We were in no rush to leave the dry warmth of our motel room, but after a continental breakfast of bad coffee and toasted plain bagels, it was time to go. Our next stop was the Riders of Southern Maine Rally in Downeast Maine, a three-day event at Hermit Island Campground on Casco Bay in Phippsburg.
This would be our first rally. Though I’d participated in the women-only rally Babes Ride Out a few years before, I was not sure what to expect at a coed motorcycle event. I did not know of many rallies other than the infamous Sturgis Rally in South Dakota and Americade in Upstate New York (which I thought of as the East Coast version of Sturgis) but I had heard plenty of stories of copious drug and alcohol consumption, motorcycle gang and marque rivalries (more than ninety percent of rally goers at Sturgis ride Harley Davidsons), and the show-us-your-tits shouting of ill-behaved men.