Having extra pillows made it a bit easier to sleep, but the bed was still hard. I slept fine, though. Since the Blues Brothers concert would be the last thing we’d do at the rally, we decided to check out and not stay in the room this last night. The kid at the desk was really nice and very efficient. I guess his goofy multicolored hairdo didn’t matter.

We breakfasted at Perkins again and headed over to the park. We decided to stay off the Interstate again and headed up Blue Mound Road. We got to 35th street and for some reason I decided to go straight. Hey, it turned into Wisconsin! Right on track.

We again found our space near the Dunlop trailer and walked over to the entrance. For some reason people were milling about. We asked and found out that the gates weren’t opening until noon. There were barricades all around (set up so people could ride through the park to park inside near the motorcycle drill team area), so we sat down on one and chatted with people until the gates opened.

I wanted to get a picture of one of the motorcycle cops standing up on the bike so we headed over to see the Indianapolis drill team perform. They were very good. Next up was a guy named Craig Jones doing stunts on a Buell. He’d set it up so when the cops were leaving the area, he came roaring in behind them and laid down a big black tire mark. Two cops pulled out of formation and chased him from one end to the other. They were hitting some serious speed doing this with sirens blaring and lights on. It was really cool. Then Jones did a wheelie, parking the bike in an upright position on a skid plate he’d added where the tail light used to be! The cops grabbed him and pretended to handcuff him and drag him away. Very entertaining. Eventually he came back out and rode the bike out of that position! He had an Australian accent and using a helmet mic talked throughout his performance. I enjoyed the stoppies, wheelies, and burnouts he did. He also showed how he did each one. When the show was over, Shelly caught up with us again.

We spent the remainder of the day just wandering around and eating and people watching until it was time to scope out our spot for the Blues Brothers show at 4:00. We got to our spot around 2:30 and it was a good thing. There were 10,000 people in attendance (they’d let citizens in that day, too) and things were filling up fast.

It wasn’t bad sitting there at first because I was in the shade of a banner (it was much warmer than the day before). But eventually the sun moved and it was hot, especially since I was wearing a black t-shirt. There were more and more people filling in around us and CrowDog was adamant about not letting people stand in front of us. Eventually a loudmouth older guy stood off to my right. There were several large guys standing up behind and to the right of me. They informed him that they couldn’t see if he stood there. He thought he was going to be tough until he saw the size (and number) of guys that would remove him. He said “I’ll move when the show starts. Temporarily.” I was figuring on seeing a fight, but he wimped out and sat down.

Lonnie Brooks was performing while we were waiting and put on quite a good show. Next up were Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi as the Blues Brothers. Their show was fantastic! I really really enjoyed it. They danced and sang and brought women from the audience up on the stage. When I figured the show was getting towards the end, I suggested we go. We headed back toward the entrance but I needed to do a potty stop first. The line was out the door, but moving quickly. When I got inside, there was a woman in there kind of “directing” traffic! She kept everybody orderly and reminded everyone, “don’t dawdle, there are lots of ladies waiting!” I got a kick out of it.

Soon we were back on the Interstate heading home. I figured that the Pine Cone would be a good place to stop and re-fuel (it was, since gas was only $1.92/gallon for premium). We went into the restaurant where CrowDog had a piece of pie and I had some excellent chicken dumpling soup.

We were back home about dark. I had such a good time that I wished I could turn back the clock and do it all over again. Especially since a scant week later it was September 11. ‘Nuff said.