Judy Lacey submitted the following photos posted on 7/28/08.
Above, three active duty soldiers from Ft. Knox joined us, along with two AH-64 Apache helicopters.
Below, left, Robley Rex, 107-year-old WWI vet, admires Pato Pato's tattoos. Below, right, base of sundial gnomon.
Heading to Mt. Sterling for lunch
Here are some additional photos from Judy:
Above, left, Louisville, VAMC. Above, right, heading to KY Vietnam Memorial.
Below, left, "Wally" and Judy at KY Memorial. Wally was given to me at Wentzville to take him on his seventh trip to The Wall. Below, right, KY Memorial.
Above, left, Chapter 785 Waterpoint. Above, right, dinner at Yamaha Sports in Hurricane, WV.
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Official Sit Reps from Central Route:
Day Eight - May 21, 2008
Corydon - Hurricane
This morning is another beautiful, yet chilly , morning. We staged and left after our ride's meeting with 336 of bikes. The first two legs of the morning will be short, but hectic riding as we ride through Louisville morning traffic. We all arrived safely at our first stop at the VAMC. We enjoyed seeing our old friends Billy Pfeister (the popcorn man) and Robley Rex, a 107 year old WWI vet. They are special supporters of the Run and everyone looks forward to seeing them each year as well as visiting the patients.
After our visit at the VAMC, we rode to the Kentucky VN Memorial. It is an impressive site with a huge metal sundial and all the names of the Kentuckians killed in the Vietnam war. The memorial director spent a great amount of time explaining the history of the memorial, how it was designed and exactly how it works. It was very interesting.
We had a gas stop and lunch at Mt. Sterling on our own and then on to Hurricane. As with every year, this is an impressive and enjoyable ride in to town at the yamaha dealership. We arrived to the firetrucks with huge American and POW flags. A nice spaghetti dinner with ice cream was provided by the WV Touring Chapter 197. We had oil changes available as well as music and an auction. The campers set up their sites (in a very cold <40 degrees) and everyone else headed to their hotel rooms to get some rest before our exciting trip tomorrow. Only two more days!
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More from David Talley...
Registered about 100 folks, some are FNG's and going all the way, some are just riding to Rainelle, WV. Fruit, donuts, and fruit juice provided for us by Harrison County Convention & Visitors Bureau and served by Mr. Jim Epperson Executive Director. We left a little late because there was some kind of incident or accident on the High Way. Fort Knox provided us a set of Cobra Gun Ships as escorts. Some truckers thought maybe they were going to attack the road. Todays ride is second toughest in terms of traffic, the only place we go that is worse is Kansas City. There was another bike dropping, no real damage, some bruises and a little pride hurt going into the hospital. Also a rider not connected to our group had an mishap, rumor is that the passenger had some kind of blanket or shawl that tangled in the wheel and the bike went into a car, sorry to hear about it but it was not one of our riders.
We safely got into and out of the VAMC in Louisville, KY today. I got to talk with a few patients, three men and a woman upstairs in their rooms. On the way up one of our riders pointed out a lady who was upset with us cause she was held up and almost late for her appointment. The Hospital staff told me that everyone would be seen and any delays caused by our visit would be worked out. I am not sure why but by the time she got off the elevator she was happy with the fact that we were visiting people. I got to talk with a couple of patients. One that was going home in a few days, and some others that will be there for a while. They all seemed pretty happy. I was interviewed by FOX 41 T.V. I talked about our mission, the fact that there are two routes and one run and the wonderful positive reaction that we get from truckers as Krazy Karl and I talk to them. Pretty much the same things I said in the XM interview. Only I sure wish I had my sunglasses on. As we get closer to the wall talking about our mission is hard to do with out shedding tears. Robley Rex was there, and at 107 years young he remembers folks and loves the riders. We made it out of the Hospital grounds and on to the Kentucky Viet Nam Memorial. This is a wonderful place, them sundial casts a shadow over the name of people that died in Viet Nam on the day of the year that they died to honor them. The designer talked to us, as did an Army Reservist that is getting ready to head back to Iraq. We got there about 3 minutes late, and that is great cause we had to wait about 25 minutes this morning for an accident to clear before we could roll. We arrived at Hurricane, WV with as far as I know no incidents. There was one trucker a little upset at the Waddy fuel stop, but other truckers actually defended us on the radio, it was great. I am not sure of the exact number, but there were a lot of folks registering tonight. We had about 400 bikes today, and the bikes with trailers are their own platoon, and Trikes and sidecar bikes are in the 8th platoon. Also there are a lot of pictures of the Run, and one of me at landlinenow.com the OOIDA Web page. There is also a great video there of our pack on the way to our day 6 lunch stop.
Tomorrow The WV capitol and photo with the Governor, and the big pay off for me. The wall is still ahead but the kids at Rainelle are first. We won't be on Interstates too long, The weather has been great, rained ahead of us today, but as soon as we got to Hurricane the sun came out. Sorry this is so long but there was a lot going on today.
