Wednesday North Central ROMEO Lunch Ride for 10-15-14

[Richard]

Guys - I'm telling 'ya it's getting harder and harder to come up with something new for you guys each and every week...week after week. But....it's not impossible! This weeks destination will confirm other options exist nearly everywhere. We've been to this little town on several occasions and most of you like the place we've gone to in the past but I didn't even know there was somewhere else until I knuckled down and did my research. I hope you like the choice this week and it seems the weather will be mild if not a tad chilly. A typical early fall kind of day.

Here's the time............................................11:30 am

Here's the place.....................................Grandma's Soda Shop (downtown)
2524 Avenue E.
Wilson, Kansas 67490
785-658-2200

As always...........................ride careful, ride safe and I'll see you in Wilson. Richard

Wanna side trip before or after lunch? Here's one of the state scenic byways....
http://www.travelks.com/ksbyways/post-rock/

Help me here....is it a car or a motorcycle?
http://eliogenuine.eliomotors.com/?utm_ ... tors%20com

Here is the link to all scheduled Romeo Rides:
http://tinyurl.com/Romeo-Rides-Scheduled

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By the way, here's an update on our fellow ROMEO rider, Steve Errebo from Denmark. He's in Salina Regional Hospital with six broken ribs on the right side, two broken vertebrae in his neck and is in a neck brace. If you hadn't already heard, a deer jumped out of the ditch and landed on Steve's lap just four miles from his house on a dirt road after having travelling back from the Lake of the Ozarks last Sunday evening on his Honda ST1300. The time was roughly nine o'clock PM.
His Doctors are now concerned about preventing pneumonia but otherwise he seems in really good spirits for the injuries he sustained. He's in room 505 and is taking visitors and I'm sure he would welcome your visit, just be considerate and make it short. He's anxiously looking forward to returning ro riding in maybe six to eight weeks.
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Guys - What a gorgeous day it turned out to be. Didn't start out that way for me though! Joyce has always wanted to start earlier and get there sooner so she can visit more since a lot of you dissapear immediately after you eat and pay yer bill.
So, here was the plan....we would leave at the strike of 9:30 am. CLICK! Now that's a depressing sound that early in the morning and especially so on a Wednesday. The Gold Wing wouldn't so much as light up! I had failed to completely turn off the ignition. It has one of those blasted two stage switches! So....we're now deep into plan 'B'....as if I had a plan 'B'.
It was essentially to off load everythjing from the Gold Wing onto the VStar 1300. I loved this plan...Joyce, not so much. The next twenty minutes were taken up looking for all the electrical cords for her electric vest. Why does it always come down to this? I try to get all my stuff together the nite before and have things ready. That's a concept foreign to all women.. I do believe. Finally we locate the cord that attaches to the battery pigtail. You can't possibly imagine the number of configurations of cord ends I observed her trying to pry into that end. It's beyonjd comprehension to watch how she attacks a physical problem. I honestly observed her plugging in a one prong female end onto the brass stud of a dual end pigtail and then got mad at me for criticizing her approach to solving the problem. WOMEN!
Nonetheless, we finally got it covered and was only a short fifteen minutes late on our advance plan. I'll not get into how long it took me to get the right leg of my leather chaps zipped. I just can't bend to the right any more.
We headed West on hwy 4 because I heard that hwy 14 going to Ellsworth had been reopened and I wanted to try it. It's very black and very smooth and a constant patter of asphault sand disrupts the pleasure of the road. I paid the price I found out once at home because the black stuff was everywhere. Fine particles that will take weeks to eradicate.
The temp continued to warm throughout the day and it was like bliss behind that tall windshield, listening to my pipe that I had just open up with a half inch step drill jig I had, ahem, manufactured.
We did arrive unusually early and had a swell time visiting along the street prior to settling down to eat.
We apparently caused quite a stir because the local constable pulled up and was concerned for the safety of his citizens. I assured him we were all quite respectable citizens and didn't sactifice either children or small animals but Big Jim wanting to make an impression challenged his authourity in these matters and was immediately asked to spread eagle on the car. Find no knives guns or drug paraphanalea on him he released him into my custody until we departed for other venues.
The lunch was a delight. I had a black angus burger that was excellent. Joyce had a chicken salad that looked huge. Big Jim fully appointed by me to look after things at the table in my absence while photoing stuff, mentioned that Joyce had been syphoning off a few of my fries. Naturally, I can't have this going on right under my nose so to speak so I comandeered some of her chicken nuggets while she wasn't watching. All's fair as they say.............
Talk was of going to visit the prize toilet in Lucas after lunch and the guys took off.......just as my phone rang. Dagnabit, I hate it when that happens. I pulled over in front of the hotel in town in a shady spot and proceeded to pry my phone out of my pocket which now is in a crease of leather under my chaps. By the time I retrieve it, the call is gone.....and so are the guys. I have no idea which way they went so we just headed west on old 40. At the crest of a hill I spotted 'em in the distance......that's the last I ever saw of any of 'em. We headed to Dorrance and I thought I new the way.....but I didn't.
We wondered around what seemed like and eternity and ended up in the same old dead end at a boat launch dock I had been to several times before. I just can't seem to find my way in, out of or around Wilson lake and frankly I'm not sure Lucas even exists. We turned around and headed home. Joyce was wanting to ride her bicycle anyway. Me, I just wanted to get the black oily tar off of my bike.
Oh yeah.....we had a good showing of 30 for lunch today. The sign in sheet was a bit different because I was curious as to the ages of some of the bikes we ride to lunch. From the year of the bike I extrapolated the age and it revealed our bikes show 223 years cumulative. The average age being 8.25 years old. The oldest bike was 33 years old....a Honda Gold Wing. Those things just never quit. There were 8 bikes less than 5 years old and looking at it from a 10 year span, we had 19 bikes that fell into that category. I was quite surprised by these numbers actually. With all the trading that is done by the ROMEO's I would have guessed the age would have been quite newer. I like the fact that so many differing brands are represented. Variety they say is the spice of life.....and we have it in spades!
Hey, let's look at some photos.................

[Shortyd]

Hello From Shorty, It was good to be able to ride with you guys, as I have been quite busy most of this yr. I see Richard Posted the Oldest Bike there. Yes My Old Gl 1100 is still going,she runs like a top . Had a good day and the weather was awesome. Was good to see you guys and the Lunch was darn good to. Shorty In Salina Ks