CVMA

Texas Chapters at CVMA Nationals

Yesterday started off with a delegate meeting and photo opportunity for the folks attending from all the Texas Chapters.  With 13 chapters, Texas has the most members in the country.  At this point, it's probably time to give y'all some background on this organization and why I am here in Gettysburg with them.

Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association (CVMA) is an association of combat veterans from all branches of military service who ride motorcycles.  It is comprised of full members (those with verified combat service), supporter members (those who have served, but not in combat), and auxiliary members (the spouses of members).  Our focus and motto is "Veterans Helping Veterans."  That motto means different things to, and thus results in different contributions from, different chapters and members.  The chapter in which I belong is involved in a variety of events ranging from money raising charity events for veterans organizations and facilities to helping individual veterans in our community who have been recognized as needing assistance to the simple act of reaching out to a fellow member who needs emotional support. 

I'm not sure of the rules for using images of our  patch, so click on this link to see it.  The skull and ace of spades represent the death that war leaves in its wake.  The color red represents the blood that has been shed on the battlefield.  Military gold represents all branches of the US armed services.  Black represents the heavy hearts possessed for those who gave their lives and for those killed or missing in action.

CVMA became an official non-profit organization in 2001.  Since motorcycle club culture is popular right now and many folks are fans of the show Sons of Anarchy, I need to point out that we are not a motorcycle club, we are an association.  We have a chain of command and wear patches on the back of our vests,  but we don't have a "prospect" process and we don't claim territory.  The motorcycle club represented on the show Sons of Anarchy is considered a 1% or outlaw club and, as you'd expect, make up a small percentage of the motorcycle groups you encounter.  If you would like to read more about different types of riding groups and club culture, this link is very helpful.

My love of riding my own bike was realized back in 2006, and since then, I have ridden with friends and participated in various group rides, but I have primarily ridden solo.  I've just never really found a group of folks that I connected with.  For me personally, CVMA has given me an outlet through which to give back and feel part of a community.  Although the combat experiences of our group are quite diverse, we all share that common experience of having been placed in harms way.  Whether you were a trigger-puller or a paper pusher, the experiences of being in a combat zone, participating in history and being willing to give your life for the brother or sister standing next to you gives us all common ground.  We don't have to explain what or how we feel about those experiences because each of us has been there in his or her own way or are close to someone who has.  That brotherhood is a powerful thing.

Well, this was enough of a post for today, so I'll save the photos and stories from our battlefield tour yesterday for the next one.  Enjoy the day!

Downtown Gettysburg

Civil War bullet holes in Farnsworth House.

OK, I'm settled in here in Gettysburg and have gotten out and about a bit.  I added a pic of Sapper and I that Raven took at the opening dinner to the last post.  That was an easy day of riding in good weather even though we had hit a snag with the truck fire.

Yesterday, quite a few folks from our group straggled into town and we all ended up touring different sites at our own paces.  We only walked the main street (battlefield tours are today), but there was plenty to see and do right on Baltimore Street. 

The street is lined with old brick buildings bearing a placard designating it as a Civil War Building.  One of those buildings was the Farnsworth House.  Built in 1810, this house was the residence of Catherine Sweney and her daughter Lizzie when Confederate sharpshooters occupied it in 1863.  They fled the strategically located two and a half story brick house before a 2-day barrage of fire from Union forces left approximately 150 bullet holes in the house.

Although not quite so historic, one of the ice cream parlors we visited provided us with tasty treats ranging from caramel apples, to hot fudge sundaes (extra hot fudge on mine of course :-)) 

One of the more entertaining stops was the Gettysburg Museum of History.  When we walked in, some of our group felt like they knew the guy behind the counter for some reason.   As it turns out, several of us had seen an episode of American Pickers that highlighted this little museum on one of their shows.  The place had some pretty rare, though sometimes random, pieces of history.  From an American flag flown over Pearl Harbor on the day of the Japanese bombing, to the original X-rays that were used to confirm Adolph Hitler's identity, to Evil Knievel memorabilia.  Random, yet fascinating!

We stopped in several museums and bookstores, one of which I picked up a copy of the book "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane.  I fancy myself a fairly well-read person, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I have never read this classic.  I plan to remedy that deficiency on the remainder of this trip.

The rest of the day consisted of sightseeing and shopping.  We ended the day with over a dozen of us gather at the historic Dobbin House Tavern for supper.  Built in 1776, this one time home is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Not only was it pretty cool to dine in such an old, historic structure, the food was incredible.  They bake all their own breads which are served prior to the meal and were delicious.  My main entre' of roast duck was prepared perfectly.  Of course, we all had to stroll back down the street after dinner for dessert at the same ice cream parlor we had visited earlier in the day!

OK, I'll end this post with a pic of me at a boutique that appealed to the FitHippie side of me :-)  As we attend meetings and tour the battlefields, I hope that you have a great day and find some adventure in the world around you.


We have arrived!

We rolled out of Abingdon, VA this morning into a crisp morning of lower 60 degree temperatures.  We linked up with Raven and Sapper and added two more bikes to our pack.  Unlike the rest of the riders, I had on multiple layers, including a full coat, to guard against the morning chill.  Everyone else seemed to think it was great riding weather though.  By noon, we had warmed up into the 80s and I was a toasty, happy camper again :-)

It was smooth sailing the whole way until we hit a snag just two exits from our scheduled departure from I-81.  Traffic was at an absolute standstill for what we soon found out was a big rig on fire on the side of the road.  The interstate was a parking lot for pretty much 45 minutes, but once we saw the truck, we were amazed that the delay wasn't significantly longer.

Sunshine and Sapper at CVMA dinner.  Photo by Raven :-)

After checking into the hotel and having a meal and a couple of beers, it seems that I am too tired to post anything witty or insightful, so I will just let our arrival into Gettysburg suffice as the big news of the day.  Hope everyone had as great a day as I did riding!

The Dragon...revisited!

Whew, we've covered a lot of miles since I last posted!  Let me back up and start from the last post. 

Bright and early on Monday morning, we bid farewell to south Louisiana and my family and started rolling east.  Yesterday was our longest day...600+ miles to get us from Houma, LA to the base of the TN mountains.  The temperature stayed in the 90s for most of the day, so it was hot, but the traffic and precipitation cooperated with our ride.

This morning, we checked out from our hotel and made our way towards the Cherohala Skyway.  We could not have asked for a better riding day; hardly a cloud in the sky, moderate temperatures, and almost no traffic to speak of.  We started the Skyway from the TN side which skirted the river up to an altitude of approximately 5000 feet before dropping us back down in NC at the foot of the Tail of the Dragon.  For those of you new to this blog, I had ridden  this area a couple of years ago when I moved from NC to TX.  This time, I rode both the Cherohala Skyway and the Tail of the Dragon in the opposite directions.

 

 Another big difference from last time is that I didn't ride it solo, I had company!  To the left is a photo of Jim and Andy next to the tree of shame, though I'm happy to report that we all "slayed" the dragon safely and left no parts on the roadway to be added to the tree of broken off motorcycle parts left by less fortunate riders. 

Relatively speaking, today was a light mileage day for us (250 miles compared to 500 and 600 hundred from previous days).  Once we completed these couple of legendary rides of the NC/TN mountains, we made our way to VA where we met up with more of our CVMA 23-3 family for dinner and lodging for the night.  Raven and Sapper have been on the road for over a month while participating in Run for the Wall and now CVMA Nationals.   It was a great dinner of sharing road stories and commiserating over photography challenges.  Suffice it to say that I have become the queen of GoPro camera mounting issues.  Twice (thanks to my ninja-like reflexes!), I have saved my GoPro camera from meeting its demise on asphalt due to mounting issues.  Hopefully I now have the bugs worked out and will have some great photos to show for it!

Tomorrow, we will all roll towards Gettysburg where we will be joined by dozens of other Texas CVMA brothers and sisters as well as hundreds of members from around the country.  Looking forward to more riding and great company.

 

The Flying V...nuff said!

OK, for today's post title to make sense, you'll have to get all the way to the end.  Between the weather, hundreds of miles and enough eating to put us into a food coma yesterday, it was lights out pretty early for us last night.  Today started off at a leisurely pace...I didn't get out of my PJs until mid-morning!  Even on vacation, I can't shut off my internal alarm clock that seems to be permanently set between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m.  I come by morning alertness through genetics, not from the military though  as evidenced by my mom, dad and me all sitting out on the rockers on the back porch enjoying after-breakfast  coffee by 7:00 a.m.  One by one, the household bikers straggled outside with a cup of coffee and a biscuit in hand to join us.


I finally came in from the back porch and changed in time before the first family guests started to arrive.  The scene you see here in this photo of everyone hanging out in rockers visiting and hanging out played itself out all day.  Unfortunately, it rained on and off all day, so we were forced to stay under the carport and awning and move our chairs around the mist.

The original plan was for us to hang out until after lunch and then go on a swamp tour.  Fortunately, I was never able to get through to make us a reservation, so we watched the weather from the comfort of covered lounging instead of on an airboat on the bayous.  Jim's daughter, Jen, is spending the summer in New Orleans, so made the drive down to Houma to hang out with us for the day.  Perhaps the guests would say otherwise, but from the amount of animated conversation and laughter going on, I would say that a good day was had by all. 

Oh, and did I mention we ate our way through the day...again?!  As usual, my mom pulled off an amazing home cooked  meal for a small army including dessert.  Somehow, a watermelon got added to the mix and we ended up lining the side of the patio shielded from the rain, spitting watermelon seeds into the yard.  Sometimes, it's the simple things in life :-)

One of the things I miss most about living in my hometown is close proximity of family.  In the pic is my mom, my dad, Andy (my sister's son), Jenney (Andy's daughter) and Monica (my sister).  Four generations hanging out for the day.  But this is not an unusual day- these four generations live within 2 acres of each other.  I was reminded constantly throughout the day as family and friends showed up at random times to just sit and visit, how lucky I was to grow up surrounded by close and extended family.  And now Jenney will get the same experience.

After we relaxed and ate all we could stand, we headed "down da bayou" to see a few things that the out of towners missed by not taking the swamp tour.  It's so funny that when we tell someone that we live south of New Orleans, the standard response is usually "I didn't know there was anything south of New Orleans other than the Gulf!"  Not only are we south of New Orleans, we drove another 30 minutes south of Houma today. 

In south Louisiana, there are only 3 directions.... up da bayou (up from the Gulf of Mexico), down da bayou (down by the Gulf) and across the bayou (usually involves a bridge).  Today, we followed the flow of water down the bayou to where it empties into the Gulf.  Pretty much, the end of the earth...well, the end of Louisiana anyway.  The further you get down da bayou, the more creative folks have to get in order to live on land that Mother Nature is trying hard to reclaim.  One of the more precarious inventions are mobile homes up on stilts.  Yes, you've just minimized your risk of flooding, but I'm not sure how much more of a risk wind damage becomes.  I have no idea how long it takes for the floors in this arrangement to start caving!  I sure hope none of their houseguests get confused and try to exit through the back door.  Also, you might want to consider removing the wheels...I don't think you'll be making any speedy relocations from this current situation!

In the best example of ingenuity seen today, not only did these folks raise a trailer onto pilings, they connected three together!  Totally fascinated with this arrangement, we stopped so I could ask the owner if I could take a picture.  He looked amused that I would want a picture, but agreed and we introduced ourselves.  After I told him I'm originally from a nearby bayou, he told me the story of the "Flying V."  They had originally wanted to put two separate trailers up there, but were told that only single family dwellings were allowed (not dual).  So, in an effort to be in compliance with local regulations, they configured three mobile homes into a V shape, cut out the walls separating them, and made a single family dwelling.  Voila, they got their fishing camp and met regulatory mandates!

 

Unsurprisingly, our day ended with round two of the boiled shrimp and crabs from yesterday.  I don't think any of us can fit another single bite of anything into our bellies.  As we ate and visited our way through a rainy day, our bikes stayed nice and dry parked in my dad's boat shed.  As you can see, he removed his boat and allowed it to become the biker barn during our stay.  As we wind down our stay on the bayou, our bikes will remain nice and dry while we go down for a good night's sleep.  What a great trip home! 



Hitting the Road!

Sunrise on the road

I'll make no excuses nor offer any apologies for my lack of posts...I've been living life!  I will however, say that I still do enjoy blogging and am using my current cross-country trip as an excuse to get back into it. 













Myllisa, Jim, Vic and Andy getting oriented to Cajun-style seafood boil!

One of the biggest changes in my life since I've last posted is that I've been accepted into Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association (CVMA) Chapter 23-3.  I'll save the background on CVMA for a future post, but there's a core group of a dozen or so folks with whom I ride or participate in community events pretty much every weekend.  These bikers have become my CVMA family, so it's only fitting that a handful of them accompanied me on a pit-stop at my parents' house in Louisiana on our way to Gettysburg, PA.  More on that later!

We enjoyed  a mostly uneventful and dry ride for almost 500 miles until we encountered what I can only describe as a Louisiana squall about an hour from my parents' house.  I was riding lead when we spied the ominously dark blue horizon into which we were about to roll.  I pulled over to get a consensus.  The verdict:  we're close, let's push on!  In hindsight, I wish I would've snapped a pic of the clearly defined curtain of rain that we ran into like a solid wall, but I was so focused on staying on the road and leading us through a safe path that my GoPro stayed idle on the handlebars.  I've ridden tens of thousands of miles on motorized 2-wheels, so I'm not easily intimidated when I'm on  my bike.  But for the intense 10 minutes that it took us to get through the squall (and what we all swear was hail), my mind raced with potential reactions to all the "what if" scenarios popping into my head.  Obviously since I'm posting, everything turned out all right and just gave the first of what I'm sure is going to be a lifetime of stories to be recounted later from this trip.

It's just not a trip to my parents' house without boiled seafood. My dad boiled up some Louisiana blue-claw crabs and fresh, off the boat shrimp along with all the "fixins" for us.  Soooo delicious! There's always one non-seafood eater in every crowd, but my mom is the queen of entertaining and had some down home favorites on standby. 

As a testament to the unique way of life from which I hail, we walked across the yard to the neighbor's house to check out their latest find. It's not really a pet since it's only there temporarily, but it's quite the creature.  What you see in the pic is Andy putting his hand above (at a safe distance!) a 100+ pound alligator turtle.  It's easy to see why it's sometimes called a dinosaur turtle with it's crazy looking spiny shell and head.  According to National Geographic, this ugly carnivore is found almost exclusively in the southeastern US and can live to be 100 years old.  We didn't mess around with it enough to get it to open its mouth, but apparently it has a red string of flesh that hangs off its tongue that acts like a lure to attract unsuspecting frogs and fish. 

When the eating was done (and yes, I was the last one to push away from the table :-), we took a walk to dump the shrimp and crab peelings into the back bayou.  Usually, the scent of food scraps in the bayou will bring alligators to the spot, but none graced us with their presence this night.  We walked along the bayou side and skirted the swamp that my brother and I grew up playing in as we made our way back to the house for more eating!  Now, as an adult, I look at the bayou and swamp in amazement that we spent so much time in this environment as kids.  We had a pirogue (flat-bottomed, wooden Cajun boat) that we would paddle around and had a rope hanging from a tree that we'd fling ourselves into the snake and alligator infested bayou with.  Perhaps ignorance really is bliss because I can't seem to recall a single incidence of being harassed by wildlife during any of our childhood adventures.  Well, sometimes my brother would coax me precariously close to dangerous critters, but we almost made it home in one piece before the sun went down!

Our excellent day of riding and visiting with family was capped off with dessert while sitting around the back porch telling stories and enjoying the interaction of four generations.  This is my mom in the photo rocking her great-granddaughter to sleep.  I sure do enjoy being home on the bayou :-)

 

 

Catching up...the wedding!

Philip refereeing Andy & Ashley's wedding!

For the fifth weekend in a row, last weekend I got X-rayed by TSA and boarded an aircraft for locations beyond the TX state line.  This time it was a quick trip one state over, but I knew I had to be there.  My Godson, Andy, asked me to be present at his wedding to Ashley at my mom and dad's house.  How could I say "no"?!

This is a second marriage for both of them so the setting was much more relaxed and very much non-traditional.  Well, for south Louisiana, maybe not so non-traditional!  Andy and Ashley both love the Saints so they had sport-themed nuptials.  Although Andy's brother Philip did hold the whistle in his mouth during the ceremony, there were no flags on the play and the Justice of the Peace pulled off the union without delay :-)

Ashley, Andy and Bryley.

The wedding was small and limited to close friends and family, but the small size kept it meaningful and joyous.  Ashley's daughter Bryley dressed up like a cheerleader and wore herself out running around and celebrating.  As usual, my mom put in a ton of time and love to make sure everything was just right from the yard to the food.  She always downplays her role in these events, but Mom puts her heart and soul into accommodating her children and grandchildren.  As always, the decorations were great, the food delicious and her yard looked amazing.  I don't know how she does it!!

It was great getting to meet Ashley's family and getting to know the important people in her life.  I'm looking forward to many more celebrations that bring the two families together.

The groom's family.

I was only in Louisiana for about 24 hours, but each trip home is worth every minute I get to spend with my family.  I hope that Andy and  Ashley have many years of happiness together and that they tackle life's challenges together as a team.  Yes, that pun was intended!