We're here, and we're finally in our rooms. No, seriously, we were beginning to wonder. The day started out great - got out of Greenville pretty close to our intended time, had a great ride through the Illinois countryside under bright clear skies,and arrived at the hotel right at 1pm. We figured hey, we're here really early, but surely they'll have our rooms ready so we can get our stuff in the rooms and unpacked, then we'll head over to the Legion post.
No. Rooms weren't ready. Ok, when with they be ready? Don't know, said the one person they had at the counter. (One person at the counter, and hundreds of bikers are about to descend on the place?) Ok, well...let's head next door to the restaurant, get a beer and have some lunch. At 2:00 we decided to call and see if the rooms are ready. Nope. Ok, when do you suppose thy might be ready? Oh, maybe 15 minutes. Ok, we'll call back. Had another beer. Called back 20 minutes later. Are the rooms ready? Nope. No, wait. Two of the rooms are ready. (Not OUR room, mind you, but what the heck. Some of us are going to get into a room.) How long till our room is ready? 15 minutes. (See a pattern developing here?) Housekeeping is in that area. Ok, great. We'll just walk on over. Since Dave's room is close to ours, we'll just stash our stuff in his room so we can go to the post. Things are looking up. Did I mention that when I made the hotel reservations - in February - that I made all of them at once so that we would have our rooms close together? That worked out well.
Got to Dave's room, and the door is open. Not a good sign. We peer in, because we're not sure what we'll see. Not much, over than an unmade room. Turns out Denny and T's room wasn't ready either. The housekeeper (bless her heart) comes scurrying in trying to get the room made up. Turns out they had three housekeepers for the whole hotel. So, we stand around in the hall trying to stay out of the way while she finishes the room. As she finished I asked if she could move to the room that's supposed to be ours? No problem. So I go back to the front desk, get the keys, and before you know it, we're in our room. At 3:30. No problem, got to expect little snags along the way, right?
So we clean up a little bit and head over to Wayne Post 64, the headquarters post for the Legacy Run.
Exchanged post tags, which they made a really big deal out of. Had the Post Commander, the SAL Commander, and the Riders Director all come over to get our pictures taken. They happened to be having a big celebration of the Post's 50th birthday with lots of people, food, music, etc.
Had a meeting with the Road Captains (RCs), Assistant RCs, and Tailgunners (TGs). Turns out tomorrow we'll undergo advanced rider training with the Indianapolis ABATE chapter. Cool. Significant chance of dropping the bike in front of a couple dozen very experienced riders. No problem, I've done that before.
We finish the meeting, get some forms to fill out and a very cool ALLR Tailgunner sign to put on the windshield.
Headed back to the hotel to walk next door for dinner. Lunch was great, and since it's right next to the hotel, it'll be convenient in case someone has a little too much to drink. Bad choice. Dinner was terrible, and the service wasn't much better, although our server seemed to think he was great. T picked up dinner, but I felt like they should have discounted it a lot more than they did. Oh well.
All in all a good day with a few minor aggravations. Stuff to talk about later, I guess.
Here's a few more pics:
Lined up and looking pretty in front of the hotel in Greenville.
On the road - look at that nice tight formation!
Here's a little video from the ride today. It's bumpy, and the sound stinks, but you get the idea.
That's about it for today. Tomorrow we have the previously mentioned rider training, and the rally at the Post. Check back tomorrow night for more.
