The rain and heat seems to have kept most of us off the roads during July. Bud Logan reports that the COUPLES RIDE was rained out. The forecast turned bad by Saturday morning and Bud decided to cancel. The area got serious storms around noon and the decision turned out to be a good one. Henry Pretus and non-member Zan (why can't I remember his last name?) were planning to ride but Bud was able to warn them off via e-mail. Kent & Evie were at the ride start ready to show off their new (to them) Honda ST1100 but they agreed about not challenging the threatening weather.

The Baton Rouge area Ride fared only slightly better. Only one other rider joined me at STARBUCKS Sunday morning, non-member Keith Gutbeir on his 1986 VFR. After waiting 40 minutes to see if anyone else would show we headed out for River Road. We rode at a rather sedate pace in view of the recent promises of stepped-up speed limit enforcement by local LEOs in the Baton Rouge paper. This coming as the result of the recent multiple fatality accident on River Road involving a pickup truck and several bicyclists. We rode to the coffee house on the corner of highways 22 and 70 in Sorrento and had some coffee and beignets before continuing North on 22. Keith lives near St. Amant or French Settlement and since it was getting hot he decided to head for home so we split up at the junction of 22 and 16. I continued on 22 to Springfield and then navigated my way North with the GPS as far as Gillsburg, MS before turning back for home. 270 miles for the day. It got a bit uncomfortable after about 1:00 PM despite my hot weather riding suit but all in all a pleasant ride.

AUGUST - August is a busy month for the Chappuis household: both of our birthdays plus our anniversary. Between celebrating these events there has not been much time for riding so far. We did find time for a short ride up to Gloster, MS for lunch at the Hitching Post. I think this was on Sunday August 4th. The place is quite large and the owners are eager to please. We arrived a bit early and did not know what to think since there was not a car in sight as we surveyed the area from the seat of our bikes. However, an employee quickly came out and assured us the buffet would be ready in ten minutes so they must be biker friendly folks. They offer good down home country cooking. I believe they only offer the buffet on Sundays, however. The price was reasonable and the fried chicken was delicious!

Next month I expect to have plenty of material. Stacie and I are attending Southeast Star in Georgia, Henry and Jake are taking the Trail of Tears Tour and Kent & Evie are doing Bull Shoals in Missouri. Plus I expect to have reports from Bud and Drew on their recent adventures in Colorado and Europe.

LA HSTA ONLINE MEMBERSHIP SURVEY

Announcing a new edition to our club website at http://www.staciechappuis.com/hsta/ (You're already there if you are reading this online) Go to the MEMBERS ONLY AREA and take the Membership Survey. (NOTE: I will be sending a hard copy version to members for whom I have no email address) To access the members only area enter your first and last names and the password: united. The personal info items are required, but the survey items are optional.

This is your opportunity to give input on what you want to get out of the club on the State level. This same form can also be used to send us any changes in your personal info which we will also pass on to the Membership Director. Note: we have tested this but our ability to test the multitude of computer and web browser combinations is limited so be sure and let me know if you have a problem. Problems can occur if you enter letters where numbers belong and quotation marks and apostrophes also require special coding which I have not gotten around to yet.

Anyway, this is the first of what I hope will be a series of Interactive Features which I hope to add to the Web site.

HSTA MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS

Since club activity for July provides little to report in this issue I will fill some empty space with something you might fine usefully. Here is a compilation of membership benefits that was published in a recent STAReview. If its too hot to ride right now, buy something for your bike instead, it will help the economy!

These benefits really add up to a lot of value. I have purchased from some of these vendors and have found them to be knowledgeble and generally great to do business with.

Well, it is time to wrap this issue up. I am looking forward to reading responses from all of you on the membership survey.

Bob Chappuis chappuis@demco.net and my telephone number is (225)635-3171 or (225)281-0799 (cell). Ride safe and keep in touch.