08/11/07 - Kings Ranch Ride

Saturday was the annual Kings Ranch Ride. This is a charity dice run for a chritian home in Shelby county for kids who have been removed from terrible home situations. A friend of mine organizes it and it has lots of corporate support. Last year it rained and this year it was slap dab in the midst of a heat wave from hell. That morning Shawnette went to work so I was left with Jade. I was concerned about having jade out in heat like that but I didn’t have much choice so off we went. I met the riders from Bradford Road in Springville, Wolfman from the Southern Cruisers came up there just to enjoy the coolness of the morning. The preacher asked for any prayer requests before he prayed and without hesitation Wolfman blurted out “Snow”. The trip was made easier by the fact that another guy from the church had his daughter who was close to Jades age so when we stopped they pretty much did their own thing. We started the ride at Lightning Strikes and went to several bike shops along the route. Apparently one guy actually bought a bike at one of the stops so they must have been happy. The temps really weren’t too bad until we got to the Kings ranch. The folks organizing the ride did a good job of keeping water handy all day, there was plenty of free ice cold water at every stop and at the end. We ate hamburgers and hotdogs and such and I won a $25 gift certificate to Kohl’s. In the end the ride raised over $20,000 to help keeps this very important kids home open. There were lots of young girls and a smattering of boys there who had been removed from homes that were apparently terrible. I wondered what awful stories they all had to tell. I wish places like that weren’t necessary but unfortunately they are. Jade and I got back on the Goldwing and headed home. I was going to lead the church folks back to where we started via a backroad route I knew, unfortunately one of the riders due to some inexperience made a pretty bad mistake and crashed his bike. I ran back there and he was bleeding in several places and was having a seizure, at that point I was thinking this ain’t gonna end well but thankfully he wound up being ok, I didn’t know that till late that night as we sent him off in an ambulance with a neck brace etc on. I never let Jade back there to see the whole thing, I didn’t want her to have that picture in her mind. We waited a long while as some folks from the church tried to figure out what to do with the bike of the boys father who had gone down. Finally I left alone with Jade since the heat was getting really bad. After about 30 minutes I was becoming physically ill, I had to stop at a gas station and drink some Gatorade and cool off. Jade seemed to be doing much better than I was but I’m sure she needed some hydration too, just not as badly as I did. I think her body dissipates heat better than mine. It must be all the blubber. Anyway, we had a great trip and I enjoyed it, but I won’t be riding again until this heat wave moves on out of here.