Greetings all, So maybe a few of your rememeber the wife allowed me to get a trailer: http://vfrworld.com/forums/anything-goes/27426-my-trailer-quest.html Also cronicled on my BLG here: http://blog.mrjoeliec.com/?p=141 The following is also from my BLOG: http://blog.mrjoeliec.com/?p=146 Part 1: Riding in North Carolina Finally! We actually arrived late in the day on Saturday. I discovered that Towing your pride and joy for 14 and a half hours is rather stressful. Towards the end the tongue loosened up on the trailer side. It’s really fine but to watch the bike moving more than it was in the rearview mirror was a little disconcerting. I’ll have it fixed before we go home. I should have gone out Sunday. But I was spending time with family and helping out my Brother-in-law. He and my Father-in-Law had already changed the oil and I helped out and got my hands dirty while rotating the tires on his truck. It was during this that I had repeatedly told my Son to stop sending a toy stroller belonging to my daughter down the driveway uncontrolled. It almost hit the motorcycle and I told him to cut it out.. We got the air compressor out and I wheeled the bike behind my brother-in-law’s truck and turned around to see my daughter come flying down the driveway in the stroller that I had told my son to not send down the driveway… She then flies uncontrolled at speed into the front bumper of my truck… So, my wife makes a trip to the ER to get 5 stitches on Miranda’s forehead. She was lucky, 6 inches to the left and it would have been a tow hook in the teeth.. Oh and she hit so hard that the “check airbag” light comes on every once in a while now. Monday became a Bust because the clouds rolled in and it rained the entire day….. Sigh….. A quick look at the forecast predicted cloudy skies for Tuesday.. Screw it! I came here to ride and by god I will ride! Now in unloading I realized I had forgotten my Tank bag, small camera, and of course my tank bag has my rain gear.. So if it rains while I’m out… I’m getting wet…So a special thanks to the in-laws for letting me borrow a small camera.. I loaded up a backpack and with my cell phone, and a few Mountain Dews for the road. My original plan for the not getting too lost was to put my GPS in my tank bag behind the clear top… With no tank bag a 24 dollar purchase at Radio Shack and a bunch of Zip-Ties and I mounted my GPS to the left side of the handlebars. I’m still trying to decide if I want a permanent mount for this thing or a future better GPS…It’s nice for when you have no clue where the hell you are… So all loaded up I rode for a few hours winding in a south east direction.. Motoring around a few back roads of Wake Forrest. I eventually found Route 96 and I went through towns like: Rolesville, Emit, Zebulon, Jordan, Selma, Smithfield, until I found a church parking lot to pull into and figure out where the hell I was… (Oh… bad choice of words??) I decided to turn around and pick a different direction. Suddenly, I saw signs for one of the Battlefields from the Confederate Wars. Pointing the bike in that direction down route 701 I blasted the 17 miles to the battlefield. I never actually went to the visitors center but continued along and found an entrance to one of the federal earthworks occupied by the federal troops in the battle of 1865.. It was muddy as all hell but I snagged a pic of the bike in front of the entrance to the woods and another deep inside the woods where I chickened out and would not go further with the bike. rode back towards the visitor center and found a bit more of the battlefield memorial site that has quite a few headstones from members who had fought during the battle.. There was a special memorial erected in 1893.. I walked the fields and realized it was downright eerie quiet… You could hear yourself breathing and there is an occasional bird song but otherwise not a car to be heard, not a single plane overhead.. As I walked I spotted a set of trenches that were left over from some of the original battle but get rebuilt for re-enactments that occur.. Indeed there was even a cannon put in place. As I walked back marveling at the quiet I noticed the bike sitting where I had left it. Sitting near the monument and behind it across the road cotton fields. Even though it was chilly, cloudy, what a ride! I got back on the bike and headed back to the in-laws… It was at this point I noticed the GPS is not very smart for the return trip… I should have just winged it but I was realizing I probably should have had another layer on and I wanted to get back. So I put in the last address I had and then realized I was further south than I thought and had the GPS take me through the center of Raleigh……Ick!… All in all I did almost 200 miles.. Certainly not a lot but considering the threat of rain was just almost always there, and on top of that, I was getting a bit chilled, I did pretty well I think… Part 2: NC Riding (Cannot catch a break!) This is chronicled and copied from my BLOG as well: http://blog.mrjoeliec.com/?p=156 But I can catch Metal! F@%&!!!!!!!!! Ok so Today after getting up and looking outside and realizing it’s wet outside and not what the forecast was the day before (partly sunny).. I decided to hop in the truck and head to a motorcycle superstore. I ended up picking up some Boots and a new set of Gauntlet gloves which really was a surprise as they were waiting for their XMAS inventory that was already a week late in arriving.. But the gloves fit nice and the Boots were nice as well and all said and done for both I paid just over 200 buckaroos. When I got back to the in-laws I looked up the weather as it was starting to dry up when I was driving home.. There appeared to be a quick window of semi decent weather so I put on the new boots and gear checked my tire pressures and headed out. I decided since I headed south east yesterday I would try north west today and see how far I could make it…… Well… Apparently, not very far… I was cruising along route 56 in Creedmoor NC and began thinking… I could jump on Interstate 85 north and pick up 158 or something like that(was doing all this in my head from memory.) and make up for lost time in the morning.. I jumped on the interstate and felt that feeling that nobody on a motorcycle ever wants to feel when you are cruising at 88 MPH… No I did not get struck by a bolt of lightning, and no I did not break the laws of the “space-time” continuum… My rear tire started to feel funny… I pulled off at a rest stop and my Phone began to chime for a text message from Dawn. I looked at her text and momentarily got distracted and went inside the rest area to check a real map to check my memory. Yup I thought “hey I’ll ask the GPS to give me the quickest route to the intersection of Rt159 and state road 1139… So I decide to Call Dawn on my way to the bike and check in..as I’m talking to her I get back to the bike and I remember “oh yeah the tire felt funny.” That’s because of the real shiny piece of metal sticking out… F@%&!!!!!!!!! Seriously!!!!! Really!!!!! With help from a local and the combine of tools and his compressor on his goldwing, I still have a bit of pressure not much… I went from 42psi to 28…. SO I punch in the shortest route home on the GPS… Luckily the direct route meansI’m only 25 minutes away…. I limp the bike home and I’m done with NC till next year I guess…. F@%&!!!!!!! I took a picture of the shiny bit: All in all though the riding around NC is really nice… I cannot wait to bring the bike back next time and I might try and convince Dawn that I might need to do an overnighter out further west… The Blue Ridge Parkway beckons me… Maybe I can convince everyone to go and we can make it a riding/touristy thing… I would love to take a picture of the bike in front of the Biltmore Estate… Hmmmm Something to think about…
