Hot Doggin it with the NER - Prepartory Stage

Today is an unofficial beginning of riding season. (I don't have a clue when the OFFICIAL DAY is) For some the official date is Jan 1st, for others it is when the temps reach into the 70's. But for alot of us it is sometime in March. OSJ is having a RTE to Annie's Hot Dogs in Leicester, MA. In preparation for this journey, I took the FJR down to Giff's yesterday and got it inspected, then sat around shooting the shit with him to around noon. It was in the 30's when I rode to his garage. Only chill I got was from the air that was seeping in around the face shield.

Last night got the helmets out and cleaned the shields with my trusty Protect All polish. Got this stuff on the recommendation of a fellow rider and it works mint on face shields. I am sure it would work good on the bike as well.



Panicked for a moment because I knew I put the Cardio mics in a safe place, but couldn't instantly remember where that safe place. First place I checked brought the heart rate back into the 70-80'. Plugged em in to charge em up.



Next was to pull out the tank bag, so I wouldn't wake up Sky and Sierra this morning. Tested out the fit for the new Nikon D5100. Wouldn't say it fits like a glove, but it fits more like sweat pants after you ate too much. It works and is comfortable. Plenty of room for the Panansonic Point and Shoot as well.



Put the Smoke Chasing treasure hunt flag / plaque in the bag. We gonna be near Worcester and this is a good day to grab some BBQ places.

Of course had to plan the route in MapSource. We will be riding up with Giff so I waypointed his garage as the begin point. Found the address for Annie's, marked that as well. Bring up the route tool, click Bills place, then click Annie's. Viola we have a route. The whole route is under 25 miles and the roads really aren't that important. Annie's is about getting the cobwebs out and visiting with some friends we haven't seen in awhile.

Of course once I had MapSource open, it was no problem to open my Master Northeast National Historic Register file open to see what would be available for the ride back home. All in all, I ended up with 45 possible visits on the way home. Now all I need to do is narrow down the selection to 10 or so.

This is the global view of today's potential travel. The little I's are historic places, the little P's are BBQ places. This is so they show up on the GPS versus dots.



This is the detail view.



So in my mind, today is my opening day for the 2012 riding season. Knowing New England, it just might snow next week.