[i:89de5]My apologies for the late posts.  I had planned to have a few easy days to play catchup, but after hitting Fairbanks, even after finishing the trip north, have been anything but short.  I'll fill everybody in on what happened in subsequent posts.[/i:89de5]

June 2nd, 2007
Red Deer, Alberta
GPS: coming soon
Distance Traveled: coming soon

It feels like we're almost home.  We've talked about it, and Justin and I agree – we could happily end our trip today.  Alas, 'tis not to be.

Happily, though – for those watching, anyways – Rob lost his key.  Again.  And this time, he couldn't find it.  He tore apart his luggage and searched everywhere while we were all waiting on our motorcycles.  Finally, he gave up, and requested his spare key from Justin.  Since Robbie has had the hardest time keeping track of his stupid keys, it's oddly fitting that later in the day, in Red Deer, Robbie had his jacket &amp; keys in Mom's mobile cookie factory (the trailer) when the trailer took off without him.

When we were finally ready to go, Sean stole the lead of the pack, and set a maddeningly slow pace – five miles/hour BELOW the speed limit.  I could have happily throttled him.  I pulled up beside him and tried to communicate my frustration, but he waved me away, and i settled back in the group, fuming impotently.  Fortunately, i feel he was punished, just a little bit, when he tried to get back into Canada.  You may remember that he lost his passport to a random act of stupidness just this side of the US/Mexican border.  Canadian customs didn't like this very much, and dad had to pull aside and go in to beg admittance, which they grudgingly granted.

We had a great big group of riders meet us at the US/Canadian border, I'd estimate about thirty riders came down to greet us, which was just frickin' cool.  Glenn Turple – owner of our favourite dealership, Turple Brothers – even came down to meet us.  Apparently he rides his Goldwing trike to work every day, even in the winter.  So he's likely as crazy as the Noble boys.

Also cool to meet was Dick Fish, who did the Pan-American motorcycle trip North -&gt; South in twenty-one days.  He'd informed us that he'd just received confirmation from the Iron Butt Association that they'd recognized his feat.  He promised that he'd sit down with us later today and give us some pointers on the long haul north.

I have to admit that it was really neat to see so many riders on so many different motorcycles come together on a ride like this, raising money for Kids' Cancer.  In fact, it was almost overwhelming.  If you ask Dad about it, i bet you can get him to cry a little bit.  We also had a support truck with a trailer along for the ride, in case anyone had some problems, courtesy Terry Banyard (thanks!).  Wish we'd had that going through South America. 

One of the things that i hadn't expected when riding with a large group of motorcycles is that everyone has a different fuel range, and so we all stop at every gas station.  Every gas station, I'm not even kidding.  At least we had plenty of time to chat with each other.  Eventually the whole group just kept going and riders who needed gas would peel off, joining up later.  

Coming into Lethbridge, Robbie managed to snap a lever on his clutch thingy, so he could no longer shift.  More importantly, he couldn't ease into first gear, and Dave Richter had to push him started at the intersection into the gas station, where Justin pulled the bike apart trying to find out if he could fix it, but apparently having a mechanic on tour with you is no guarantee of a smooth-running motorcycle.  We needed a part, and we couldn't find one.  Stepping up like a hero, Glenn Turple phoned into his dealership, and had them pull a new V-Strom out of a crate and grab the little part the Rob needed to continue smoothly.  Thanks, Glenn!  

We still had to get Robbie to Red Deer.  Since he couldn't ease into first gear, we had to get him rolling manually so he could then pop into first.  Rob is a bit of a jerk, so when I push-started him, he didn't have the engine running already, and i had to start the engine the Armstrong way, too.  The second time i started him, he remembered to hit the start button first, which made it like fifteen times easier.

After we worked out our refuelling system and were finally making time to the rally in Red Deer (we'd gotten started late 'cause of Robbie's stupid key, and all of the fuel stops were not helping), we met up with an even larger group of riders at the gas station just north of Airdrie.  

I'd somehow managed to be the first of the Nobles into the gas station.  Thinking I'd have some time for a coffee &amp; a lemonade, I went inside and chatted for a bit with some fellow riders.  Unfortunately, Dad had a different idea, and I only had time to taste my drinks before I noticed him pulling out of the gas station.  I threw down the only five I had – a five i'd been carrying since Argentina – and bolted out the door onto my bike.  I assured everyone else still getting ready that we'd be riding slowly so they'd all have a chance to catch up.

I tried to set a pace at 100, but people behind me couldn't take much of that speed, and i was soon getting passed like I was standing still.  Bowing to the inevitable, I raced along to catch up with the main group.

Just outside Red Deer, the whole motorcycle entourage suddenly pulled over to the side of the road.  I was towards the rear of the procession, so I had a good view of this guy on a KLR ripping it up in the ditch.  I thought it was odd that we'd all pulled over to watch this, but at least it got us all bunched up, and we were able to form a staggered procession that ate up the highway for about a kilometer.  I found out later that Robbie had pulled over 'cause he had some kind of problem with his clutch, and when Sean pulled over to assist, so did everyone else.

Natalie O'Connor had spent much time and energy pulling everything together for the rally at the Capri Centre – organizing food, events &amp; bands.  She did a great job, and everything came off wonderfully.  She'd even planned a little route to have the motorcycles come in, and had asked me to MAKE SURE that the bikes came in that way.  I'd told Justin, but he wasn't leading and Dad wasn't listening, so everyone ended up coming in the wrong way, and parking in the wrong places.  Some of the volunteers got it all sorted out, though, and the four of us pulled up in front of the stage.  I had a frightening moment when I stopped where I thought for sure I was going to drop my bike – I'd been scaring myself about doing that, and I almost made it come true.  Fortunately, I was able to catch the fall before I think anyone even noticed, and saved myself from making a total ass of me.

Everyone cheered and clapped as we pulled up, which was a little frightening and invigorating at the same time.  I'd never been the centre of attention for such a large group of people, and I felt a little off balance.  There was, of course, many tearful greetings from mom – who, like dad, cannot help but gush the tears during emotional moments.  There were many, many pictures taken.  I'm pretty sure i wasn't at my photogenic best, but what can you do – I manned up with the rest of the boys and tried to look pretty.

Natalie (the most beautiful girl in the world) had told me that she was going to hang back until the furor had died down a little bit before coming over to say hi, but fortunately her mother had better sense, and dragged her over to share a bit of the spotlight with us.  I did manage to refrain from a too-affectionate greeting, if i do say so myself.

CKGY has been really great to us this whole ride, allowing us to phone in every morning to help keep interested parties in the loop during the day – especially nice when I'd have to go a couple days without interweb access.  They even offered up a couple of tickets to Faith Hill &amp; Tim McGraw that were auctioned off for several hundred dollars, all of which was donated to the KCCFA.  Woot for them!  

Candice Martin from the actual KCCFA made an appearance with her kids, and it was very nice to finally meet her.  They're going to do the accounting once we get all the pledges from the ride-alongers &amp; the final count from the rally, and let us know how much we managed to raise for the charity with this whole shindig.

After we were introduced to the crowd, and dad lied about our trip a little bit (he said we'd crossed the border in Phoenix – last time I checked, Phoenix doesn't border with Mexico, and we didn't even go THROUGH Phoenix).  We corrected him quickly.  I was surprised when he didn't tear up on stage, 'cause that's what dad does.

It was a gorgeous day outside, and I was super hot wearing all my shiny new motorcycle gear, so I stepped up to the dunk tank.  I ousted Justin Hubert, CEO of Heritage Family Services – who, incidentally, bought us all new motorcycle boots after I'd bitched and moaned so much about the lousy boots we'd started with.  So, thanks to him, too!  Unfortunately, the dunk tank lever thing was broken, and I was the first to dunk myself when it gave way when i first sat on it.  The water was surprisingly frigid.

Unfortunately for the partiers, we were unable to get an outdoor liquor license, and so drinkers had to go into Bellini's to quench their thirst.  I was hankering for a beer, but I couldn't stay for too long in the cool dark of the bar, 'cause I was soaking wet and the air conditioning threatened to turn me into a motorcicle (haw haw).

I couldn't believe how many people showed up to show support.  I don't think I've ever talked so much in my life as I kept running into people I knew, or who wanted to say congrats and whatnot.  By the end of the day, my throat was sore, and my voice was hoarse.  Even friends that I hadn't seen in months (which sucks) showed up (which was awesome).

I guess here'd be a good point to thank all the amazing volunteers who helped out with the event and made it all possible!  From runing the 50/50 draw to cooking the food &amp; serving beverages, to setup and teardown, you guys were great.  Thank you very much!

Ajoy Joseph rode up with us, but wasn't able to hang around for long.  He did introduce me to his adorable daughter, who admonished me for crashing my bike in Chile and asked me to please be careful.  He made me promise to get Patrick to drop off my old, damaged jacket &amp; pants (he's going to display them in his store, Milano for Men) if I saw him.  I didn't, but I hope Patrick got the armour to him anyways.

We had a great lineup of bands – Ian Stewart, Laurelle &amp; C-Note, Luke Graves and 100 Watt all made great performances, and special thanks to Kent from CKGY for MC-ing the whole thing.

Once the event was over, we all kind of went our separate ways for the night.  Justin partied late – we  were all a bit concerned about him actually showing up the next morning.  I'm not sure what Rob and Dad did, but it involved staying at the parent's house.  I ended up going with Natalie to a friend's house for a few beers &amp; pizza, but wasn't able to stay very long – the whole sleep deficit thing really caught up to me.

Gratefully,
Ryan Noble,
Red Deer, AB (at last)