We rode to Uke’s Harley-Davidson around 9:00 a.m. and I passed the traffic director guys by once again saying that I’m going to the service dept.  I parked up front and right away found a few people who had seen me and the rat bike before.  A kid working there told me I had to move my bike because there were not supposed to be any motorcycles in that area.  He was not informed about the special parking status of my rat bike.  Another employee came out and she said to please stay right where we were.  Gary was parked right behind me and was getting a few people interested in his paint job.  There was a guy selling Wizard cleaning stuff and wanted to talk to Gary about using his bike in promotional stuff, because of the wizard theme on his paint job.  Roy went inside to purchase some shirts and I waited by the bike doing my PR work.  Then a familiar face approached me and it turned out to be Steve from Phoenix, Arizona who was on this year’s NVAR ride to Washington DC with us.  We both were amazed that we even connected with each other due to the massive amount of motorcycles and all the different places that one could be at all around the area.  I met his wife and we talked for a while.

When more of Dave & Gary’s friends showed up we all went for a ride to Lake Geneva, about 40 miles away.  Gary led us on a host of back roads that took us past a lot of beautiful farms.  When we got to the lake it was a very rich area with huge mansions and very well kept landscapes.  The Wrigley mansion stands out as quite a place.  We went into a very crowded restaurant for the other guys to get something to eat.  After a while Gary, Roy, and I rode back as the other guys wanted to stay for a while longer.

We got back at 3:00 p.m. to get ready to go for a boat ride on Lake Michigan. We stopped at a sandwich shop and got some to go and headed off to Chicago’s waterfront.  This was the first time that Roy had been to Chicago.  After getting the boat ready to go and we got some fuel, we headed out on the big lake.  We cruised around for a while and went through the locks and went up the Chicago River. Once again the city lights, from the water were spectacular. Gary and Nancy said that of all their friends that have been out on the boat with them, I am the only repeat visitor and that I live the farthest away! We got back to their house at almost midnight and I set my alarm to get me up at 5:00 and leave for the parade in the morning before 6:00am….