Jesse's big mistake

Our friends Ron and Kathy came down to bike the "Defeat of Jesse James" tour ride on Saturday. It was a perfect day weather wise, 70's with no wind. Lots of hills though. Lot of stuff going on at registration. One guy was taking pics of people standing by Jesse. Had to pick out a hat and go for a group pic. Tour is part of a big celebration in the town of Northfield, MN. Every couple hours they have a reenactment of what happened when the James and Younger gang came to rob the bank. They came up from Missouri and thought the bank would be easy pickings. Was suppose to be a lot of money in bank. What they didn't know is it was a town of farmers who were old Civil War Vets. In those days as now, farmers know how to use guns. 3 gang members went into the bank while the others started shooting up and down main street to chase the people inside. Then the people started to shoot back. Whole thing only lasted 7 min. Two of the gang were shoot dead in the street. One was wounded but doubled up on another members horse. Another survived because one of the farmers had only bird shot in his shotgun when he blasted him in the face. Biggest manhunt in the U.S. up to that time. Jesse and Frank made it back to Missouri. Most of the rest of the gang was caught in Minnesota, 1 was killed and the others served life sentences in Stillwater State pen. Oh and they didn't get a dime.

On the way home Sheila and I came upon a very bad accident as it happened just out of Northfield. Two ladies were still in one car. Drove through the rubble and parked. Next 45 min. was spent taking care of them. Couple of motorcycle guys stopped to direct traffic - they were great. Ladies rear ended a SUV as it was turning. The reason they had injuries is because the air bags did not inflate. They had seatbelts on. Front bumper was intact as it went under the SUV, but the rest of the front end was demolished. Wonder if that was why they didn't inflate. We heard today that they will be ok after recovery.

Of course this happened on the same weekend (Friday) that I was riding bike with the neighbor lady just to test out my legs. She went over a 5 foot concrete wall onto blacktop head first. She would not let me call 911 so called Sheila to come pick her up and take care of her injuries. She couldn't hardly see out of her eye as it was so swollen above and below it. We have been checking on her every day. She will be sore and very black and blue for a long time.

Glad the weekend is over.