patriot ride...

this year's rally in raleigh charity ride was the patriot ride for support our troops... without trying to turn this into a debate about whether the war is right or wrong, whether we should be there or not, whether you agree or not, the least we can do for the men and women is give them our support...

this year's ride was heading out to the nc national guard armory and checking out some helicopters. on the surface, the ride may not seem as "cool" as last year's ride to the beer distributor and the caterpillar plant. but i figured it was a small way i could help support our troops - as well as get out of a day's work and ride the bike!!!

the ride itself was fairly uneventful - mostly highway to and from the armory, but there is something cool about having a police escort and the right-of-way. and being in a pack of two hundred fifty plus bikes. i must have been in the middle somewhere because at times, as far as i could see in front and behind there was nothing but a sea of bikes. hell, i couldn't even see the limo leading the ride.

we get to the armory and they have this big spread of food for us... after eating, they give us a little "talk" on how our support helps the troops and other things we can do to help out... then it was off to see the helicopters. pretty neat seeing those us close - especially the blackhawk we've all heard so much about.

in the end, the ride was a lot better than i thought it would be. it may not have seemed to rank that high on the "cool" scale, but looking back, it really was a great ride. put me a little more in touch with what our troops do for us and what we can do to help thank and repay them... one of the ways is to get a license plate for your car...

anyway - on to some pictures from the ride...