Edward Terry

The ROT Rally came around quick this year but we were prepared for it..almost. The whole truck/RV thing was iffy there for a while. The truck had been having transmission problems, breaking down south of San Antonio a few weeks before. The RV was residing at my step brother’s house after it had been “jettisoned” at a convenience store in Elemendorf, Texas when the trans blew.  I was able to pull it all together though, picking up the RV and making it back to Austin late at night before check-in day.

Check in and set up went fairly smoothly except for being boxed in by a huge bus, forcing me to back the RV up through swarms of bikes and people to get to a clear path to our spot.

Wednesday and Thursday were smooth as silk except for the massive storm that rolled through Central Texas Thursday night. We wound up covering up the bikes and evacuating to the Expo center itself for fear of tornadoes and hail and so on.  I’m not going to compare our situation to any Katrina events but it was a taste of what it could have been like. Plus the real bummer was that the Robert Earl Keen concert got canceled. Next time then.

Friday, I actually rode the motorcycle out to a place called “Cindy’s Gone Hog Wild” out in Bastrop, TX with Abraham. It was biker joint out there but it was surprisingly clean and the folks were friendly. We were served by Cindy herself at the bar for lunch. I was pleasantly surprised that my bike wasn’t kicked over in the parking lot (i kid i kid!) when we headed out.

That night Linda and I met my family downtown for the dinner and biker parade. We were able to get a good table at Hickory Street Bar where we could see the festivities and the parade coming down Congress. After the parade we walked down to Casino El Camino for a damn good burger. I was aware the Robbie Knievel jumped some Budweiser trucks in front of the capitol building earlier that evening but I was eating ma burger! Here it is.

Saturday consisted of trying to stay cool while out at the Expo center and hanging out with Abraham’s riding group. We saw some vendors but no bikes as they had the inside areas closed off for cage fighting. We cooked up some fajitas and drank some new Mesquite Smoke beers from Shiner. I stayed in the RV that night, and offered the RV’s couch to a VMAX rider from Houston that had no place to go. We sat out for a good while that night drinking suds and trying loop bead strings onto various parts of trailers, 4wheelers, and people.

Sunday is pack up day, and we loaded up and headed out. All in all a great time again and can’t wait til next year.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.