Boog's 5,500 mile Motor-vacation

Day eleven Aug 11th
Looking at my dirty bike next to Lupe’s pristinely clean rides, I felt unworthy. Brahma was as dirty as any road bike could be. Bug and bird guts all over the front and sides, dingy dirty residue everywhere else. But I will say not once has this bike given me cause for concern with its readiness to travel on; and so I climbed aboard and rode away from my good friend Lupe’s.
I leave Tulsa feeling refreshed and ready for the next leg through Arkansas en route to Tennessee. By now, I am becoming a pro at feeding tollbooths. I learned to keep a few bills inside my vest pocket for easier access to the overly hungry toll grabbers. Luckily, the tolls are done by the time I hit I-40.
Arkansas appears before my windscreen in all its forested glory. This is going to be another hot day but not as warm as yesterday. The air stays dry and the scent is pleasing as the miles pass underneath Brahma’s frame. I stop in Russellville for gas and sign read an aptly worded BBQ sign that says, “Big Daddy’s BBQ, we put mean on your buns”. I tried so hard to get my camera out to take a picture of these two…um, girls as they walked by the sign eating BBQ sandwiches. I am sure that no motorcycle, including a Rocket 3, could hold up under either of them. Alas, I could not capture that image for you but I did get a picture of the sign just for fun.
My next stop is at another retired military buddy’s house (Dave) in Arlington, TN, just north of Memphis. Both he and his wife were linguist, he in the USAF and she in the Navy. I would like to think it was my idea that she started riding her own bike some 8 years ago when I talked her into the safety course. Her first ride was an 883L, which she traded off a few years later and bought one of the first HD Slims that came out. She is a short girl, (poor little feet barely touch the ground when she stands up) but she can handle her 103 HD just fine. Dave rides a Road Glide Ultra and even though he likes my R3T, says he is going to get one of the new Road Glides as soon as HD releases another Ultra version. I pulled my bike into their garage and answered a phone call. I turned around a second later and saw him cleaning my windscreen. Aren’t biker friends the best?
Dave took us to a local BBQ joint (Hog Wild) where it is said they have the best BBQ in TN. Evidently, the wet ribs are not the ones they are talking about. Dave cautioned me to order the Memphis ‘dry rub’ ribs and to be honest; those were pretty darn good; better than the wet ribs anyway. I should not complain at all. BBQ is good almost everywhere one goes and yes, I do love it a certain way. So try the wet ribs if you like, they may be exactly what you want.
Back at their house, we had some homemade hard lemonade. I intended on bringing some Fireball to give Dave but I left it in Denver, (I hope Liam does not get into it, he does not have his pilot wings yet and this stuff will lift you off the ground). Dave made up for it as his hard lemonade will sneak up on you. I do not taste any alcohol at all; and it goes down very well. He says it takes about four months to make it and I think I will try my hand at it soon.
Day 12, Aug 12th
Morning comes and Dave’s wife fixes a great breakfast before they head off to work and I hit the road. I am heading to Columbia, TN to my Aunt and Uncle’s house. I do not want to take the super slab today so I head down to Hwy 64 and head east. I plan to see the battlefield at Shiloh but as is normal with me, I get distracted when I see something cool like the sign for the Buford Pusser’s house and museum. If you do not know who he was, watch the movie Walking Tall. Buford was the Sherriff of McNairy County TN and lived in Adamsville. For any history buff who wants to receive firsthand knowledge from people who knew him as a friend and neighbor, check it out and it will only cost you a few bucks and about 45-60 minutes. On a side note, I had a German Sheppard once that was Named Buford; he did not need a gun to keep folks in line either.
From here, I ride east through the low hills and forests of middle Tennessee en route to my Aunt and Uncle in Columbia. Along the way, the widening of the highway by a construction crew slows me down. I see the big rock drills in use before they blast away the mountainsides. The little kid in me wants to stop and watch, but the bike says no and I continue. I think how wonderful it is to be out on a solo long trip. The trees are fully green this time of year and the temperature is mild by August standards. I simply feel great as I enjoy the machine and nature.
I arrive just before dinnertime where by aunt has a wonderful meatloaf for super. This part of Tennessee is great for riding in any direction and I may retire to this area when that time comes. For now, I will enjoy an excellent meal, great conversation and a well-deserved sleep.
Day13, Aug 13th…Day off from riding.

Day 14, Aug 14th
The mornings in middle Tennessee right now are incredible. Just taking a cup of Joe out on the back porch is a beautiful thing to behold. Afterwards, I pack Brahma for the last leg back to Dumfries. I really hate leaving this house, I am so at peace here and the place just refreshes me so much. Alas, all good things must end and getting back on the road on this bike is no sad thing to concern myself with; I simply transition from one happy thought to another; life is good.
My trip from here is about 10.5 hours of high-speed super slab judging from my early trip here this spring. I am better suited for this one though as the Bead Rider under my bum is doing its job very well. At each gas stop, I stretch out some, eat a snack, drink some water and press on. I cannot say that this leg was uneventful because I enjoyed it to no end. The temperature was cool, the wind was low, it did not rain on me and no one killed me: great ride. I rolled into the house to a very warm welcome and a great meal. But wait, the vacation is not yet over, I still have a two up ride to NYC from the Pentagon with my pretty Pillion…
Day 15, Aug 15th
Sick day! What the heck happened? I had some sniffles while in Memphis and then again in Columbia but I figured it was because they have cats of which I have an allergy to. I woke up this morning with a fever, head ache and congested in both my check and sinuses. I guess it is a good thing I had planned this as a day off. If I had not decided to take the day off, I would have had to leave super early to make it to Shanksville, PA for the first leg of the “America’s 9/11 Ride”. As it is now, I must rest and hydrate since tomorrow we both ride to NYC.
Day 16, Aug 16th
The alarm goes off around 3:45 am. I awaken my pretty Pillion and we load Brahma up for our overnight stay in NYC. We first ride up to Alexandria where we meet up with my riding buddy Tom on his RoadStar. He has his 15 yo daughter on his back seat and his 84 yo uncle and Aunt are riding a CamAm Spider.
We leave Tom’s house around 5:30 am and ride to the Pentagon. Once there, they have us stage our bikes towards the front of the procession and we sign in. The route is going to be lead by 150-200 motor cops depending on the leg we are on. We leave at 7:10; a little behind their schedule. One of the ‘Ride Captains’ cut me off from Tom and uncle but no worries, I am still right there. Tom had asked me to watch his elderly uncle since he only has around 6K miles and 1.5 years of riding experience period; all on the Spider. (This just proves it is never too late to start riding)!
Something about this ‘Ride Captain’ and his bike bugs me. It finally dawns on me that it is an unmarked police bike. It is a HD Electraglide, all painted black, and all police lights have dark lens so they blend into the paint scheme. The only thing that stands out is the bell for the siren. I had not seen an unmarked police bike before, kind of cool…maybe.
We rode through DC at 10-15 miles per hour; holy crap police, twist the throttle people!!! You are killing me here. We did not get up to 30 mph until we were well outside of DC. If we were touring the monuments then that would be ok, but we were on the dang freeway for Pete’s sake. My Ride Captain was another annoyance to me as well. I said we were towards the front. Well, that means 150 motor cops with lights going, 25-30 VIPs (survivors and family members) then maybe 25 regular riders like us. Well, Mr. Ride Captain wanted to make sure that everyone behind him knew when we changed lanes, (not that we could see the 200 bikes ahead of us moving over) and he kept signaling me to slow down. This is what really annoyed me. In our ride brief, the overall ride coordinator told us all to maintain a tight staggered formation so that we do not become too stretched out. I never got more than 10 meters behind my lead, but any time I closed the gap, he would signal me to slow down. Yet he would ride right up the CamAm and jam his brakes on whenever the bikes ahead slowed, looking as if he was about to locked it up. His formation skills were not what I am accustomed to I guess. However, his parking lot skills were tight as I did see him drag the floorboards while turning in to get gas.
When we stopped at Maryland House on I-95 for gas, I made sure we got away from this fellow. Fuel up was organized, we would pull up to the pump, a fuel team member would hand us the hose, we fill up and hand our money to the cash taker. Each stop would be roughly $6-8 and whatever we over paid went to pay for the police bike escort. We stayed here for around 45 minutes. Each stop after this was similar except for the stop at Barb’s HD in Mt. Ephraim, NJ where we had a bag lunch of chicken burrito, chips and a cookie. They had energy drinks and water for us there, and Barb’s was the repair shop for the Harleys that had broken down the day before. They had been trailered there over night and Barb’s worked out their issues so the riders could continue. We were here for over an hour.
Our last stop before NYC was for dinner at Applebee’s in Linden, NJ where the restaurant cooked burgers and hot dogs for us out back of the restaurant. The city also set up a stage and the local High School danced for the crowd. I would have never guessed that a High School in the industrial part of NJ would have girls dressed as farmers, clogging, but there it was for all to see.
The last leg was fun going through the tunnel into NYC. The noise from all these bikes was deafening even with my full-face helmet on. Once out of the tunnel, we were escorted to our hotels. Traffic was stopped along the way where many people gave us the ever-so-friendly one finger wave as we rode by. I guess they have forgotten NYC specifically was attacked 14 years ago. We parked about three blocks from our hotel and went there straight away. This normally 3.5 hour trip from DC to NYC took us almost 12 hours to complete. I am not sure I want to do another one of these. At least no one crashed that I heard of.

Sunday, day 17, Aug 17th
We left our hotel in Times Square, had breakfast at McDonalds, (the only place where one can eat for less than $20 for breakfast in the area), and did a boat ride around Manhattan. This was cool and we heard much history of the area from a well-spoken docent. Next, we went to the Empire State building. All I will say is that I will never go here again unless you give me a lot of money. The employees here are not worth the salt in my sweat. They completely ruined the day for me. It’s a good thing that I have a motorcycle to distress on afterwards. But, the sight from the top was really nice; for about 15 minutes.
On our ascent of the building, Tom’s daughter, who had ridden in the cab with pretty pillion and me, discovered she had left her iPhone in the taxi. I handed Tom my receipt and he called. It took about 30 minutes but they tracked down the driver and he said he had the iPhone. He brought it back to us after we exited the building and we used him to return us to the hotel for our bags; with a big tip!
Time was getting away from us and I am hungry. By the time we gathered our belongings and made it back to load the bikes, I was ready to eat almost anything. However, none of us wanted to stay in the city any more so off we went.
Tom asked me to lead the three bikes out of the city since I had a GPS. I have a new one as the old fellow I was using died on me in Kansas going to Denver. However, the street leading to the tunnel is closed today for a street party. So, I rode around the block to come in at another area away from the two-block party area. But someone from the city had cones set up to preclude anyone from entering the tunnel from the side street. That’s ok, I adopted a NYC attitude and we drove through the cones to enter the tunnel anyway. I am tired of this place!
We stopped for gas and lunch at the first rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike. The food was not so good but at least we were out of NYC. Tom will be the lead from here out and pretty Pillion and I will follow his uncle. We leave the rest area around 4:30 pm and I got my first serious scare. Tom’s uncle began to merge into the main traffic lane from the on ramp, right into a big van. Tom’s Aunt hit the uncle’s arm to point out the impending collision just in time. The van hit the brakes and we fell in behind it. Tom spoke to his uncle to be more attentive in the future when we stopped for gas later. The old fellow said he did not even think to look. Oh man…
Out on the turnpike heading south, I could not help but notice that the pavement was in horrible shape. I mentioned earlier that the dirt road in Lefors Texas was as bad as NJ highways, but I was wrong, the NJ highway is worse. I had to dodge many holes and deep cracks every few minutes. However, the ride was fun even with the bad pavement; but now the crappy traffic slowed way down. I think that if I have to pay $12 to use a dang highway, then it had better be wide-open, fast and smooth. Evidently, NJ does not think like that. Our 3.5 hour ride turned into a seven hour ride because of all the slow downs. And, there was not one single accident to cause any of it. We finally rolled up at Tom’s house and said our goodbyes to head home. After unloading Brahma at the house, it is close to midnight. Luckily for me, I do not need to be at work till 4:30 am…
Forget the negative stuff, I really enjoyed my time on the road, hanging with my three youngest sons and especially taking Liam on his first motorcycle adventure. Seeing my folks in Texas was great as well as catching up with my friend in Lawton. I loved meeting Lupe and his family and seeing my friends in Memphis. Relaxing at my Aunt and Uncle’s place in middle Tennessee was superb. And even NYC had its good moments despite my rant about it and the NJ Turnpike. Thanks for reading all the way to the end and I hope your beverage did not run out…

Well done Boog. See you in Arkansas

Great write up. Now where are the pics?

You are an animal, Bobby! Other than for your dissing NYC (where only the strong[and well off] survive!) i enjoyed your travelogue... it made me feel like I was there with you.

Trips to NYC should not generally be attempted by the unknowing or uninitiated. Sorry that the wifey and I couldn't get in to meet with you and your pretty pillion. I'm certain that we could have helped to make your brief stay in The Big Apple less painful! If there's a next time, you should use our place as your base of operation!

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sure do know how to make others jealous don't you, beautiful write up!

Boog i appreciate the time taken writing this journal but i have the attention span of a gold fish , any pics ?

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Boog,

That was quite the story. Really appreciate the time you took writing that expose. Felt like I was there. Glad to hear everyone got back home ok.