was on special, too:

Man-oh-man. And folks think I'm cynical and too hard when I write about the rip off prices in the Main Street - Beach Street area. Jeez. I'm all for capitalism, but I also ain't stupid. You might sell 100 beers at $4 a pop or you could sell 1,000 at $3 a pop. Can't they do the math? Wal Mart has. Okay, enuff on that.
I loaded back up and figured this would be the only day I'd ride Main Street so I headed east over the Main Street Bridge and traffic wasn't too bad. Of course, as soon as I got over the bridge the first thing I see is ...

... yep, cynical me. There were quite a few folks out and about doin' the Main Street crawl.

and the traffic comin' from the East, off of Hwy A1A was a totally different story than the way I was heading ...

Well, enough of this, I thought. Normally I'd stop, walk the length of Main Street, both ways, take some pictures along the way and report on what I saw. The hell with that. Maybe Wednesday when everyone's out at Samsula at the Coleslaw Rasslin'.
I hung a right at A1A to head south to the Dunlawton Bridge in Port Orange and made a brief stop at the only toplees bar in Daytona:

They're an advertiser and I wanted to see how things were goin'. I talked with Noble, the day manager and he told they'd been slammed. "Thanks for gettin' the word out about us, man!" he exclaimed. "I can't tell you the number of folks that have been her cuz of the Bike Week Guide. It's worked great."
Well, thanks. But the place is okay for bikers - no cover charge and $3 longnecks. And half nekkid girls. Yep, you read that right. Their beer prices are cheaper than Main Street just three miles north and you're in a strip club. How 'bout that. Oh, and about my comment about the ONLY topless bar in Daytona Beach area? It's true. All the other places that advertise as "Gentleman's Club" are bikini bars. New rules, laws and regulations from Daytona Beach and Volusia County have done away with topless or nude clubs. Biggin's is in Daytona Beach Shores and is grandfathered in.

I donned the leather again and headed south on A1A. It was still chilly, around 4 o'clock by this time and probably 55 or so. Folks had on full leathers for the crusin' ...

But if you weren't ridin', perhaps the sun was warm enough for some of our snow bird friends. I reckon ya gotta go back with a little tan or sunburn to show your friends you've been to sunny Florida, right? I saw these guys hangin' out in front of their hotel on A1A

... but I was ridin' and it was certainly chilly. As I topped the Dunlawton Avenue causeway I snapped a picture lookin' North towards Main Street and thought to myself, "Man, it even looks cold and stark from here ..."

Once over the causeway I turned right - north - on US Hwy 1. Figured I'd run up to Miller's and the Limpnickie vending areas. It seemed to me there were a lot fewer vendors than normal, and there was plenty of parking available at this normally very crowded venue.

I wandered around checkin' out some of the awesome "next generation" bike builders here. They build some crazy stuff, that's for sure, but they all pride themselves on making the builds ridable and 'built for the working man.'

The sun was gettin' lower and lower and I knew when it dropped that temps were gonna sink like the Titantic so I loaded up and headed north on Ridgewood Avenue (US Hwy 1) from South Daytona towards the "New" Main Street - US 1 in Ormond Beach. Only stop I made on the way was at Tropical Tattoo to smoke a cigaret and shoot the breeze with Marcus a little bit. I didn't get to talk with any of the artists this go-'round cuz every chair was filled with folks gettin' some new ink or an old piece touched up. It was SRO only and it was good to see the parking lot filled with motorcycles.
From Tropical Tattoo I headed to our home for Bike Week - the Deadwood Saloon. It was pretty crowded but I pulled around back and got a parkin' spot with no problem.

Across the street at the IHS was a totally different story, though (below). As I related on Friday or Saturday's post, traffic and parking is a bitch on the west side of Hwy 1 (and the food and drink prices are higher, too!). I'll take the east side and hangout with bikers and pretty ladies instead of sittin' in friggin' traffic.

As the sun was startin' to disappear I heard a big whoopin' and hollerin' on the front porch of Deadwood Saloon. Seems it was Bob's birthday - he's from Indiana - and Lindsey, one of the gorgeous barmaids at Deadwood was treatin' him to a semi-world famous body shot ...

I can think of worse ways to chase down the shot ...

Well I thought that was a pretty good way to end the day so after another pass through, I pulled on the leather, the gloves and the toboggan and rode home. Five or six hours of chilly ridin', but it gave me a good feel for everything that was happenin'.

Today we're doin' our free poker run from Deadwood Saloon to the White Eagle to Trader Jack's and back. Highs are only supposed to hit sixty so I better bundle up again. I'll let y'all know how the New Main Street to Swampland to Oceanside Ridin' to Cattle Country and wooded by-ways ride goes. About a hundred miles and four traffic lights - sounds like a good one to me.