I participated in my first Patriot Guard Ride. At the invitation of the Pfister family I got to help honor their fallen son, Sgt. Travis Pfister. I didn’t know Travis myself, but known various members of the Pfister family over the years. First stop was a Venti Mocha at Starbucks and ran into a few work colleagues, riding buddies, and acquaintances from PNWRiders.com.

Overwhelmed by the number of bikes that started to show up to King City truckstop I started counting and as we left to ride I counted no less than 392 bikes! Simply stunning and impossible to capture even with a wide-angle lens.

Bikes of every type and age were represented. Many were Harleys and cruisers with leather swathed riders including patches to many clubs and rallies. Also present were various riders from the PNWRiders.com forum. I parked amongst a batch of bikes that measure their worlds in terms of cubic inches, but it truly became a celebration by all riders as the morning brightened.

I met Jeff Matson, ride organizer, and had a nice talk with him about the mission of the PGR, the plan for the day, some “uninvited guests” that ended up really being a very minor part of the day, and, of course, motorcycles! The Pasco Police helped tremendously and even loaned him a PA for the ever-increasing crowd.

Myself and buddy Jim set about counting the number of bikes and came up initially with 180. And, then as bikes road in I added them to the count.

I ended up counting 392 motorcycles at King City alone! Combined later with a bunch of bikes that came to TRAC separately and we easily exceeded 400 with serious possibilities of over 500 motorcycles! The PGR told me it was absolutely a record for Eastern Washington. So many, it was impossible to even remotely capture everybody and their bikes in one picture.

At about 11:30 we had a ride briefing that set out the plan for the day. And got to learn about the head of “uninvited guest” and media relations, Knuckles (can you guess which one?), and Cowboy.


By the way, did I say how great the Pasco Police were? They rocked! Officer Moore is in the right and one heck of a nice guy. This shot got to me….

Riding there was a surreal experience. I got out early with the first 20 or so bikes and was clearly the only non-straight piped rice rocket amongst the front of the pack and wish I could have gotten a picture of what must have been an overwhelming sight of motorcycles from King City to Road 68. I venture to guess that the head of the snake made it to the end of the ride, some 6 miles away, before the tail of the snake was able to start. I feel sorry for the folks that had to wait for us, but hope they understood the special cause.

A picture from my friend Jim’s FZ6.

Heading into TRAC

A shot taken by Q of me and full HID lights blazing:

A shot showing the main line of bikes coming from King City and another smaller group coming from another place. I can see Some sport bike riders in the mid-ground.


As I rode into TRAC it was a sea of flags on the avenue as we crossed through. People smiling, people waving, clapping, and saying “Good job!”. I teared up for sure.


Parking was a loose operation.

Once parked I had to help perform a duty and I ended up doing such a great job at turning my back to the uninvited guests that I didn’t even consider taking a picture of them and their scant 4 or so protesting members and actually only caught the briefest of glimpses of their colossally intolerant asses. I learned that instead of empowering their cause by saying their group’s name….it’s far better to just call them “uninvited guests” or the UGs.

…I’m not even sure they’re viewable in the picture as 4 people behind the tree across the street. I stood myself for about a half hour with my back to them. It really was a pretty insignificant non-event.

After the protesters tired and the family was safely in TRAC at the service it was time to depart for lunch. Helping out families is hungry work.

More pictures and experiences can be found here and here.