ZS Mechanized Cavalry club consideration event

[thpool1138]

I'm in!

I'll be gathering all my can goods and dropping them off to some hungry folks before the deadline. I'll post what and how much after I get it done.

Looking forward to getting this chapter off and running.

AND just so it is legit, since I am still in the process of buying a bike, I will be riding that chow down on my son's Mongoose mountain bike! That counts, right?

[PistolPete]

Here is my food donation tale.

I put out a message on the local chapter's FB page and email list in an attempt to reach out to people who hadn't seen this thread. There were 3 other people in the St Louis area that were able to participate, 2 of them today. We decided to meet up and hit the food bank together.

My morning started with putting my saddlebags back on the KLR, after wrapping the exhaust with some heat wrap since it had been contacting the right bag the last time I had them on. Then I got to transfer the food from my trunk onto the bike.


I chose a these containers to put the food in- the saddle bags, a 35l tan pack, my favorite motorcycle backpack (green) and of course a box stamped ORM-D that formerly held a thousand rounds of 223. It's kind of a tradition for ZS food drive.


I decided I'd go with a theme for the food donation- Shit I like to eat in the summer. So I wandered through the grocers and selected the sorts of food that I like in summer that I can donate. Obviously pork steaks are out, so I had to improvise.

First, one of the basics, Peanut Butter and Jelly. Also Oatmeal Creme Pies. Because if poor kids need anything, it's pure corn syrup in patty form to go with their lunch.


Next up, stuff to put on hot dogs. Hot dogs are awesome in the summer. So here is some mustard and BBQ sauce. Also baked beans. And well, the tuna was on sale.....


Also pickles. And cake! Yes, I have chosen cake, you may judge me thusly. And some snacky food, cause poor kids need sugar.


Brownies!


Lastly some mac and cheese to fill in some empty space.


All loaded up it packed in quite nicely. Perhaps working at UPS loading trucks in my youth paid off here.


Now that I was loaded up, I set out. I was meeting Redphnx in Illinois at a local roller derby team's yard sale. This worked out conveniently since I to talk to one of the derby people about an upcoming event anyway. Alas, I was a bit late as I had to stop on the highway to re-arrange my payload.

From there we headed to Steve Ewing's Hot Dogs. Yes, that Steve Ewing. I can tell how impressed you are. There Redphnx and I met Sandcrawler. Of course, we were late. It seems the bridge we wanted to take was closed, which backed up the bridge complex for a couple miles. The sign I saw advertised times up to 78 miles to do the 3 miles from one state to another. So we decided to get off the highway and travel through the scenic byways of East St Louis in an attempt to find beautiful Rt 3 and take that north to another bridge. One built in 1910.

Let me tell you- if you haven't traveled about in the backstreets of East St Louis without a map looking for the street best known as strip club row in order to travel on a hundred year old bridge, you are missing out. Honestly, it looked like the apocalypse already hit that town as half the buildings are abandoned and half of those are burned out hulks. Thankfully about half the city has already reverted back to prairie. Prairie where packs of feral dogs roam in fields of cast off crack pipes and syringes, but it's a start. Nature will overcome, just give her time.

We roll back into Missouri and met up with Sandcrawler and enjoyed a hot dog. Sandcrawler had brought his daughter along and she was promptly instructed to listen to no advice I had to offer. We enjoyed a hot dog and headed out for Food Outreach where we dropped off the food.

We ended up with perfect weather, told somebody about Zombie Squad and helped out some folks in need. Overall it was a pretty nice afternoon.

Distance traveled: 69 miles (no, that wasn't on purpose)
Donated: All the foods in the pictures above
Vehicle Used: Kawasaki KLR-650

[Braxton]

I wanted to do this, But due to work and an unfortunate family situation I could not. It sounds like you guys had a blast.

we decided to get off the highway and travel through the scenic byways of East St Louis in an attempt to find beautiful Rt 3 and take that north to another bridge. One built in 1910.

Let me tell you- if you haven't traveled about in the backstreets of East St Louis without a map looking for the street best known as strip club row in order to travel on a hundred year old bridge, you are missing out. Honestly, it looked like the apocalypse already hit that town as half the buildings are abandoned and half of those are burned out hulks. Thankfully about half the city has already reverted back to prairie. Prairie where packs of feral dogs roam in fields of cast off crack pipes and syringes, but it's a start. Nature will overcome, just give her time.

Home sweet home! Next time I will go and be your urban guide. I can teach you how to read the graffiti and tell you what streets to avoid at all cost.

[Impus]

Steve Ewing's Hot Dogs, FTW!

[Readphnx]

My day started early with getting my canned goods ready and loading the bike until it was full. Shortly after I had the bike ready to go I noticed it had started raining, so I went back into the house, grabbed my rain gear, and unloaded some of my food and shoved the rain gear in the saddle bag. Then it was off to Caseyville to meet up with Pete. Luckily he was running a little behind since I got stopped by a train in Granite (as anyone who spends time in Granite knows this is about as rare as a cop at a doughnut shop). Once their we hung out with a few of the ladies from the one of the derby teams for a little while and then started planning on how best to cross the river without spending the next hour or two in traffic.



Pete's bike was loaded down with a ton of food. I almost felt embarrassed with my meager saddle bags worth of cans.



When decided it would be best to take an alternative route across the river. This route include such tourist destinations as East St. Louis, Washington Park, Fairmont Park, Brooklyn, and Venice. Our urban safari took us through beautiful rolling planes of burned down and boarded up houses, and fields of amber weeds. After a short while in this beautiful area and passing no less than 5 strip clubs (one of them was for sale so if anyone is looking to start a new business...) we hit the McKinley bridge and headed towards our next stop. This is where I should mention I had never worn my new 3/4 open faced helmet before today and while it was comfortable it was bit of a wind catch. I had to have looked like a giant bobble head at points while we where on the highway, every gust of wind felt like it was going to send my head bobbling around again.



Once we arrived at "The Hill" and starting walking towards Steve's Hot Dogs we spotted a KLR with ammo cans for saddles bags and knew it had to be a fellow ZSer's bike. We ran into Sandcrawler and his daughter as we walked in. If you're from St. Louis and haven't tried this place it's worth the drive. The St. Louis-Chicago dog is very good. After a quick lunch and me snapping a picture of a sign in the window we where ready to leave. It was a short ride over to the food bank where we got to educate some folks on who Zombie Squad is and we got to help the local community by providing food for those who can't afford it.

[Readphnx]

Sandcrawler's apocalypse ready KLR.


Riding to the food bank.

[Readphnx]

I've got more photos but photobucket hates me right now and I need to be asleep I'll work on getting those up Monday night.

[HMPlatinum]

We started out with a little drive past the river to pick up our foodstuffs



We haven't had much rain of late and our lovely, spring-fed river is WAY down, but there was still plenty of people taking advantage of a warm day and cool water.

A quick run to the store and we got some items not usually found on the regular fare where we were donating.



Not very fancy load-management, but the ride was really short from the store to delivery. It was easy enough to balance the cans of tuna-in-water and MANY bags of ramen.

We got to the place for delivery



but they were closed (it's Sunday, I knew they were, but we wanted the photo).

And we were off




So...

No, we just didn't go home and pig out on tuna-ramen. My mom volunteers at the Food Pantry and they'll stop by her house Tuesday and pick stuff up. If I can escape work, and my kids, I'll try to re-deliver it, myself, and get a pic.

The only person I actually got to talk to about ZS and being prepared was the checkout girl. She either knew of it, or was good at feigning interest. Points for her.

[Sledgecrowbar]

No guarantees, but I'll try to get some photos of how ugly my bike looks with saddlebags out of my phone. I decided to stick to my original plan of getting these Campbell's soup cans into the record books as the fastest damned chicken noodle to ever travel terestrially. The weather did not disappoint and, with a little creative routing, I was able to exceed the suggested upper limit of my equipped saddlebags by almost 100%. As well as stop for a nice lunch in New Hope, a very bike-friendly town in PA.

I'm having a great deal of difficulty making a thumbnail, please forgive how wide this image is going to make the thread.

[thpool1138]

OK, sorry that I didn't take any pics to post here, but it was kind of impromptu.

I gave back to a local church's food pantry.

Here is the list of things I dropped off-

6-Boxes Kraft Mac and Cheese
2-Containers Quick Oats Oatmeal
3-Cans Corn
3-Cans Green Beans
3-Cans Sweet Peas
2 Boxes Instant Potatoes
4-Boxes Hamburger Helper

The church is a rural church, so it was about 17 miles total from my house to their location. They are an amazing church that has helped a lot of people, my family included, so I was happy to give a little back.

Just to clarify, I did not ride a mountain bike that far.

[Blacksmith]

I must say that having been to ESTL previously I am glad you guys went in force. Charity events are not worth dying over.