Sunshine and Harleys

Sunshine and Harleys


After a week of rainy days, we woke up to the sun shining brightly on Mt. Baker gleaming as it loomed in the distance. I wasn’t ready to give up my heated gear just yet, but knew that sometime during the day I wouldn’t need it plugged in.

Gassed up and ready to ride we arrived at Mt. Baker Harley-Davidson in time to meet and greet friends who were riding with us for lunch and others who wanted to go, but needed to take care of chores and business.

Shelia was the road captain and Chris, the sweep, for the Conway Pub lunch ride. We pulled out with 13 bikes and 2 trikes for the jaunt down Chuckanut Drive. Mark had a music gig south of Seattle, but he choose to ride part way with us and log a few miles before heading home. Lorie was riding her new Sportster and this was her first group ride. Way to go Lorie. JD (John Dunne) was back on his wheels and ready to enjoy the ride. We also had several guests riding with the group for the first time.

The ride down Chuckanut, as always, was breathtaking; but with the trees all leafed out it is much harder to capture a great shot of the bay from the back of the bike. On the shallow end of Chuckanut and Samish bays the tide was out so there were great stretches of mud flats As we rode through Padilla Bay a large group of Model A style cars was headed north and both groups waved and honked at each other. We stopped at the Shell station to stretch our legs and take a break before finishing our trek to The Conway Pub.

Baby calves scampered away from the road as we passed by. Maybe it was the loud pipes or it could have been the loud music blaring away from our sound systems, but it was cute to watch them. Several times horses would bound across their paddocks as we rumbled by. Other animals just seemed to ignore the iron thunder rolling by.

Luckily we arrived just before the lunch crowds and only one other small biker group was arriving at the same time. Parked out front were two Shelby Cobra’s that had us checking them out. Plenty of parking and the best part was there was room available for everyone to sit on the patio and enjoy the sunshine and warmth. Bill and Marla arrived just a short time before our group did. They had a few errands to run and decided to meet us for lunch and finish the ride home with us. Another couple Larry B. knew from the shop arrived just after we were seated and joined us for lunch and also the ride home.

The music was a little loud on the patio, and we discovered we were sitting right under a speaker, which meant you talked louder or listened to the music and waited to talk in between songs. Our servers kept lots of ice tea and sodas flowing while we enjoyed the leisurely lunch amongst friends.

Pay the bill, take a pit stop, now it’s time to ride. Shelia was waiting outside the pub by her bike looking a little like “Bo Peep” who lost her black clad sheep, as we slowly wandered out of the pub and ambled over to our bikes.

Mike S. and JD needed to head for home after lunch so they broke off at the freeway and the rest of us continued across the county to highway 9 where we headed north. We made a brief pit stop at the roundabout near Big Lake and we were on the road again. As we neared Bellingham the group began peeling off in different directions to head for home. Our last stop was in Acme with several friends while the rest kept going.

It was a great way to start the weekend and my only regret is that we won’t be able to ride to Winthrop on Sunday with the group to have lunch at the Sun Mount Lodge. Good job to Shelia on being the road captain and to Chris for being the sweep.