We got word Saturday morning that Rob's Dad made it through the surgery but it was touch and go for a while. He still has a long way to go and our thoughts go out to Rob, Jany and all their family.
We talked about riding the bike into town for breakfast but it was just too darn cool out .... brrrrr. We decided to check out the breakfast being offered in the registration building so we walked up there. We found Mike and Penny Kadinger sitting all alone so joined them and had a nice chat while we ate.
The weather warmed some later in the morning so we ventured out for a short ride. We were looking for two things. The first was a bent tree. Seems like years ago when this area was inhabited by the Pottawatomie Indians current US 12 was originally a popular trail for them to travel from Chicago to Detroit. They would mark the trail by bending over small Willow trees and somewhere in this area is a surviving tree that is bent like a pretzel. We rode for several miles but could not locate the "bent tree" :-(
The second thing we were looking for was Old Sam's grave. Seems like Old Sam was a horse whose owner, a local resident enlisted in the Union Army during the civil war. I guess Old Sam was enlisted at the same time as his owner :-). The two found themselves in the bloody battle of Chickamauga in Northern Georgia. Rumor has it that Old Sam was the only horse to survive the battle and that made him a local legend. Sam was returned to the Coldwater area after the battle by train. The story is that when Sam was unloaded from the train he broke free from his handlers and took off running. He ran straight to his former home, a barn on his owners farm where he lived out his remaining days. When Old Sam died some of the townspeople wanted to give him a proper burial in the local cemetery but this was against the law. They ended up doing it anyway in the middle of the night. Years later the grave site was revealed and a marker erected to Old Sam, Civil War Equine Hero, the only horse to be buried in the Coldwater Cemetery.
Downtown Coldwater was having their Applefest Festival and the downtown was lined with vendor booths selling their wares. We walked down both sides of the block checking everything out. Most of the booths were homemade crafts and food. We did purchase some homemade caramel corn but passed on everything else. Sure saves $$ living in an RV, no room to put a 40lb painted pumpkin or a Tin Man made out of soup cans :-)
We relaxed most of the afternoon and I even built a campfire to take the chill off. Some more of our Chapter Members road up for the day and we visited with them for awhile before they left to make the ride back home.
The last event of the rally is the light parade. All the motorcycles line up and parade through town after dark showing off all our pretty lights. I always thought of it as a way to say "thanks" to the town for letting us invade for the week end.
There was a huge line of bikes and the parade was a lot of fun. The citizens really turned out, many were sitting in the driveways and some even had campfires going to keep warm and watch the parade!
Sunday morning we will pack up and head for home. We are in no big hurry and will take our time packing up and leaving.
Monday morning will be back to work for me, now that is a depressing thought! Things are in the works though and we hope to have some plans finalized soon so I can actually set a date to pull the plug. Looks like things may happen pretty fast so stay tuned! I'll keep you posted!
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