Looks like a rainy ride home

 SAVANNAH, Tenn. - Well, I didn’t see this coming.

I rode over to the Inn for breakfast, smugly congratulating myself on my plan to eat first, then strike camp and pack a dry tent, anticipating a short, pleasant ride home.

I noticed the overcast, but supposed it was light and would burn off once the sun got a little higher in the sky.

Then, about the time I finished my scrambled eggs, I checked the Weather Channel web site and saw this radar map. WTF? I looked out the dining room window and studied the surface of the lake near the shoreline. Crap! Rain!

So I dashed out and put the rain covers on my XM radio, tank bag and tail bag and came back in to knock out a blog entry.

The really bad news is that this big blob of rain extends all the way west to Oklahoma and it’s not going to clear up anywhere along my route home in time to do me any good. So I might as well take my time.This is the payback for absolutely gorgeous weather Friday and Saturday.

The Indianapolis BMW Club placed second in attendance at the Return to Shiloh Rally last evening. We posted a dozen members present early in the day yesterday and later the Alabama club logged in with 13. We suspect they cheated – maybe recruited a member or two at the rally just to beat us. The good news is that none of us has to find space to haul an award plaque home today.

Craig Vechorik, the genius of classic BMW restoration from Sturgis, Miss., won the Best of Show award in the rally bike show with his R75/2. Nobody was surprised. It’s the spectacular bike I mentioned seeing yesterday.

I got a shot of him chatting with Rich Nathan about the bike.

I guided Rich and Bob Bender to the Broken Spoke for dinner last night, based on a good experience I had with Wayne and Peggy Garrison last year.

Rich loved his catfish, and my pasta was pretty good, but Bob discovered the checf doesn’t know how to cook a lobster. His lobsters were rubbery and refused to come out of the shell, so he sent them back for two more. The second attempt was no better. Fortunately, the management adjusted his bill to compensate for the screwup.

Bob booked a room at the Inn last night, having had an uncomfortable and largely sleepless night Friday in his tent.

The rest of the club members were taking down tents and packing when I left the campground and are doubtless many miles away by now, chuckling at how they packed dry tents and mine is going into the stuff sack very very wet.