On the road…and back home again…

Wow, my first full day home after two weeks on the road. The boss (that would be Susie) is out for her morning run, and I have a few minutes to tap out a blog…and she’s already told me that when she gets home I’m making (or at least attempting to make) the same French toast fluffer nutter breakfast we enjoyed on the road in Memphis.

What an adventure the last two weeks has been…California, Nevada, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.   I think I may have wore out the shutter on my trusty Nikon (just kidding on that one, folks…those Nikons last forever).

I thought I might show you just a few more photos from my recent travel extravaganza…

I started with the Tahoe trip…and I posted a bit on it here on the CSC blog a couple of weeks ago. Just a bit more…meet my new buddy Joanne Donn, of Gear Chic fame (that’s gearchic.com).

Joanne is a fellow writer, blogger, and rider, and she’s fast!  She rides a Suzuki SV-650 V-twin sports bike, and she sure knows how to ride!

For our first ride after a hearty breakfast in Tahoe, our guides told us we’d be covering about 300 miles during the weekend.  That’s not too many miles, but the first road we road on was little more than a paved goat trail.   Joanne was immediately in front of me (I was on my KLR), and I thought that I’d have no problem keeping up with her.   That sure was not the case!

I found a video I made with my new Midland XTC-300 Extreme Action video camera while racing through the Sierra Nevada Mountains two weekends ago with Joanne and others…and I uploaded it to YouTube last night.  On this video, there’s no music and no editing…it’s just the raw footage uploaded to YouTube.   You’ll notice it’s a bitty choppy, but that’s because I used the Midland direct suction cup mount.  I mounted it on the KLR’s headlight fairing, so there’s a whole lot of fairing flexing and shaking going on.   You’ll remember that my other Tahoe video was quite a bit smoother, and that’s because I had the camera mounted on my helmet.   I guess my big old noggin makes a pretty good vibration dampener!

After racing home on the KLR from that weekend, Susie and I were on an airplane headed to Atlanta early the next morning.  I’ve already shown y’all a bunch of photos from that journey…but there are a few I missed and I really like them.

One of the highlights of that trip was our visit to the USS Alabama, which is moored just outside Mobile.   Mobile is a cool town, and the USS Alabama was unbelievable.   If you ever have a chance to see it, don’t pass up that opportunity!

We pushed east from there, along Florida’s Emerald Coast, and then we headed back up into Georgia. Another bit of travel advice…if your adventures ever take you anywhere near Columbus, Georgia, you owe it to yourself to visit the US Army’s Infantry Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia. It’s another pearl that most folks have never heard of. We could have spent all day there.

We did something that was extra-special to me, too, and that was a quick trip onto Ft. Benning to visit the Airborne School’s tower areas. Folks, take a look at the 34-foot mock tower (it trains you to exit an aircraft in flight) and the 250-foot towers (they actually lift you up with an already-inflated parachute, and then they drop you). It was a real fun thing for us to see, and we talked to a couple of young soldiers who were starting their Airborne training the following Monday. Boy oh boy, are they in for an exciting time. They’ll be making their first jumps right about now!

There’s a lot of history on this field…nearly every US military parachutist (from World War II to the present) trained right here!

In fact, it was my time on that historic field a cool 40+ years ago that led to this CSC video…one of our favorites!

After our time in the South, I headed north, and one of the best parts of that trip was the morning I spent with my good buddy Mike in New Brunswick a couple of days ago. You’ve seen Mike on a California Scooter right here on the CSC blog before. Mike retired as the Police Director in New Brunswick a few years ago, and he now works directly for the Mayor. He’s done well and we’re proud of him.

Mike has always been a fun guy. When I entered City Hall’s hallowed halls on this trip, the first thing Mike did was introduce me to the Mayor’s staff, followed by a question: Who looks younger?

I won that one, folks. But then I have an advantage…I get more seat time on a California Scooter!