NPT Part Deux - The Plan

Since completing the Iron Butt National Park Tour last October, I have been anxiously waiting for winter to pass and spring 2009 to arrive, to begin NPT Part Deux.. During the winter I have had my finger to the mouse, planning the next journey. On May 9th, we head south to as far south as Sebastian FL, head over to Tampa FL to ride up the coast into the Montgomery AL area, back down to the coast around Pensacola, then over to New Orleans. This will be the most southern and western point of the journey. From New Orleans, we head north thru Mississippi following the GRR (Great River Road) to Memphis with a stop at Arkansas Post National Memorial. From Memphis we head east to Shiloh National Park turning north to Mammouth Cave in Kentucky, weeve our way to Cincinnati to pick up William Howard Taft National Historic Site. From there we head toward Athens, OH my alma mater and a possible visit with a very very good friend of mine, Harold. Everyone else calls him Butch, I just never could bring myself to call him that. I met Harold in Room 339 Washington Hall at OU. Harold was my roommate and best man at my first wedding. In Athens, we will pick up a pic of Cutler Hall ( a National Landmark ) and then off to West Virginia for some more ink. From there we head to Flight 99 crash site to pay our respects and then meander across Pennsylvania thru Scranton and back home. All in all, this will be a 17 day journey, with very limited super slab miles ( major interstates ) covering 70 National Parks, numerous National Landmarks, lighthouses, local unusual sites, a couple of HD dealers to add to my shot glass collection, archeological sites, diners, dives and drive-ins (even some of the places that we all have seen on TV), ferry crossings in its 5800+ mile wanderings.

Here's a global view of the journey.

Something for Nothing

It’s Saturday and my partner in crime, Crystal and I, are romping all over the Connecticut country side hunting down National Landmarks. Our first stop was Henry Bowen’s place called Roseland located in Woodstock. We were then off to Lebanon to pickup John Trumball’s Birthplace and William Williams House. Lebanon is chocked full of historic places with many other locations on the National Register of Historic Places, but today it was all about National Landmarks. As we finished up at the Trumball location, I mounted the bike and got ready for Crystal to hop on back I then saw this rock with a plaque on it. I just couldn’t let it go, so I asked Crystal to go over and see what it said. I was too lazy to get off the bike. She walked over, stood there for a second and then I saw her shoulders moving in an up and down motion. She came back to the bike and I said, “Is this something I need to take a picture of”.

So kickstand down, dismount, get the camera out and walk over to the monument.


The dismount view























Getting closer






















And the Plaque





For those who are looking for this, it is right next to John Trumball's Birthplace in Lebanon, CT.

Ferries Flow a French into the Forks or Connie's Can't Swim

What that really means is ferry boat crossings have thrown a wrench into the works. I have been merrily connecting the waypoints (kinda of like connect the dots )in MapSource, creating the route(s) for NPT Part Deux in May. From MapSource I retrieve the data (read copy) and interface it into Excel (read paste) to a special MODEL ( read spreadsheet ) for calculating time for each segment, time of arrival, etc, etc between each stop and other statistics that I might deem meaniful at the time. This model accomodates adding time for gas stops, rest and spending time at each location and adjusts the arrival and depart times for each subsequent stop.

Some stops are time sensitive, such as National Parks. The rangers do have a life outside of the parks and actually go home at night, hence there is no point planning on hitting a park if you are going to arrive at 8pm to get INK (cancellation stamp). The VC (visitor center) will be closed and you will be slapping your head going DOH ! I wish I thought of that when I was planning the trip.

Ferry's are not on demand type services and one must accomodate their schedule into your schedule. You don't have control over the throttle like you do on your bike, so twisting the wrist will not make the ferry go faster.

While I knew all along (in the back of my brain someplace) that I was going to be on a ferry going down the coast from time to time, it just didn't hit me, until I started looking at the planning model. MapSource showed one segment of the trip was going to take over 2 1/2 hours to go some ridicously low miles. As I was gazing at the monitor with a tilted head (you know that puzzled WTF tilt of the head)I knew something was out-of-whack. It stilled didn't dawn on me, so I started to look at the preferences in MapSource for speeds based on the type of road. They didn't look screwed up. Then I started to scan down the little yellow line to see if I was doubling back someplace to create such a low MPH. I reached the conclusion that it is just something I am not seeing so, I re-did the route from scratch, to arrive at the exact same answer as the one I didn't think looked right. I never concentrated on the yellow line against that blue background. (blue represents water).

Then the epiphany {(noun)appearance of a supernatural being; sudden idea or thought} [actually both definitions fit the bill] and thats the rest of the story.

What did I learn; A> it is a good habit to plan on arriving at the dock before the ferry departs B> the realization Connies'(Kawasaki Concours) can't swim C> time is not relative, it is a constant.

Please Don’t Let be Misunderstood

This morning I got up at 4:30 because...because...because..well I just did. Went thru the usual routines. Took the coffee ground cup and stem out of the percolator so I could reheat the leftover coffee from yesterday, washed a couple of dishes, settled down in my chair at the computer, looked up a bunch of landmarks, transferring them to the GPS via Google Maps, [so that I can eventually transfer them to MapSource], did some other stuff, and finished 2nd in a poker tournament at Poka Stars.net. After finishing lookin up the Landmarks for the states of Connecticut and New Hampshire, I read my usual forums (NER and NPS Motorcycle Touring).

At the NER forum I had 2 links indicating the “[2 to Me]”. The first one was about how I am going to have to get a new nickname (NomadWillie), since I am selling the Nomad. The other was a response from someone that had posted about doing all the New England capitols in one day which would be around 750 miles. I responded to him that he might as well add 250 miles and get his SS1000 from the IBA

His response to me was

"Being of Scottish descent I have an aversion to paying someone else to ride a ride. I do them for me and dont need a paper on the wall."

This irked me and I was just about to hit the keys and make the keys flutter like stinging bumble bees, but I took another sip of coffee and simply said, some things ya just gotta let go.

Get Ready Get Set Get LANDMARKS

Someplace, somewhere among my blog writings I said I would write about National Landmarks, so not to disappoint myself I offer the following. Landmarks are located in all states plus you will find them in places such as the Federated States of Micronesia, which has 2. The National Park Service not only administers our beautiful parks and monuments, but handles those places that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. National Landmarks are a subset of the NRHP. They are defined as

National Historic Landmarks are nationally significant historic places designated by the Secretary of the Interior because they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. Today, fewer than 2,500 historic places bear this national distinction. Working with citizens throughout the nation, the National Historic Landmarks Program draws upon the expertise of National Park Service staff who work to nominate new landmarks and provide assistance to existing landmarks.


In New England alone there are 350+ locations. Examples of National Landmarks are the normal places you would think like Bunker Hill Monument or the Old North Church in Boston; however there are some unusual spots, such as Goddard Rocket Launching Site in Auburn, MA or the USS Lion Fish in Fall River, MA.

With this in mind, what better way to see New England than by motorcycling across the byways and byroads visiting these sites, maybe learning something in the process?

The Old Manse



Ralph Waldo Emerson House

I'm Certified

Stay tuned for NPT Part Deux, coming soon to a byroad near you

Birth of a Nation - Death of the Winter Blues

Since the end of November, right around the date the bike was put away for the winter, I developed an interest in places on the National Register of Historic Places. Living in the town of Uxbridge, I drove by what I thought were run down buildings and old houses that were not quite straight and thought; geez that gotta be expensive to fix. Who would have thought that Uxbridge was so rooted in the history of this country?. Uxbridge was ground zero for the early textile industry with many mills surrounding the rivers. It is in the heart of the John H Chafee Blackstone National Heritage Corridor area, designated by the NPS. In Uxbridge alone, there are 54 houses, mills, buildings and districts. So what does this all mean?

I HAVE MORE PLACES TO CHASE!!
that’s what it means.

There are numerous web sites that list the places and their addresses. I use the NRIS database from the NPS site and This Place as my primarily search tools.

You lookup these places, plug them into MapSource, download them to the GPS, jump in the car (remember the bike has been put away), charge up route, push the gas, hit the break, jump out and take a picture and then off to the next one. All in the hopes you come across one of these.

Easy right?............... not so fast oh “gone postal plaquer”.

In the town of Uxbridge, someone sometime decided to renumber the addresses and of course the addresses the NPS had were not updated. This enables you to use your deductive reasoning and observation skills or resorting to guessing, asking people on the street things like,

Me: Is this Deacon Smith’s house and you get the response “no our last name is Rubinowski not Smith.
Me: No no I am looking for historical places. Is this house called the Deacon Smith House
Them: I don’t think we know Deacon Smith
Me to myself: Of course you don’t know Deacon Smith, he has been dead for 223 years.
Them: You should ask my parents, they might know where the preacher lives
Me: Thank you.

You drive to all these places and one old home looks like the next old home, either one could be the right place. This is where the analility ( I think I made that word up) kicks in plus not wanting to be defeated in this self made contest, it is off to the Uxbridge library (which by the way has a plaque on the outside, but it is not an National Historic Place, simply a notation by the Uxbridge Historical Society and quite possibly on the Massachusetts Historical Place Registry) to see if I can get some information on the places I just wasn’t sure about. Yup they have all the original documentation that was used to get the places listed and there are photos attached too. So I take a picture of the pictures and the info page. Oh guess what, the address from the renumbering of Uxbridge were written on these pages, so now all I had to do was plug in the new addresses to MS, blah blah blah.

Not so fast oh “youthinkyouare sosmart”. Some places don’t exist anymore, but you drive around looking for them over and over anyways, double checking the addresses and then driving reeeeaaaaaaaaallll slow down the street to make sure you just aren’t missing the place. This is the life of a Waypoint junkie. If National Park chasin is Macroeconomics, NRHP (National Register of Historic Places) is microeconomics. To boot there is a special subsection to NRHP’s which are National Landmarks. I am sure sometime I will write on this subject too.

So you have the photos, and the GPS coordinates you got standing right at someone’s front door. Now what. There is the place called www.waymarking.com that has a ton of categories from Abstract Public Sculptures to Zoos where you can post your finds and get a ribbon. Now there are 2 types of ribbon categories. Your Posts and Your Visits. If you are the poster, you must post some history or interesting facts about the place. This means research which gets you educated, all in one fell swoop. Check it out in the link above. Here’s my stats.

With Uxbridge done, I then branched out to Northbridge, Mendon, Milford, Sutton… do you see where this is going?

As this writing, I have posted 204 places on the NRHP category and visited an additional 36 places. In the Northeast section there are over 18,200 places from Maine to Ohio to the southern border of Pennsylvania across Northern Maryland . Since I am planning a trip to Florida you can throw in another 27,000 places in the Southeast section. It appears I have some places to chase this year, Ya Think ?

Some places that I have been to: