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As riders, we face a grave danger every time we saddle up. So at the beginning of the riding season, all over the country there are "bike blessings". If you've never been to one at Alto Pass Illinois, You've never truly been blessed.

Mo and Flash headed down Friday Morning

BigUn and Miss V joined 'em later in the day

Joe, the owner of the Broken Wheel Ranch insisted that we put our "horses" in the stables to keep 'em out of the weather

Don't know who these two scary goobers are, but I wouldn't wanna mess with their ponies

Saturday morning Miss V and Flash made breakfast

Then we took our first of many rides up the hill

Later we were joined by Trapper and Dreamlady

We paid a visit to the Root Beer Saloon. A watering hole like none other.

We heard some pretty wild stories from the owner... an old school biker turned restaurateur.

If ya don't know what this is about...
you need to go to Alto Pass and check it out for yourself

As we were getting ready to leave, Longshot and Chip turned up.

This meant it was time to head up the hill for more pix. On the way past camp we noticed that Newt had arrived all the way from Alabama

Hmmm maybe not the Magnificent Seven... more like the Not-quite-right Nine

Now it was time to ride
(all the way back to town to the ice cream shop)

OK... NOW it was time to RIDE
(all the way to the lodge at Giant City State Park)

for a refreshment

How does Chip spell relief?

OK... OK... NOW IT'S TIME TO RIDE
(back to Carbondale to the grocery store)

Food for 9 hungry hard ridin' bikers = $58
Takin' an all-day ride with your friends to get groceries = PRICELESS

Now it really was time to ride... we needed to get back to camp and get the tired ponies put into the stalls

And "Cookie"
... (the biker formerly known as Trapper)...
had his work cut out for him

Then it was "story time"

After which came bed time.
Joe made his rounds at 9:30 and said there was no-one left awake... what a bunch of wild party animals we (at one time) were!

Sunday morning definitely needed coffee