Chuckie’s Big Adventure
Trigger Warning: If you’re offended by beer, motorcycles, loud music, horses, raffles, tattoos, fire trucks, bulls, fun or food, please stop reading now and climb back in your cocoon.
Last weekend was my first fun weekend of the summer.
Friday kicked off with the 9:59 Club’s1 second annual Professional Bull Riding outing. A couple of my 9:59 buddies and I spent a fun evening at the Ocean City, MD inlet where the PBR had set up bleachers, all the chutes for the bulls, and trucked in hundreds of tons of dirt. Oh, plus horses, workers, riders and, of course, the bulls.
Last year no rider lasted the eight seconds required to score points in the competition. This year five riders held on to score.
These riders are awesome athletes. Imagine being thrown off a bucking bull, six or seven feet off the ground. OMG, I think my entire body would have become a sack of broken bones and ruptured organs! And then, after landing on the ground you need to scramble out of the way to keep from getting stomped on.
Awesome!
Saturday was the 20th annual Girdletree Volunteer Fire Company Bike and Cash Bash.
It was my second. Last year one of my VFW buddies who I ride with got me to go. It’s the big fundraiser for the GVFC. Hundreds of motorcycles converge on the little town of Girdletree, Maryland for an afternoon of all you can eat and all you can drink fun. (They do encourage responsible beverage consumption. I make it a point to never consume alcohol when I’m riding. It’s hard enough to stay safe on a bike when you’re sober!)
I rode down to Girdletree along with my girlfriend on the back. We rode with another friend who’s a regular rider in our little group.
We saw riders from the three states of Delmarva, plus New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. It’s a nice event but it’s not good enough to attract visitors from much further away.
One of the best parts of the affair is people watching. Now you may have a preconceived notion of what a “biker” is but, I can assure you, you’re probably wrong. This group was a bunch of middle-class men and women of all races. I’d guess the average age was 60 or above. All nice friendly folks.
Speaking of people watching, tattoos were on full display. I don’t know the average ink per person but I think my six tats probably lowered the average! BTW, if someone has a full body tattoo, does it count as one or as many as it took to cover all that skin? Asking for a friend.
The food was what you’d expect: barbeque sandwiches, crab fritter sandwiches (a delicacy in Girdletree), fries, and baked beans.
The afternoon is filled with raffles, drawings and giveaways. The “Cash” part of the Bike and Cash Bash was a drawing for $250 every 10 minutes and $1,000 at the hour. But the big drawing, the “Bike” part was an end of day drawing for a brand new, $24,000 Harley. Sweet!
My girlfriend and I each managed to score beer koozies that a volunteer threw into the crowd. Mine was a Harley Davidson/Budweiser version. It makes the beer that much better!
Let’s face it, you can only eat so many clam fritter sandwiches and drink so much water. So, we headed three miles further east to the Timeless Tavern in Stockton, MD.
Now the Tavern is what you might call a “dive bar.” I say that with absolute affection because I love dive bars. There’s no pretense; no highfalutin, froufrou drinks or food. Just good people, conversation and fun. As a tavern, the Tavern cannot serve food, but you can buy chips, peanuts and Slim Jims if you’re so inclined.
My girlfriend and I opted for Cokes and they hit the spot! Riding dries you out, for sure.
The one thing that the Tavern has is Keno. Have you ever played? Basically, you pick two to ten numbers, from one to 70. Then a TV screen displays 20 numbers of the 70 picked at random, one at a time. If more than one of your selected numbers is picked you win.
Some (well, actually most) days I’m lucky to win anything. But this day we played 10 games and won $4 in each of six. The $24 winnings almost covered the $20 wagered plus Cokes and tip. To me, that’s a good day!
So, walking out of the Tavern, my girlfriend says, let’s go to Chincoteague! Ok, I’m game – we’re this close, what’s another 20 miles?
So, we head further east to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.
Chincoteague is actually the portion of Assateague Island that resides in Virginia. The portion in Maryland is the Assateague Island National Seashore.
The last time I was at Chincoteague, I saw no horses. This time we saw a few about ½ mile away. In my opinion, Assateague has the better horse viewing. And it’s closer to home!
On the way back we were feeling a bit peckish so we stopped at the Captain’s Cove Golf and Yacht Club in Greenbackville, Virginia. A couple of appetizers and some zero alcohol beers and we were ready for the trek home.
All in all, a terrific day and 125 miles of adventure.
I was in bed by 9PM and slept through the night. Glorious!
The 9:59 Club was formed many years ago. Anyone can be a member (except yukky girls!); you just have to hang around and tolerate a bunch of old guys. Since Bethany Beach begins charging to park at 10 AM in season we’re sure to vacate the municipal lot by 9:59, hence the name.