Take a photo of your bike at the near end of the Dike Bridge and produce a receipt for you and your bike for the ferry ride to Martha’s Vineyard. Note: This is an expensive round trip on the ferry. Motorcycles are first come, first served and space is very limited.

  Category: Leaving the scene of an accident   On the night of 7/18/1969 Senator Edward Kennedy drove off this bridge leaving one of his political aides, Mary Jo Kopechne, trapped in the car to drown. Because the ferry had stopped running for the night, Kennedy swam back over to the main island and did not report the accident until 10 hours later.   Such are the bonus listings for this years running of the Iron Butt Rally, the eleven day motorcycle rally that will take riders around the country, and through Canada over the next 10 days. The rally started yesterday in Spartansburg SC and will end a week from Friday in Spokane Washington.   Unlike other motorcycle rallies where we see hundreds or even thousands of bikes riding two by two to some local destination the IBR is like a giant scavenger hunt on steroids. Riders in this year's event started in SC, have to be in St Charles IL. by 9pm on Weds. Missing the checkpoint by more than two hours is an automatic DSQ. They then have to be in Santa Ana California by 9pm on Sunday. And finally, the have to be at the finish in Spokane Washington by 7am Friday Sept 4th.    Making it on time to these check points wouldn't be a problem if riders could just ride to them. They can't. They must collect bonus points along the way. As shown above, Martha's Vineyard, is just such an example. There are hundreds more. Pulling out your trusty Rand McNally road atlas and you will note that Martha's Vineyard is not on the straight line route to St Charles Ill. Then again, neither is Key West or the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan. In fact none of the 124 bonus locations for Leg One of the IBR are on a straight line route to St Charles. And all of them have different point values. It is up to the rider to pick the right combination of bonuses to maximize the point total and still make the check point within a two hour window.   Oh the fun we can have on motorcycles!!!   How long is that wait if you miss the ferry?