Lansing Pride – a month ago…
Well look at that! I was checking “stuff” and realized that I hadn’t blogged yet on Lansing Pride, which was a month a go. Silly me. Where does Lansing Pride fall in my personal Gay Pride experiences? Woefully short, in two words.
See, we were led to believe we would be “leading” the parade. Being a chapter of the group “Dykes On Bikes®” one of the only requirements by the “Mother Club” is that we lead a Pride Parade. We did, sort of. We were fortuneate enough to have great weather, eventually. As per USUAL, we had the required amount of mishaps which always eventually amount to a comedy of errors that only WE seem to be able to attract. As the president of the club, I was, officially ten minutes late for the departing meet up in the early morning. It takes about an hour to an hour and a half to get from the Detroit Metro area to Lansing. So we met up and rolled out.
Now we had a caravan, a posse if you will. (We have to we’re from Detroit) Complete with protective follow up roadies in an S.U.V. with all of our crap, tools, water and every little odd and end we could possibly need. Thank the gods for our roadies! Because without them Shorty would have lost her license plate, I would have blacked out at the Capital and we would have been lost on our way to the parade! Let me explain…
Shorty and I brought with us a back pack each, a jump bag for just in case something bad happened, our banner and ourselves. Goose brought her stuff, as did our roadies which consisted of Meg, Caitie and Colie and all of their stuff. I had the directions FIRMLY taped to my gas tank so I knew where we going as I was leading. That was what I thought. After gassing up, lining up and hitting the road we were headed out to Lansing a full thirty minutes behind schedule primarily thanks to me.
We hit the road! We run into rain a quarter of the way there. And I mean we hit RAIN. It was coming down on us in sheets. We pull over and put on our rain gear and wait for about five to ten minutes to see if it willblow over. It doesn’t blow all the way over but it let up some. We set out again. About five minutes out, in our rain gear, it clears up! You knew this had to happen, we were wearing vinyl suits, the sun had to come back out and bake us! However; before we pull over to peel out of our rain gear the “firmly taped directions” go flying off my tank, up over my right shoulder under Shorty’s wheels and under the S.U.V. At that point there was apparently a conversation in the the truck that went something like this:
Caitie: Was that what I think it was?
Meg: Uhhh, I think so.
Caitie: Shit.
Shortly after the directions took their own trip the ladies pull up next me doing eighty m.p.h. and I point down at my (now empty) gas tank! They acknowledge that I am currently leading us to the outskirts of Lansing only. A rest area comes up shortly there after and I pull over so we can strip out of our rain gear. We pull into the rest area, Me, Shorty, Goose, Wadog and Lady Rider followed up by our roadies. After the stripping out of gear, pottying and laughing about the directions, Meg re-applies the directions to my tank using medical tape and a Sharpy. She forgot to write down what street exit we needed to get to the parade. So I go flying past it on the freeway because I didn’t know what exit we needed. Wadog, in the back of the pack had apparently memorized the directions and was in the back of the pack quietly freaking out that we blew by the exit. She was either wondering that or wondering how much crack I was on since I passed it! LOL
We get to the parade line-up area and find that there is a Lansing group of woman riders. The Lansing group was really, really awesome and much bigger than us, the are Called The Great Lakes Sisterhood, and they’re awesome, if you ride and you’re in the middle to the west or north in the State and you need ladies to ride with I highly suggest you get with them, they are great! GO visit them here: www.glsmcc.com
We get lined up, get shined up, and get our banner and the Detroit sign put on our Roadies vehicle. The parade begins shortly there after. We were stuck behind the Human Rightsd Campaign flag, which was being walked by people, through the street. This made for an incredibly long and hand cramping ride to the capitol building. Did I mention it was painful to hold your clutch in and walk your bike for a quarter of a mile? Did I mention it was like nine hundred degrees? Did I forget to add that we were behind people WALKING a huge flag? You get the point…
After it was over there was the usual “assembly” at the capitol building. Singing, speeches, commitment ceromonies, me nearly passing out, our web goddess taking pictures, boiling in the sun. A little dehydration never hurt anyone until they hit the ground. It’s true. I took care of it before that happened thankfully, because our roadies are the most AWESOME Roadies on the planet! We took some PICS and then went to the park for the festival, drank some beer, passed out a ton of business cards and left for home all before 4:00pm!
The ride home was an experience for our poor roadies. They were bringing up the rear and continuing to keep us safe from the back, while all the while trying to not hit Lady Rider (in front of them) because she had a bunch of stuff going on and they were directly behind her. Suffice it to say it was a hell of a day. Visit the Great Lakes Sisterhood Site, visit our site for pictures from Lansing and we have gear for sale now! Go, clickety click!
-HBom
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