Southern Decadence Hangover Ride a Success

Our first annual Southern Decadence Hangover Ride was a great success with seven bikes on hand to take a beautiful summer day ride to Bay St. Louis. Poncho, Mike D., George, Mark, Guy, joined David and Michael W. on the ride. Thanks also to Guy's friend Pavel for joining us for the first time on his new Triumph Speed Triple. We enjoyed having a token straight boy along with us!

We took old US Hwy 90 out through the Chef Menteur pass, and spotted a big scooter club parked at one of the fishing camps along the way. They must have had 15 or 20 scooters in their pack. We waved as we went by and headed east. Poncho stopped us at Fort Pike for a brief leg stretch, and while we were stretching our legs, the scooter crowd scooted by. Everyone honked and waved and we waved back.

The temperatures were in the low 90s, and we welcomed the clouds and a light sprinkle of raindrops spun off of Tropical Storm Grace in the Gulf of Mexico. But soon after we crossed into Mississippi, we encountered some real rain. Thankfully, it was a very brief shower, which we rode on through. When we came out on the other side we passed the scooter folks again parked by the side of the road, and we waved and tooted as we passed them. The rain was cool and refreshing on such a hot day and we were grateful that it ended quickly and we were all dry before we arrived at lunch.

We decided we'd take the back road through Port Bienville and Waveland that Alan had shown us last fall, including a short detour down a dead-end road that was very, very pretty indeed. We made it to the beach road in Waveland and puttered along at the silly 25 mph posted limit. It's a nice road following along the waterfront, but it's a bit slow-going. Soon enough, though, we arrived in Bay St. Louis and stopped in Old Town.

The restaurant we hoped to lunch at was closed (it being Labor Day Monday), so we headed across the street to the Fire Dog Saloon and had a great meal. Mike and Mark started us off with fried artichoke hearts and an onion mum for appetizers, both of which were very tasty. The burgers were even better, with a nice barbecued flavor to the meat, and nice crispy french fries to go along with it.

After lunch we posed for the obligatory group photo. Pavel was in a hurry and headed back to the city on his own. The rest of us stopped for gas on Hwy 90, then headed back to town along the old road. We made it back to town in time to catch the last gasp of Decadence crowd at Lafitte's. It felt really great to stretch our legs on a moderate ride after a long weekend of festivities. After a full weekend of steamy events at Southern Decadence, even the brief rain shower felt like a cleansing.