Saturday Morning rally report

POTOSI, Mo. – I’m at the Falling Leaf Rally in Potosi, Mo. this weekend.

Actually, I’m at the Potosi McDonald’s which seems to have the only free Wifi in town. This is a roam zone for Sprint, so my G3 Internet connection is useless here.

After some fumbling and a false start, I got onto the road about 10:45 a.m. yesterday and arrived at the rally site some 174 miles later at 2:18 p.m. I figured several of my Indianapolis BMW Club friends would already be here, but it turns out that I was the first of the group to arrive.

Wayne and Peggy Garrison and Rick Nelson rolled in about a half-hour later and we established our campsite with Rick’s big lime green rainfly as the centerpiece (see red arrow about 1/3 of the way in from the right side of the photo. Jim Thatcher and Dallas Peak arrived a bit later. Sometime after dinner and well after sundown, Rich Nathan appeared. Then, to our surprise, Craig Caldwell and his daughter Maia, a fifth-grader, turned up. So, as of 10 a.m. today, there are nine of us here, but there’s always a possibility of more showing up later.

I was the 295th registrant and Craig and Maia’s registration numbers were in the low 700s, so it looks like the splendid fall weather may result in record attendance at this, the 35th annual Falling Leaf. The temperature soared into the high 80s yesterday afternoon, but dropped quickly after sunset. The temperature got down to 53 in my tent before dawn this morning, but I was reasonably comfortable using the 35-year-old North Face down sleeping bag, left over from my backpacking days in the 1970s. I brought the down bag out of retirement because it compresses better than my heavier synthetic fill bag. I packed light and, for the first time in memory, left my oversize saddlebags in the garage and used GT’s stock bags.