Volume Three Number 12
Unknowable
Factoid?
Do all Mother Road Ride/Rally® participants have a "connection" to Route 66?
I ask the question because it seems the people who sign up that I actually visit with do have a connection. John Hargis said he lived on Route 66 in Amarillo, TX as a child. He recalled marveling at all the different license plates that went by his house.
Sometimes the connection is more "distant." A parent - or grandparent - drove the route before, during or after World War II. Sometimes the caller was just a fan of the 60's television series Route 66. I myself drove "legs" of Route 66 in Illinois when I lived in Peoria, IL and traveled Central Illinois for a management training company.
Perhaps we should ad a "connection to Route 66" question in the information form we send to people who register for the run.
Another Unknowable?
One of my favorite
things about touring
Route 66 is the extravagant claim.
Example: Just north of Foyil, OK is a sign (visible only to the south bound traffic on 66) "Largest Totem Pole in the World." The cynic in me asks: "Now just where would I go to find a `registry' of totem poles and their sizes?"
Of course there is no such registry. So the stating of "largest" pretty well makes it true, no? As I said, it is an unknowable factoid and a major part of 66's charm.
In the spirit of Route 66, I've been toying with The Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally® true claim to fame. Longest road tour? (No, 4 Corners is longer.) Largest? (No, there is Daytona, Laconia, etc.) More time zones? Hmmm, we'll need to get our thinking caps on and our tongues in our cheeks!
Other Great Motorcycle Roads
This is a continuing series. Again, we are
indebted to the
International
Auto Sport catalog for the picture. (I guess I
bought something from them
. . . I get their
catalog now and
then. It has
some neat stuff,
mostly for four-wheelers.) This is a shot of the Million
Dollar Highway in the San Juan Mountains
of southwestern Colorado. Friends have
waxed eloquent about this road in summer.
I see that the road is clear of snow (the ski
resort Telluride is nearby) but I don't imagine I would much care for the cold.
Missed THAT Too
I didn't get to see Boot Hill Saloon when I went to Bike Week at Daytona, FL in March of this year. Now comes an article in the Wall Street Journal about the bar. (Biketoberfest is Daytona's 'fall' counter point to the spring's Bike Week)
Boot Hill's owners do a ton of business in t-shirts, bumper stickers, suspenders, pins . . . even Boot Hill Saloon panties. As a matter of fact they are doing roughly three million dollars a year in business just across the street from a cemetery. Their major challenge is filing law suits against folks who want to open up their own Boot Hill Saloon. They've registered the trademark so as far as bar services, clothing, paper goods and printed matter is concerned they are the sole owners. The latest infringer is in Thailand.
Motorcycle Trivia
From April to September, India produced 209,354 cars and 1,438,478 scooters, motorcycles and mopeds! All of which would give brand new meaning to the phrase: "Bike Jam."
