Massachusttes

As navigator it was my job to get us around Boston and out the other side the quickest and simplest way. What looks good on the map doesn’t always reflect reality. I had us going through every light I could find, heavy traffic, impatient drivers and my own driver becoming a little tense shall we say. By the time we got to Salem I was getting the word that I better find a way to the Interstate before we got much closer to Boston. That dashed any hopes of stopping in Salem and seeing the touristy attractions associated with the witch burnings of the 1600’s. By sheer skill I got us onto the Inter State well before Boston and the only tricky thing was a rotary (roundabout) that was like a mini Arc de Triomphe. Once through that I thought I could relax. Wrong. What terrible drivers these Bostonians are. They duck and dive everywhere, no indicators and no looking either. When you are in 6 lanes of traffic this is a bit scary. Once we hit the tunnel I thought things would be a little calmer but there was no let up. I had to let Marty know way in advance when the lane we were in was going to become an exit only as it was not always easy to move across. We arrived at the state park in one piece but both quite exhausted by the whole thing. Thankfully there was plenty of camping available so we parked up and despite the “No alcohol in state parks” rule we cracked open a vodka each and unwound.

I got up early and went for a ride on my pushbike. There are lots of trails in the park so I decided to bike up to the top end then ride a trail back. I met a lady not far into the trail who was walking her dog. She told me if I went left up ahead the trail would take me to a reservoir and then back. I must have been traveling to fast as when I turned left I ended up on a goat track following power lines. ( This bought back vivid memories of The Old Maori Trail at lake Waikarimoana). Not one to turn back I continued on using the logic that I would end up back on the sealed road, but no I ended up at the reservoir and saw what must be the Track. On I went, but I didn’t seem to be heading back the way I’d come. This was confirmed when I rode onto someone’s front lawn. No one was about so I quickly pedaled my way across the lawn and part of their garden to get onto the road. I turned left and set off. A couple of miles later I found someone to ask directions back to camp. He wasn’t much help but did say that if it was him he would be heading the other way so maybe I should do that and find someone else to ask. I didn’t need to as by some fluke I ended up back at the top end of the park at the start of the trail. From there it was an easy ride down the road to our campsite. My next two outings were not half as adventurous as I managed to stay on the trails and not get lost. Where is the fun in that?

One of the main reasons for choosing this camp site was that I wanted to visit the town of Quincy and the Adams Historical Site. Quincy is the home of John Adams, second President of the USA and his son John Quincy Adams, the 6th President. There is a very fragile link in my family tree to John Adams on my Grandfather’s side so I wanted to check out some of the history. We went on a great tour that took us to the houses that John and John Quincy were born in and then onto the house that 4 generation of Adams’ lived in before it was given to the people of the USA. It is fully furnished with the possessions of mainly John and Abigail Adams who lived out their lives there after John was President. The tour guides at each house were excellent. I discovered during the tour that descendants are allowed private tours and get to go into parts of the houses not allowed in by the general public. I wished I’d done my homework a bit better. Back in town we went to the Union Church where the bodies of John and Abigail and John Quincy and his wife Louise are buried. It is the only place in America where two presidents and their wives are buried together.

With our bit of history over and done with we decided to go for a ride up Cade Cod. We stopped off at Portsmouth and had a look around, saw the replica Mayflower and the “stone” where the pilgrims supposedly stepped ashore and a few other bits and pieces. We spent a bit of time talking to a State Park person who gave us a wonderful talk on the history of the town and the coming and goings of the Pilgrims. We took the scenic route to the Cod. Scenic in that we saw none of the coast but lots of beautiful houses, both old and new and even more antique shops. By 4pm we were still in Suburbia and had been on the road for as many hours so we decided to call it quits and head back to camp. In hindsight we should have taken the motorway up to Provenance and then come back down the so called scenic route. Never mind it was another nice day out on the bike.

Next day we headed off down the coast towards Rhode Island and Newport where we planned to stay the night then ogle at all the expensive houses of the rich and famous. We arrived in thick fog so could see nothing, and all the state parks were full and we couldn’t find a private camp so nothing else for it but head for a WalMart store and park up there. We found one at a town called Westerly just inside the Rhode Island State Line. It was 9pm and we were both feeling quite knackered so pulled the curtains and jumped into bed. At 1am we were rudely awakened by the State police bashing on the door. This was one of the Walmarts that do not allow camping. Well they do but the county ordinance says no - so we were on our bikes!!! Mr. Plod didn’t know anywhere we could go all he knew was that we couldn’t park up anywhere in Westerly.

So we wiped the sleep from our eyes we headed off into the foggy night and to show her disgust they old girl decided she was only going to let one of her eyes operate. Poor Marty, he had a dodgy navigator, a one eyed truck, and fog to contend with. But he did magnificently and an hour later we pulled into a 24hr state park in Connecticut. $11 to park for what was left of the night and check out at 8pm. We couldn’t get back to bed fast enough. We missed the 8pm check out but it wasn’t a problem. We tried to book into the camp for the day but they had no vacancies till 12pm so we trundled down to the beach for breakfast and hang around till then. We took a stroll along the beach which had just been groomed by the tractor. Nice enough beach but not a bit of surf so not much fun for swimming. About 9.30 people started arriving. It was quite entertaining watching them all stagger down to the beach under the weight of enormous chilly bins, chairs, umbrellas, and almost every plastic toy imaginable. What ever happened to a six pack and a bucket and spade?

We decided, over our coffees not to stay here but continue on our travels, head inland away from the crowds and into Pensylvania. We even decided that we are not going to go to New York. So sorry folks we are just too whimpish to attack that traffic and all those people. It’s back to the country for us.

Maine

We stayed a couple of nights at Hanover as the weather turned to custard and it seemed like a good enough reason to sleep in and lounge around. We did get physical – by going for a swim in the pool. We were the only ones using it. I guess it wasn’t warm enough for the other campers or maybe because the sign at the gate said “Warm Poo”. Guess someone needed an L for something.

We continued our travels on the 2. It is a beautiful scenic, cruisey sort of road offering no challenges for the navigator or driver so made for really pleasant traveling. J

The plan was to try and find a camp around Ellsworth so we could do some touring on the bike. I rang a couple of places and decided on one at Sullivan which was the cheapest but that was negated by the fact that we had to drive 10 miles out of Ellsworth to get there. We got the last RV site they had as they were fully booked as the weekend was the big Lobster festival in the nearby town of Winter Harbour. We were assured the site was level – yeh right!! We then discovered we didn’t have an adaptor to fit the campers 30 amp plug in so there went the air con. (Luckily it wasn’t muggy so it wasn’t needed.) The toilet block was an old shed that had been modified. The floors sloped and the shower boxes were held up by a couple of screws and were quite wobbly. Marty said one of the loos in the men’s wasn’t even screwed to the floor – he didn’t use that one! But it was ok really. We only needed a place to park when all said and done. And the camp owners were very nice. He rode a Honda Leadwing but we forgave him at least it wasn't a Harley.

First day there we headed east to a little fishing village called Lubec. We had been to Lubec in Germany so thought it would be fun to see this one. It was beautiful. It was a vibrant fishing village until the 60’s when Government Food Regulations forced the closure of the Smoked herring factory where most of the town worked. (Some little pencil head in Govt decided that the herrings had to be gutted before they could be smoked. Can you belive it?) The Historic Society is now trying to preserve the remaining buildings from this era. We went on a little tour and learnt a bit of the local history. I found it quite interesting. The smell of the smoked herrings was still very evident in the building we were in. We carried on up the coast stopping at a Historic Site where you can see the Isle de St Croix. This the first European settlement north of Florida (the Spanish were first there) but the French learnt very quickly about the harshness of Maine winters. Next stop Calais. The Americans pronounce it Callis, the peasants. This was jammed packed with cars. After sitting for 5 minutes at the first set of lights and getting nowhere we turned around and headed out of town. We went to Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. We saw a couple of Osprey nesting and despite riding the bike around a hiking trail we never saw a moose. They had a moose head at the welcome centre so I got to have my photo taken with that.
Later I saw a church sign saying "If you love me obey my commandments” and I thought to myself, if you loved me you would show me a moose not a sign. I never saw a moose………

We traveled back to camp on the 191 another beautiful, low traffic road. Covered 250 miles for the day.

We decided to stay another day and ride around Mt Desert Island and see Bar Harbour. This is definitely the tourist end of town with half of New York there for the summer. We went down to one of the little fishing wharfs and had a chat with a fisherman who was banding his lobsters. The sea around the Island is covered with lobster buoys. There would be no chance of drowning as you could fling an arm out and be holding onto a buoy – no swimming needed.
While stopping to consult our very inferior map a guy on a Harley stopped to see if we were lost. He then told us we had to go to Acadia National Park and proceeded to take us there. The highlight of the ride here was the ride up Cadillac Mountain (1530 ft). As you get to the top you get 360° vistas of the area. It is absolutely beautiful. Once down we did the loop road through the park. This is a one way loop road virtually around the bottom of Cadillac Mountain, very scenic and a great motorcycling road. (Don’t seem to be any bad ones here).
We got back to camp had a cuppa and then headed off again to ride the Schoodic Peninsula. Part of this is a portion of Arcadia NP but much smaller than the main park. It is no less scenic. We arrived in Winter Harbor about 5.30pm just in time for the annual Lobster Festival street parade. As the road we wanted to travel on was closed we had no choice but to sit and watch. It was much smaller than the one we had seen in Madison but the participants were equally as enthusiastic. Half an hour later we were on our way again. Another 200 miles travelled.

The road was calling so next day we set off again. We decided to travel down the coast on the 1. What a mistake. The roads were very busy and there was no where to pull off and enjoy the scenery. We couldn’t get a camp for the night as they were all full so we went to the Wal-Mart car park in Biddeford and joined 10 other campers for the night. Thank God for Wal Mart. He can’t produce a moose but he does alright with Wal-Mart’s.

The next day wasn’t much better. Left Maine behind and hit the New Hampshire coast expecting less people. Wrong. It started well and we found a place to stop by the sea that didn’t want $10 to park. There was no shortage of takers for these spots as they are near little sandy beaches so on a 500 meter stretch of beach you have 2000 people. The coast is a succession of holiday homes (beautiful, big and expensive) and endless shopping malls most containing designer label shops. One town we passed through has its mile long main street dedicated to designer shops. Another thing we noticed was the high number of antique shops. They are absolutely everywhere. Sometimes the building looks older and more decrepid than the antiques within. If you are not into antiques or designer shopping then there are the equally numerous Yard Sales to check out. Some of these seem to be a permanent fixture on people’s front lawns. Definitely something for every shopper. Before we knew it we had crossed into Massachusetts and parking was still short on the ground so we stopped in a Burger King car park and had a brew and a study of the map to see where we could spend the night. Decided on Wompatuck State Park on the south west side of Boston so it was pedal to the metal and we were off our adventures in Maine and New Hampshire at an end.

NOTE: We still haven't worked out how to get the pics in the right place when we post our blog. They start out ok but always move when they are in space. So sorry to those of you out there who really care.................

Vermont

We left Madrid quite early next morning and it wasn’t long before we had a wee interaction with a State Trooper. All quite friendly. We went passed him, he followed us, (and yes we saw him this time) and when we got to the lights he pulled up beside us and told us our drivers side brake light wasn’t working. “Just so you know” he said and drove off with a smile and a wave. We knew but hadn’t got around to fixing it.

We entered the Adirondack Park. Beautiful roads and stunning scenery. Lakes, rivers and bush. Passed heaps of motorcyclists and cyclists. The areas around Lakes Saranac and Placid (home of the 1932 and 80 winter Olympics) are spectacular but were very crowded. Reminded me of downtown Mount Maunganui at the height of summer. There is no off season here. It is full on in both summer and winter. Too busy for these country hicks. We ended the day at Crown Point on Lake Champlain. In the early days of American history this was a very strategic point as whoever had control here controlled the river ways. There were several battles between the French and the English and the English and the Americans before the Americans finally took possession. There are the remains of two forts here. One built by the French but destroyed by them when they heard the English were coming. With about 200 French against 12000 English who wouldn’t. Another much larger one built by the English and destroyed by fire when a Mrs. ?? had a chimney fire while cooking pie and peas for the soldiers. The fire burned for 3 days despite attempts by the soldiers to put it out and finally reached the powder room. And that, as they say, was that.

While at the camp Marty fixed the lights on the trailer with the help of a fellow camper who happened to have a spare length of wire that Marty was able to hook into the system and get everything going again. I spent this time going for a nice long ride on my bike.

We met a very nice couple from Canada who were having a long weekend on their Yamaha V Star. Hopefully we will see them in NZ one day.

Sunday was supposed to be the day of rest and lying in, but every man and his boat was trying to get out onto the lake at once making one hell of a racket so we gave up and joined the world. Tried to have a nap after lunch but our neighbours through the trees were playing Horseshoes (they did this for 8 hours) and the continual clanging and yelling that was going put paid to that, so we hopped on the bike and headed up the back roads to Essex. This was a really pretty town with not a lot going on but an ice cream shop doing very good business. We were having a great ride back through the curvy roads when we came over a blind hill to find some old geezer on our side reversing back over the hill. We took things a bit easier after that.

We stopped at the supermarket at Port Henry for bread and milk (still recovering from the swap meet) and the bike decided to do a “Memphis”. We crawled the 10 miles back to camp but at least I wasn’t the cause or effect this time. After a cuppa Marty took the fuel filter out with me assisting by handing him the odd screwdriver and wiping his sweaty brow – as any good theatre nurse would. Once out he banged and tapped the filter on the BBQ table and reassembled it all. Test run was perfect so we are back in business but may have to get some spare filters as the gas here is obviously pretty dirty.

We had planned to ride down to a bike shop in Scotia on the Monday morning but when we rang there was no reply so we went to the laundromat instead. Isn’t it great to be able to be so flexible.

After 2 days of R & R it was time to move on. We crossed over the bridge into Vermont then traveled up the 17, another cruisey scenic route. Just before Mad River we climbed a very steep piece of road. I thought the camper wasn’t going to make it because it almost came to a standstill, but to my relief it was only because it hadn’t dropped down a gear so with a gentle nudge on the gear lever it obliged and we sailed to the top. The old farm houses and buildings are a constant source of amazement and delight. Marty would give his eye teeth for one of those huge old barns.
We stopped at Cabot Annex. A touristy shop selling products made by Vermont farmers. We sampled our way amongst the cheeses, dips, chocolates etc before heading further up the road to the Cider Mill. Just our luck. It wasn’t quite apple season and so no cider or sampling. I was disappointed but then spotted a shop offering wine tasting so we headed there instead. $1 each and we were away, and they even had Hard Cider. This is the alcoholic cider. Most American cider seems to be of the non alcoholic variety- we would call it apple juice.
We weren’t too fussed with the hard cider but a couple of the wines were ok and I purchased a bottle of cranberry wine for when the rum runs out.

No need for lunch after all the sampling so we got on the 2 and carried on through Vermont into New Hampshire and then into Maine. The 2 was a really relaxing drive through beautiful farmland. It sometimes seemed like we were back home. Stopped for the night at Stony Brook Recreation Par on the outskirts of Hanover. The lady in the office said we would have a good chance of seeing Moose if we went up into Grafton Notch State Park so we jumped on the bike and went looking. I am sure there are no Moose in Maine, only signs telling you they are crossing someplace or that you must brake for them to avoid a collision. But we still have a few days left in Maine so maybe I will get lucky.

Canada

We left Geneva with no place in mind to end up in at the end of the day. We took the scenic route around Lake Erie until we reached Ashtabula where after doing another of our suburban tours and consuming 2 gallons of gas, we eventually ended up on the Interstate heading north. We had to make a slight detour of this to get gas and Propane (LPG). We’d had problems finding this today and as our meter was showing this to be empty it was quite a necessity. None at this gas station but the young guy directed us to a Propane station “just up the road”. About 10 miles later we reached it only to discover it no longer fills tanks but if we go back the way we came the hardware store about 2 miles back does. It did and charged twice the price as everywhere else we had filled, but at least now the contents of the freezer were safe and a mass cook up would not be needed. A little drama in the town as we left ensuring the local fire brigade had something to occupy themselves with. Don’t know what was on fire but there certainly was a huge amount of thick black smoke spiraling into the air.

Before we knew it we had crossed into Pennsylvania. We stopped at a Niagara Falls Tourist Information to try and find out a bit about where to camp etc in Niagara but the woman was only interested in selling us a package tour and when we couldn’t decide whether or not we wanted to do that she rolled her eyes and became quite disinterested. We told her we’d go and have lunch and discuss it – which we did then drove off without going back in.

We crossed into Canada at Buffalo without any hassles at all and had no problems locating a camp to stay in for a couple of days. We unloaded the bike and headed into Niagara for a look around. We were only 3 miles from the falls so it wasn’t far to go. We got a park (illegal of course, everywhere legal was charging $20 ) across the road from the falls and wandered over to view them along with hundreds of other tourists. There was a real diversity of nationalities here. We were quite surprised by the number of Muslims. The falls were beautiful. Stunning in fact. It is just a shame they have turned Niagara into a circus sideshow. But I guess they are after the tourist dollar and that is a sure way to get it. We went for a short ride up stream passing the old Power Station Building. A beautiful building now lying empty and forgotten. We returned to our parking spot and went back to the falls to see them lit up. This happens each night around 9pm with the colours changing every 15 minutes or so. They look magnificent. Tearing ourselves away we hunted out an Indian restaurant for a very late dinner. We were the only round eyes there for most of the time. Our waitress was not particularly friendly, almost rude, so no tip for her when we left.

I was glad to get home to bed. We had traveled through three states and two countries. No wonder I was knackered.

Our second day in Niagara was spent traveling along the Niagara Pathway, a road that follows the river north and takes you to the city of Niagara on the Lake. We made quite a few stops along the way to view various sights. The first of these was The Niagara Spanish Aero Car which is a little tram type thing that propels people across the river above the Whirlpool, where if you want to part with even more money you can be taken to the whirlpool in a boat. I was quite happy just to look from the viewing platform. We stopped at the power station and read up on the history of it all and more importantly to me – used the loo. We had heard about the big floral clock in the botanical gardens so we stopped to see that. We both had expected it to be bigger. The lady at the tourist rip off centre had told us you could go inside it but we never saw anyone doing this or anywhere offering a tour so that was crossed off the list. We arrived in Niagara on the Lake around lunchtime so we took a stroll up and down the main street, then bought some lunch and took it down to the waterfront to eat. It was so peaceful there. Everyone just seemed to be enjoying the tranquility and the view across the lake. On the return ride we stopped and had a stroll through part of the Botanical Gardens. After thinking we wouldn’t have much to do this day we managed to occupy ourselves quite easily all day.

After much discussion and umming and aahing we decided that we would not spend too long in Canada. The area we really wanted to see was on the east coast and too far to go in the camper with gas prices even higher than the US. The plan now was to travel along the shoreline of Lake Ontario up as far as Ogdensburg and cross back into the States. The road was nothing spectacular till we got past Toronto. We never learn and again took the waterfront route through Toronto at 4pm. It took us nearly an hour to get about 5 blocks onto the freeway and that was an experience. The drivers are very impatient and looney compared to those we had encountered on American freeways and it was a relief to get out of it unscathed. We stopped for the night at Presquíla Point Provincial Park on the edge of Lake Ontario. No chance of swimming though. Ontario is not a swimable lake. Rather on the dirty side. The Mosquitoes were doing a roaring trade on anyone silly enough to be outside uncovered. And that was us for a while as we had decided to go on an evening stroll along a lakeside trail. It was back to the camper, play cards and nearly die in the hot humid conditions.

But we survived and lived to travel another day. We took SR33 along the lake edge and this was a very picturesque road with very little traffic. It was particularly lovely around the Thousand Island area of the St Laurence river. Part of 33 is traveled by a free ferry. A short 10 minute crossing at Glenroy. By 5pm we were at the duty free shop on the Canadian side of the border. We went in to change our Canadian $’s. We converted some into 151% OP rum and the rest cash for the coke we would need to accompany it.

We had been told it can take hours to get through customs so I made sure I’d visited the little room before we began our approach. The Officer we got was quite official and not very friendly. Asked us all the normal questions then told us to pull over to the side. I was glad I’d been to the loo. He came aboard to check that we weren’t trying to smuggle any Canadian beef or illegal aliens. The first thing he noticed was how hot it was in the old girl. “Don’t you have air conditioning in here“ he asked as the perspiration started dripping of his brow. “Only when we are traveling and the windows are open”we replied. (But it works very well when we are plugged into electricity) “Jesus Christ”’ or words to that effect he said as he hurried out and shut the door. You can go he said. But wait. He wasn’t going to be let off that easily. No way we said. We want our Visa’s renewed. Don’t need to he said they are still current. But we want to we cried. He reluctantly agreed to do it and had us follow him inside the building where all aliens go for interrogation. Take a seat and I’ll deal with you when I can he says and calls some other poor unfortunates to the desk who don’t have all the right paperwork. So we sit and wait, but our legs aren’t crossed yet cause we were prepared!!
After a few minutes another guy asks if he can help so we explain what we want and he says no problem at all and with lots of laughs, more finger printing and eye looking we have our renewed visas and are on our way.

We found a neat little town to overnight in called Madrid. We pulled into the Municipal park and discovered we could stay there and use the facilities for no charge. Met a couple of the locals and had a walk down by the river before calling it a day. Felt good to be back in the USA.

Mid Ohio Swapmeet

Our final stop in Michigan was it’s the biggest tourist attraction in the State. Over 5 million people visit here each year. It is not an amusement park but would you believe a massive hunting, fishing and shooting store. It is unreal. Not only is a one stop shop it has a huge mountain in the centre of the shop displaying all manner of stuffed animals. The walls display numerous deer and moose heads as well as many verities if fish. Once you have finished looking at all this you can start to shop. I bought a pair of tramping trou in the bargain bin for $4.77 including tax. Marty dragged me out a couple of hours later but not before he stopped to inspect the mobile log cabin they had for sale. We decided to stick with the Chev.

After all that excitement I had to concentrate on getting us to the swap meet at Lexington following Google’s instructions. We were beginning to feel like the Aussie tourists in NZ who asked their GPS for the shortest route from Chch to Nelson and ended up on the Rainbow Road. Just before paranoia set in we arrived. Official start day was Friday but when we arrived at 5pm Thursday night it was already looking like a shanty town. Cost $135 for the weekend. (Twice as much as the pushbike I’d bought just before leaving John and Michal’s’ and something I thought I was going to be glad of here). The cost isn’t really excessive when you consider we got 3 nights camping, entry to 3 days of swap meet, motocross, road racing, seminars and 1 day of trials. The flat track racing was extra and about 20 miles away. The wall of death show was also extra. We never made it to either of these two events as we were far to busy with what was at the course. After settling in to our camp site we went for a stroll around. We met a guy who had a Honda 250 trials bike like ours so we had a chat with him for a while. His name was Murray Gray. I told him that would be easy for me to remember because we have a breed of cattle with the same name back home. He laughed and said an Aussie friend had said the same thing. We caught up with briefly with John Hugel about 9pm and found out when he would be starring in the motocross. Early night – it was going to be a big weekend.

It was a very stormy night with a serious amount of rain falling which ensured there was a lot of mud around. I was glad we were in the camper when I saw some tents below the water line. The rain stopped just as the swap meet was due to start. I wished I had some gumboots but it turned out not to be too bad in most places. It was a 10 minute walk to the swap meet and the first thing that caught our attention was the small paddock of golf carts for hire. There are quite a few walkers only, but most shoppers were on some form of motorized transport. The amount of scooters was incredible. Some people buy a cheap one on Friday and sell it for what they can get on Sunday. We stayed in the walkers club.

We spent all day wandering around the stalls and never covered it all. Only bike stuff – parts or clothing that was it. Ended up at the AJSMOR stand and finally got to meet John Diedrich, whom Marty had met on internet dating. No just kidding, he is a member of an Egroup that Marty belongs to. It was nice to sit down for a spell. Another guy from the club had 3 of his bikes on display and Marty was in heaven. He fell instantly in love with the G50CSR (he is so lucky I’m not the jealous kind) and was on his hands and knees worshipping the ground it stood on. (Actually he was taking pictures but I thought that sounded better). As you can see he progressed from the ground to the seat so he was one happy camper. Only 25 of these bikes were ever made so I guess you can understand his pleasure at being able to fondle one. The other two bikes on display were 64 short stroke trials comp and a G85. There was no shortage of admirers for any of these bikes.
It was a fun day and I was knackered, so after tea I had a little snooze while Marty went to see how John had got on at the Motocross as we hadn’t made it. He didn’t find him but ran into another couple of guys who had Matchless engined Rickmans so he had a great old time.

Saturday and the weather was a little better and we decided to go our separate ways today after watching John’s first race. He did pretty well finishing a respectable 4th. I wanted to watch the trials and go to a couple of seminars for the hell of it and Marty wanted to return to the swap meet. Things started badly for me. I went to the woods where the trials were to be held only to find I was a day late. I discovered this when I went to Murray’s tent and asked him what time it was on. Bummer. He was happy with his result. Came 12th in a field of 24. With no trials to watch that put me over an hour ahead of schedule but as I had a long way to walk to the Tower Block where the Seminars were being held I thought I better get started. I also didn’t have a clue where it was. 30 minutes later I was there and early so I sat and watched some of the road racing and chatted to a lady whose husband was also lost in the depths of the swap meet. They didn’t appear to be as organized on the grid as Puke. Riders weren’t on the dummy grid waiting to go which I guess explains why they didn’t get through all the races on Saturday.

The seminar I went to was Motorcycle Restoration. There were about 80 people there most of them blokes. When asked how many had ever done a complete restoration I was surprised that only half a dozen put their hands up. The seminar catered for the other 74 as we were told what tools to buy, the varying rags that would be required, the box (es)of latex gloves that would be needed as you could expect to get very dirty and (lord help you) greasy. I did learn about using walnuts shells as an option to sand blasting and about a ceramic coating that could be used on heads and such like to help dispel heat. I was a little disappointed as I’d expected more in depth stuff. I came away wondering why I still didn’t feel the need to go and buy a box of latex gloves.

I caught up with Marty at the AJ / Matchy tent. He had had a good day but had purchased very little, but that changed when I dragged him off to look at a book I’d passed earlier which was very close to a tent selling helmets. We came away with the book and a new helmet each. We went to the bike auction after tea but most of the British bikes failed to reach their reserves. Some early model Japanese bikes in very good unrestored condition and low milage went quite cheaply. By all the tutting from the crowd it seems the locals thought it was too high. We weren’t tempted………………….

Sunday was action packed. First we went down to the Vincent Owners stand in the centre field. Meet a couple of very nice people – and their bikes. I left Marty talking and went to another Seminar. This time a talk by Carly King on her solo trip around the USA on a Ural sidecar outfit. She was test riding it for the US importer prior to their full import into the States. She also spoke of her trips to China and Italy. Was very interesting and I realized part way through that I had actually looked at her website about a trip she did around China before I left home. I bought her book which we have both read and enjoyed. I raced from that to another seminar on “Packing Light, packing Right”. As I am hopeless at this I thought it would be quite useful but apart from learning of some great stuff that will water proof clothing I didn’t learn much. It was geared to American riding where extremes of temperature can be encountered daily, and where huge miles are common place. I have the list so it may come in handy one day. I then went and watched the stunt riders display and had a wander thru the area where you could take a bike for a demo ride. There were Triumphs, Ducatis, Kawasaki’s, Motor Guzzi’s , KTM’s and of course Harley’s. I was tempted but being dressed in shorts and sandals I didn’t fancy my chances at being allowed. There were no shortage of takers while I was there.

After all that mental stimulation it was time to blob out and watch the road racing with Marty. Mostly all Japanese and Harley machines but it was still good to watch. When that finished we went back to the moto cross and caught John’s last race. He earned a podium finish for the weekend so he was happy.

We stored all our purchases away – including 2 riding jackets that Marty had bought, and over a coffee, decided that we really had blown the budget. Having said our goodbyes to people we had met over the weekend, headed off to find a Walmart carpark for the night.

We spent our last day in Ohio at the Geneva State Park on the shores of Lake Erie. After such a hard weekend it was great to lie on the beach – swim – lie on the beach - swim……………and think of you all back home enjoying winter.