OKC HOG Rally

[schrec]

ANy one from TWT that will be attending the HOG rally in Oklahoma City this weekend?

[schrec]

HOG OKC

Me and the OL (old lady) attended the national HOG rally this past weekend in Oklahoma City.
We had a very good time even though the temperature was over 100 degrees all four days that we were on the road.

Thursday morning the 25th we packed up the bike and headed for OKC. We got a bit of a late start and it was a very HOT ride. It was about a four hour ride to OKC, we took a mix of backroads and superslab to get there. We had planned to stop at a couple of places on the way up, maybe do some gambling at one of the casinos along the way, but the heat kind of put the kybosh on any stopping. The OL gets kinda cranky in the heat. Can't say that I blame her, it felt like we were riding with a giant blow drier pointed at us all day.

Friday was the start of the rally, so early in the AM we headed over to the fair grounds where the rally was located. We checked out the HOG-town site and some of the displays there. It seems like the HD marketing is really geared towards the women rider this year, and a few of the displays are directed especially for women. Which is good since the OL is tossing around the idea of getting her own ride some day. One display they had was to teach you how to pick up a downed bike. They had a 1200 sportster they were tipping over and showing how to pick up, and letting volunteers from the crowd try getting the bike back up. There were some vendors at the rally. THe hot item of the week was the neck coolies. We bought two and in talking with the vendor we found out they sold 500 of them on friday alone. I must say they work pretty well for riding in the heat. THere was also an area where they had stunt rider Bubba Blackwell, and some other drill teams performing. THe Seattle Cossacks were there, as well as a team from Bruce Rossmeyer's HD in Ft Lauderdale FL.
The Cossacks are cool because they perform on antique bikes with hand shift and foot clutches. THe demo team from FL all rode newer model Electra Glide Ultra classics. I saw Bubba Blackwell wheelie a V-rod which I thought was quite interesting. Bubba did kinda piss me off when he decided to do a burnout and pointed the back tire towards the crowd and started to fling bits of rubber at me. THe other stuff he did was your typical sportbike stunt type performance. His main performance bike was a Buell.
Friday night we went to Bricktown in OKC and saw one of our favorite Texas bands, Two Tons of Steel perform at a place called "The Wormy Dog Saloon". A couple from NM that we met at the hotel met us there. As usual Two Tons rocked the joint.

Saturday we went to the memorial site for the Oklahoma City bombing. I know seeing the story on the news that people had an idea of what a horrible event in American history this was, but one thing I never got from the news reports was how big this explosion actually was. When you read that the crater left from the explosion was 6.8 feet deep it just makes you cringe. Not to mention that the truck was sitting on 10 inches of asphalt, and underneat the asphalt was a 2 foot thick concrete base. THe rear axle of the Ryder truck that contained the explosives was thrown 575 feet, and parts of it were peeled back like a banana. You are not allowed to take pics inside the museum, so I cannot show you what I am talking about. The museum is housed in a building that was next door to the Murrah building, you can still see where it was peppered with debris from the explosion. THe inside has all been redone obviously, except for one corner rest room that was left as it ended up on April 19, 1995. I do have some pics from outside that I will post up. Some of the stories told by the survivors were very sobering. One woman was in a staff meeting with her 8 employees and she survived, but all 8 of her employees were lost when the building collapsed, the part of the floor her chair was on did not collapse, but the rest of the room did. One display is a recording of a water rights hearing that started at 9AM. You can hear the explosion go off at 9:03AM. There are displays inside of twisted office furniture and glass stuck in walls that just shock the **** out of you when you ralize what it would take to inflict that much damage.

Saturday night we did dinner at a local steakhouse that has been around since 1910. IT's called Cattleman's Cafe. THe house specialty is "Lamb Fries". Let me tell you there is not a lamb part in any of these "lamb fries", they are actually bull balls. Coated with corn meal and deep fried. The taste is somewhere between chicken and nothing. Lamb fries remind me of fried oysters. So yeah, I did eat some bull balls, and I liked them.

Sunday was just a hot ride home. IT started off overcast and actually not a bad ride, but about 40 miles north of the Texas line, the clouds broke and in a few minutes it felt like riding with a blow dryer pointed at your face. We passed a bank with a time and temp sign and the temp said 102.

All in all it was a great weekend even with the heat. Around here if you dont ride when it is hot, you dont ride. We met some good people, had some good times, and I got the OL's interest in getting her own bike piqued. Now we just need to get her enrolled in a BRC and get her a bike to learn on.

[King_O_Road]

Nice write up, thanks for sharing.... I wanted to go to the OKC- HOG but it was my wife's birthday, and that just would not have flown.... Post up those pics that you have....

Shiloh

[schrec]

I got around to adding some of the pics.


the front door of cattleman's cafe

One of the arches at the entry to the bombing memorial.

THe next two shots are of the memorial. each chair represents one person that died in the blast. you cannot really see them in these shots, but the smaller chairs represent the children that were killed in the blast. the detail in the arrangement of the chairs is interesting. i cannot remember all of the details, but it was interesting to hear at the time.

the spray paint on the wall is on the building that was across the street from the murrah building. it was written by one of the rescue teams.