From the President
We’ve turned the corner and headed toward fall. How do I know that? We just completed our annual Labor Day ride. The original weather forecast and advance interest indicated we were in for a great weekend. Note - I said original forecast. When June and I headed down to Scioto on Wednesday evening, there was no rain in site for the next 7 days. The temps were to be mid 70s during the day and 50 something at night. You could not ask for better.
Thursday morning the trailers started to roll in. By early evening we already had 25 trailers set up, and ready to party. By noon Friday, the camp was basically full. However, we improvised and continued to park campers along the creek with tie lines stretched from their trailer to trees at the creek. Anita was keeping track of the parking fees and registration. A couple rigs came and went, but I think we had 53 or 54 paid campers. Those campers coming from 10 different OHC chapters. That is our largest turn out that I can remember.
Then the bad news started to circulate. The temp was bumped up to mid 80s with high humidity plus rain starting Saturday afternoon. Yuck!
Friday evening our club hosted a dinner for everyone in camp that was interested. Diana Burton was good enough to take charge of this for me. Thanks! The dinner consisted of smoked pulled pork butt, potato salad and baked beans. I smoked the pork, Donna White made the beans and my sister made the potato salad for me. You don’t have to be the best at everything, you just have to know who is. That is where my sister, Gayle entered the picture. I always felt she made the best potato salad I have eaten. I begged a little and she agreed to make it for me. From the request for her recipe plus compliments, I think I was right. On the down side, I passed along the good news of how everyone enjoyed the salad and asked if I might get the recipe. So far her response was, glad they enjoyed it, but mum is the word on the recipe. Sorry folks.
Saturday for the first time we offered a poker run as one of our activities. Margaret Hite took charge of this activity. The sign up was way better than I expected, 56 riders I think. When most left camp around 10 am, the sun was shining. The rain had been forecast for afternoon. Unfortunately for those riding, about the time most were maybe 5 miles out, the rain started. Not a drizzle, but straight down frog-drowning type rain plus thunder and lightning. Very few turned back, most just sucked it up put on a rain slicker and kept riding. One lady came to me and announced: nothing I put on this morning is dry. When the riders returned to camp with their poker chips, Richard Reisinger and Margaret Hite dealt out the cards to see who would be the eventual winner of the ride. Not saying they were stingy with the good hands, but if I ever make it to Vegas, I hope they are not my dealers. In the end, one of our own, Kim Davis won the pot with 3 tens. The winners share was roughly $280 dollars which she donated back to our club. Super generous Kim, Thanks !
June Streitenberger took charge of our cookie/brownie contest. This was our largest entry to date with 11. After sampling all of the entries, our three judges selected Kim Smith as the winner. Second was really close so it was decided to split the price of 2nd and 3rd and call it a tie for second. Those entries were made by Jackie Webb and Shelly Stelle. All of the winners received gift cards and or a gift. Congrats.
evening a concert was planned with Travis Brown as the main singer. Travis is a local talent that does a wide range of mostly country/western type music. The rain stopped just as Travis pulled into camp. He expressed concerns for his equipment and had reservations about playing. I offered up some options and he said, what the heck I’m a hillbilly, I’ll go for it. The rain held off for the entire 3 hours and 15 minutes he entertained us. As alway he knocked it out of the park.
Prior to Travis taking front and center, I had asked Bryan Black, one of our members to sing a special song and tell us a country poem. The song is about wearing long johns and some of the situations a guy might get himself into. Drop dead funny. Bryan’s poem centered around a buying trip to town and a special request from his wife to buy her a bra. Bryan’s animation as he told the story plus the basic odd request was side splitting. All I can say is his wife wears a 6 and 7/8. Any more info, you have to ask Bryan. Thanks old buddy.
Sunday night about 2 am, heavy rain and thunder rolled into our area. I met with the other officers the night before and we decided to shorten our ride. A good idea especially after the rain over night. We did complete our planned biscuit and gravy breakfast organized by Sue Keller, Kathy Campbell and Helen Guillen.
After breakfast we has a short presentation from Diane Joseph who was representing the state organization. This is their 50th year anniversary. Diane also had a drawing for several nice gifts
To finish up we hurriedly went through our own raffle drawing, 50/50 and silent auction. The Silent auction brought in roughly $700. Another big success thanks to the generosity of all of the donors and buyers.
At that point everyone headed out to pack and start home. Luckily all but a couple made it out on their own. Was the weekend what we all hoped for? Maybe not, but no one complained and I think most enjoyed their time at Scioto. Maybe next year the sun will shine.
As we approach the fall riding season, our club still has a couple rides planned. Check our web page and look under calendar for exact dates. Also I hope to complete the second work project we planned of installing tie rails and benches at Buckskin Canyon. To regress slightly, a group of us did complete our first project of restoring 5 picnic tables at 3 different location at Hocking State Forest.
I’m out of brain cells for the moment so I’m going to end this book here. Hope to see all at a ride, work detail or meeting.
Chris
