Harleys and skate punks and paintball, oh my!

This morning, we headed east, over to the Ocean Center and the Harley-Davidson show. As we drove, we noticed a bunch of pickup trucks headed in the same direction, many with bikes tied down in the beds. "Oh. . .it's Wednesday. Check-in time at the hotel," we realized. It was also pretty clear that the crowds were a lot heavier today, especially in the Main Street area. Everywhere the parking was exorbitant -- $10 for cars, in some places even $20 for cars. We thought that was pretty outrageous, even if admission to the show was free.


We lucked out, however, in the cheapest -- and friendliest! -- place to park that was also really convenient: the lot next to Calvary Baptist Church, on Earl Street at Hollywood Avenue. It was only a block from the Ocean Center and Daytona Lagoon; a mere $5 for cars and $3 for bikes; the people working it were as nice as could be, and they offered free water, coffee, tea and cookies along with biker-themed Bibles, blood pressure checks and bike blessings. What more could you want!

First off, I can't believe that in the two and a half years I've been in Daytona that the construction next to the Ocean Center doesn't look any different. *shrug* As you head toward the main entrance, today was the "ride-in show," which I guess meant you just parked your bike wherever you felt like it. We didn't mind, as most of them were pretty cool and unique, like this one from Quebec called the "General Lee." (Yes, it's got a Hemi, or so says the giant logo on the back fender.)

Inside was pure Harley mania. People really make it into a lifestyle, with clothing, accessories, even paintings and sculptures (we liked a painting of Elvis strumming a guitar next to a Harley under a tree). They have this new seat called the Rocker, where it looks like a regular single seat, but then a second seat flips out behind it, and folds back under when not in use. It LOOKS like a good idea, but I swear these were all designed by men, or by women with smaller-than-average rear ends. I haven't sat on one yet, but just by the looks -- and how I felt on that Softail seat on Monday, which was about average size for a seat that doesn't have a backrest -- I can tell it wouldn't work for me. Oh well. . .

We did see a cool new bike called the Cross Bones -- Will was very impressed. He hasn't owned a Harley since his Fat Boy in 1989, but he said he'd actually buy this bike, if he were in the market for a new factory bike. Let's see if I can find a pic. . .

He wants to test ride one; I guess I'll just chill out while he does, since there's no back seat for me.

After the Ocean Center we said goodbye to the Christians guarding our car and went looking for more black bikers on MMB Blvd. The guy in the Harley info booth swore they had a giant trailer there -- "you can't miss it!" -- and gave me a map that showed some park I've never heard of, off some street I've never heard of, off some road I HAD heard of. Well, we never found it, nor the can't-miss trailer. We did see a bit more crowds, and a LOT more vendors. Note to self: That street's got to have the best food in all of Volusia this week, must come back to eat.

Back to Stone Edge we went; that place is starting to feel like a second home. We chilled with Cochise and his son, then Willie from Tropical Tattoo came by, and he's sort of like biker royalty around these parts, so everyone went to say hello. The skaters started their thing -- I think they were from some team called Bacon because that's what all their shirts said; it's hard to taxonomize this strange species but you can normally tell by the plumage of their t-shirts. I was up on the top level of the park, looking out at the paintball field, and one tall skater told us to watch a certain area and make sure no one came by. He didn't clearly explain why. All of a sudden he came from the other end of the park, jumped onto the upper level just next to us and flew WITH THE UNDERSIDE OF HIS BOARD RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE to the bowl on my left. Yeah buddy, no one came by, but you didn't mention I might lose my head.

I wasn't mad, actually it was awesome. :-) I WAS mad, however, that Will's never-run-out-of-charge camera battery had finally given up its ghost, and it was sitting dead around my neck, and even a slowpoke like me could have gotten that awesome shot, because hello, it was right in front of my face, and he did it like 10 times. LOL.

So, out on the paintball field -- which was really small by the way -- Cochise had set his old sticker-covered bagger in the middle. Um, Cochise, why would you do that? we asked. Oh yeah -- to get splattered by paintballs. Is this guy cool or what? Obviously, because all the young builders followed suit, and suddenly there were like 6 bikes crowding out there, including some pretty sweet choppers -- ouch. Anyways, the skaters and the bike builders and the chopper magazine editors battled for paintball supremacy at VERY close quarters. I don't know who, if anybody, won, but as they say, a fun time was had by all. Oh yeah, and the bagger's got a bunch of pink splotches on it now:

BIKE WEEK DEATH TOLL: 6
COMING THURSDAY: Willie's Chopper Show, and, um, a bunch of other stuff that I can't even remember what's happening.