New Hampshire to Maine to Rhode Island

June 14, 2011 Tuesday


Woke up early but somehow got a late start, went down stairs from our room and had a breakfast fit for a king, some of the best coffee of the trip and the service was great. After we packed, snapped a few outside photos of the place and we were on our way.

The drive was beautiful great scenery along the way somewhere around 150 miles to Maine.

Got to what the locals call Old Port Maine around 1:00pm still full from breakfast so we decided to walk around the port and check out some souvenir shops. Parking is first come first serve, on our third pass down the road we found one. It had a parking meter,

two hour max; we walled through many stores then ended up at the Porthole Restaurant,

yep you know me well by now it was another Diner, Drive-in an Dive on my list. (I be posting a post soon about the place) anyway we went for lobster but were disappointed it did not serve whole lobster, so we just got an appetizer and when on our way (more to come, trust me) then back to the streets we went. We shopped till around 3:30pm until we found ourselves at Becky’s Diner. (YEP, another dinner on my list)

So you know the drill by now here is a  photo, you will have to wait on the post coming soon.


Then we were off, to Rhode Island, but first we had to get through New Hampshire and Massachustts…

More to come
Big Al

Pennsylvania to New York (Day three Maine trip)

June 12, 2011 Sunday



Pennsylvania to New York


Woke up early and headed out of the roach motel

heading to New York.

After many hours of driving, we crossed into New York to our next stop Lake Effect Diner.

Yep you guess it another Diner, Drive-in and Dive. We got to the diner somewhere around 1:00pm our GPS brought us to the diner right through what my wife call the bad part of town;

I just call it old.

Anyway we made it safe and sound, the diner was small, but cool looking. As with the last post, here is a photo, I will be doing a complete story in a post soon.

Next stop Niagara Falls,

it took a bit to find the place (only one of the biggest water falls in the world) but once we did, we got a room at the Comfort Inn right next to the falls (easy walk) we unpacked and headed to the falls, it was somewhere around 60 degree with a lots of wind so we stopped off at one of the many souvenir shops along the way and bought my wife a Niagara Falls sweatshirt to keep her warm during the walk.

The park itself is beautiful, lots of walking trails to and around the falls.

 Well we made our way to the falls, and I have to say the scene from the movie Vacation came to mind.

The falls are beautiful

but seemed kind of small. I guess I had built them up in my mind. We took some photos and a few videos

then made our way around to the other side.

Then back to the room we went for some much needed rest, we had been doing back to back 500 mile driving days.

Woke up around 10:00pm that night to the sound of what I thought was thunder, then I realized it was not thunder at all, it was the fireworks show over the falls. I could see them from my window, the wife was dead to the world never moved out of bed…I guess I need to start calling her MY OLD LADY!!!

Ha-ha.


Till next time


Big AL

Harley Davison and the Yamaha man take on Wiggins, Mississippi

Saturday, January 23, 2010…9:30am

Time to get this Wiggins trip started…after a few text messages that went something like this… (me)”we still on for the Wiggins trip…weather looks great 60’s and 70’s”…”(David) yep meet me at my house around 10:00am.” (Me) “OK”…GUY TALK…YOU GIRLS JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND. Ha-HA

I gassed the mighty Yamaha up and off to David’s house I went. As I pulled into his driveway, I got my first look at his new Harley…well new to David anyway…let me explain…just the day before David found himself at Chunky River Harley Davidson in Meridian.

http://chunkyriverharley-davidson.com/

Signing his life away on a 2008 police addition FLHTP electric glide, I think it has somewhere around 7800 miles on it. I hate to admit this but I forgot to take any close up photos of the bike so I'll pull some off chunky river’s web site…as they have two more they want to sell.

David greeted me at the door and I got the short tour around the house as his wife Dana and his daughter Amy chased a neighbor’s crazy dog

around the back yard while David and I stayed safely out of harms way on the back deck watching the action from above. (As it should be) you know the old saying “women and children first” that was my point, let them go first and see if the dog is a threat.

After a quick look over of the bike, Amy brought out David’s helmet. Hmmm, what can I say about this helmet? I have to be honest, it looked like something from star wars to me. The first time I saw a photo of it was on Facebook on Friday and I made a comment about it. It looked like something Luke would wear while fighting the death star in the Star Wars movie…

Well little Amy took this to heart and decided to decorate her daddy’s helmet. Out came the blue painter tape and in only a few short hours…the very much new and approved motorcycle helmet.

GREAT JOB AMY!!! Only one problem…as I was looking for a star wars helmet photo on the web…I found out that blue strips were already being placed on white helmets…

hope there is no patents pending…ha-ha.

Ok now we were on the road, we made a quick stop across the road at the high school parking lot so David could do a little stop and go practice before the trip.

Practice went great. I snapped a few photos, then down Hwy. 42 we went until we reached Hwy 29 were we took a right. Hwy 29 is a great motorcycle road,

very few cars and gentle curves, this is where David showed me the power of his new COP bike as he passed me and took the lead. We soon crossed Hwy 98 where we pulled in to gas up the Harley.

Then once again we were on our way down 29, me in the lead, as I wanted to stop off at a hiking trail I hiked a long time ago. We took a break, snapped a few photos

and soon were on our way again…only this time with a twist…I was on the Harley and David was on the Yamaha. Wow, what a ride…I have got to get a bigger bike, the extra horsepower, the weight, and the sixth gear…oh do I dream about a sixth gear (My bike is a five speed). A few minutes later we pulled into downtown Wiggins, first stop… Wards...

time for a burger and fries. As we were getting off the bike I was asked the question how do I like the bike…Hmmm his bike being a retired COP bike the first thing that ran through my mind was the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yil9wlfa0yo

Great bike…and yes it will become the next bluesmobile. Ha-ha.
Stay tuned for part two.
Big Al

TEXAS ROAD TRIP

Morning everyone, what a weekend…I got the call Thursday night…it was my dad needing someone to drive back to Texas with him to pick up my uncles camper. Here a little background, my mom and dad both work for insurance agency’s that write claims after storms in different states, this time it was in Texas. All the hotels were full so they rented my uncles RV this time; I think they have been in Texas around two months when mom wanted to come home around thanksgiving, so dad took a day off and brought mom home for the holidays and went back by himself until this weekend.

Not a lot to report on, we left after work Friday, and headed for Texas; we stopped somewhere in Louisiana for gas and a snack, and were on the road again. By this time it was dark so most of the photos were taken on the way home.

Once we reached Texas (NEDERLAND) we stopped to eat at a little home town restaurant that turn out to be just a franchise, sorry I can’t remember the name of the place, it’s not bad but not a place I would want to make a 359 mile journey to. I had the catfish and fried shrimp, good but kind of bland. (Yea I know what you are thinking fried food and diabetes!!!, more on that in my next post…I been a bad boy, and now I’m paying the price) after dinner we headed to the RV campground, put the heater on, and laid down and watched the ultimate fighter for awhile and then went to sleep.

Woke up early Saturday morning, to the smell of coffee (thanks pop) then it was time for breakfast….hmmm I guess you could call it that, it was some kind of frozen egg omelet that dad threw in the microwave for a few minutes. Yea I ate it…that all I’m going to say about that. Ha-ha. (That was my best Forrest Gump impression)

After breakfast, we decided to go look for some citrus trees to buy and take back home, dad had seen a lot of them growing in Texas and want to try some at home. We went to a co-op just down the street with no luck. So then I got out the Iphone (the greatest phone ever!!!) hit the yellow pages and was given many places to look, Cooks Nursery and landscaping…www.cooksnurserytx.com was only 1.9 miles away, so then I changed my Iphone to GPS and it took us right to the front door. (Oh yea, dad was impressed) Did I mention the Iphone is the greatest phone ever!!! We ended up buying 4 trees one lemon, blood orange, baby orange tree (I can’t think of the name right now), and a Satsuma tree. More on them in a later post.
Then we went back to the camper to get it unloaded and disconnected for the ride home, several of the adjusters came over to say goodbye including the boss, they seemed like a nice group of guys. The boss even had his smoker going full blast cooking some kind of meat for the afternoon.

So then we were off, heading home me driving the van and dad driving the RV. I had taken one of the diet cokes out of the refrigerator and a giant bag of chips was sitting on the seat beside me. (It might as well been heroin. Ha-ha) I kept telling myself don’t eat the chips; don’t eat the chips along the way. And then it happen…I ate a chip…..oh my god it was good…..I guess I don’t need to tell you how this story ended. (Yea I ate the whole bag) then it gets worse we stopped at one of those two in one stores for gas, it was a store and a McDonalds, so we grabbed a couple of cheese burgers and fries to take on the road. Fat happy but very sick to my stomach, I’m just not use to all that grease any more, it liked to killed me, it made for a long ride home, but yea I did keep shoveling chips in my mouth all the way home.

Just a few things I found interesting

RV Park in Texas

Leaning lights in Texas

Oil plants

Bridge over swamp; I think it is twenty seven miles long

Exit to Nancy and Jimmy’s house (the wife sisters)

Is Texas the only state that has two different speed limits, one for day and one for night? I never saw that before.