Wing Ding

Theresa and I had a beautiful, but hot, ride from Eureka Springs. We stopped at the Daisy BB Gun Museum in Rogers before crossing the boarder into Oklahoma. The display of antique to modern BB guns was fascinating as was the history of the founders of the company which made windmills back in the late 1800s. In 1888, an inventor walked into the bosses office with his newly designed gun. The owner tried it and he said, "Boy, that's a Daisy", a term of the day describing anything that was really neat. I'm glad Cucumber wasn't the popular term. I'd have felt kind of goofy as a kid shooting my Cucumber. We met a lady there named Sue, who worked years ago with Beth Higby, a friend of ours at Bentley Village. She was very excited to hear that Beth is doing well in Florida. Small world.

The Honda Gold Wing riders gather somewhere in the country every year for a huge rally called a Wing Ding. This year it is in Tulsa, Oklahoma and we expect 10,000 to attend! We arrived around 4 PM and started shopping right away. We managed to spend a couple of hundred bucks in the two hours before closing. I still have more shopping to do so we will go back tomorrow. The Wing Ding is the very best place to buy motorcycle stuff. All the vendors are there fighting for your business and we find things you'd have to travel the whole country to locate.

Between wallet purges, they offer classes on almost anything you can think of dealing with riding. Dunlop sponsors a tire and safety check, chrome thingy vendors abound, and mechanics are on hand to mount your new goodies.

We returned to the show site after dinner tonight to see the end of the light parade where several hundred, very well dressed Gold Wings, paraded around the area, led and followed by police cars. The light on the patrol cars however, could not match the lights displayed on most of the bikes. One guy drilled holes for 1,900 individual LED lights which caused his trike to stand out from a mile away. Many of the hundreds of Tulsans, seated curbside on lawn chairs, applauded and cheered his passage. In spite of the tiny current draw of each lamp, he reckoned the whole lot pulled 30 Amps so he had to run his motor, just to keep it lit up! I felt sorry for him when, at the end of the parade, the judges gigged him for one light out! One out of 1,900? Damn! I might have had to pretend I didn't see it if I were judging.

Another crafty participant, edge lit his windshield in such a way as to illuminate the scrimshaw like etchings made in the Plexiglas. It was a work of art worthy of severe road rage if any trucker ever kicks up gravel in his path. The imagination and effort expended on these bikes is amazing. Many are such perfect showpieces, I'm surprised that they ride them across the country through the hazards of rain, dust and accidents. They look like they should be delivered in velvet boxes.

Our bike crossed it 50,000th mile today. I owe it a nice bath and maybe a lube job for it's good service.