I thought I would explain something Mike and I are doing on this ride. H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) has a contest every year called the ABC's of HOG. The basic rules are that you get points for getting a picture in front of official signs of cities and counties. The picture has to include your motorcycle and a current HOG magazine (2010 issue this year) in front of an official sign (city hall, post office, those county and town signs you see along the road. or those sometimes fancy "Welcome to......" signs). You get one point for each letter of the alphabet for cities and counties. You also get a point for each country, province, and state you get a photo in. There are additional points (limited) for national parks, national forests, six of Harley-Davidson's factories and state HOG rallies.

So, for example, we took a photo in front of the huge "Yukon" sign. We get a point for that territory. Another example is that yesterday, we took a photo in front of the Vine Grove, KY post office (Mike's daughter lives in Vine Grove). With that one photo, we can get a point for the letter V, a point for KY and since it says United States on the building, one for the US. One of the reasons we stopped in Waterloo was that the Iowa state HOG rally was going on there. So we got a point for getting a picture in front of the rally banner (this is the one exception to the photo rules, you don't have to have your bike or magazine in the photo).

I have been doing the ABC's for 8 years now, this being my 8th year. I always get 25 points for cities, never have I gotten 26. Why? How many cities have you seen in the US that start with an X? Probably most of you have never seen one. There are only two cities in the US that begin with an X; Xenia, OH and Xenophon, TN. You might find others but they are not really cities if you do a little research. So, to get an X you have to go a long way, at least us west coasters. This year I will finally get my X when we go through Xenophon on the way to Virginia!

So there you have a little bit of idea what the ABC's are.