Meeting Willy G.

Chosa's Harley Davidson was having a grand reopening and Willy G. Davidson was invited to the festivities. Willy G. does not make appearances in every dealership so I was thrilled to know he was coming and so I rode my bike to the City of Mesa, Arizona where Chosa's is located. (Chosa's is now Chester's Harley Davidson). Willy G. and some very important people from the Harley Davidson Company in Milwaukee were there and they would be signing autographs. The signing was to begin at 7:00 p.m. I got there at around 5:30 p.m. and the line was already pretty long.

I parked my bike and dutifully went to the end of the line, gosh how I wished for those high school days were you would just ask for cuts to the lunch line. Heck, here that was not to be. It only took a couple of minutes til I was already being friends with the guy in front of me as well as the one in the back which allowed us to play the "save my spot" game. This way we could go into the dealership and browse instead of just standing there like dummies.

I really didn't have anything for Willy G. to sign, luckily before we reached him we all received a goodie bag and in it was a HD shot glass and a red Chosa's bandanna. Now I had something to collect the coveted autographs. Mrs. Willy G. Davidson was there as well and she was nice enough to exchange a word or two.

So when we were at the Love Ride in California two weeks later, as we were sitting there enjoying the food, I spotted Willy G. Davidson, his wife and all his entourage trying to inconspicuously cross the grassy area. I pointed him out and one of our friends, a really cheery woman that did not hesitate to go and mob him, entourage and all. Willy G. was kind enough to stop and talk to us, some of the people in our group were covering him as we knew if anybody else saw him they would all come running as well. Trust me there were over 20,000 of us there, hiding him was kindda hard.


We took a couple of pictures with him. I mentioned to his wife that I had just seen and talked to them two weeks before in Mesa, Arizona at the Chosa's re-opening and she commented on how lucky we were to catch them twice in such a short period of time. That was true, because I have not seen them since.

That was the best California motorcycle trip out of all the ones I've taken. On the way back we had just crossed the California/Arizona line, it was around 1:00 p.m, I was bringing up the rear and all of a sudden my bike started coughing and making these really ugly noises, I lost power and I pulled to the shoulder, out of sixteen bikes ahead of us nobody noticed that I stayed behind. I saw them disappear right before my very eyes. The engine was running but you could hear it miss a lot. I saw a sign that a rest stop was just ahead of us so I pushed forward. I made it to the rest stop and I parked the bike. Mi chica pulled her cell phone and started calling, we knew no one in our pack would hear a cell phone ring, they were all riding in the very loud bikes and mi chica's phone was running out of batteries. I saw electrical outlets at the ramadas and so I thought we were saved... wrong! None of them worked, luckily mi chica got through to Phoenix and so the message was sent to my son to come down to pick us up.



Before he could do this, he had to take our Expedition and go find a hitch for it. Everything was closed because it was a holiday weekend with Monday being the actual holiday. We saw cars come and go, come, park, and two hours later leave, come park, go finally at almost 9:00 p.m. my son finally got there. It took him forever to find a place where he could purchase a hitch, and then get it installed. Then, it took him another forever to find a place that was open to rent a trailer.



So, on that particular trip, we left L.A. at six in the morning and got home in Phoenix at almost midnight. Oh, by the time our friends realized we were not in the pack they had no idea were we had stranded, we knew they would have all had rode back, they tried calling us but by this time mi chica's phone was completely out of battery and so we were incommunicados. It was nice to hear from all of them the next morning as one by one they called us to let us know how sorry they were they lost us. Two of them acutally got to Phoenix and attached their trailers ready to go pick us up, but they needed to know where we were.

Mi chica and I enjoyed being stranded together that we didn't even mind. To this day, that trip remains the one we enjoyed the most. No time to get mad or be mad, after all this was all part of the:

S

STRANDED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE


Eloy, Arizona or in better terms,middle of nowhere.

Run your car off the side of the road
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere
Or get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back
Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare

This is where the rubber meets the road
This is where the cream is gonna rise
This is what you really didn't know
This is where the truth don't lie

{Chorus}
You find out who your friends are
Somebody's gonna drop everything
Run out and crank up their car
Hit the gas, get there fast
Never stop to think 'what's in it for me?' or 'it's way too far'
They just show on up with their big old heart
You find out who your friends are

~Tracy Lawrence

I received a phone call at 1:00 p.m. Mi chica called me to let me know that my daughter, her husband and two kids got stranded on their way to Phoenix. They were on their way to spend Easter weekend with the rest of the family.

Well, remember what happened to us two weeks ago, yeap it happened to them too. They didn't quite get a flat tire but the top layer did come out. This is typical in Arizona specially during the summer and today believe it or not it felt as if summer is already here. I know, it's hard to believe for some of you back east as you are still battling rain and even snow, but here it was hot and to top it off I was waring black Levy's.



Two of the four stranded passengers.

Of course they called mi chica first, and I was the last to find out but as soon as I was told I hit the streets looking for a replacement tire and after gassing up the car got on the freeway and hit the road. When I finally got there almost an hour and a half later my daughter's best friend Jasmin was already there. I asked her what she was doing there and she said she was on the phone with Michelle when it happened and she asked her "Do you want me to go?" to which Michelle replied "No you don't have to, my daddy is coming" but she told herself, "Jasmin, she is pregnant, it's a desert, hit the road".

Jasmin got to them about 20 minutes before I got there. Anyway there was a tire shop about half a mile from where they were (this they didn't know until much later), I was like darn I could have saved an hour from looking for a tire in Phoenix. Anyway, the car and it's passengers made it to the tire shop and the tire was mounted and twenty minutes later we were on the road back to Phoenix.


Car after it was fixed.

About five miles from Queen Creek the traffic goes to a halt and it's bumper to bumper at five miles an hour for the next hour or so, the sun was hitting right on my leg and it was burning, turned out there was an accident involving five or six cars, people driving down I-10 are maniacs at the wheel so there are many accidents all the time. But eventually we passed the accident and we started going fast again.

I had a little passenger which I requested as once we get to Chandler we can use the carpool lane and being that it was going to be "rush hour" I needed a partner. For the first half an hour this little partner just would not keep quiet. He asked me if we were almost home but I told him that we were still a long way from home and suggested for him to take a nap. He politely declined and I said OK, a minute later I turned around to see him and he is totally asleep. So much for no thanks grandpa, I'll stay awake with you.





OK, this picture could be deceiving, because there was a lot of traffic and yet it doesn't look like it. Anyway, in front of me is Jasmin and Michelle, and if front of them Jr. and Alaina. See we all had a buddy, notice we are on the carpool lane.

We finally got to the house a around 5:00 p.m. and mi chica about five minutes later, we cleaned up a bit and got changed, Diego actually took a bath and then we went to the store to buy some cooked fish for dinner.

No matter what the situation, we always try to make it fun and this was no exception. Yes, I am the grandpa and daddy but Jasmin is a friend. And as the song says, "You find out who your friends are, someone will drop everything". Thank you Jasmin, we love you.



No, you are not seeing double and I guarantee you this picture has not been photo shopped, after freshening up, Diego and I dressed the same to go to the store.