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Day 3, Albuquerque – Amarillo

We had a late meeting start so we could sleep in early.  Yay!  Over at the Rich Ford Dealership, breakfast was served.  What a spread!  They had everything.  The bacon, sausage, eggs, fruit, biscuits and gravy was all great and there was much more.

Mandatory meeting time again, but it didn’t start until 0800.  Nice.  After the usual stuff, several items were raffled off and one lucky winner turned his prize over to the Fuel Team.  What a kind gesture.  We applauded.  Then the usual mandatory stuff and hand signals.  Hey they were correct today for some reason.  Then we had our Platoon Leadership briefs and enough time to complete them.  I was glad for that.  We had a couple new riders join our platoon, so we covered most everything.  We found out later there were a couple other things we should have covered.   We were out of there at 0900 under LEO escort and headed to the little town of Moriarty to parade through town.  We had done this previous years.   We rode slowly through this little town waving at some of the residents obviously there to watch us ride by.  It was great to see them and to be welcomed by them.  Quickly we were back on I-40 with LEO escort.

We stopped in Santa Rosa for another donated fuel stop (this is becoming a regular thing, thank you again to our donor), then the long trek to the Blue Hole (all of three miles).  It’s really a sight to see but a chilly 61 degrees year round.  Several riders jumped in together.  I was not there to witness the debauchery, but I heard later that it was pretty funny.  Sorry I missed it.  The Blue Hole is a natural spring of fresh water which is often used for diving.   Lunch was great as well as the little time we had to socialize.   Several plaques and certificates were handed out again.  I happened to see that in the back of the service vehicle there were must have been about 10 boxes of these things.  Everyone and every organization that contributes to the Run are appreciated for good reason.  As Bandit says, “we cannot do this without them”.  Bandit sees to it that all are appreciated with a huge dose of love and hugs and thanks to all that help.

It was a hot afternoon ride to our next stop.  This place has a car museum inside.  Worth a look if you have time.  It’s free.  The hydration and snack truck was also there and I quickly grabbed another one of those green fruit drinks.  It wasn’t long before the 5 minute horn sounded, so we mounted up for our ride into Amarillo.  Last year it rained on us here.  This year we had overcast sky without any rain.  What a blessing.

We crossed over into Texas and soon there were two planes overhead to greet us releasing streamers as they flew.  We also saw the 10 half buried Cadillacs that all comers are free to spray paint with graffiti.  We saw many overpasses with lots of patriots on them cheering us and waving flags with a few very large flags hanging from the overpass or from fire engine ladders high in the air, an amazing and very patriotic, very American sight for us to see.  We have a special team called Ambassadors whose responsibility is to visit these patriots and thank them with pins and other items they bring for them.

Through downtown Amarillo we were escorted by LEO right to our venue at the Christian Heritage Church again.  We where we were greeted by many patriots with flags and a huge flag draped between two fire engine ladder trucks.  The food line went fast and we were all seated inside. The ribs were so good and they loaded us up with them.  All the food was great and there was homemade peach cobbler!  The Star Spangled banner was sung by a young man and we all stood and saluted. A young girl sung America the Beautiful.  What a darling voice.   Then there was a special presentation for Gold Star families.  My Tail Gunner is one. She stood and was recognized.  This woman is a sweetheart.  I really love having her on my leadership team.  I think we all love coming here to Amarillo and to the Christian Heritage Church, for the great food of course, but most especially for the love they show us all.  I can’t wait to be back again next year.  We’ll be back again next year and the next.

 

“We Ride For Those That Can’t”

Tom “Twotone” Lystrup – Platoon 5 Leader / Midway Route SitRep Writer

I’d appreciate your comments.  For those that have emailed me their comments, my thanks and my love to you all.

lystruptf@gmail.com

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