In Phillips, ready to go.

Filler

Here are a few pics from our journey from Bethlehem to Litchfield, Ct.

What's next? Dawn's gardens, general Tim & Dawn, and the trip to Orange County Choppers!!!

The photos below came from this bar/restaurant in Filmore, Pa., I think. It was here we got a great bar menu with a Renoir painting on the front. We got it for Lucy.

These two are from a large picture on the wall of the mens room in the bar shown above. I had to go back in and take a picture. Go figure.....

??

She caught me taking pictures!

Runnin' up the Delaware.

Cool place along the Delaware.

and next door.

Farther on down the road.......

We are now in Bethlehem, Pa., visiting Peggy's cousin Joey McDonald, Joey's sister Jeannie from Montana was also there. Joey's son Steven also visited. This is the place we bought the hose for, so we could wash our bikes.

I just had to check out Yuengling's brewery, as they have the best black and tan this side of the Atlantic. It is also the oldest funcional brewery in the U.S. It's located in Pottsville, Pa

We also visited Stoudt's brewery in Adamstown, just outside of Reading, Pa. Did you know they pronounce it as 'redding' out there? The brewery is small and hosts a bunch of cool German festival stuff all summer.

In Bethlehem.

Is she singing to Steven???

With Steven, Joey, and Jeannie. I like these folks.

All clean and ready to go.

Nice old building, this Yuenglings place.

Here is the stuffed dummy propped in front of the brewery......

Nice sign, hey???

Outside view of Stoudts brewery.

Motorcycle travel data.

Suppose you want to take a bike trip. Say about 3900 miles. Here's what your days look like:

1) You ride 675 miles, stop for gas 6 times. You end up in a yucky motel in Nowhere, Michigan, at midnight. Did I mention your boots and jeans are wet?

2) You ride 590 miles, stop for gas 5 times. You pull into Bethlehem, Pa, at 9:30P.M., the temp is 90, you want to get drunk.

3) You borrow the cousin's car, drive to a beer depot to get some premium brews to take home, buy a larger memory card for your camera, and buy a hose so you can wash the bikes when you get back to the cousin's. Wash bike, drink beer, have pasta dish, drink beer.

4) You ride two-up for 150 miles to a couple of local breweries to get some more premium suds. Miss the tour at the first one, get to the second one to find it's closed on Wednesday. Stop for gas, get sunburned on arms cause you forgot long sleeved shirt, you dufus, you. Go back to cousin's house, order Chinese, drink beer and eat. Drink some beer. Oh, yeah, it was 95° today again.

5) You pack up for the trip to Connecticut, ride 234 miles,stop for gas once. By the time you hit the Ct. state line, the temp has dropped to 65. It starts to drizzle and it's 60° by the time you get to brother's house. Just in time for grilled pork, etc, and beer. You are forced to play electric guitar while drinking beer.

6) This is the day you are dragged along on a ride to Orange County Choppers in New York state. You ride about 250 miles, stop for gas twice, get lost once. You visit the store, drool over the choppers, go to restaurant next door for pizza cause it's the only place in the area that will let you use the toilets. East coast logic. Have a beer with lunch, drive back to Ct. Eat, drink, guitar, you know the program by now.....

7) A trip to the lower Berkshire Mnts. in southern Massatwoshits. Somewhere around 200 miles, one pit stop for gas, one pit stop for food, beer, antique shopping, etc. Ride home through cool hills and valleys. Go to local pizza slingers, eat, drink.

8) You and brother go to driving range(golf type driving). You talk about going to southern coast of Ct., decide the traffic would be too thick. Girls want to go to Indian museum, you drop them off and go to George Washington Tavern with brother. Eat, drink Guiness and shot of Jamison's. Ride home through rustic roads. Back at home you're forced to eat pot roast with potatoes, carrots, etc. Oh, yeah, drink a beer or two.

9) Your hosts go off to work and a golf tournament. You're forced to get up late, drive down to Woodbury to look for antiques. Nothing open, you decide to visit George again. Eat, drink, drive home, one gas stop, 85 miles round trip. They force you to have trout cooked on the grill. Bummer.

10) You have to get to the golf course by 9:00, play 9 holes with your brother. Get back to house and pack for the trip west. Ride 450 miles, stop for gas 4 times, sweat beaucoup amounts. You arrive in beautiful downtown Emlenton, Pa, at 9:00 P.M. You get a motel, eat at the truck stop, fall into bed. Luckily the air conditioner works in the motel.....

11) Today you will travel about 160 miles into Ohio on the interstate, then navigate 130 miles of county roads to reach Continental, Ohio, home of your squeeze's cousins. Two gas stops. You spend a delightful evening catching up on everything, eating some great pizza that was delivered to the door, drinking a couple of beers.

12) This is the day you drive through the 90° heat to reach Muncie, Indiana, cause your cousin lives there. You ride about 150 miles but it takes a long time on the county roads. Two stops for gas. You get to the house at the appointed time, wait in the heat for an hour until your cousin gets there. It's not your fault that you didn't know Indiana follows none of the time conventions that everyone else does.... you're an hour early. Sweat. Shower, go to dinner at Italian place. Drink beers.

13) Today you will ride into hell and back again. It's 95°, 150% humidity, windy, and did I mention hot? You need to ride 498 miles, stop for gas 4 times, cross the Mackinaw bridge. Only then can you rent a room at a fleabag motel in Evenmorenowhere, Michigan. You need to buy a cooler, ice, beer and smoked fish at the gas station so you can stand the motel. Drink some beer and watch either TV channel.

14) The goal is in sight!!! You only need to ride 340 miles, stop for gas 3 times, stop and drool over a yellow and black Valkyrie, stop at the Museum Bar in Phillips for a beer, ride the last two miles home.......

Sooooo, you have ridden 3915 miles, been to the gas station 32 times, bought 96.72 gallons of mid-grade at an average cost of $2.33/gallon. That means $225.76 for gas. Gas mileage averaged out to 40.46 miles/gallon, not bad pulling the trailer, alot of 75mph stuff on interstate. Now you need that new rear skin.
Biking can be tough.

Through da UP

The highlight of our first day was Peg's first two-wheeled crossing of the Mackinac straights.... via the bridge, of course. If you have crossed the Mackinac bridge, you know what a cool feeling it is to be way up above the lake and see the land way ahead. So, I thought I should document Peg's trip through. You can see how the towers grow in size as she works her way across. I couldn't resist the self-portrait with the towers in the background as we drove down the south slope of the bridge approach. Enjoy the pics.......

Almost there.

She's through the first one!

Cool, we made it over......

Thanks, Peggy......

I would like to take this time to thank Peggy for accompaning me on this trek. She doesn't whine about the weather nearly as much as I do. She doesn't bitxx about the roads nearly as much as I do. She is a safer rider than I am and saved my neck at Snowshoe, Pa. I almost pulled out in front of a car coming from the left and she yelled really loudly..... another good reason to have quiet mufflers on the bikes.
We traveled 3914 miles, 3229 of which she rode on her own bike. The other miles were spent riding two-up with Tim and Dawn.
I couldn't have a better touring companion.
See the few pics below as a start of the photo session............
I gotta go, Carlo

She seemed to enjoy riding her scoot,

she followed me everywhere,

and she shopped for the coveted Valkyrie on the way home!

Testing email posting option.

Trying this from my email....

Back to realty......

Greetings all you faithful blog viewers. You can now relax and stop cringing at those "Play this audio post" messages. I listened to a few tonight and have decided that I am not the best at speaking to a recorder over the phone.

We got into Phillips tonight at about 8:00. We stopped at the Museum Bar, just north of Phillips, for a large glass of Mich. Amber Bock. Needed to dull the senses just a bit more before getting home and dealing with unloading, etc. It is going to be good to slide into the old familiar bed tonight. Two weeks of ever-changing sleeping quarters does not make for high quality, restive sleep. I'm going to set the alarm for 2:30 P.M.

Will look over the photos tomorrow and post a few from each location.

As I did not access my email, or the Ottertail site, for the last two weeks, I had 52 messages in my email inbox. Each time a comment is made on the Ottertail I get the text of that comment in an email message. So I could finally see what has been going on.... I will not try to respond to any of the comments, as it would take forever. I will start replying on new posts and comments. So fire away...............

Nearly gone

Saturday morning and nearly ready. I need to leave at noon to get to the wedding, so I have 3 hours to complete my packing, shower and dress for wedding. Should be O.K.

We have been having thunderstorms, downpours of rain, extreme humidity, etc. for weeks. Expect that to all end late tonight, as we leave on the bikes tomorrow morning!! So the next two weeks may be the only nice weather of the summer. Enjoy it.......

I gotta go, Carlo

I guess it works........

Audioblogger sucks!!!!!

I've tried the audioblogger site twice a day since I first mentioned it. It gets stuck mid sign-up everytime. I emailed the site with the trouble I'm having--no reply. Tonight, however, the sign-up completed and gave me the number to call, procedure, etc. So I tried the number and after it dialed, silence ensued until the recording said "if you would like to make a call, hang up and dial...." Maybe next time it will actually work. If it does, I'll be posting on here via audio while on the road the next two weeks.

Change oil in the bikes tonight, spilled a big batch of oil on the floor. What a nimrod...... Also went to the driving range, and boy, am I a lousy golfer!!! Might just leave the clubs out at Tim's house. He can add them to his collection. I can probably do just as well if I just throw the damn ball. Oh, well...

By the way, check the Otter Tales link in the right sidebar. I'll give you a heads up in the future when additions are made.

I gotta go, Carlo

Three days and counting.......

Two days at work, wedding to attend on Saturday, and on Sunday morning we head out for points East!!! I wish I had everything ready!!!! Mowed the lawn this evening, should be ready for Bag on Sunday or Monday, hee, hee.....
We're going to spend three days on the trip to Allentown, Pa. Hope it doesn't rain too much :-) Going to try to find a couple of microbreweries in that area. I found blurbs about them on Mapquest.

Lots to do yet this week. Changing oil and filter in both bikes, wash and shine them both up a little bit, finish packing the trailer (Peg's been working on that).

Stormy weather in central Wisconsin lately. Some tornados fairly close to this area and lots of rain storms. Thursday is supposed to be really nice here, rain on late Friday and Saturday. They are forecasting good weather on Sunday. I sure hope they are right!!!!!

Still haven't been able to get that Audioblogger thing to work, so will have to send a post or two from Tim's house.I guess we'll be seeing him a week from tomorrow.

Thanks for all the new posts I found on here today. Don't have time right now to deal with them, but some indicate that the posters need a tune-up.....

I gotta go, Carlo

Booghost, this one's for you.......

The onliest thing is, I won't have time today. I am obligated to go fishing. Will catch a ton of bluegills, crappies, etc. (I think). Weather looks pretty good today. We had a major rain storm yesterday with some tornados about 30 miles south of here. Check that weather link on the sidebar.....

I'll throw in the homestead pics when I get a chance......
Carlo

The Homestead Photo

Here is the homestead, Booghost. Is it like you expected????

Upcoming events......

Here it is, June 3rd already!! Peggy is off to Black River Falls to go kayaking and canoeing with some of the folks in her re-enacting group. This is not an official event, but just a fun trip for the group. She spends time with a group of people doing French & Indian War era re-enacting. You can read about the group here. I spent some time with the group a number of years ago and was able to find one picture on the website that I'm in. I'll post a few pics.
So Peggy is gone, I guess I'll have to go fishing.
On June 12th we leave on our motorcycles for destinations East. We will go through the UP and across the Mackinac bridge, down through LP to Ohio. Then we head east to Pennsylvania where Peg has some cousins we will visit. They are a couple hours north of Philly. Around Thursday following, Tim will ride his scoot to meet us in Penn. and we will all ride together to his home in Connecticut, with a stop at Orange County Choppers on the way........ Way cool....
I'm dragging my golf clubs along in the trailer, so I suppose we will be getting out on the links a few times with Tim. I golfed out there one other time and the courses are all built on these super hilly locations. Quite nice even if I don't golf worth a damn.
About the 20th of June we will head west. Maybe catch other cousins of Peg's in Ohio, and will try to visit cousin Di in Muncie. We'll try to get home on the 25th. Hey, Mag, will you be able to mow lawn here while I'm gone? I guess we could try to get the neighbor kids to do it it you aren't around.
I've been checking out AudioBlogger, a service that will let you call a number, leave a voice message that will get posted on this blog. Can't seem to get through the sign-up page, something must be on the fritz with that site. Wanted to get it set before the trip so I could call in some updates. Oh, well, I'll keep trying.
Carlo

Some re-enacting pics.

On the left side is Rosie with the company flag, next to her is Carlo with musket and others in the group.

A closer view, I think.

This is Bryn in 1996 at Logjam, in Wausau.

Firing the cannon outside the fort at Ashland.

Tipis at the Ashland rendevous. Cheqamegon Bay in background.

We did some taxidoimy this year......

As usual, Ivan has gotten me into yet another endeavor. He got a buck with his bow in December and considered getting it mounted to put in the Pumphouse. Well, it costs anywhere from $250 to $375 for a taxidermist to do it so Ivan thought "if those clowns can do it, so can we". Time to buy instructional videos. I also got a buck in late December, so we had two heads with hide attached in the freezer. We did the skinning of the heads, fleshed the hide and tanned them in a solution of wartbane and eye of newt, or something like that. Then we got all the supplies, a head form, glass eyes, hide needles, mache mix and plenty of beer. We made some work stands for holding the head form while working on the mount. Custom designed by Carlo and fabricated by Ivan, Jerry and myself. Good thing for stupid friends, hey Liz? We felt ready to start and did Ivan's first. It came out pretty good, amazingly enough. Later we did mine and I think it looks great from a distance of one foot or more away. There are some slight flaws that we will try not to do again. Looks like we will end up with a mount each year if we want, as it will cost about $50 each to do. We're taxidoimy dudes!! I'll throw some photos in when I get a chance.
Carlo

Here are the taxidermy pics.

Here the head form is screwed to the work stand, ready for installing the tanned hide.

Notice the adjustable stand. Multiple pivot points allow the form to be positioned any way necessary.

Here the antlers have been fitted, plastered and screwed to the wood inside the head form.