July 4 Celebrating With Other Wing Dingers in Ft. Worth

On this day to celebrate our country and the freedom which it affords, our large group (over 10,000) of Wing Ding attendees dug out our best red, white and blue flag waving attire. There were hats of all shapes and sizes, sparkly shirts, multi-colored t-shirts with patriotic messages and the latest winking electronic pins (the things we think of to use up tiny hearing aid batteries). There were a considerable amount of presidents' pictures around...but they were on little green sheets of paper the motorcycle accessory vendors were collecting! Everyone was having a good time and making new friends.

We wore our leather vests with "Oregon Veterans' Association" on the back and it generated a great deal of conversation being so far from home. The main comment is usually "What a long way to ride your motorcycle". We usually fess up and admit that a few years back that would have been the case (riding 500 mile days cross country) but that now we travel trailering our bike behind our motor home. Gary's vest also displays some Vietnam veteran patches which generate additional conversation and camaraderie. Very refreshing after so many years of silence.

After two nights of fireworks displays at the coliseum adjacent to our campground, we wondered what the city of Fort Worth would do for an encore. We walked just a half block from our motor home with chairs in tow and planted ourselves on a grassy knoll along the river for the show. Coordinated to music and shot off the top of one of their downtown buildings, the impressive display was visible for miles in all directions. It was awesome and even more inspiring with all our new found "biker buddies" around us.