July 5 Grand Parade through the streets of Fort Worth

Of course we returned to the vendor exhibits again and shopped till we dropped. "So much chrome so little time". We are doing much better at "restraining" our impulse purchases now that we have two "toys" to outfit (motorcycle and motor home).

We attended a couple seminars that were very interesting. Gary went to one titled "How to spend less time cleaning your bike" where of course they sold him lots of new fancy formula products guaranteed to clean it up spiffy in a hurry. I went to a class on decorating apparel with appliques and tiny crystals. Quite interesting and the gal was very entertaining. I came away from it with some good techniques on placement of embellishment on garments that I can put to use in my machine embroidery even if I never purchase one of her pre-made appliques.

Highlight of the day was our Wing Ding Grand Parade. We all gathered in the parking lot of the local community college...there were nearly 2,000 bikes staged by the time we started. The route of the parade took us down major thoroughfares, but also through grand old well established residential areas. It was 6:30 pm on a week night and the people of Fort Wayne were out enmasse to watch us. Most sat in chairs 2 and 3 deep along the way but some stood holding signs welcoming us. The smiles were big and the waves were genuine. Wing Ding had been in Ft. Wayne in 2002 and having us return was a big boost to their economy. It had been the top item on their local news all week, how we were bringing big money in to them and how clean cut we are, non-drinking, etc. not causing them any problems. It was obvious they appreciated us. I spoke the next day with one of the people who had been along the route and she said it took 30 minutes for all the bikes to pass her vantage point...we were two abreast and traveling 20 - 30 mph...wow what a sight.

Another hot and humid day to show us why we enjoy living in the Pacific Northwest!