Ride To The Wall

On July 11 and 12, Gary and I went to the Ride To The Wall events in Cody. I know, another trip to Cody. This makes the third weekend in a row we've spent in Cody, we are almost residents. We left Hardin at 8:30, had to meet our friends in Laurel.

We rode to Meeteetse and had lunch in the Cowboy, met the Gma's there. We got the time when the rest of the riders will be in town, as Meeteetse was a stop for the poker run. We didn't have to wait long, after we ate our lunch we waited probably 15 minutes and here they came. You can hear them before you see them.

One biker named Ted from Washington was just amazed that Gma was 101 years old and he talked to her for quite a while. He even called his 90 year old mother and told her about meeting Gracie. He said he didn't want to hear his mother complaining about being old, she is a youngster.

We rode with the group back to Cody, what a sight it was. There must have been about 50 or 60 bikes and we were stretched for about a mile. I was just wondering what the other motorists were thinking when they saw this huge group. We got to the stop sign just before heading into Cody and got a police escort through town. We were staying at the Gateway Campground on the west end of Cody.

We set up our tent with the others. Our tent has a closet so everyone was getting a kick out of that. Gary checked us in, picked up our t-shirts, flags and dinner tickets. At least we had warm weather, no rain on this trip. We didn't freeze during the night. We were prepared, we actually packed a blanket this time.

That night we ate dinner at Cassie's which was just across the street. We all had prime rib and after dinner they gave away prizes and awards. We also got our instructions for Sunday morning. The rest of the evening was spent on our own. We just stayed at the campground visiting with the others. There was a convenience store right next to us so we got our snacks and liquor.

Sunday morning we tore down our tents and got the bikes packed up. We all had to wear our t-shirts for the parade through town. We ate breakfast at the Irma as they serve a buffet. Looked like everyone else had the same idea. It was fast to get that many people served.

After breakfast we had to meet at the rodeo grounds. The count was 187 people and about 100 bikes. Not everyone stayed at the campground and many were local Cody residents who joined in for Sunday. We got a police escort through town to the Veterans Memorial Park.

The two Viet Nam Veterans motorcycle clubs always present the park with new flags so we watched the flag raising and listened to a few speeches. They kept it short. The head guy was lamenting that not many people were out watching the parade of bikes through town. There were some.

I was thinking to myself that if you want people to watch, then don't plan the parade on a Sunday morning at 10:00 am when people are in church. After this was over we made our way home.

We ate lunch in Belfry at the Horse Trader cafe, it was good food. We usually don't stop in Belfry on our way to Meeteetse but it was nice. Once we hit Laurel we said our good byes to our friends as they live in Laurel. We got home fairly early in the afternoon about 2:00.

I took quite a bunch of photos and I even tried to get some video. One video was pretty good because we were stopped, but the one when we were riding down the street was too blurry. I will have to work on video. I even tried to get some photos behind me. Some are good and some are very interesting. Again I need more practice. I was just aiming the camera behind me and snapping away.

We had a nice weekend. So glad that for once we didn't get any rain, had good weather all the way. We met alot of new people and Gary really wants to make this an annual event. The guys were talking about next year meeting the group in Casper. It only cost us $70 for the event and that covers everything for the weekend.