We travelled to Charleston for the day.  We did not want to do the tour bus again; so we decided the one thing we wanted to see was Ft. Sumpter.  We found the museum and toured it.  When we had done that, we decided to move on to Augusta with a vague hope to see the golf course (of course we knew that we would be thrown out like we were at Greenbrier in WV).  We are currently planning on what course to be thrown out of next year.  So we did get turned away at Augusta, but we got a pix at gate six!

Our Charleston attractions.

OK, this is it. Andy at Gate 6 of the Augusta National Golf Course! — That’s all today folks.

We crossed three of these beautiful bridges in SC.

Another view of the harbor and the acquarium.

“Oh, say can you see…?”
The flag over Ft. Sumpter.

The actual Fort is in the far horizon in the middle of the bay opening (we did not go on the boat trip to the island).

Slavery was the issue in the Civil War; the museum has a great history of the issues in SC.

We both love to read all the exhibits; love that history.

A ship in the harbor.

Today is was just a 110 mile trip up Hwy 17 to Savannah, GA.  We stopped at the bus tour, bought our tickets and jumped on the bus for 16 stops.  First was a museum of the city.  There were too many more to list but we took pictures of the best of the stops.  This is a city worth visiting; the history is truly great.

Enjoy the pix:

The bench is Forrest Gump’s.  Lots of movies have been made here.

Crock in our restaurant

When I woke up, Andy had already left the room for morning coffee.  I listened to the rain coming down, looked out the door at the wet motorcycles, went back to bed and slept another hour.  Even then, we waited in the motel in Palatka, FL for another hour before the rain quit.  On the radar there was one city in Florida with rain–Palatka.

We made friends with a couple traveling by motorcycle to Sanford.  They were taking a train to Washington, D.C. planning to ride back to Florida on the Skyway through Virginia and the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The train takes cars and motorcycles!  We looked it up and seriously considered joining them.  But we could not justify the cost ($700–$350 each).  It is a sleeper car, but still that only saves one motel.  Oh well, next year maybe.

We drove to St. Augustine in the dry.  At the Visitor’s Center and Ripley’s Believe It or Not, we signed on to an on-and-off all day bus trolly tour with over 25 stops.  It was great.  All the pictures are from that tour except some special pictures at the end.  Enjoy!

400 Year Old Oak Tree

We wait a year to play mini golf. Bob wins by 2!!!

Old General Store

Ice cream and fudge!

The last two are in the historic jail–a place one does not want to be in very long.

We headed north on US 1 and I-95 through Jacksonville and stopped in St. Marys, GA.  Great day; good riding.

The day started out in the fog.  We left Tallahassee at 7:00 AM heading east on I-10 towards I-75 South.  We followed I-75 down to Ocala and then Fla 40 towards the East Coast in order to get to Lake Mary to meet our friends from the 1950’s in Michigan.   (Yes, we did use the interstate; we sometimes do when pressed for time)  It was a six hour journey of 270 miles.  Lunch was at 1:00 PM.

The first pix are of the dense fog that misted my windshield; they show Andy faithfully leading the way.

The next picture is of Julie Collins, Cherry Collins Finimore, me, and Andy (clockwise).  Picture yourself meeting with someone you have not seen for 57 years!  What fun we had remembering the past.  They were all good memories of Bob and Julie Collins and their family–especially Cherry with whom we hung out after church.  Bob has been in glory now for four years.  Andy and I agree that he taught us that real men can love Jesus.  He was everything we wanted to be:  the life of the party, effervescant, joyful, kind, rambunctious,  What a man he was!  He and Julie were our heroes; one could not do much better!

We are now up near St. Augustine which is our destination tomorrow.  Today we were in and out of rain; we are hoping for a dry morning to visit sights in St. Augustine.

This was a travel day.  Late start:  8:00 AM.  Down to the beach via 2-lane highways from Birmingham. Hot. Tired.  Up the coast to Panama City, then up to Tallahassee.  Hotter.  Stopped east of Tallahassee ready to go on to Orlando tomorrow.

There was one occassion for a picture.  It was a momument exhibit on highway 20 east of Panama City.  Here is the picture:

Just Trying Out This Stone for Future Reference.
He looks almost alive.

We were so tired, I had trouble getting him back on his bike!

Tomorrow we meet with a long-time friend from high-school days and her mother, also a great friend–Cherry Collins Finamore and her mother Julie Collins.  We knew them 55 years ago and have not seen them since.  Sould be a good day.

We met two guys at the Quality Inn in Arab, Alabama who had fancy bow and arrow outfits (later found out they were worth about $2500 each).  We asked about why they were there, and they told us about a competition at St. Bernard Academy in Cullman, AL.  Since it was only 20 miles, we went to watch the competion.

We walked about a mile into the woods (sure, Bob).  This competion involves 3D targets set back off the main trail to simulate a real hunting situation.  We were there early in the morning; so it was kids shooting.

Kids shooting a bear.

It was fascinatiing; we met a lot of nice people with kids in the competiotion.  After we saw a little of it, we had seen enough; so we moved on and hit the highway heading to the Barber Motorsports Museum and Speedway outside Birmingham in Leads, AL.

This was a great ride down a 2-lane wooded and shaded highway to Birmingham (Hwy 31).  Great ride!  We are still kids when we ride through small towns on a regular highway–this is the real America we grew up in.

Barber Museum:

Words cannot describe this place.  We took an hour on each floor; we spent six hours there and could have done more, but our feet hurt even though we had taken breaks between floors sitting and drinking water.

I know–we are nuts.  But every bike we have ever owned was there like the red Vespa (mine was blue), the red and white Cushman (just like mine), and the blue Cushman Eagle Andy in standing beside.  They had at least 4 Cushman Eagles.  We rode these scooters when we were 14–56 years ago–all over Michigan.

Enough.  Tired.  Days Inn not far from the museum. Waffle House.  It doesn’t get any better than this on this side of glory.

Grays on Main

Day One

We met in a cafe in downtown Franklin, TN.  Andy had meandered South through Indiana and Kentucky.  Naturally, I got lost on the way up after travelling up TN 111 to TN 8 through McMinnville and Murfreesboro. But I made it only about 20 minutes late.

Andy had graciously saved a parking space across from the restaurant with room for my bike behind his.  It was a great reunion after waiting a year for this tour together.

All ready to go at the ungodly hour of 8:15 AM

Here I am ready to go from our driveway in Dayton.

We left after lunch West on TN 96 to the Natchez Trace Parkway.  Here we are at the start.  The bridge is a famous double-arch bridge of the parkway over Hwy 96.

OK, we are not cut out for 50 MPH on a two-lane parkway with nothing to look at but trees (although we did see a flock of turkeys).  We got bored as we expected; left the Natchez after 20 miles!

East to Columbia, then South to Fayetteville and into Alabama, through Huntsville — that was our route.  We are now thankfully in a nice motel in Arab, Alabama (that’s right–Arab).  Tomorrow we expect to be in Birmingham at the Barber Motorcycle Museum and track.  It was a good day.

Let’s get this straight–I love riding a motorcycle, but riding with a buddy is better than riding solo.  And riding solo on the Interstate is at the bottom of my favorite ride list.  But Andy is home, and I wake up in Georgetown, KY, home of Georgetown College and Toyota Camry.  Great exit with lots of motels and restaurants.  I got up late, ate breakfast at 8:00 and was on the road with a full tank at 9:00 AM.  I lasted until London, KY; that was all I could take. 

I began to think of the days when I was selling World Book and drove a loop up 27 to Somerset, accross on 80 to London, and back down I-75 to Maryville, then home to the office and to Chatty and back with the orders I had picked up.  I did this for about 4 years every Tuesday.  So I know the way.  The memories seemed better and better the farther I went down the Interstate.  So I did it.

Does anyone remember playing the card game Touring as a child?  I do.  Two of the cards are London, KY and Somerset, KY.  Hwy 80 was great; sunshine, staight but hilly roadway, and smooth sailing on a Sunday morning with no traffic.  Better–much better.  I stopped in Burnside below Somerset to take the pix of the Burnside marina.  In the 1980’s this was where Someset Houseboats were manufactured.  Big, beautiful houseboats all over the place.  But I asked, and found that the economy shut the manufacturing down.  The Cumberland River, however, still has many big houseboats located at this marina.

Bear with me a moment longer on my trip down Hwy 27 memory lane.  I had a district sales manager who lived in Sunbright, TN just below Onieda, TN.  My most vivid memory of Sunbright was the ‘Library.’  It was in this building on a curve in the road as you go North on 27:

I guess they have a new library now; this building was empty.  On down the road I stopped two places in Harriman, TN.  This was a place where I used to recruit new sales people using a room in the old City Hall Building.  It has this plaque out front declaring Harriman to be a utopian city free from ‘demon rum.’

Here is a shot of the whole building.  I spent many days there in the corner room on the left interviewing prospects.

Just down the road, still in Harriman, is a church, West Hills Presbyterian, where I agreed to do pulpit  supply for a month one summer in the 1970’s.  14 months later I told them that they needed to find a permanent pastor (they had stopped looking).  It was great, but it was not the best thing for the church just to have a speaker on Sunday and no pastor.  Here is the church.

Forty miles later I was home.  Four pix here.  My bike at the new entrance to Bryan College, my alma mater and part-time employer; the famous courthouse in Dayton, TN, the home of the Scopes trial; the statue of William Jennings Bryan on the courthouse lawn; and my bike parked in front of our house.  It is good to be home.  Thank you Lord for safety, for best friends, and for home.

Woke up early as usual and were on the road by 7:00 AM.  We rode 2-lane highways down from Grand Rapids and into Indiana.  Andy was very familiar with these roads.  Never let it be said that Andy and I have not been to Sturgis (no matter that it was not in S. Dakota)!

Andy made it home to Fort Wayne by noon.  I kept going South on I-69.  Seven hours later I stopped in Georgetown, KY, one of my favorite exits because of the number of motels with high competition and the number of restaurants.  Tonight it is Baymont Inn right next to a Waffle House!  Hog heaven.  I intend to sleep in, leave at a reasonable hour and mosy on home on the Interstate for safety.  DK says my dog misses me.  Tears me up.

OK, so we are in Petoskey (Northwest lower Michigan for those not in the know)–cherry country.  And Bob’s mouth has been watering for 500 miles thinking about Michigan cherry pie.  The desk clerk says go to the Grand Traverse Pie Company downtown.  We go. It’s 7:30 AM. They open at 7:00.  Wow.  Look at this:

Here is my dream come true.  This place was great; every kind of pie imagined; and coffee for a buck.

We made friends with a group of local seniors who evidently come here every morning for coffee. As we chatted one lady asked what high schools we attended in Saginaw (Andy–Saginaw High; Bob–Arthur Hill).  She knew them both and said she taught English at South Intermediate School in 1957.  Hold on.  I went to South Intermediate School in 1957 (seventh grade).  Her name then was Miss Blessing; I do not remember the name.  But it is possible I had her for English.  Small world.

Now with the best pie in the country in our guts, we hit the road down 31 along the coast.  You may not believe this, but this ride was as good as the Pacific Coast Hwy last year!  The sights of Lake Michigan were worth the whole trip.

That is Traverse Bay in the background; beautiful stuff; great ride on down the coast to Ludington where the car ferry crosses Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin.  Here is the ticket booth and boat.  It would cost $100 for a motorcycle and driver; one would really have to want to save some time driving around!

By the way, I do not remember the city, but we stopped at a great Putt-Putt and had a game.  Hah! Tied through 17 holes; Bob wins by one stroke on the 18th.  We need to play again to give Andy a chance to catch up!  Stopped in Grand Rapids for the night.  Tomorrow, back roads down to Ft. Wayne.