Road Trip Day Three (Saturday)

Saturday morning started very much like Friday. I got up, called my mom to make sure they were up (per her request), and we got ready and went to eat breakfast. I planned to have the same breakfast as the day before, so I ate my bagel, but the yogurt looked a little questionable so I passed on it. After breakfast, I called Mom again to see what they planned to do, because they were leaving that evening and had to get packed for the ride back and check out of the hotel. So they told us to go ahead and ride and they'd catch up with us later.

The weather was even stranger Saturday morning than it had been Friday. The hubby was putting on a long-sleeved shirt over a short-sleeved one, but I had walked outside and told him that he would burn up because it was already very warm and humid before 9 a.m. He stepped outside and agreed with me, so we both put on short-sleeved shirts with our leather vests to ride. We left the hotel and rode down to the host hotel for the Rally to turn in our sheets for the Poker Run and Observation Ride. When we turned in our forms for the Poker Run, we got to draw cards for our poker hand. I got absolutely NOTHING. I probably wasn't too far from having the worst hand. The hubby started out drawing a straight flush in hearts. Then his fourth card was out of sequence, but was still a heart. No problem; still a flush. His last card, though, was a Jack of Clubs. Darn it! How frustrating...even more so that afternoon. I'll get to that a bit later.

After we finished at the host hotel, we decided to check out the vendors down the street a bit. Apparently this rally didn't have very many vendors compared to others. I'm not sure whether there actually weren't that many there or if it just seemed that way because they weren't in a central location. They were kind of scattered over several different places in the area. But since this was my first rally, I really didn't have anything to compare it to. There were a few things we saw that we liked, but I just ended up getting a new pair of goggles because they had the amber-colored lenses, which I prefer to the dark ones. I'm gonna keep my others for the clear lenses to use at night.

After we left that vendor, we decided to go to one of the other Harley shops. It was the one in Nags Head. That is a TINY store, and we weren't really impressed. It's way too small to be able to handle the number of bikers that come through for a rally. It was more people than even I like to be around, so I knew the hubby was uncomfortable. We did find cute T-shirts for the kids there, though. They were outside the store in a booth, and they had a red-white-and-blue theme with the saying "Let Freedom Ring and my Harley Rumble." I thought they were adorable and knew the kids would like them. Plus, they love it when we bring them back T-shirts, so we picked up one for each of them. We had also picked up an Outer Banks Bike Week pin for each of them to put on their riding jackets the day before.

After we left the Nags Head shop, we rode back to the vendor site we had been at before. Remember my comment about the weather being stranger on Saturday than it had been Friday? While we were at the vendor site the first time, some dark clouds started moving in and we thought we were going to get rained on. It blew by us, though, so we avoided getting wet again. But when the clouds came through, the temperature dropped. So it was cooler for the rest of the day than it had been before 9:00 that morning. So after we stopped back at the vendor site, we went by our hotel long enough to change into our long-sleeved shirts. Then we rode down to the main Rally site since the events of the day would be taking place there. The Green Berets were supposed to be doing a parachute jump in, but it was too windy and cloudy, so it was canceled. So we got to the rally site and grabbed something for lunch and hung around with the lady from P's unit and her friend who had come in the night before while we waited for the events to start. That was also when my mom and her boyfriend caught up with us.

Right after my mom and her boyfriend got there, they started with the "motorcycle games." I was really curious about what kinds of games they would be playing, although I certainly didn't think I'd be wanting to play any myself. They turned out to be pretty interesting and challenging. The first one they did was the slow ride. The point of the game was to be able to ride the slowest without ever putting your feet down. It's harder than it sounds. It was really fun to watch, too. A lady rider won that game. Maybe one day I'll try that one...but I'd definitely have to be on my own bike to do it.

The second game they played was called road kill. They put out stuffed animals in the parking lot, and the contestants had to be riding with a passenger. The object was to be the team with the most "road kill" in the net. Again, putting the feet down was a disqualifier.

The last game was called dirty laundry. This was another one that was way harder than it sounded. The object was for the passenger to hang the most laundry on the line with clothespins. Just like the other two games, feet down was a disqualifier. At the end of the game, there were two teams tied with two articles of laundry hung up, so they had to have a tie-breaker. During the tie breaker, one team managed to hang four pieces of clothing on the line and the other only got two up. However, right at the end, both drivers found the need to put their feet down right about the same time, before the finish line. But the team that had two pieces of laundry hung up conceded to the other team instead of trying to beat them again.

After watching the motorcycle games, we decided to ride back up to the Kitty Hawk Harley shop one more time to check out what vendors we may have missed the day before. We had some time before the dinner and awards portion of the events started, so decided to go up there for a bit. The hubby found a light jacket he wanted for wamer windy days, and I also got a couple of things I liked for myself and my mom. After walking around there for a little bit and failing to talk my hubby into letting me demo an Ultra Classic (one of the bigger motorcycles), we headed back to the rally site and had dinner.

As we were eating dinner, they started the awards portion and the closing ceremonies. The first thing they awarded was the winner of the poker run. Remember my comment earlier about my hubby being so frustrated about his poker hand? When they announced the winner he just groaned. The winner had a full house, Queens over Kings. One more heart and my hubby would have had the winning hand. That was a $1,000 prize! Oh well. Even the worst hand won $100. No, I didn't have the worst hand, although I think I wasn't too far off. Then they pulled names from the Observation Run for some prizes. Finally, after those prizes and after listening to some people talk for a bit, they gave away the big prize for the Rally, which was a new motorcycle. It was a Harley Davidson Sportster 883. It was a nice motorcycle, but I wasn't heart broken that I didn't win it. After that, most people left the rally site, including us.

After leaving the rally site, we headed back to our hotel and decided to go out for the evening and have a few drinks. The place we had eaten dinner the night before, the Port O' Call, was within walking distance, and we knew they had a bar, so we walked down there for the evening. We started out sitting at the bar, but we were on the two stools closest to the stage, so when the band started up, we had to move. I was just too tired to be able to handle being THAT close to the noise. The lounge had an upstairs, so we decided to go up and check it out. What a nice place! We were able to go upstairs, sit and listen to the band and enjoy our drinks, yet be away from the crowd. So we sat and enjoyed that for a while before leaving and going back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

Another great day. We planned to sleep a little later Sunday morning than we had the rest of the weekend before heading back home.

Brief slideshow below: