Rally report: Thursday evening

BMW MOA INTERNATIONAL RALLY, Tenn. – Paul the photo guy found me in the cyber cafe about 3 p.m. and copied my images from the day, freeing me from the 5 p.m. photographers’ meeting.

Cruising the grounds, I ran into longtime friend John Simpson from Bloomington, Ind. and we adjourned to the beer garden for about four hours of beer and conversation.

I met John at Nepenthe in Big Sur back around 1997 when we  discovered we had identical pearl silver 1991 K100RSs with Indiana plates in the parking lot.

We bump into each other every few years, the most recent encounter being in 2005 at the BMW MOA rally in Lima, Ohio.

I lost track of the number of beers, but I finally wandered off in  search of dinner. I found it at a German food stand in the form of a bratwurst with sauerkraut and a Bavarian cream puff.

The regular cyb er cafe is closed, but there is a designated area in one of the exhibition halls set aside as an after-hours cyber cafe, which means they have a table, chairs and electrical outlet where you can access the Wifi.

Custom paint job on one of the bikes to be given away at closing ceremonies.