|
Hell, Michigan, that is.
I had a retinologist appt. in Ann Arbor yesterday, so my husband and I left early to visit Hell on 6/6/06, hoping to buy one of the Teeshirts. On the way, we kept getting passed by motorcyclists, bikers, and way cool choppers. The road to Hell, from the west is - Church St. I kid you not. Hell was PACKED! It was a Happening, much like a seventies rock concert with a lot of the same people there(only older and deafer now). Some of the interesting things we saw were: A FRED PHELPS GROUP! Complete with their hideous signs, but when the one guy started preaching on his bullhorn, the bikers all got on their bikes and revved their engines - loud pipes drowning out the hate bigots! Also, everyone tuned their car radios to a hard rock station as loud as possible!! AT LEAST a thousand motorcycles; mostly Harleys, some full-dressed hogs, some of the most beautiful Choppers you can imagine - including a completely chrome one that made my husband drool, an Elvis tribute one with air-brush paintings of Elvis on his bike and trailer! A man dressed as a Shepherd, complete with crook, and wearing a NIXON mask. Three dragsters, AT LEAST a hundred muscle cars, all dressed up, celebrating days gone by. But my favorite was a small delivery van that was painted in yellow and silver flames, and turned into a Lo-rider. Way cool.
My husband knew several bikers, so he stopped to visit with them for awhile - they were security for parking. We got invited to a biker party, which we probably won't attend, but we were asked to pass along the invitation to several mutual biker friends. At 1pm, they informed us that the Teeshirts had all sold out, but they were taking back orders - did we want spots 1005 and 1006 in the line for back orders? We didn't have the time, so we left, waving to all the very friendly people. The road leaving Hell, going east is - Darwin Rd. I kid you not!
On our way back, we knew we were in trouble when we saw the Hell - 1 mile sign had 12 cars lined up with people taking pictures of themselves at the sign. It took twenty minutes to reach the center of Hell, and it's 3 businesses. Cars were just pulled off by the side of the road, a mile into town, and a mile out of town, with more and more people arriving every second. By now, there was a State Police car in the parking lot of the Hell Country store, the cops chatting with some bikers. Now, there were closer to TWO thousand bikes, each prettier than the next! There were entire families; Mom, Dad, the kids and Grama & Gramps pushing the strollers with the twins, several groups of Goths, including one guy dressed in black leather and chains with a six inch rainbow colored mohawk, his face done in black and white as a Skull. Cars full of high schoolers with their "Class of '06" painted on their car windows. There had to be at least TWENTY THOUSAND people there!
But there was one thing in Hell we could not find anywhere - Bush stickers! NOT A ONE! There were several Kerry/Edwards stickers, one Don't blame me - I voted Democratic sticker, and one home-made "$3 a gallon gasoline is not a F@#$%ing energy policy" sticker on the back window of a RV. Unfortunately, we left the camera on the kitchen table - each thinking the other one had it, so we're still kicking each other over that. Otherwise, HELL was a truly happenin' place yesterday - wish you could have joined us!
|