Rally thoughts

After several days of sunny, pleasant weather, we have a cold front and rain moving in from the west.
It rained a couple of times earlier today and the wind just picked up and filled the air with dead and dry oak and hickory leaves. The principal line of storms is in northwest Arkansas and will probably reach us sometime around midnight.
After the rain blows through, we’re looking forward to a spell of cool autumnal weather. It will be perfect for the 40th annual rally of the BMW Riders Association of the Mid-South in western Tennessee this weekend. If I thought any of my friends was going, I’d plan on it, but I think everyone is saving their time and energy for the Falling Leaf Rally the following weekend in Potosi, Mo.
This will be my seventh Falling Leaf Rally, the first being in 1992 when I awoke on Saturday morning to find thick frost on the seat of my BMW K100RS.
The 10-day forecast for Potosi calls for highs in the low to mid-70s and lows around 50, with only a 20 percent chance of rain – damn near perfect weather to ride and hang out with my Indianapolis BMW Club friends who usually show up in large numbers.
This will only be my second – and probably final – rally for 2014, the first being the BMW MOA Rally in St. Paul, Minn. in July. I had hoped to make the European Riders Rally in Burkesville, Ky. and the BMW RA Rally in Birmingham in the spring, but weather and other considerations kept me at home.