A few weeks ago, Fayetteville hosted it's annual Ode to Motorcyles, the Bikes, Blues and BBQ festival. According to Wikipedia, which cites the festival organizers, this is the second largest motorcycle rally in the country (after Sturgis). Having witnessed the leather-clad takeover of Fayettville, I am leaning towards believing them.
We did not partake in even a fraction of the activities that Bikes, Blues and BBQ had to offer, which included things like a parade, BBQ sauce tasting competition, lots and lots of free music at stages all over town.....and a whole bunch of other stuff. There were events on Dickson Street (near us), down by the football field, and over at the county fairgrounds.
In fact, we really only participated in the revelry for about half an hour. We left the house, walked the two blocks down to Dickson Street, bought some BBQ sandwiches from a vendor (but not from the "Porky Chicks" truck, because....rude), bought some curly fries from another vendor when we were still hungry, and then found the pinnacle of our fair visit: the frozen cheesecake on a stick. That's right, a full slice of cheesecake, dipped in chocolate and frozen. Mmmmmmmmmm.
At that point, we decided enough was enough and headed home.
Of course, from Wednesday through Saturday the festival was hard to miss, even if one was not trying to explicitly visit. Namely, the roar of motorcyles could be heard pretty much anywhere and everywhere. My walk home from work involved passing rows and rows of bikes parked in the Bank of America drive through and in every other place with a few feet of surface space. The sidewalks were lined with vendors selling chaps and leather vests as well as hard-core biker childrens t-shirts (yes, I'm being sarcastic).
People in this town seem to simply hate the weekend when the bikers come to play. Most of my colleagues were talking about leaving town for the weekend, or hunkering down and avoiding the roads. Me? I thought it was fun. Loud, yes, but I like the biker style (no, I did not buy any leather chaps) and it was fun to see the parking lot near the arts center filled with trucks selling BBQ and funnel cakes. Plus, I discovered cheesecake on a stick!
Mostly, though, walking around during the festival reminded me of one of the jokes that Doug and I have, dating back to our time in New Mexico. Namely, after we started dating, I forced him to watch the movie Wild Hogs starring John Travolta and William H. Macy, a film that my parents introduced me to a few years back. The movie is pretty forgettable, but it was filmed in New Mexico, even the beginning parts that are supposed to be Cleveland or wherever. The climax of the movie is set in a small town in the mountains of New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, called Madrid. I've talked about it before on my own blog, because the town is the cutest place ever and my favoritest store in the state is there (Weasel & Fitz, a store that sells recycled art).
Anyway, to get to the point, Doug and I watched the movie and went to Madrid, and since then we have yelled "Wild hogs!" any time a motorcyclist passes us on the road. For some reason, it's still funny.
The irony has not escaped me that we have this joke about the Wild Hogs bikers and now we're living in a town that is obsessed with it's Razorbacks, the wild hog mascot of the football team. So as I was walking up and down Dickson Street during the festival, I kept laughing to myself about the Wild Hogs in the town wild for wild hogs. And now you, gentle readers, get to be in on the joke too. :)
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