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New Strokes

Festa Italiana Ride
Friday, 09 November 2007
Bryce
Bryce behind glass, good.
This being the second year in a row we’ve traveled to Coeur d’Alene’s Festa Italiana, you’d think we were really impressed with the event. Nope, let’s call it a trip factor thing - the ride part of the trip, plus the gathering, which is trippy all by itself.

The weather made it a touch and go affair up until the last minute, but at the 10:00 am start time, roads were still dry. Rick, Brian, Crystal, Kevin and Pat met at the usual 2nd and Cedar launch pad (a.k.a. the Rocket), took on some warm-up coffee and breakfast items, then left under mostly-cloudy skies and fairly chilly temps. Ride leader Mark joined the group closer to his home base near Trent and Argonne.

The ride over wasn’t at all scenic – Trent is one of Spokane’s many autopias, after all - but it was fun just to cruise and give motorists something to do double-takes over. The only real hiccup along the way was a broken clutch cable on Brian’s rig, which he was fortunately equipped to replace with Rick’s help, pit-stop style.

Downtown Coeur d’Alene is always great, as was the Doma Coffee stop where the group met up with two two-percenters. Most of the rest of their gang – those that play with Scatterbox in particular - were in Portland (or was it Seattle?) recording some new tracks.

But where goes two-percent Bryce, go goofy good times.  

At the entry gate, Bryce turned on the schmooze, and within seconds, the entire group was waived through the gate and parking lot, through the fairground turnstiles, and directly to the front doors of the event hall – free of charge. We’ve no idea what Bryce’s magic passwords were, but parking Italian scooters directly outside an Italian festival seemed like the only correct option.

The festival was OK, flavored at about 80% native North Idaho and 20% Italy (counting our scooters), but meatball sandwiches and a little vino helped event things out. After some hangout time – watching the grape stomp, watching Mark purchase a Feng Shui compass, catching up with our two-percent friends – we rode off for a quick beer and some Buffalo wings at nearby Capone’s pub.

Back home? Same route, no surprises, glad to have made the trip. dingbat

Festa Italiana '07 Gallery (Flash™ images) 
 
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