Tuesday, June 12, 2012

We hit 100+ today. . .

. . . and I'm not talking about the weather.   Nope, I'm referring to the 130 visitors we greeted today at Afton Station!!  Oh my goodness!  I'll begin at the beginning.  

Ron M. and I left Tulsa at 6 a.m. and sped down the interstate to be in time to meet the group from the Mother Road Rally at 7:30.   When we arrived, the two "advance party" photographers were already there, so we quickly opened up for them.  Shortly thereafter Marly and Tattoo arrived, thank goodness, because we were suddenly inundated with beautiful motorcycles and happy people and we needed all hands on deck.   There were 90 in the group, and they were all fresh and rarin' to go.   George Higgins from Florida has run this group for a number of years and he does a wonderful job leading this huge number of vehicles across all of Route 66 from Chicago to L.A.  Quite an undertaking, and his group grows larger every year.  It was awesome to see the parade of bikes enter town.   While I handled the selling, Ron M. took a huge number of photos, and Marly guided the folks to the two showrooms and answered car questions.   Tattoo, who is doing well after surgery on Friday, had fun showing off his tattooed body to the appreciative group.   Here are a few photos, but in an attempt to keep from overloading this post, I might save some of Ron M's great shots for tomorrow.
Most of the group

Tattoo entertains the crowd... or are they entertaining him?
Marly meets group leader George Higgins
After that group roared out of town, we had an unexpected visit from 10 folks and 5 interesting vintage vehicles from the Piston Head Auto Club of Bowie, TX who are taking a partial Route 66 tour of the general Oklahoma area. More cool people in cool cars.  This was turning into a perfectly GREAT day!

 The parade of visitors didn't stop all day!  Not including the visitors from the two groups, we also visited with folks from Mountain Home AR, Auckland New Zealand, Baxter Springs KS, Orchard Grove OK, Oscaloosa IA, El Cerrito CA, Lompoc CA, Melbourne Australia, Mt. View CA, Omaha NE, and Overland Park KS.  It felt like the whole world was on Route 66 today, and all of them were headed for Afton Station.

I will be driving up to Afton tomorrow immediately after my dialysis treatment in order to meet yet another group, Dries Bessel's group from the Netherlands.  I've been trying to meet Dries for years, so this will be quite a treat.  See  you tomorrow!

1 comment:

SusanEllen said...

Hooray and Hallelujah! Bet you're tired, but it's a good kind of tired, isn't it?