Pre-flight

 Since I'm trying to get out of town early tomorrow, I did the pre-flight today. The bike is ready to go.

The temperatures here in the National Capital Region tomorrow will be 39 deg F, with a low of 22 deg F. Ugh. It'll be warmer as I head south, but not by a whole lot. It's definitely time to break out the heated gear. 

What a change from the temperatures last summer (118.5 deg F in Pendleton)! It'll be warm enough soon, though, and I'll have fond thoughts of the heated gear, but not of the cold driving up from the bottom of my helmet.

One of my stops this week will be to see if I want to buy a lighthouse stamp book. I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle of bringing along the book. I don't use the book for U.S. National Parks because they fill up pretty fast; I collect the passport stamps using adhesive labels.

2019 Summer Adventure

Many of my friends are headed to the 2019 Iron Butt Rally in less that two weeks; Donna and I are off to our big summer adventure ride on the same day as the IBR start. I've fussed around with our route, adding and dropping locations to get each day's ride to close (we have a large number of time-limited [bonus] locations, all of which are associated with the National Park Service in one way or another.

Because we're doing the Tour of Honor National Parks Tour (and, by extension, the Iron Butt Associated National Parks Tour), we have a lot of passport cancellation stamps and photographs to collect. Because the stamps must be collected during the business hours of whatever location we're visiting, we have a set of time constraints within which we must fit. It's a little like the IBR, but without the miles / day required by that rally.

We're also doing the Team Strange grand tour again this year, so there are a few of those stops thrown in for good measure.

The bike is nearly ready to go; it'll get tires and oil before we leave, but otherwise we're all set. We have a good packing routine built up from lots of practice, so that'll go smoothly.

2019 Summer Adventure

The 2019 Tour of Honor announced that they're offering a modified IBA National Parks Tour, so I took to building a few routes to knock out another NPT in 2019. There were a couple of long rides needed to overcome a lack of relevant NPS units in ME, VT, CT, and RI. One of those rides was to cover AR, MO, KS, and NE -- pretty long for even an extended weekend ride.

Donna thought about those long rides, and suggested that we cut back on the New England trip a bit so we could get the long ToH NPT ride in, and that discussion led to a complete re-plan of the 2019 Summer Adventure. So, as it stands today, we're going to do a National Parks Tour in 2019!

I did a little planning to frame up the ride, and it looks like we're going to have a lot of fun, even considering the flat and heat of the midwest!

More to follow....

Late-October 2013 ride

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Got on the road about 1000. Headed right for Bayonne, NJ. Stopped for lunch at the outlet store place. Bayonne was amazing...you really need to know where you're going to find that memorial. Great views.

Got to Manhattan just fine. Took the Holland Tunnel. Lots of GPS bounce, but I knew where i was going. Great parking. Lots of people in the visitors center. Got inside and took the picture, then got back to the bike.

Wanted to go uptown. Nice ride...lots of jaywalkers. Traffic wasn't too bad. Lots of double-parking. Central Park South was a mess. Road into Central Park was closed because of the upcoming marathon. Decided to go to Queens. Saw a GS. Road to Flushing Meadows was interesting. Flushing Meadows has faded. Headed south to Far Rockaway, the to Coney Island. Went north so I could get some pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. Saw the big house at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and Steiner's Studio. Brooklyn Bridge going into Manhaytan was closed. Where does Flatbush Avenue go? Saw a guy who'd been hit, lying in the street with a bunch of guys helping him. Ambulance hadn't gotten there yet. Before that, saw two vehicles driving recklessly.

Rode out over Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Stopped to snag a geocache in Richmond County, the headed into NJ. Got a couple of geocaches there. National Park was closed for the day, so i continued south. Stayed at a La Quinta.

Sunday, 27 October 2013

Great sleep. So-so breakfast. Got on the road, heading south. Had a couple of virtual caches to get, and two stops on the 2013 Tour of Honor. Knew that the last ferry to Lewes sails at 1800, so headed for the ferry terminal. Got there with plenty of margin. Got dinner, took a bunch of pictures, and enjoyed the ride.

Saturday, 27 April 2013

Connie and I needed to do a little practice riding in advance of this year’s Mason Dixon 20-20, so we planned a nice Saturday ride. It was a great excuse to knock out a few more Big Money Rally bonus locations, along with a few Tour of Honor memorials.
We got a nice morning start, heading up I-295 / MD-295 through Maryland and the District of Columbia under a cloud-less sky. Road conditions were okay (I travel part of that route every workday, so I know where the worst potholes are located), and traffic was light for a Saturday morning.

Our first stop was the Caesar Rodney statue in Wilmington, Delaware, for a Tour of Honor memorial. We’ll be back to find his grave in Delaware for a future bonus location.


After Wilmington, we had a nice ride up I-95, to two stops in the Philadelphia, PA and Camden, NJ area.

Our stop in Philadelphia was to the Korean War Memorial.

The stop in Camden, NJ was to the Merchant Marine Memorial. The memorial is very close to the berth of USS New Jersey (BB 62), on the Camden waterfront.

Connie wanted to see a bit of Camden, so we took a somewhat circuitous route back to the bridge. We didn’t get to see ALL of the sights, but we saw quite a few.

From Camden, we headed west across the bridge, then west to our next stop – West Chester, Pennsylvania.

We found a bit of really bad traffic on the way to our next stop, so we took a bit of a detour north – up through an area that was known as Rittenhouse during the early days of Philadelphia. This is one of those locations that’s worth a return trip.
Our next stop was to a virtual geocache in West Chester, PA. West Chester was a happenin’ place while we were there – lots and lots of people on the streets, with quite a few sidewalk restaurants and a general welcoming feel. This is another place to which we want to return.

We next visited the Haym Solomon Memorial Park in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the location of Jim Croce’s grave.


We continued north to the rugged highlands of the Gettysburg-Newark Lowland Section.

There, we were destined to find the Spring Mountain Ski Area closed, regrettably, for the season. I thought the Tiki Bar was a nice touch. We couldn’t afford the time needed to completely scout the place, because we had to get back on the road.

Our original plan had us heading northwest to another ski area, but we were running out of daytime, so we headed for our last scheduled stop – an eatery in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. In yet another twist of fate, we arrived too late to visit “The Very Best Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Steaks in Pottstown since 1921”. Next time, as “they” say.

Aside from a stop at a Jimmy John’s for a sandwich, it was time to make tracks for home. What a great ride!