Paper, Rags and Swag

Some tidying up for the season.

Tour of Honor Certificate

10th place for me and 11th for MeAsWe in GLMC Grand Tour. There were a total of 118 participants. This thing is getting more and more competitive each year.

Some swag from the GLMC Tour

New Hamshire Launches into Space

Today will a lil' bit of everything, BBQ, Tour of Honor, National Park, and USA Tours. We actually got an early start for us this morning, 8AM. Used to be I was on the road by 630.

MeAsWe was feeling hungry so we stopped at Mama Dukes in Troy NH.

First USA stop is Swanzey Diner. I really don't consider this a NE diner. I see nothing that remotely resembles a diner. I have never stopped here to eat because of this. Funny how little things can manifest themselves.

Right after Keene we hung a right and headed up 123A to capture some more USA towns. First stop was this place.

For future taggers this place could be a tag. The Dragon of Acworth

N43 13.137 W72 17.600

Today's main purpose was to hit Saint Gaudens National Historic Site and Marsh Billings Farm in Vermont for the National Park Tour. We have been at Gaudens numerous times, so we grabbed the stamp and this pic.

Coming out of Gaudens we headed into Windsor for a Smoke Chasing spot.

We found ourselves in one of the Ancient Eight towns. It was really busy, but I think this was more of Alumni coming back to remember when life was so easy.

Hanover NH
N43 42.129 W72 17.386

This door had such a luring quality, which we didn't resist

Met this couple which MeAsWe spoke to much of the time, To our right was another couple from Maine that I spoke with. They were riders and he collected Moto Guzzi's. No pictures of them.

Having had my fill of water at 3 Guys and being at the northern apex of our day trip, we headed back out into the crowds. Heading south we stopped in Sunapee for both the USA Tour and Smoke Chasing.

In Boscawen was our first Tour of Honor stop. Took a little while to find this monument. It is on the right as you head into the Veteran Cemetery.

The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center is in Concord. This is a replica of a Redstone ballistic missile. This particular one is a mock up of the one that carried Alan Sheppard into space in 1961. I remember watching that on TV. Seeing it for real, it really is much smaller than I imagined. There is another one of these things in Warren, NH, which is a real one.

Made our way down to Manchester for another BBQ place and headed home. We did try to pick up a BBQ Festival (Ribfest), but there was indication of BBQ on the signs. KC is a really good place to eat, however tonight we are not hungry, so just grabbed a pic.

365 miles for day and got home at 9:38PM. Not a big day, but not a short day either. The day tally was 2 National Parks, 8 USA towns, 2 Tour of Honor sites and 9 BBQ Joints (you can view all the BBQ places at the link)

One in a MIllion

Sunday we rode to Groton, CT for a Tour of Honor RTE (ride to eat) at Norm's Diner.  Kara Scott held the ride to eat. Jim Hatch the TOH sponsor showed up and Ardys Kellerman was the Guest of Honor. Well guess not guest, because she paid for her own breakfast. We hung around telling war stories for a while. We had to because Norm's is definetly not a fast food place. It was nice to be among folks that don't wash their bikes. My FJR was feeling right at home.

Kara trying out the FJR as a potential new ride

First BBQ stop for the day. We used this as the
NER Theme tag. Animal in the sponsoring the site.
The pig over the doorway counts

We were going to part our separate way, but Ardys is also
doing the Smoke Chasing 2012 tour, so she hung with us for
the rest of the afternoon

You don't see one of these everyday, I just had to have a picture

The last BBQ Joint was a bust. I pulled into a parking lot and we had about an another 45 minute conversation. We were headed up thru the middle of Connecticut and Ardys was headed for Kingston RI, so we parted ways.

When we got home I went thru our usual ritual of downloading the SC cards full of photos to the computer, retrieve the marked waypoints and tracks from the GPS and a quick look thru of the photos. Finally around 9pm we settled into to watching TV. MeAsWe said "Today was a really great day of riding wasn't it."  I don't think it was the getting off and on the bike that made it such a good day.

Inserection in Jacksonville

Columbia, SC is the perfect spot of setting up Conagree Swamp National Park. Not too far from the hotel I spot this place and decide to back to it for a picture. Now you would think the satellite dish was out of place or the basketball hoops, but ADIRONDACK chairs in South Carolina. I just thought this was a kewl pic. (All pictures are clickable and will enlarge upon click)

The northwest gots the spectacular mountains like Ranier, the southwest got the rocks the shoot for the skies, in the midwest there is the mighty Missississippi and up in New England there is the classic fisherman boats and the ocean. In the Southeast nobody has the swamps like they do. Louisiana, Florida and Conagree in South Carolina. English intended to be awful.

Conagree is the largest surviving deciduous hardwood forest in the US. It has some of the tallest trees in the eastern US, forming one of the highest temperate deciduous forest canopies. The park is set up with a board walk through the forest just like Barataria Preserve in Louisiana. This time I am good to go, but MeAsWe is still having problems with the deer strike from 2010. We take advantage of the video in the VC and then stroll out on the boardwalk for a while. It really is quite impressive.

Just outside Conagree we grab this historical marker for SC. We have been grabbing these here and there for Waymarking.com and I almost have a complete collection of NH historical markers.

Grab a really kewl closed BBQ joint. We did grab with a pic with our tour flag, but this is a better picture.

And there is the USA tour stops

St George SC

In Yemassee, SC we grab this picture just because

and head out of town on Old Sheldon Church Road and stop here for awhile

The Old Sheldon Church was built between 1745 and 1753 and burned down by the Brits (the bastahs) during the Revolutionary War. It was then rebuilt in 1826 to be burned again by Sherman (who liked to play with fire) in 1865 (the bastah). If you are in the area this is neat place to take a breather and walk around.

As a bonus the above location was a USA Tour town, SHELDON.

Heading into Savannah, GA we passed this place and got a bit sidetracked

We don't have many of these stamps, but this could be an endeavor for the future. I did get the book thou.

The last time we were in Savannah I had to get a double shot glass from the HD place. This was a specific target. Well we found ourselves on River St on a wet cobblestone road. In the middle of the street were trolley car tracks with a paved section between the two rails. Do you see where this is going ? So we hopped on the paved section and began our path down to the HD dealer. Well I had to yield to the oncoming trolley since he could not steer around me so I cut the front wheel hard to make that parallel crossing with the track. Lets just say we gave a spectacular rendition of the Flying Wellendas show in front of the restaurant where we came to rest.

So what does 2008 event have to do with today. As we head for the Tour of Honor memorial, the descent down the road was a deja vu happening. Yup we are back on River Rd (I swore off cobblestone and RR tracks back in 2008). The stones looked the same, the RR tracks were still there and so was the pavement between the rails. This time I opted for a pure cobblestone ride. I was quite bumpy but we kept the rubber side down.

see the pavement between the rails

While this road is not treacherous, once you are there you are committed to the whole ride.

Chatam County WWII Monument

Savannah being a S town we grabbed the local theater which is also pretty neat NEON.

We decide to mix it up a bit and MeAsWe holds the camera as I hold the tour flag

Fort Pulaski is not too far away, is on our way to Jacksonville, FL where we are going to stay, and is a National Monument, which counts for the IBA National Park Tour.  We have been here before so we do not spend alot of time here and even forgo the Cockspur Island Lighthouse (did you know the IBA has a Lighthouse Tour ). I did capture the waving girl thou.

It's 4pm and we still have 150+ miles to go before we can rest, so I elected I-95 as a pathway to Jacksonville. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do and the Interstates are known for their speed. There are some places I want to grab just outside of Jacksonville thou. We stop here and I mention I read something about a Waffle House tour and while we are down south we just might want to consider throwing in..... MeAsWe just rolls her eyes... just sayin

Now I thought I unscheduled this stop to make time to Jacksonville, but I guess I forgot to push some button on the GPS

And while we were here how could we let this place go unvisited.

Do you think MeAsWe is thinking
will ya just take the damn picture already
and lets get out of here

We are getting close to our final destination this proves it

Hart Bridge Expressway

I am starved and we are in the area so we stop here. This place was actually very good, I didn't take the Master's recommendation to have the ribs and opted for the brisket. He gave me some complementary ribs and he was spot on about his recommendation. If you are in the area give this place a try.

4907 Beach Blvd
Jacksonville, FL 32207

We get out of Bono's around 830pm, the sun has finally gone to sleep, the hotel is only a few miles away and I say we can either make today a lengthy trip or add miles to tomorrow. Of course my presentation was a bit biased and nighttime is the time for NEON.

This was a really neat neon sign and I just couldn't get any of
cameras to focus on the sign..maybe it was the
content that effected the camera

At 8:40pm I finally called it a day....err I mean night...and we head to the hotel. We have been in the saddle for well over 12 hours and geez enough is enough...actually I probably could have found more stuff, but I do know when to quit so not to have an inserection on my hands.