TMRA 50th Anniversary State Rally in Comanche Texas

We headed out Friday afternoon for Comanche Texas to attend the 50 year anniversary rally for TMRA (Texas Motorcycle Roadriders Association). It was a bit warm Friday afternoon, but Saturday and Sunday were wonderful. Our fearless leader Jean Hudgins has passed away a few months ago, so I think everyone was still in a bit of a shock, but rally attendance was good, and we had a great time. The rally included the usual components, like the silent auction, the Hobo Stew (no hobos were harmed in the making of this stew), the Bike show, Saturday morning hill country ride, Saturday afternoon bike games, including one bike spill. Fortunately no-one was injured, and the lucky (lucky?) fellow won first price in the blindfolded bike ride because he crashed right on top of the target cone Amazing!. We also had some great tunes Saturday evening after the awards ceremony, and got to talk with old friends and go to dinner of course. Sunday Don Potter held a short memorial for Jean, followed by a great sermon and music. I got lots of pictures, including one of the bike spill, but unfortunately no video of that part. I did get video of the Bike Parade, the Memorial, and the service Sunday morning which are posted below, followed by the photos.

Note: I had so many photos to post that I had to upload them in three groups. If you look at the first group, and miss the second and third groups of pictures you will miss about 2/3rds of the photos and all the ones of the blindfold ride, and the slow race. The photo of the blindfold ride spill is about half way through the second set of pictures.

First up the Bike Parade;

Video of the Jean Higgins memorial by Don Potter;

Here are the links to the Sunday Service by Don Potter. I tried to upload them to YouTube, but they are too long, so I posted them to Facebook and linked to them here.

Sunday service by Don Potter part one: https://www.facebook.com/1214656776/videos/6395094247216462/

Sunday service by Don Potter part two: https://www.facebook.com/1214656776/videos/598389272311958/

Photos group one of three, Bike Parade, Silent Auction, Museum, Bike Show and Bike Games Javelin Joust (Click on any photo to see a bigger version and use the arrows to move back and forth between photos).

Second group of photos including the Blindfold Ride and the Slow Race (Click on any photo to see a bigger version and use the arrows to move back and forth between photos).

Group three the awards ceremony and a couple of the Sunday service (Click on any photo to see a bigger version and use the arrows to move back and forth between photos).

Serving Burgers For the Son at CTHD Ride Day

Debbie and I headed out to CTHD in Round Rock this morning to their Ride a Harley event. We were allowed to serve burgers for donations to our annual Run For The Son fund raiser. CTHD provided all the burgers and the fixings, and we brought our grill and man (woman) power to cook and serve them to everyone. We had a good crowd through out the day, and several of our members got to take rides on the various models of Harleys they were demonstrating. I personally resisted, as I will wait till I sell my Road King before I am going to be ready to buy another bike. I was also privileged to give away four of my books to people I talked to. We really had a great time today, and almost all of our members were able to hang around for the whole day. Special thanks to CTHD for providing everything! Here are a few, well more than a few pictures.

New Life Riders visit North Point Church in Round Rock

Today our CMA chapter, New Life Riders visited the home church of our President Adam. North Point Church is located in Round Rock, so Debbie and I headed out from our home (in the car) in Bartlett to see the chapter at the church. I set the GPS to take me to the church, and ended up coming down IH35. The map had us leave 35 at the 79 exit, and turn left (East) on 79. We did that and it then had us immediately turn right into the gas station on the South East corner of where 79 crosses IH35. It had us drive through the parking lot over to the South end of the station and it told us to continue another couple hundred feet to the parking lot of the church. Now, if you are familiar with this area, to do what maps wanted me to do, I would have had to go out into the north bound frontage road, but go south about 15 feet to the driveway of the strip mall where the church is…… Wait a minute, that means it wanted me to go against traffic!!! Not a good idea. So, I sat there for a minute and looked around…. Turns out, there were two tire tracks on the grass beside the frontage road between the two driveways that allowed me to drive the wrong way and not have to go out and risk getting killed on the North bound frontage road. If this is all not very clear, think about where a sidewalk would be, right beside a road, but nobody put in a sidewalk, they just drive on the grass to get next-door with their car. So, I did drive on the grass, and was able to get there without mishap. Now you might be saying to yourself, this seem like an odd way to get to church, and I would agree. I can only hope there is some other way to get there so everyone attending doesn’t have to go through what I did.

The church service itself was fine, the people are very friendly, and welcoming. Adam was allowed to show the CMA Run For The Son video that explains what CMA’s only fund raiser is all about, and later one of the preachers there talked about how we are supposed to be the salt of the earth, using the metaphor of salting each of us to make us salty. I’m not sure about the metaphor, but the Bible does indeed say we are supposed to be the salt of the earth, so I guess it’s ok to be salty. Salt is a preservative after all, and I certainly am getting old enough to need to be preserved. Anyway, here are a few photos of the visit;

Escondidos MC, Austin Crawfish Boil at Time Out Sports Bar in Liberty Hill

The annual Escondido MC Crawfish Boil was held at Time Out Sports Bar in Liberty Hill too, benefitting the West Austin Lions Club and the Texas Lion Camp for Children. Also happening was the March COC&I meeting where we hear from our legislative warriors about all the legislative activity that is happening this year. This was a very well attended event, with certainly hundreds of bikers, both from motorcycle clubs and independent motorcycle riders. Everyone had lots of mud bugs to eat. Anyway, here are a few photos. Enjoy!