I can relate to you guys, I'm in denial about an eventual hip replacement. One of the guys at work had knee replacement before last Thanksgiving and is still working it out. But he is really glad he got it done. I hope everything works out for both of you.
So I'm way behind on our ride activities too. We had our first trip last weekend and it was fairly local, about 130 miles/ 210 km away on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay on the eastern shore of Maryland. This has been an annual ride every year based out of Chincoteague, VA but the local guy hosting it was able to hand it off to somebody new after 12 years. The new ride host picked a new route further north out of Dover, Delaware. So this went from being the Eastern Shore Ride (ESR) to the Northern Eastern Shore Ride (NESR).
You never know what the weather will be on this ride. This time we had strong winds on the Friday ride to Dover, chilly overcast on the group ride Saturday and of course awesome warm and clear weather for the Sunday ride home.
This was a smallish group of 15 bikes, 4 of which carried passengers. 2 Harley cruisers, 2 other cruisers, 3 Gold Wings (1 was a trike), 3 BMW adventure bikes, 1 BMW Sport Tour, 2 Honda Pacific Coasts (which is the bike that brought this group together) and Pebbles' Dino and my ST1300.
We started out in 40F/4C degree weather at 8am and rode up the Delaware coastline. Most of the eastern shore area is flat and rural, mainly farming and chicken outside of the beach tourist or fishing areas. A lot of bird and wildlife sanctuaries too. Very scenic once you get past the fact there are no hills and the omnipresent smell of chicken fertilizer.
We stopped off at several points of interest including Delaware City and after crossing over to the west side we descended down the coast crossing over many bridges until we got to lunch at Rock Hill, MD. It was a great seafood lunch stop where it finally warmed up to 50F/10C. The ride had one surprise, a short 1/2 mile trip down a blind gravel road to a wildlife center. Several in the group were unhappy with the gravel, which did have at least two deep patches, but everybody toughed it out without incident.
The group returned to the motel by 5pm just as the sun decided to come out. The route ended up being 201 miles/ 323 km.
Since we're all staying together in the same motel we have Friday night dinner, Saturday breakfast/lunch/dinner and Sunday breakfast together. This time at Sat's dinner the restaurant was within walking distance which allowed some of the group to partake in "strong drinks". By midway thru dinner one table of our group started singing to Bob Marley. Everybody pulled out their phones and now our video clips have been safely stored for future reference and blackmail of the ladies in the group we dubbed "Barbie Marley and the BM Experience Singers".
After breakfast on Sunday we checked out of the motel and rode over to the nearby Dover Air Force Base and got a tour of the Air Mobility Command Museum. Basically the AMC museum has about a dozen of the huge planes the USAF has used to transport men and equipment around the world. This included a tour inside a Galaxy C5A, a huge plane indeed!
After the tour we said our goodbyes with everybody and made our up and around the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay and stopped off at the scenic little town of Havre De Grace for ice cream :0. From there we sadly had to finally jump on the interstate and engage the heavy traffic in high speed stop and go. Deciding again for the scenic route, we got off I-95 and headed west on I-70 to Frederick, MD and from there down the calmer Route 15 to home, arriving just before sunset having made the most of the day.
Even is group riding isn't your regular thing, it's great to find a group you can share a weekend ride experience with. One of these days we hope we'll be able to hook up with another Dino rider on one of these trips.
Here's a link to my buddy's Flickr album which he compiled photos from several of us.
https://flic.kr/p/smUJ1x
Terran Sin
Tour Guide and Parking Valet for Pebbles.
