Sunday, September 27, 2009

Anascortes Oyster Run 2009

Donnie told me about the Anascortes Oyster Run at the dance last night. I've planned to fix the door on the sailboat but the thought of riding my Harley to what Donnie said was the largest biker event in the Northwest just seemed to take precedence. I thought otherwise waiting at the Peace Arch border crossing and realizing I'd not seen that many other bikes. Thankfully a couple on their bike next to me were going to Anascortes as well. Once over the border more and more bikes began to appear. I linked up with three harleys on the Chuckanut Drive http://chuckanutdrive.com/ and before I knew it I was part of dozens of bikes flowing along that spectacular winding coastal road. At Edison there were so many bikes I thought I'd arrived at Anascortes. Standing on the street, there was Donnie. When I dismounted and joined him I asked and he said, "This is Edison. The Longhorn's one of the favourite stops." I had oysters and they were great. Donnie who'd lost track of the folks he'd started out with lead the way from Edison. He has a skookum Harley Fatbob which was a whole lot more and newer bike than my beloved Harley Roadster. As the more experienced rider too he was gracious enough not to leave me in his exhaust. Of course the police stopped us to say we were over the speed limit but when they saw we had Canadian speedometers they understood that our conversions could be out by 10 miles or so. Anascortes was spectacular. Donnie had said that there were more bikes last year but it was just that more came and stayed at the same time. This year people not wanting to get caught in the crunch that lead to 2 hours of traffick jam last year decided to leave early. The cool sunny weather was just perfect. Apparently 50,000 plus bikers were there this year. The whole town was one big bike show. Every bike related booth was there too from the latest choppers to women sewing on patches with turn of the 20th century foot pedal sewing machines. It was great just to walk about people watching and bike appreciating. Then it was a great ride back to Canada. What at rush!!!









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