International Convention – Peoria, IL

July 20-25, 2008

Mark Johnston, Ken Edwardson, Clint Cagle and Ron Patla attended the International Convention in Peoria this year. Well, at least part of the convention. We all met up at Ron's house on Sunday, July 20th at 10:30 a.m. and left from there. As this was Mark's first longer ride, we took our time. We rode through Lake Geneva over to Walworth and took Hwy 14 south to Hwy 23 and continued south to Hwy 72. We turned west on Hwy 72 and stopped for lunch at the Spring Grove Family Restaurant in Genoa, IL.

Here are a few shots at our lunch stop in Genoa

After lunch we rode west to I-39 and took that south to a gas stop in LaSalle. Then we continued on another 20 miles before exiting the freeway onto two lane roads which we took to our motel in Washington, IL. After checking in at the Super-8 we rode 10 miles to the Holiday Inn host hotel in Peoria.

Arriving at the host hotel

The registration area

Sunday night's BBQ with a comedy show a little later

Liz and Guy Cook – COPS Run friends

Kenny was really liking the dew rag look!

The BBQ Sunday night was quite tasty and the comedy show pretty funny. After the show we headed back to our motel for the night.

There were some nasty thunderstorms passing through when we woke up Monday morning. It rained hard with 70 MPH wind gusts about 7 a.m. In fact it blew the cover off Ken's bike. The rain and wind had stopped by 8 a.m. and Clint walked a block or two to find Ken's bike cover. Once it looked like the rain had passed we rode back to the host hotel and spent the day there. Ron attended the BOG meeting in the morning while the others had breakfast and did some shopping. We all attended the general membership meeting in the afternoon. When that was done we went up to the hospitality room for some popcorn and refreshments.

With nothing more planned at the host hotel for the evening we rode back to Washington and stopped at the Sol Azteca Mexican Restaurant. We enjoyed some margueritas and a tasty dinner. By the time we were through the sky was looking very dark and we made it back to the motel just ahead of the rain.

We only planned to be at the convention for the meetings Monday so we packed up to leave Tuesday morning. It was a little cloudy early but it turned out to be a beautiful day. We rode back across the Illinois river into Peoria and took Hwy 29 north along the river up to Princeton where we stopped for breakfast. Then we took Hwy 26 north to Dixon, IL, home of Ronald Regan's birthplace. There we picked up Hwy 2 which ran along the Rock River and took that north to Byron where we stopped for gas. At Byron we turned east onto Hwy 72 and then followed the same route home that we took on the way down. It was a nice ride back. It was certainly a lot more scenic than droning down I-39.