Last night was the formal banquet and silent auction. It went well. Everybody got a bottle of the special ale that was brewed for our group and each man's bottle had a label containing the logo and information for his unit. They also had a memorial service putting aside a bottle of the special ale for each man who died in Vietnam in their unit and on each of those bottles they attached a dog tag with each of those men's names. It was very very moving and the guy making the dedication speech could barely get through it.
Today Marshall and I went to the Sandia Casino. In under an hour, I won $400 at the slot machines and he won $200, so for the first time in my gambling experience, we took our winnings and left!
After the barbecue tonight we're going to load the motorcycle into the trailer and get ready for an early start tomorrow back to Colorado.
Now, a word about this hotel. It is the MCM Elegante on Menaul Street in Albuquerque, and they advertise themselves as a 4-star hotel. Ha! The carpet in the hall is stained and dirty. The rooms are less than clean. There was a large black bug that someone had killed in the elevator -- it was there when we checked in on Wednesday and it is still there now. The elevator doors have greasy black fingerprint marks on them. I don't know how they can call themselves 4-star.
However, the staff was nice and the food was good. They let Marshall park his bike right in the front of the hotel so everyone could visit around it. Some of the families of the men who died were here and they are really touched when they see the replica of the Vietnam wall on the front fairing of the bike that includes their loved ones' names.
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