05/24/08 - Trip through Northern Mexico

To be perfectly honest. The Church rides I’ve been on haven’t been the best. The church has a lot of nice folks but not many of them are really bikers. When you get someone out on the road who is more of a “bike owner” than a biker. They have a tendency to act a bit like children on vacation. They tend to whine and complain about the weather, the pace, the frequency and quality of meal stops, They tend to always schedule things on the same day as a ride so that they constantly look at their watch saying, “Well, I gotta be back by XXX to cut the grass” or some other meaningless chore. In fact it’s been so bad I believe I’ve started to look at it as a chore more than an enjoyable pastime. But for once. That was not the case as we had only 4 go and all were spot on for the day. We originally had a campout scheduled but in my infinite wisdom I failed to recognize it was Memorial day weekend, we cancelled the campout and planned a ride Saturday to Little River Canyon. I showed up at 7:30AM at the church and found one lone couple on the bike. The preacher and associate preacher Rodney and Brian had spent the night on the road and were going to meet us at Naccaloola falls in Gadsden. When the lady found out no other girls were going she immediately demanded we take her home. So we did. We left from their house and went on up to Naccaloola falls. As a side note, I believe Gadsden has more red lights per square mile than any city on earth. We met the other two at Jacks near the falls and told them we dropped off our lone female. Brian, who has 5 kids and a wife and lives in a small house lamented what an awful tragedy this was as he attempted to wipe the ear to ear grin off his face while giggling like an alcoholic at the Jack Daniels distillery. We laughed and talked for a while before we left. I’ve made the trip up Lookout mountain many times, but I never get tired of it. Brian had never seen any of it so it was neat to see his reaction to Little River Canyon and Desoto Falls. We ate at a small place called the little river café, very good place if you ever pass it. We ended up at the overlook at Mintone. We sat at the overlook for possibly an hour just feeling the wind, viewing Gods handiwork, and talking about how messed up women are and how God must be a biker. We took hwy 11 home from there stopping only once for gas. At the lone gas stop in Ft Payne I noted to my riding buddy how many store fronts were now in Spanish and were bright yellow and red, the redneck at the gas pump next to us then began a 20 minute tirade on why he hated Mexicans, gee…. Sorry I brought it up. He should try moving to Wisconsin, I didn’t see anyone with so much as a tan up there.