On the road to the 2013 Honda Wing Ding

New Honda Gold Wing Sport. All back, beautiful!

Now, I know the first question going through your mind is, “What is a Wing Ding”.  It is the Gold Wing (motorcycle) Road Riders Association’s annual convention.  Do we have a Gold Wing?  No, but our friends, Barry and Lana, do and when we learned that they would be attending, we decided to ride up and join them for a few days.  Now, the sad news is that Barry became ill a week before we left and decided he could not make the trip.

Convention hall filled with bikers checking out the vendors.

We had already made all our arrangements so decided to go anyway.  This year the convention is being held in Greenville, S.C.  We left Florida Tuesday and had a pleasant ride to Madison, Georgia where we stopped for the night.  Today was an easy ride with only one short, but very wet, encounter with rain.  By the time we stopped to put on our rain gear it cleared and remained clear until we got to our hotel.

Good news was learning that our hotel was literally a short walk to the convention center.  After a short rest, we headed up the hill and picked up our registration packet.   It was lunch time so the first stop we made was at a food stand.  It was a very limited menu that included ¼ pound hot dogs, barbeque sandwiches, and a salad.  I couldn’t believe it when I chose the hot dog.  Not only was it a ¼ pound, but I had them pile on chili, coleslaw and mustard.  I have never ordered anything but a plain hot dog in my life.  Not sure who ordered this behemoth of a sandwich, me or my evil twin.  It was a gastronomic delight!

We had the best seat in the house–the floor!

We spent the three hours walking around the convention hall stopping at many of the vendors to look at their wares.  The primary vendors seem to be companies selling LED’s (lights) and mp3 audio installations.

A very intent Randy is trying very hard to win the top prize.

We came up to the Progressive insurance booth which was a carnival booth where participants would shoot water at a target making mechanical horses race.  Randy decided to try his hand at winning the big prize, a Progressive bear.  Try as he might, he was unable to win the bear but came away with a delicious lollipop and a biker towel.  It was very funny to watch, everyone gets so serious.

By the time we returned to our hotel, there was a weather alert for the area.  We decided not to take the bike out and instead walk to a restaurant close to our hotel.  I got what I thought were directions to a restaurant that was within walking distance of the hotel and off we went.  We had only been walking a short while when the heavens opened up.  To add insult to injury, we never did find the restaurant.  We finally saw a restaurant called the S&S Cafeteria and stopped.

Look at all the LED lights on this bike! Amazing

We walked for more than a mile; we were soaked to the skin, cold and now hungry.  All of these things added together made me make a very bad decision about what to eat.  I took more than I could possibly eat and made choices that were not very healthy.  But in the end it did not matter because, I just could not get comfortable enough to enjoy anything anyway.  Oh, well.

Pre-production 1974 Gold Wing #40. May be the oldest Gold Wing.

The rain did not let up by the time we finished our meal, in fact it actually got worse.  We walked back to our hotel and looked like drowned rats by the time we entered the lobby of the hotel.   Hopefully, tomorrow will be a dryer experience.

Enjoy,

Mary

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