About Roadgypsy

Rally Alley

Touring

Ghost Towns and Abandonments

Rally Alley

Real Bikes, Real People

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2008 Orillia Motorcycles in Motion Poker Run

Orillia, Ontario, Canada

First stop - Katnip draws a jack...

Roadgypsy and daughter Katnip, at stop 2

Firefighter manning Stop 2...

Stop 4 at Bare Bones Choppers

Roadgypsy and Katnip cleaned up at the poker run - winning a total of $600, with Katnip finishing 1st Place, with three of a kind, and Roadgypsy 3rd Place, with two pairs. To top it off - Katnip took first door prize, a beautiful Coors Light rolling cooler.

Steak dinner and entertainment followed.

Run For the Wall - Gallup, New Mexico, U.S.A.

Each year, Run For the Wall (RFTW) leaves Los Angeles, California and ends in Washington, D.C. Riders always arrive on the Friday before Memorial Day. Run For the Wall was started 20 years ago, with a small group of Vietnam Veterans riding to D.C. to participate in their 2nd Rolling Thunder Parade. Rolling Thunder was established to bring awareness to the POW/MIA issue. (Prisoners of War, Missing in Action.)

Not long in becoming a tradition, RFTW now comprise two routes: Central, travelling through central U.S.A., and Southern, which runs through the hot, Southern States. Each state that RFTW passes through has a State Coordinator to arrange police support, gas stops, meals, hotels, ceremonies, etc. The group is totally on "military time" and all stops are within 5-10 minutes of the posted time. You can see the itineraries posted on the RFTW web-site.

Both routes merge in Toms Brook, Virginia, a small community outside D.C. , travelling into D.C. together, to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. There are approximately 1000 RFTW riders when both groups combine. RFTW is considered a very small part of the Rolling Thunder Parade - there are 200,000 to 300,000 motorcyclists in D.C. on Memorial Day Weekend, there to ride in the Rolling Thunder Parade. The year 2008 was Run For The Wall's 20th year, and the 21st year for Rolling Thunder.

The group is predominantly Vietnam Veterans, but with many that are aging, and taking into consideration recent warfare, the event is now hosting Desert Storm veterans and Iraqi Freedom veterans, together with civilian supporters and patriots.