The End of our Adventure...............

Around 2:30 pm on Wednesday, May 18th 2016, we were travelling down highway 87 N (a four lane) between Eden and San Angelo Texas in heavy rain when Dave's Honda began to fishtail with no warning due to the tires hydro-planing over the smooth water filled tire tracks.  It was like the bike was instantly on glare ice. Bev was behind and saw the bike and Dave move sideways on the highway with both eventually hitting the pavement.  Dave was going about 100 km/hr went he hit the pavement.  Bev swerved to miss Dave, fishtailed a bit, and managed to regain control stopping her bike about 300 metres up the highway.  Dave landed on his butt and slid for about a 100 metres.  The road was so slippery that he didn't even rip his rubber rain pants! Indeed, the wet pants may even have helped decrease friction. Both ended up in the ditch at the side of the road, no cars or trucks were behind us!!  Dave and Bev met between the bikes with a hug and disbelief that he was actually walking.

We have included a couple of sad pictures.  The fairing and handlebars were destroyed, along with the crash bars (see closeup).  We saved the GPS.

Shortly after the crash a number of concerned Texans stopped to ensure we were OK, Some were nurses.  The local sheriff and other policemen were soon on the scene and arranged for a flatbed to pick up the remains of Dave's Goldwing.  He wouldn't take Bev's bike and so she had to follow for 50 miles in the rain.  Dave has heavy bruising and deep muscle pain....BUT, he is OK and we are so thankful for that.  Thank goodness we believe in full riding gear.

We fly back to Toronto tomorrow, Saturday, and here is a list of what kept us busy the last couple of days.
1. At the San Angelo dealership, the Goldwing was formally considered a write-off.
2. We then sold it to a scrapper for $100. We have never had collision insurance as we figured we'd be dead if in an accident!!  Thank god we were wrong.
3. We got a hotel and rented a car for scooting around.
4. We cancelled Dave's bike insurance, after removing the plate.
5. We arranged to have the Harley shipped back to Toronto.
6. We bought a large suitcase from Walmart (when on a bike, all your stuff in in pieces).
7. We got flights back to Toronto.

To answer your obvious question...the answer is YES, Dave is done with biking.....Bev is not.
Again, we remain grateful that this accident has only involved time and money.  We have grandchildren we want to hug.
This is the final posting on this blog.  For you bikers, have fun and please be safe.

Touring Austin Texas

Bev dropped her bike off for service at Central Harley Davidson dealership just north of Austin, in a suburb called Round Rock.  They were the most incredible HD service dealership she had experienced.  We had made the appointment the day before and they were there to great us outside upon arrival.  The bike got a 10,000 mile full service (the only exception was that the master brake cylinder was drained because the front brake light was sketchy).
The bike was ready the next morning!! We had arrived at 3 pm the day before so that is super service indeed.  The bike was given a very detailed wash; even the back whitewall was pristine.
Bev recommends this HD dealership to any and all HD riders passing through Austin.

While the bike was being serviced we took a taxi into Austin and then rode one of those get-on-get-off tour buses.  We saw the State Capital, got off at the Bullock Texas History Museum where we learned all about the forming of Texas and its mixed history.  We then went to the South Congress District (SOCO) where we got off and had a taco lunch where Obama had stopped for tacos when last in Austin (yes they were great....the tacos were made right there in front of us). We got back on the bus and finished off our Austin tour on Sixth Street...the hub of the Austin music entertainment district. We hit a couple of live music bars that had great guitar playing singers...though we had never heard of them.  Being a couple of old farts we pooped out at about 9 pm, just when the streets were beginning to get interesting, as we just can't party like we used to.  We taxi-ed back to the hotel.

Galveston to Austin

We were about to leave Winnie and head down to the beaches east of Galveston but there was a Jeep rally going on in Crystal Beach - kind of like Sturgis but with 300,000 off road jeeps. This meant a several hour long back up on the ferry to Galveston Island. The locals advised us on an alternate route to Galveston and we eventually ended up on Seawall Blvd in Galveston with a gorgeous beach on one side of the road and numerous high priced hotels on the other side. With the rotten weather we gave up on the idea of stopping on the beach and pressed on through Freeport - a mase of petrochemical plants.We headed on through Bay City and Port Lavaca to Victoria Texas through some intense rains and high winds but fortunately no tornadoes (hey Max you can relax).  In Victoria we did our laundry and then set out for Austin the next morning. The heavy rain in the morning stopped and we had clear roads for most of the trip to Austin. We decided to bypass San Antonio and the Alamo because the weather was just not pleasant hence no photos of Missions or spectacular scenery.
One interesting point; most gas stations in the US sell beer but those in Texas go one step beyond as illustrated in the photo below. Kathleen Wynne should come to Texas to learn how to sell Beer.

Bayous and Ferrys

We left Leesville and went south on Hwy 171 to Lake Charles and then set out on the Creole Nature Trail through the swamps and bayous south along the Gulf.  We had searched the internet and found a swamp tour in one of those airplane propeller boats and it was open all weekend in a little town called Grand Chenier.  The trusty GPS led us to the address but when we arrived we found only swampland = don't believe all you read on the internet!  We also had planned to visit the Mardi Gras Museum in Lake Charles only to discover it was only open Tuesday to Friday!!  Indeed the visitors' centre at the nature reserve and wild life refuge was closed on Saturdays and Sundays....a bit of a shock.
With failure to see any of the tourist activities that we had planned, we headed to Port Arthur Texas.
On the way we stopped and had gumbo in the little crossroad hamlet called Creole.  It was 92 degrees and wickedly humid.
On the road to Port Arthur we had to take a ferry at a town called Cameron; unfortunately it only held about 10 vehcles so we had to wait in the heat for 1 1/2 hours for a 5 minute crossing of the river.
After the ferry crossing the road followed a gorgeous white sandy Gulf beach for about 20 km. In this area all the houses, the schools, the admin municipal buildings are raised about a story above ground level on stilts due to flooding risks.  Most of the churches were built at ground level...we surmised they felt protected via divine intervention against flooding.....although the Catholic churches were on stilts.  We wondered what that meant??
Port Arthur was a maze of oil refineries and tanks also on stilts!
From Port Arthur we headed toward Galveston and are now staying in a little town called Winnie where Bev admired all the palm trees.

Crossing Arkansas and into Louisiana

We left Mountain Home and travelled to Harrison and then followed scenic Hwy 7 through the Ozark National Forest and the Quachita National Forest down to Hot Springs.  It was our first full day of bright sunshine (at 90 degrees). The roads twisted, climbed and dived down into valleys.  It was a challenging ride but not quite as hairy as the Appalachian curves in West Virginia.  At the end of the day Dave noticed his front tire was very badly worn from carving around all the tight turns and worried about possible rain in the future.  We got on the internet and found a honda dealer in Texarkana Texas which replaced his tire. We arrived around lunch time and they took his bike right in and changed the tire while we lunched at a nearby Wendys. After lunch we motored on south through western Louisiana and stopped in Leesville which is about 2 hours from the Gulf.  We have enjoyed two full days of bright hot sunshine as we are between two storm fronts.
Finally in the south we are amongst palm trees!

In addition we also saw some interesting southern signage and ads such as:
1.  "Diversity is another word for white annihilation"
2.  "If you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?"
3. We also saw a TV ad for a "true defender of conservative values" running for congress.  The main points of his platform were:
- repeal Obamacare
- build the wall
- outlaw abortions
- defend the right to bear arms
- he also claimed to be the only candidate endorsed by the NRA
His accompanying video was of the candidate showing his 8 year old son how to shoot a rifle!
Gotta love the south!

Into the Ozarks

We left Paducah, Kentucky, and crossed the Mississippi into Missouri at a little place called Cairo between St. Louis and Memphis. Throughout the day it reminded us of West Africa, terribly hot and wickedly humid.  The possibility of severe thunderstorms was ever on our minds all day.  Fortunately we got across southern Missouri and into northern Arkansas (it was 90 degrees F) without bad weather.  The roads through the Ozarks are perhaps the most enjoyable motorcycling roads in North America with constantly sweeping curves and gentle hills.
We spent the night in Mountain Home, Arkansas, and got settled into a motel before the arrival of heavy thunderstorms.  Nothing like a cold beer followed by a frozen marguarita to get over the heat.
There were reports of hail so heavy that the county had to breakout the snowplows to clear the roads!!  Geezzz.

Wanting a Corvette and Avoiding Tornadoes

While in Bowling Green Kentucky, we toured both the National Corvette Museum and the Corvette Assembly Factory....the most amazing tour eAdver!!
The Museum had corvettes of every vintage from 1953 to 2016 along with all kinds of corvette trivia and interesting facts about the vehicles.
The factory was unbelieveable....we saw teams of robots using lasers to weld very light aluminum frames.  Bev picked one up with one hand!!  The car itself has carbon fibre painted panels attached to the frame with high tech adhesives.  There is a performance engine section where, for an extra $5000, buyers can come in and assemble the 650 HP engines for their cars.  You can even arrange to have pictures of you car being assembled, sort of like a baby picture book. The plant was spotlessly clean and dust free.  The line itself moves at about 1 inch per second.....no worker seemed stressed out. Conveyer systems were on three levels and delivered assemblies such as a door with windows installed, or wheels with tires attached and specifically ordered rims!!  Different cars were one behind the other....some were convertibles, others hard tops and different colours.  Some were equipped with ceramic brake discs wrapped in bubble wrap to keep them from being damaged.....we were amazed at the quality and care and pride taken with these special vehicles.  You can get one one for between $70 - $130,000 Canadian bucks....yuck!

We left Bowling Green around noon and headed to Paducah, South West Kentucky near the Mississippi.  There are severe weather watches all around....and we encountered some threatening skies BUT we avoided the heavy rain and the tornadoes.  YEAH

Crossing Eastern Kentucky with bourbon breath

We set out from Huntington West Virginia across eastern Kentucky on Interstate 64 when the rain hit.  Dave couldn't see very well so we got off and headed overland across horse farm country to Paris where we hoped to visit a 17th century tavern now museum....we forgot it was Sunday.
We then went south to Lexington on the Paris Lexington road which was a 4-lane parkway lined the whole way with beautiful stone fences.  Set back from the road were large southern style mansions with columns, one after the other.  These are really upper end horse farm residences.
We skirted around Lexington and went to Bardstown, the Bourbon capital of Kentucky....in fact we were travelling along the bourbon trail.
Distilleries in the area included Jim Bean, Maker's Mark, and Heaven Hill (which we took a tour in).  They make "Elijah Craig" and "Evan Williams" bourbons.  Naturally we tasted them and got on a little morning buzz on for our trip to Bowling Green on the Lincoln Highway where we passed his birthplace and where he grew up.

West Virginia

Hello everyone....sorry we didn't post every night.  We have some wonderful videos of us biking through curvy West Virginia roads but can't figure out how to load them onto the blog!!! We have a "go pro" and each file is in excess of 300 megabytes....yikes...what do we do?? If you know how to edit down to a smaller file size or give us the address of a web site that will give us clear instructions.  Submit a comment on this blog posting or email us at hondaharley@gmail.com

That said we are currently in Huntington West Virginia right on the Kentucky border.  The weather has been awesome.

There are miles and miles of curvy roads, think of the Forks of the Credit road being 300 km long.  One sign we saw was sooo thoughtful..."Beer Redemption".

One thing about travelling south at this time of the year is that you can see spring evolve over a two day period.  Trees begin to grow buds, crab apple trees are in full bloom and people are starting to plant their annuals.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Finally on the Road!!!

Ok we had planned on a 10 am departure on Tuesday....bikes were packed and we were dressed.  WHOOPSIE, Bev's beloved Harley wouldn't turn over.  Her first words were "no way, this bike has NEVER let me down in 113,000 km."

We put the trickle charger on, got it started and Bev drove it to her trusty HD mechanic Josh.
The battery died at Josh's and wouldn't start at all even with a booster.  She then went off the local HD dealership and purchased a new battery.  NOOOO, the charging circuit on the bike was not working.  Josh said she needed a new charging system (translated into the parts she needed: stator, rotor and regulator). Bev spent the afternoon calling all the GTA HD dealerships trying to find these parts. The Barrie HD could get it by Wednesday morning and so she got them to Josh by noon.
She and Dave hit the road at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon (ie., the house had no food).
The good thing about travelling this time of day is that there was no line up on the Fort Erie Peace Bridge to the USA and hardly any at customs.

The customs official asked the usual questions and then seemed surprised that we were headed to New Mexico.  She asked Dave where we would be staying, and he responded "probably Super 8 hotels".  Then she asked him if he knew anyone in New Mexico...to which he responded "not yet".  She then asked why we were going there to which Dave responded "we are retired and we are tourists".  Then she shrugged her shoulders and said "drive on!!".

We made it to just north of Ellicottville the first night and could see bits of snow still on the Holiday Valley ski hills (where we have skied).  On Thursday we continued south on US219, a lovely curvy hilly road with little traffic and one that skirted dark clouds around us.  We made it almost all the way down Pennsylvania to Somerset near the Maryland border.

We were desperate to find a Mexican restaurant since it is Cinco De Mayo (May 5th) celebration but not such margarita bar in Somerset.

The 2016 trip

We are leaving today, May 2nd, and are heading south to the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona states.  We expect to be about 6 weeks and will cover about 13,000 km (8,000  miles).  We have a video camera attached to Bev's bike and we'll be attempting to learn how to use it during the trip and, more importantly, how to post them on Utube!!!.  We want you to experience some of the stunning scenery and curvy roads offered by mountains and the famous red rocks of the south west....see ya...