Saturday_May17 End of the Line

Survivors of Friday night assembled this morning to have a modest breakfast provided by the motel. We cleaned out our rooms and loaded the bikes one last time on this trip. Mark wore his special Pirate Princess visor (graciously provided by Deb).








We left and headed up the coast and were treated to some more great scenery. We saw a lighthouse in the distance and decided to go and have a look.





There was a gift shop and some history about the place. It is amazing that anyone even finds their way here.
















Great picture, huh? No, this is not the leaning tower of Piza! OK, so I am not Ansel Adams!





We continued north up the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It is a beautiful area and many of us mentioned the possibility of a trip back to this area. We passed familiar sounding areas such as Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk. We turned inland on Rt 158 at Kitty Hawk.





The next gas stop found us within sight of the Virginia State line!









Through the Chesapeake and Hampton Roads area we were greeted with heavy traffic and inconsiderate drivers. Hampton Roads actually won the prize for the most hostile drivers we encountered during the whole trip! It is a good thing that none of us were wearing sidearms! We had nine motorcycles in our group and we were separated on a few occasions by drivers who merged into us and separated us. It is fortunate that a few of us had CBs to keep in touch and facilitate regrouping. We stopped at a Chilli's on the north side of Hampton Roads to have some lunch and settle our nerves. Will had a schedule to meet, so he ate quickly and headed for home.
After lunch we continued on Rt 64 to take Rt 295 around Richmond. Brad had a pig roast to attend to in Harrisonburg, so he continued west on Rt 64. Now we were down to seven riders to make the final miles.

Our final stop as a group was in Falmouth at a fast food establishment. Deb and I had both been developing allergy symptoms from the time we entered Virginia. Some ice cream and allergy medicine was a temporary fix. We took a few moments for good-byes and a couple of pictures.









Continuing up Rt 17, the group turned right on Rt 28 at Bealeton, heading for Manassas. I continued to Rt 29 and to home in Gore, VA.

During the vacation, everyone had come to call me "mother". At first I thought that this was just an incomplete phrase, but true to form, everyone called me at home to let me know that they arrived safely at their homes. Being a "mother" is not so bad.

Friday_May16 Waterworld

Everyone pretty much got up on time, although with our group it seems that the younger you are, the harder it is for you to get up early. All the old folks were washing clothes, doing dishes, emptying trash, and trying to get the young ones out of bed! We had planned to hit the road by 0600.

Robin volunteered to stay behind and clean up the rooms, empty trash, and gather stuff to bring home from both refrigerators. This allowed the rest of us to get on the road by 0630. Thank you Robin!

Rain was forecast and we expected to have a wet morning. I don't know what happened, but it seemed that the rain had always been to an area just before us. We ran into some wet roads, but no actual precipitation.

Our route took us north on Rt 17 and through Wilmington, Jacksonville, and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The fence along the frontage road of Camp Lejeune is decorated with bedsheets that have welcoming words from the families of Marines returning from duty in the Middle East.

We continued on through Cedar Point, Morehead City, and Sealevel on our way to Cedar Island. Signs at Cedar Island indicated that there was a restaurant at the ferry depot so we decided to have lunch there and relax until it was our time to board. The restaurant was only open for dinner, but the owner was there and allowed us to use the bathroom. That was worth lunch! She directed us back down the road to a little general store that had a hot dog bar. JOY!


While everyone headed back down the road, Will and I went to the ferry check-in area and made sure that there were no problems with our reservations. Everything was OK and the attendant suggested that we just have one person present the money and she could print all of the tickets at one time. She did not have to handle each bike separately. Having established this, Will and I rode down to the general store for gourmet hot dogs and some good old southern porch sittin'.




















After a round of indigestion and naps, we headed back up the road to the ferry depot, got our tickets and pulled in line for boarding. We were scheduled to board last and had us line up in our own lane.















When it was our turn, the gates opened and all of the cars were loaded first. We were directed to load the motorcycles on the aft port side.



The trip was very relaxing and we met a bunch of really nice people on the ferry. There was no shortage of sights and sounds and some great views. There was an observation deck and also an air conditioned cabin with tables and benches. The GPS on Mark's bike had the motorcycle symbol in the middle of the water and going 10.2 miles per hour!























Of course, all of these sights are only wonderful and scenic if you can keep your dead ass awake long enough to enjoy and share them with the rest of the group. Some of our party seem to not be as tough as the classical image of bikers. See for yourself........


And just in case there is not enough clarity in this group shot.........































Everyone finally regained consciousness.....or at least as conscious as any of us are.....and prepared to debark. The ride we had just taken was on the Cedar Island-Ocracoke Ferry and lasted about two hours and twenty minutes. Not surprisingly, this deposited us on Ocracoke Island. We still had one more ferry to take, the Ocracoke Island Ferry, which takes us from Ocracoke to Hatteras. There was about twelve miles of beautiful seashore to ride along to the next ferry ride. We stopped at one point and got some pictures by the ocean.

Before you know it, we are on another ferry and taking about a 45 minute ride to Hatteras. Thsi ride was much rougher than the first one. At one point we held on to our motorcycles just so they wouldn't be tempted to fall over! Fortunately no one had an accident.......how would you report that to your insurance company?























After debarking on Hatteras, we took another scenic drive to Buxton and the site of our motel for the evening. There was a lot of standing water on the road and it was necessary at times to ride on the wrong side of the road to avoid it.

Safely in Buxton, we checked into the Comfort Inn and had a great seafood dinner at a restaurant next door. After dinner, half of walked to a local bar for a drink, and the rest of us just headed for bed.


It was a fabulous day, filled with a rich variety of sights and experiences, shared by friends. I just don't know if it gets any better than this.

Thursday_May15 Wave Bye-Bye to the Beach

Everyone got up reasonably early and we headed back down south to the Golden Egg restaurant for breakfast.

After eating, we went to the Harley shop for some last minute shopping and browsing.








After falling short of buying all of the merchandise at the Harley shop, we motored up to the Hard Rock amusement park. Harley-Davidson (corporate) was set up with demo rides on the latest model bikes, and it was also the location for HOG members (Harley Owner's Group) to pick up event pins to wear on jackets.


The amusement park did not look too busy, but then I guess that all of the motorcycles and bikers in the area for the week probably discouraged a lot of folks from visiting the attractions.

Everyone was getting hungry for lunch so we headed back up to North Myrtle for lunch at Dick's Last Resort. We needed to introduce the newest members of our group to a little good natured insulting service.















The restaurant is right next door to Barefoot Landing, where Deb had the new handlebars installed on her bike. About half of the group decided to walk around the displays again and the rest of us went back to the resort to rest and pack for the trip to the Outer Banks tomorrow. Just to make sure that ferry times were what I remembered seeing, I double checked the website for the NC ferry system. I was stopped in my tracks by the word "reservations". Hey.......we ain't got no stinkin' reservations! I called the Cedar Island ferry depot and found that reservations were needed! The earliest ferry that we could all get on at the same time was at 1400 hrs. Each vehicle needed a separate reservation number. I stayed on the phone for what must have been close to 20 minutes just getting numbers for all of us. At least they allowed me to put all of the individual reservations in one name.

Nancy, a friend of Mark's had spent time with us off and on during the week. She went on rides with us and shared in a lot of the week's activities. We were happy to have her as part of the group and I think that everyone would like to look her up if we get back to the Myrtle Beach area again. She gave us a gift certificate for $180.00 to a rib restaurant called Sticky Fingers so that we could all have a good meal on her. What a class act!

When everyone got back to the resort, we went to Sticky Fingers for dinner. It was wonderful and everyone had a good time.

Back to the resort and everyone packed and did laundry for the ride early tomorrow morning.

It has been a great visit to Myrtle Beach.

Wednesday_May14 All Over The Place

Wednesday morning found everyone is good spirits.

Mark, Will, Matt, and Steve ran down to Merrill’s Inlet for Mark’s dyno appointment. The rest of were again treated to one of Robin’s breakfasts. She prepared biscuits and sausage gravy in addition to the leftover breakfast casserole from yesterday. Everyone just tore it up and enjoyed a great meal.

After eating, we went to Broadway at the Beach and visited shops and vendors. The rally is in full swing now and there are motorcycles everywhere you look. When we got hungry we went to Senior Frog’s, an interesting restaurant with mostly Mexican food. They also had a couple of guys playing music for entertainment. We were right across from the stage and had a great time talking to the musicians. We were definitely the most animated, loud, and fun group in the whole place. The guys playing music appreciated this and worked it to their advantage to get everyone else into the spirit of having fun. Jenn and Deb even got up and danced…..I have the video to prove it……prices are reasonable.

Right next to us was a group of people in their late 30’s to late 40’s who must have just come from a constipation convention. They not only would not crack a smile or get into the moment, but they gave us looks like we were the most misbehaved, obnoxious people on the planet……..while that may be true, hey……..we are on vacation!

After we had our fill of Senior Frog we went out and……guess what.......Looked at more motorcycles and vendor’s wares! Brad even test drove a Kawasaki Nomad.

Having done enough standing around for one day, we decided to go for a ride. We rode north on the 17 bypass, turned west on Rt 22 toward Conway, turned southwest on Rt 31 to Rt 501, and back to the 17 bypass headed south. This took us to Crabby Mike’s for yet and still another seafood buffet.

After eating, we decided to go to the Suck, Bang, and Blow bar again so that Brad, Jenn, Will, and Nazim could see the place. The same old craziness was going on there. We walked across the street to look at some vendors and I got a picture of smoke rising from the back of the SB&B as someone burned their rear tire in the “burnout pit”. This is where knuckle-draggers and inebriated bikers are talked into placing their front tire against a wall and spin the rear tire until it blows! The SB&B will buy and install a new tire for participants, however, do you really want to do this to your scoot? I have heard of people blowing transmissions and worse. How stupid can you be?

I am sure that the biggest draw to this place is all of the additional craziness that happens at night.

Deb had left her bike at Crabby Mike’s, so following a short time at the SB&B, we reunited her with her motorcycle and headed back to the resort via all the bypasses that we could possibly take.

The evening ended as usual, with adult beverages and hot tubs.