Got up early today, packed the bike, said my goodbye’s and at
0700 headed for Niceville. Got on rt 84 and rode it all the way to Quitman GA.
A real good riding road except every city I passed through was holding their
High School graduations…0800 on a Saturday!?!?!? Scooted on down to Monticello
to check out the land then headed home. Got
in at about 1500 and had logged 2218 miles. It was such a great trip we are
thinking of making it an annual event. Thanks Tim and Dale, have a safe ride
home. Where to next???
Saturday, May 25, 2013
24 May 2013
Today we are heading to the American Classic Tea Plantation,
the only tea plantation in the North American continent. It was a great ride
there as you can see from the first couple of pictures. We parked the scooters
and headed in for the factory tour which was followed by a trolley tour around
the plantation. The plants are basically
bushes that get the top 3 inches chopped off to process. They have 18 fields
and it take one day to trim one entire field. By the time they get done with
the 18th field it’s time to trim field #1; this goes on throughout
the harvesting period. The tractor you see is a one of a kind made from various
tractors. It’s really like a high stepping hedge trimmer. The tour guide tells
us if it wasn’t for this tractor it would take 500 employees to pick the
leaves; with this tractor they only have 4 employees! The tree picture in the “wedding
tree;” I guess there’s a lot of weddings on this plantation. After the tour we
headed to Savannah to spend the night at Dale’s son’s house.
Friday, May 24, 2013
23 May 2013
When we got up today it looked very cloudy and by the time
we got downstairs for breakfast it was raining buckets. Well that’s always a
possibility but when we started packing the bikes it stopped and we thought we
might get lucky. So we headed down towards Kure Beach to catch the ferry and
did run into a small rain shower, no big deal. It was clear and beautiful out
when we got to the ferry and the short 30 minute ride to Southport was awesome…a
cool refreshing break. After the ferry we stopped for gas and ran into some
kids hauling motorcycles, talking to them we found out it was motorcycle week
at Myrtle Beach; just so happens that’s where we are heading. I had read the
bike week at Myrtle Beach had been permanently canceled but I guess the merchants
complained about the loss of revenues so it’s back on. We headed to Myrtle
Beach and unfortunately it started to rain. Once we got there I never thought I
would ever be a minority at a bike week event but I guess last week was Harley’s,
this week was crotch rockets and there were all kinds of the high revving
variety ripping up and down the street. The event doesn’t actually start till
this weekend and because of the weather no pics. Of course once we left Myrtle
Beach the rain stopped and we headed to Mt Pleasant where we stopped for the
night.
Outer banks
Lousy internet service has really put a damper on the blog
this trip. After crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge we rode some really nice
back roads thru Virginia until…we ran into a “bridge out” sign. Then we had to
depend on Garmin to get us back on track, which it did. We headed down to Kitty
Hawk and the Outer Banks NC. While riding down thru the Outer Banks some of the
streets were lined with large piles of sand, not sure why. We then cut across
Roanoke Island and thru the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. I think
so far we must have rode over about 25 bridges, round every corner there seems
to be a bridge; beautiful scenery. Our day ended in New Bern NC.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
22 May 2013, Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Headed off today for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the last
time I went over this was in the early 70’s; it’s still amazing. While crossing
the bridge you could see all the ships heading inbound and one Navy aircraft carrier
heading out. That’s Tim on the bike.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
21 May 2013
Stopped at the Union Hotel Restaurant and Tavern today for lunch. The
hotel was constructed of hemlock logs during the heyday of the Susquehanna
canal (c. 1794). Some of the original canal beds still exist in front of the
building. At one time the hotel probably played an important part in the lives
of the people who journeyed up and down the river and canal. According to an
old map, a sawmill was located on the run just north of the hotel, so during
the old days, the hotel was ideally located. The food was great and the break
in riding was timely. Seems when we went out Tim lost the two bolts holding on
the tail end of his muffler. Luckily we had just passed a Harley dealer just a
few miles back! Another great day of riding with great weather; stopped in
Salisbury MD.
Just a kool bridge we passed on the ride.
21 May 2013 Harley Factory tour
The H-D factory tour was awesome but too short, of course you could spend hours there but the tour unfourtunately is 45-60 minutes long. Absolutely amazing place! I've never seen so many metrics in my life, every station has them. Infact, every day before work they have team meetings (per station) to discuss what happened, was learned yesterday and the what fors for today. Also, every employee changes stations every 90 minutes not only for cross-training but to allow better ergonomics; employees don't get stiff or sore from doing the same movements 8 hours a day. Way too much to discuss in a blog. No pictures from inside the plant.
20 may 2013
Rode up thru Leesberg Virginia then skirted along the PA border then up to Gap PA to take a ride thru Amish country. It didn't take long before we understood why the locals get frustrated with all these horse and buggies in the road slowing up traffic. These aren't the stereotypical Amish, we saw them cutting the lawn with riding mowers, wearing Nike's, driving cars etc.
19 May, Sanford Fl
Hope this gets posted, the hotel internet is terrible. Got to Sanford AMTRAK Auto-car in plenty of time to load the bikes. Had Sarah, Lonnie, Steve, and Nathan to see us off. The train was slammed full of people and vehicles; 497 people, 289 vehicles and the train was over a 3/4 of a mile long. The good news is we made it to Lorton trouble-free and on time, unlike my last trip. Going to post this short blurb just to see if it'll get thru.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
18 May 2013
Rode in to Seminole Fl yesterday
and visited the parents with Al; stopped by again today with Al till noon then
headed to Sarah’s in Tampa. Tomorrow @ 0930 Tim and I will ride to Sanford
while Sarah, Chance, Lonnie and Steve drive out so they can visit with Dale and
Nathan (Nathan decided to drive down from Savannah). We’ll check in at 1400 and
the trip will officially begin.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
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