Mark your calendar and make plans to attend a camp-out ride Nov. 12, 13 & 14, 2008.
We will meet at Yoder’s Restaurant at Noon for a delicious lunch. Yoder’s is located 13 miles west of Exit 127 off I-75. From this exit travel west on Georgia Hwy. 26, toward Montezuma, 13 miles. The restaurant is on the left.
We will be camping at Seminole State Park for 3 nights. I suggest you make your reservations early. The number for Georgia State Parks reservations is 1-800-864-7275.
On Thursday we will attend the 50th annual Coon Bottom Pilau Dinner. Pilau is pronounced “per-low” or some pronounce it “pur-loo”. Last year attracted about 4,000 people who lined up to eat the chicken and rice dinner, cooked over an open fire in cast-iron wash pots.
On Friday we will travel down some canopy covered roads in Tallahassee and stop for lunch at Bradley’s for some world famous foot long sausage sandwiches.
This is an early announcement but with the ride being three days in the middle of the week, some may need the time to make plans.
I hope you can make it.
Your fellow member, Frank Cabeza
Howdy! Despite some scheduling snafus and the heat, we had a great rally! We had 42 rigs and bikes, 62 adult attendees and a couple of kids for good measure. We ate the whole pig! (GT was slyly slipping in tenderloin almost the entire time). Hope everyone had a good time. Can you believe it, no rain! When was the last time that happened? We only had one person not show, checking up on him now. For those of you who have never heard me talk about an event, please note, I never use names. I would just screw them up and put the wrong one with the wrong one, if you know what I mean. So, you all know who you are…and so do I! You’ll be hearing from me next year!! Now, back to the rally itself. I got there Wednesday to an empty campground. Me and two other campers, one on a sidecar. It was quiet. Slept like a rock… Thursday morning, folks start coming in, start laying out the big tent. Never did that by myself, somehow relaxing. Then came the putting up. Fortunately, several folks were already there by then and they jumped right in to get that thing up, was never easier…grabbed a few tables and registration and our favorite rally activity started, sitting around, staying cool and just hanging out! Really need electricity out there, will deal with that before next year. Thursday was still pretty quit. A few of us just went riding, nice relaxing day. Folks then started coming in and to tell you the truth, Thursday night through Friday night are kind of a blur! A bunch of us rode over to Brasstown Bald (and it wasn’t foggy!) then over to Helen. One trip through Helen is about all I can stand, could feel that evil feeling I get when riding to work in heavy traffic, so bailed on the group so they could enjoy their German found without a grump in attendance and rode over to Turner’s Corner and enjoyed a meal with another member who just happened to be there (Ok,. It was Larry and I knew he was going to be there, so sue me). Larry is used to grumps, so we ate and chilled out, watching impatient folks come and go. The place had just reopened, guess some folks didn’t know that…Food was good, not the same old place, but still good. Kinda wish I had ridden back with the group though, they got to see a rather a large bear down by Brasstown Bald on the way back. Only thing I saw were bikes going fast or folks going so slow I wanted to pass them, in the corners, right hand ones…Oh, you noticed the word BEAR, yes, there are bears in them thar woods. One was seen on 60 closer to Dahlonega and GT and Britt’s trashcans have been hit by either a bear or “a 400 pound dog” per GT. But the bear didn’t bother us; we probably would have eaten him… I digress, back to the Rally. I thought the Camper folks (formerly known as Trailer Trash) would camp amongst their own kind in the back behind the trailer, so that is where I sent Van and Sharon. Well, I didn’t get the memo; all the other Camper folks nestled in amongst the tents, sorry Van and Sharon. At least it was quiet for most of the weekend… Friday night was a Zoo up at the lodge. Already knew that they were short handed, so gave restaurant work a try. Bussed tables, delivered food, made tea, did what ever they needed help with. Just didn’t feel right eating while all of you were waiting for food. Dinner was worth the wait, especially the finding Bill Kurtz part, almost ate that salad myself… By Saturday morning, knew were weren’t going to be able to get the field events started on time, so made the truly stupid decision to have them in the late afternoon, well, as you all noticed, that didn’t happen. Bill was overcome by the heat and down on the ground with a couple of our rally attendees (who knew what they were doing) were getting him back on his feet. By this time on Saturday afternoon my part of running the Rally is generally over and I am starting to relax, well, once again, that didn’t happen. Yes, I had a little explosion due to the unexpected stress of all of our plans coming apart for the entire afternoon in a matter of seconds, sorry about that. I do apologize to anyone I may have offended or irritated. No excuse. As everything turned out, everything and everyone turned out to be ok. Thankful for that and will address how we are going to prevent or at least be better prepared next year in the next newsletter. Will also have the rally flyer for next years Rally ready soon as well. Overall, I think everybody had a good time, my wife actually was there (I like that) and as far as I know none of us crashed all weekend. That sounds like a successful rally to me. Hope to see you all there next year; we’ll be at the same place on June 11-14, 2008.
Now on to other issues, we have a couple of events coming up, everyone is invited. All are within close riding distance, 2 involve travel out of state. We are planning a campout in North West Georgia in August and on the same weekend, Cliff is involved and has invited us to go to a Veterans Appreciation Motorcycle Day in Asheville. It’s about 180 miles from the campout sight to Asheville. We can talk about this later and figure out what we can do. Sounds like a good weekend to me! In October we have another 3rd Friday campout weekend that happens to also be Vintage Festival and AHRMA Racing at Barbers Motorsports Park. These are still in the planning stage, but please consider attending these events.
About heat, folks please, please take it easy in the heat. Some times, doing something that sounds logical can be disastrous. Cooling your head way down while the rest of you is hot will probably not produce a desired affect. If you start getting too hot, just slow down, get something to drink, get your body cooled down (when your body cools down, the rest of you will as well) and just take it easy for a few minutes, will do you wonders.
In closing, have just one more tip. Be very careful when putting your Goldwing Sidecar rig on the center stand. I don’t know what they call that big muscle in the back of your thigh, but I pulled the crap out of the one in my right leg (yeah, the one with the knee scare) this morning while attempting to put mine up on the stand. Guess it didn’t really need to go up there…
James
The May campout has come and gone. I had family obligations and couldn't attend and as far as I know, no one else attended either. Our next campout is August 15, 16, at Ft. Mountain State Park. Reservations are recommended. 1-800-864-7275. The campout in October will be in Alabama to take advantage of the Barber Museum's Vintage Days and Racing that weekend. Information about camping to follow.
Editor’s note: Eddie has put together a contest for Georgia Sidecar Club members. So get our and ride and don’t forget your camera…
Up to 10 more contestants may enter the Landmarks
Across Georgia if they wish by contacting me,
Eddie George 445 Buck Trail Hoschton, GA 30548
egads1744@yahoo.com
The contest requires finding 10 specific landmarks and photographing them with an item that will be furnished to the contestant. Rules are in the packet to be sent to contestants.
Eddie
I guess we should start out by getting some business out of the way. Our old “system” of membership renewals is prone to error. With information coming in at all times of the year it is hard to keep accurate records. We surely do not want to alienate a member because we forgot to update a renewal, nor does it make sense to mail a newsletter to someone that has opted not to renew their membership. After some discussion at campouts and the rally the following is what we have come up with:
1) Memberships due in June. You can easily re-up at the Howdy Summer Rally! Should be paid no later than June 30th.
2) The July - August issue of Sidetracks will be the last one sent to expired memberships
3) Will round off (mostly up) existing expiration dates to June 30th.
4) If you have any problems or concerns with your expiration date, contact any of the folks listed on the masthead of this newsletter so that we can work out an accord.
5) Please check your mailing label each issue for accuracy.
The 2008 Georgia Sidecar Club Howdy Summer Rally is now in the books, and if you missed it, shame on you. We got to see a lot of the regulars, as well as some new faces. We even enlisted some new members! I arrived at TWO on Friday evening and was amazed at the great turnout. We had attendees from all over the Southeast. The Kentuckians once again turned out in force with the largest out of state group at the rally.
Art