The HOG Pen. Lee McGraw-Editor September. Lee McGraw Editor

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1 Lee McGraw Editor The HOG Pen Lee McGraw-Editor September Here we are...its fall! We had a great ride up to Skyline Village Inn. The group left the shop at8 a.m. We got off I-40 in Morganton and traveled to our lunch destination. Bear Creek Marina on Lake James in Marion. I had a back road planned that I do believe led everyone to believe we were lost. I must say, I was a little Concerned about the dark clouds rolling in, but we got off the bikes before the rain began. We stayed about 2 hours and enjoyed the good food, a surprise birthday cake for yours truly and good fellowship. We then made our way up NC 181 to Linville and the Parkway to The Skyline Inn. If you have not stayed at the Skyline Inn, you should make a trip up. Is located at mile post 331 on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the junction of 226 And 226-A. There are some great rides including the Diamondback Road, the Murder Mountain Road and NC-80. On Friday, a few of us rode the Diamondback Loop before dinner. Saturday, we rode into the Murder Mountain Road, which went up Roan Mountain in Tennessee. Saturday night brought great games of pool and more Great fellowship. We woke up to rain on Sunday morning. We put on the rain gear and rode the 4 hour trip in a steady but fairly light rain. Thankfully, that made my 50th birthday weekend memorable. September 14, 2012 brings Thunder in the Smokies, Maggie Valley. NC. Our Chapter ride will leave the shop at 8 a.m. I will be leading that ride up. Please arrive at the shop at least 15 minutes before the ride leaves. I am looking for a lunch stop, so if you are riding with the group, pleases back with a reply so that I can make arrangements on the road. Saturday will bring a lot of options for rides in and around Maggie Valley. Hope to see you there The 2012 NC State HOG Rally is set for September 27, 28 and 29, We do not have an official Chapter ride, but there are a number of Chapter Members going. Log onto for more details. We gave day rides planned. On October , there is a Captain Poo ride for the fall Myrtle Beach Rally. We also have a day ride on November 3, I believe Mike Doby is leading us back to Melvin s in Elizabethtown. We have our fall picnic on November 10, We will have BBQ and the works. If you are new to the chapter and have not rid den much with the Chapter, we will have a number of short trips so that you can meet your road Captains and chapter officers. It will be a great time to get acquainted and more comfortable with your chapter. Watch for more details. Also, December brings Cameron Boy's Camp ride and our annual Chapter Christmas party. More details to follow. We are heading back to the Iron horse Motorcycle Lodge and Campground. The dates are going to be June 6, 7, 8, and 9, 2013, arriving Thursday, 6/6/13 and leaving Sunday 6/9/13. The rooms are held until December 31, After that, the room block will end. They have a lot of options. I suggest you log onto for room options. They also have tents and RV camping. You can even rent a tent! The phone number is The rooms Are under the "Sand hills HOG" name. Ride Smart and Have Fun Joe Wahl

2 OFFICERS Jimmy Melton - Owns the place George Griffin Historian Joe Wahl Our Leader! Director Joe Stanley Klingenschmidt - Assistant Director John McKenzie - Treasurer, Red Cross contact, Mike Hmel -Membership Director Lee McGraw - Editor Bobby Teague Chaplin Roger Staley Safety Officer RIDE CAPTAINS Mike Doby -Head Ride Captain Danny Klingenschmidt Earl Key Eric Pittard Gumby Roger Campbell Chris Isenhour Andy Summers. The American Red Cross Blood Mobile will be at Sandhills Cycle on Thursday, October 4 th from 1-5:30 pm. You can set a time to give with Johncula McKenzie at or just drop in. Last time the goal was met and exceeded by a few pints! Thank you all who gave! It is a painless process and they give cookies and candy bars at the end! One would think I must have given a million pints! No just a few, but John has filled a barrel or so. Lee

3 The Bug ride left the shop on Saturday, Aug. 4th, and was a fun time for this crew. They had a nice day for it! They arrived at the Soda shop around 5:00 pm! Chris Isenhauer led the ride. As you have been made aware of, Bob Zalken had a little meeting with the Asphalt. Bob is recovering slowly but getting better each day. Please keep him in your prayers. Lee (Agency One ride in next Newsletter) HOG Stuff! Carolyn has a pretty good selection of long and short sleeve HOG attire on the shelf! The weather is changing and ya just need more on! It s a great way to support your sponsoring Harley dealer and your Harley Owners Group! If you want things you don t see in the catalog, just ask Carolyn. She can order a stuff that will arrive pretty quick. Also, don t discount the discounted rack! There is some good stuff there! Sometimes it is in smaller sizes that some people call Normal Size but I like to refer to them as Weird sizes. Lee

4 From George Griffin...A great trip! You've heard of the Wild Hogs of movie fame. Well, we were the Old Coots of medicare fame. John McKenzie (age 76), Jim Thomas, Eric Pittard, and George Griffin headed for Sturgis and points beyond for a 17 day, see all you can see, tour. We had a blast. Is it the journey or the destination? For the first 4 days it is definitely the destination because there's nothing fun about knocking off 500 plus miles a day riding interstates. For a break, we did manage to hit the arch in St. Louis and make the tour to the top. The ride from Columbia Missouri to Kansas City sticks out in my mind. 5 o'clock in the evening, 105 degree temperature and the sun a big red ball staring at you square in your line of sight. That may have been the most miserable two hour ride I've ever endured. But, at Ogallala Nebraska everything changed and it became the journey. We left the interstate and wandered through the beautiful plains of northwest Nebraska. For the most part we abandoned interstate riding at this point and began to slow down and enjoy the scenery and lowering temperatures. Our riding and wandering eventually brought us through the Tetons to Jackson, Wyoming kick-off town for Yellowstone. We were rudely welcomed to the tourist area by having to pay $248 for a camping cabin. At least they had a laundry mat. The next morning carried us to Yellowstone and we hit it early so early that it was 40 degrees and our first stop was at a restaurant so we could warm up and drink coffee. But the sun did rise and the temperature got comfortable and a great day was experienced looking at all the natural wonders, including herds of buffalo that knew they had the right of way on narrow roads. We spent the night in a somewhat isolated part of the park at a place called The Roosevelt Lodge. Our cabins had been built in the 30's and not updated since. Plumbing was down a path and things such as cell phone service were non-existent. That was OK. They had rocking chairs on a big porch overlooking the scenic valley and mountains. The dining hall had good food and it was plentiful. And, air conditioning was courtesy of mother nature. This was probably my favorite stop of the trip. The next day we were out of the park and on to the two most beautiful roads in America. Millions of words have been written about the Beartooth Highway and the Chief Joseph Highway. Which has the most gorgeous scenery? We tried 'em both. We rode up to Beartooth Gap which is at 11,000 feet. Talk about cold! With wind chill it had to be hovering near zero. We stayed about two minutes, got our picture and fled back down the mountain. Chief Joseph is not as high or curvy but the scenery may be better. This landed us in Cody, Wyoming and we altered our trips plans to stay here an extra day. It was time for some R and R as we had been in the saddle 10 or more hours each day. Cody is a great little western town home to the Buffalo Bill Museum, which is a must see stop on any trip out west. We also visited a replica of a western town called Old Trail Town. All the buildings are from the late 1800's and included a home that housed Butch Cassidy and the

5 We had a couple of meals at the Irma Hotel, which had been owned by Buffalo Bill and named for his daughter. Then it was off to the Rodeo that evening. Why would anyone try to ride a bull? Finally it was time to head to the Sturgis area. Again, beautiful winding roads and a little bit of interstate got us to Custer, SD about 60 miles from Sturgis. This is considered close during bike week. We settled in to our camping cabin and headed to Mt. Rushmore for the evening lighting ceremony. I had been to Rushmore a couple of times, but the lighting program was something special. Veterans were recognized on stage and then the dramatic lighting of the presidential faces while everyone sang The Star Spangled Banner. Certainly made your skin tingle and pride for your country reach a new high. When is a root canal the best part of your day? I woke the next morning with a serious toothache and knew that it wasn't going away. While my riding companions headed to the wilds of Sturgis I went to the local dentist's office. They had kindly agreed to work me in. Turns out it was as bad as I thought. My teeth have reached that stage where it is root canal, or implant any time I show up at the dentist. They gave me the option of strong pain pills to get me home or let their dentist take care of it. I wasn't too wild about riding while high on pills so I said get 'er done. (I didn't really say those exact words. I tried to act like I was from somewhere even if I ain't). Two hours later I was on the road to Sturgis pain free. I met up with the guys and still had time to take in a few dozen vendors before we decided to head to either the Broken Spoke Saloon or Buffalo Chip Campground both out of town. After maneuvering around some side streets for awhile we realized that a trip to either place was going to take a couple of hours sitting in long lines of bikes. So, we decided we really didn't need to see either place and would head home. We got out of town and on the interstate around Sturgis. All of a sudden, my engine died like it was out of gas. When my speed dropped to 20, it ran fine and I stayed in the break down lane until we got to an exit. After much tinkering we surrendered and I called for a tow (using the HOG deluxe towing option). They hauled me to Rapid City the nearest Harley dealer with service. It was about 9:00 p.m. by then and I figured they would be closed. Actually they were still accepting bikes and after the bike triage guy heard my problems and wrote it down, he told me to put it in line behind 300 other bikes. I asked him if it would be one month or two and he said it should be ready late the next day. I find out that they average 300 bike repairs a day during bike week, using a combination of their guys, Harley guys from Milwaukee and other volunteer techs (that get paid) from around the country. They had 25 techs, and at least 50 others assisting. They even had people that did nothing but test drive the bikes after repair. So, I spent my second day in Sturgis in a rental car following my companions around some beautiful mountain roads. One sight in particular is awesome. On the Iron Mountain Highway you start through a one lane tunnel and visible on the other side, at eye level, is Mount Rushmore. They probably have people wrecking here all the time because you certainly forgot to look at the road with that view. The guys felt sorry for me, a little, and since it was creeping up to 100 degrees they rode with me in the car for a short tour of the Badlands and to Wall Drugs. Yes, all three napped on the way there and back. Old Coots, remember.

6 Sure enough I got my bike back and we were off again with no major harm to the sightseeing objective. Back to Custer late in the day for an early departure on Wed. As I said earlier, we had pretty much left interstates and leader Jim managed to take us through some really rural country. We went about 50 miles before passing a car at one point. We also passed many buffalo herds We saw more buffalo than people which was kind of nice. The trip home was uneventful and 17 days after leaving, we were back home. It was a great trip with great friends and we old geezers held up pretty well. One time on the way out, after a hot, hot day of riding 550 miles we stopped at North Platte, Nebraska to spend the night. Everyone, I thought, was wiped out so I said, thinking I was being funny, Hey Ogallala is only 50 miles away. Do you want to go on. John, the elder statesman, said That sounds good. And he was serious! We immediately told him to forget it. The man is a marvel! Eric and John reachin for some cold steel! They pulled out the AARP cards instead and, not only did they live another day, they got 10 percent off the coffee! Next Month Agency One Ride Photos and article (Thanks Sherrill) Earl s ride to the Bourbon Festival Maggie Valley Ride Danny K s California Adventure State Hog Rally info Whatever else ya ll send me Website Username- melton Password- jimmy

7 VAN CAM P, ME ACHAM & NE WM AN, P. L. L. C. JAMES R. VAN CAMP ATTORNEY AT LAW TWO REGIONAL CIRCLE, PINEHURST, NC P.O. Box 1389 Pinehurst, NC (910) Phone (910) Fax TOLL FREE (877)