Dukes 4th of July Trip (the Gap, FL and MA)

[DukeRyder]

Here's my "Trip Report" that I've been working on over at Adv Rider; this first part doesn't have much "Riding" in it, but there'll be plenty of riding in this trip.

I've been wanting to take a trip to the "Dragon" aka Deals Gap NC and the Smokies for quite a while, my plans to go their last fall were foiled by hurricane Katrina and I never made it. So somewhere around the middle to end of May I decided I was going to combine my yearly 4th of July Vacation to New England with a couple night stay in the smokies.

I usually fly to Hartford CT for the 4th of July week, but a buddy of mine who lives up there once told me how TN was only like 12hr drive for him, so I figured hell; if the Smokies are only about 9hrs from here (New Orleans), I might as well just continue on to Massachusetts after I'm done riding around the smokies.

Well laid plans always seem to have some kinda wrench thrown in them though. After I made up my mind about making this trip, I figured I had 3 good weekends to get everything ready. But I show up to work on Thursday afternoon 6/8
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and the boss tells me "You'll be flying to KSC (Kennedy Space Center) on Saturday and staying there until the 24th; now go see the secretary and get you travel all set up".

No big deal right? I'll still be home in time to leave on my vacation. That'd be great except I was planning on trailering my bike to TN, and the trailer I had ordered from Harbor Freight was supposed to be at store tommorow. So I picked up the trailer at the Harbor Freight store, before work on friday and it was in 2 boxes, one with all the stuctural pieces and one with the wheels, lights etc.
Damn, I was hoping to get this built over the course of 3 weekends, now it's looking like I'll only have maybe a Day.
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Okay, well Friday afterwork I didn't get any preparations done because I had to have a "going away party" with my girlfriend
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(you can tell I'm so upset that I'm not at home building a trailer at 2am)
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Had to do our part to help "rebuild"

Gotta love this place check out the time stamp on the photo! Where else in the Country can you get food this good at that time?
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So I have my Girlfriend drop me off at the airport on Saturday afternoon, at this point I'm not even sure if my trip is going to happen. Because not only is my trailer not built, registered or tested, the car I'm planning on dragging the trailer up with doesn't even have a trailer hit yet and still needs 4 new tires and has a few "issues".

Luckily however I managed to get in a fight with the ladies at the United Airlines check-in counter and wasn't allowed to board my flight that afternoon and would have to return the following day. Score! I managed to build the entire trailer including mounting the plywood that evening. The only thing left to do was hook up the lighting when I got back.

So I got Checked in to my Hotel where I'd be staying for the next 14days. The biggest bitch about this was that it took me as long to "fly" from New Orleans to here as it would've to drive. My flight leaving MSY was Delayed over an hour, then had to fly to Dulles, change planes then fly to Orlando and Drive over to Coccoa. I was all checked in and settled into my room by 2am.
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(not my picture)
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Approaching my new work location (7am same day)


Drove by something that looked like I had just seen in the smoker at beast feast not too long ago
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(that's a wild pig for those of you who can't see what I'm trying to shoot)
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There's where I'll be spending the next 14 days for 12+hrs a day.
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Here's some scenerey shots comming in from the Air Force Station/Merrit Island Wildlife Preserve.



Working down here in FL wasn't too bad, I got a chance to see an Atlas 2 rocket Launch and got to tour the Pad at LC-39 and see Discovery mated up to the SRBs and the ET. We weren't allowed to bring our personal Cameras to the Pad, but the Lockheed Manager at KSC took a bunch of Photos that he was supposed to send but hasn't yet. I was here to support 90something Lockheed Martin workers perform last minute updates/repairs to a Shuttle External Tank which will be used on the next Shuttle flight or a "Rescue Mission" if needed.

Except for Day 1 I worked the "Night Shift" which is 6p-6a and we got lucky one night and I got off early enough to go home catch some sleep and get up early the next day and head up to Daytona Beach before I had to start work again.

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Visiting Daytona isn't really a big deal for me as a tourist since I did live there for 6 years. But I really wanted to go back and visit my buddies at the shop I used to work at.

BSI Racing (if you watch Speed TV you might have seen them build a MX-5 Cup car on Sports Car Revolution)

This is the first Miata they built it was originally known as the "Green Bean" it's seen it's share of action
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I always thought this was the best looking car we built when I worked there
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This was just a ratty Rental IT car when I first worked at the shop, now it's a National G Production class car

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I had a few hours to kill on my last day in FL between checking out of the Hotel and catching my return flight home, so I went back up to Daytona.

I grabbed a bite to eat at my favorite place in town. The Dancing Avacado Kitchen. This place is unlike any other restaurant in Daytona, the atmosphere is really laid back and feels more like somewhere in California than Dirty Daytona, they have awesome Burgers and Burritos here. If you go to Daytona you gotta eat here.
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about this time I was suffering from a serious case of PMS (parked motorcycle syndrome) I hadn't seen my bike in 2 weeks, so I went around the corner from the DAK to BMW Daytona to drool over some of their bikes
http://www.bmwcyclesdaytona.com/ebayimages/1hp2/1.jpg
mmmm HP2 theirs was the first one I saw in person, $20K

I made it back to New Orleans around Midnite Saturday and thankfully the trailer hitch, I ordered for the car came in, which I installed as soon as I got home. The following day I was committed to go down to Grand Isle to a Crab and Shrimp boil (definetly not complaining). I managed (with a little help from my girlfriend) to get new rubber on the car, trailer registered, car packed, while working monday and tues and getting on the road for Wednesday. The only thing I wasn't able to fix was the fact that my old 1982 Mercedes has a problem with its fuel injection and has a really tough time starting when the motor is cold, I tweaked it enough so that it'd start and run after a couple minute warm up, but I was still a bit nervous.

The Day before I was supposed to arrive in TN (I still wasn't sure I was making up until that point) I made reservations at the Cherohala Motorcycle Resort http://www.cycleresort.com/ I was able to get a Cabin for the first night but would have to pitch a tent for night 2. The place is pretty new but it's a pretty safe and clean place to stay. For the price I highly reccomend it. While I was there I met a group of 4 older women who rode down from Quincy Massachusetts on huge cruisers and there was 6 or more ladies from Quebec who came down on BMWs, VFRs, and a Katana.
Some pics from their site
http://www.cycleresort.com/pics/cherohala_camp_04.jpg
http://www.cycleresort.com/pics/cherohala_camp_01.jpg

It was a long drive up and was glad I had a cabin to sleep in for night 1, I got up early (for me anyway) the next day to unload the bike, saddle up with goals of hitting The Cherohala Skyway and "The Dragon" and wherever else I may end up....

[Ritten]

Popcorn2 Popcorn2

[DukeRyder]

So after unloading the bike, cleaning up and having a little AM coffe and chatting with the Cruiser Grannies from Ma, I hit the road. It was a short ride from the camp ground to the Cherohala Skyway, and this was the first pic I took looking back at the base of the skyway.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/Cherohala1.JPG
Here's some more pics I took from the same lookout;

http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/Cherohala2.JPG
It was still a little early and the morning haze hadn't completely burnt off yet, as the day went on the views only got better
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The Cherohala was a really nice ride, in the evening when I was on my way back to the campground it was even better, because there was virtually no other vehicles on this entire road. I think I rode it nearly half the time on the way back. If you go to this area, a summer week day around 6 or 7 in the evening seems to be the prime to ride.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/DealsGap1.JPG
Ahhh finally "The Dragon"; I don't know what it is but this road seems to have so much hype about it and I'm always reading about people "going down" or "it's not worth it" blah blah blah. Well I had to do it, and I'm GLAD I did. This road kicks some serious ass, especially when it's not crowded.
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This is me getting my photo taken by Killboy.com on the return trip

Me "Saluting you"
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I was hoping to get a nice pic of me really working the bike, but it was around these 2 corners that I caught up to a Dodge Sprinter and had to slow way down, so I thought I'd take advantage of a good photo op for giving the ole Adv salute.
Here's a little better pic of me on my first pass
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I didn't get to pick off any sportbikes, but the Scooters and GoldWingers were very courteous not to hold up any faster riders. There was a couple other supermotos riding the dragon that day, at the end of the day on my way back home I met a couple of locals one on a Duke and another on a new YZ450, their bikes were really trick. I was a little shocked to see that some of the bikes I saw at the base of the Dragon on my way through around noon were still there at 7pm. I couldn't imagine comming to this area only to ride one little 11mile stretch of road over and over again.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/DealsGap3.JPG
Not only is it an awesome road to ride, there's also some spectacular views
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I met a nice local fella here who also reccomended the Foothills parkway and said the Blue Ridge Parkway wasn't too far of a ride either.
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My next stop was Smokie Mountain National Park. I was hoping to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but instead I got on one of the access roads inside the park and found what I thought at the time was a really sweet single lane road. It was called "the scenic loop" it's something like 13 miles of 1 way traffic, but after about 5 minutes of ripping through some nice tight single lane curves I got stuck behind a train of hundreds of MiniVans and SUVs moving at a snails pace . So I took one of the first side roads I came to, the pic above and below are from a dirt road called "high mountain road", there's a sign at the base saying it's about 7miles long and takes an hour to complete . It definetly didn't take an hour but it was a lot of winding roads up to a pretty high elevation and then back down the other side of the mountain.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/HighMTroad.JPG


After riding this road my trip back up through the dragon felt like a piece of cake. I know this isn't the "Dirt Dragon" a lot of people talk about, but it's definetly a good winding dirt road that goes up and down some pretty high elevation.

After I got done with "High Mountain Road" I decided I should start heading back to Tellico Plains and the Campground if I wanted to get back before dark. So I hit the Foothills Parkway and went back to US129 and the Cherohala Skyway to my Campground. The return trip I think took about 1/4 of the time as the trip out. The Dark Red Color on the map is the route I took out and the lighter color is my return trip.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/MapRouteTNNC.JPG
This was only my 2nd day of a 2 week vacation, and my Goal was to have fun and not do anything stupid like crashing; since you're reading this here and not Face Plant, I'd say Mission Accomplished

[DukeRyder]

So Day 3 I woke up EARLY (for real this time), to pack up my tent, bike and gear to hit the road to my Mom's place in Northampton, Ma. I was on the road by 9am and was in Massachusetts about Midnight the same day. Not too shabby for trailering motorcycle behind a 1982 Merc 280E.



Down here in South LA, I'm don't know many of the good backroads, but W.Mass is my home and I know just about every backroad there is up there so any chance I got that was taken up by Family GTGs, Drinking parties etc etc



These pics are from a Day of Riding I did around the Hilltowns of W.Mass

Here's the first backroad I hit that day. This is WingHill Rd in Goshen, MA. There's a number of dirt roads that connect Williamsburg, Ashfield and Goshen in this area that aren't very well traveled.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/WingHillrd.JPG
Most of the gravel roads in this area were a blast to ride though, most were well graded and because of all the rain they've had recently up here very minimal dust, the roads are mostly clay packed with very little loose gravel and like zero sand so you can really haul ass. This particular section of road wasn't too terrible, there was actually a much worse road with no signage I had taken earlier in the week in Westhampton above the church, it turned from road into more or less a dry creek bed with nothing but big loose rocks and some deep mud, not a good place for a supermotard.
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That same little network of seldom traveled dirt roads will take you right up to the base of the Goshen Fire tower in the D.A.R state forest. The Back entraces are closed in the SUmmer but a bike can make it around just fine.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/Firetowerview1.JPG
These views are from the top of the fire tower, I believe in this photo you're looking towards Sunderland and the Umass Campus.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/Firetowerview3.JPG
That's looking towards the Berkshire Mountains and on into NY
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That's looking into the Pioneer Valley, Holyoke Mountain Range and on into CT
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That's looking NorthEast towards NH and VT, the large mountain way in the back is Mount Manadnock NH. If you come to this place there's no placard or map telling you what you're looking at so you really gotta know the area to know what you're looking at.
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After winding down some more fun backroads and dirt roads I came into Plainfield and Cummington MA. I don't know where exactly I'm standing in this photo but I'm taking a picture of the Swift River Inn which is in Cummington MA right near the town line. This isn't the best camera or photo but this is really the only spot you can get a good view of the entire resort. I worked there as a Dishwasher and prepcook back in Freshman/Sophmore year of highschool but the owner sold it and it's now a school for troubled teens.
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Not far from there is the William Cullen Bryant Homestead
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If you ever get a chance to come visit here when they're open and showing the place it's really neat to learn about all the history of this home. The last time I was inside was probably 15yrs ago, but I remember one of the old lady tour guides showing us a tea cup the General George Washington had dranken from.
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These Hippie cows were at a farm close by
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On my way through Chesterfield I rode by this house. The owner was in the basement when he somehow accidently ignited an apparent huge propane leak , he survived but severely injured and he may not make it, he had many 3rd degree burns
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These shots are from the Chesterfield Gorge, glacial rock formations. There's some really good trout fishing in that river (Westfield).
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This is the Barus Farm in Goshen Ma, there's a lot of Geological treasures here, this was once a Volcano millions of years ago. Rock enthusiasts used to come here to find rare stones when I was a kid.
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these are the Lithia Llamas located across the street from the Barus farm
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The Good Time Stove Co, on RTE 112 in Goshen has this famous Tin Man out front.

That was it for taking pics on the bike that day, but I still had a Vermont trip planned for the next day.

[JayD]

Popcorn2 Popcorn2 Popcorn2

[scootertrash]

Kick ass! We stayed at the Cherohala Motorcycle Resort in May. Cool little place. Nice report!

[Doug]

Good job Duke!

[Flying Low]

great report. the CMR is where we stayed for tour de tellico a couple of months back. you are right, its a very nice place expecially considering the price and location. from your map it looks like we may have ridden many of the same roads/area.

[DukeRyder]

http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/MapRoutemavt.JPG
So the day after I rode around the hilltowns taken pics of roadside scenery and what not, my Dad made plans for us to take a little tour up in to Vermont. The map above shows the overall route that we took. I didn't take many photos along the way (we had a long ride and not much time to stop for photos), but I'll do my best job to describe the route we took and show some "borrowed" photos of things we saw along the way.

My Dad lead the way on his KTM Duke II and I followed along on my XR, the first stop was at the nearest gas station so he could fill up the Duke, its fuel tank is less than 2 gallons, so the range is a bit limited. After we fueled up we headed up RTE 9 in Leeds to Williamsburg Ma where we hit Ashfield Rd, this is a nice freshly paved road that has little traffic and very few driveways off of it so you can haul ass down this road. We did have a State Trooper pass us in the on comming lane when we were going about 70mph, but he didn't give a 2nd look (if we'd have been on Ninjas we'd probably been screwed).
http://www.thetrustees.org/images/full/4746.jpg
(view from the top of Ashfield Ledges off of Ashfield Rd, borrowed from Preservation society)
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/112116JPG.jpeg
We took Ashfield Rd to RTE 116 and rode through the center of Ashfield where we hooked up with RTE 112. Ashfield has a nice Restaurant and Bar on the Lake there just a block off of Main St Rte 116. I visited that place more than a couple of times with friends while I was back in town. The food is good, the booze cheap and the crowd is always good.

After we got on 112 we rode until we got to Rte 2 in Buckland, which we followed into Charlemont (This is also know as the Mohawk Trail). This road has lots of great scenery and "touristy" things to do from where it starts in Williamstown MA until you reach Greenfield MA.
http://massroads.com/?roadwayname=Route+2+%2F+Mohawk+Trail+Highway
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/images/ma/MASHEindian_martin.jpg
When we got the center of Charlemont we hit 8A north; this road has quite a few nice corners and on the day we rode was pretty light on traffic. This was definetly the best road for a bike on our route through Mass.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/8Acharlemont.jpg
Shortly after you ride out of Charlemont Center on 8A you ride right past this covered bridge. It's no longer safe to cross the road is rerouted to a military bridge erected next to it. This pic was taken by the bicyclist.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/Rte8A.jpg
We rode RTE 8A until we got to Jacksonville VT. It was time to stop to Gas the Duke again already. At the gas station we stopped at a local fella comes up to me asking questions about my bike and telling stories about his favorite little XR he had when he was a kid. My Dad wanted to go see some resevoir nearby and asked the guy if he knew how to get there. He said "yeah just go up RTE 100 a little ways and you'll see a sign that either says resevoir rd, or Stratton Mtn Rd", so my Dad decided alright let's do it. We rode for a long time on RTE 100 we got so far north we even passed a few Moose Xing signs.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/moosecrossing.jpg
Eventually we got to what I recall being Stratton Mtn road (I was concentration more on riding, the scenery and following my Dad than I was reading Road signs). The road was paved for a ways and looked like it was going out to some sort of public recreation area, but then turned to a Dirt Road for a L O N G time, it wound around a creek between some hills for quite a few miles (maybe 15 or more) with no homes around. We finally started seeing a few scattered homes and eventually the road led back to another paved one. Which lead us out to RTE 7.

We decided to follow Rte 7 south into Bennington VT. RTE 7 is almost like an Interstate Hwy and we wanted to get off the Highway and back on the smaller paved roads where the supermotos were much more fun. So we got on RTE 9 W in Bennington which would've been a really fun road except we got stuck behind some asshole pulling a boat trailer for miles of no passing zones and on comming traffic. Once we were able to get around him the fun parts of that road had already gone by. We really needed to get back home to start the family BBQ that was planned so we headed down RTE 8 into North Adams where we had to stop once again for fuel (this time I decided to fill up too), then we rode into Adams Ma where we hooked up with RTE 116 again (a different portion this time) and followed that back to 112 in Ashfield just a mile or so south of the intersection we were at earlier.

Once we joined RTE 9 again in Goshen we hit some back roads home through Goshen, Chesterfield and the Westhampton just in time to fire up the Grill to cook fresh scallops, fresh atlantic salmon and some nice sirloins.

Here's some post Ride and BBQ pictures my Sister took.
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Me and my bike
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/dukefinger.JPG
Me and the Duke (Before I owned my Own bike this was the only real street bike I ever put any miles on, so that's how I came up with my SN)
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/DSC00965.JPG
My sister and I
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Sister and Step Sister
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That was the Last of the Riding for my trip, but there was still much fun to be had. That evening my sisters and a bunch of my friend went to "The Deck" in Northampton for cocktails for a while and the next day was Goshen's 225th birthday celebration. I spent the day with my buddies preparing for that evenings festivities, there was the once every 25yrs Fireworks display down at the town far and then we had our own little party afterwards
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/55.jpg
Sitting around the fire enjoying some Sam Summer (looks like a pretty motley crew but with the exception of the dude in the sleeveless shirt all these dudes have pretty respectable jobs now; Engineer, Engineer, A/F LT med student, Engineer(me))
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The set up (look at the evil grin on the fuckers face behind me)
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Well these were the guys I partied with when I was in Highschool so might as well act like a highschool fool again
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Parties over time to go home
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Even though I'd been through nearly every state on the East Coast in the past 2 weeks (FL,LA,MS,AL,GA,TN,NC,VA,WV,MD,PA,NY,CT,MA&VT), Only MA, VT, NC and TN were worht taking photos, the rest was all in a cage and on the superslab so there wasn't much intersting things to see or take pictures of. But one place I did want to stop on the way home was here in Alabama at the Mercedes plant where they make the ML SUV. There's a good Museum here but it was closed for renovations on the day I decide to stop in.
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/backhome.JPG
http://www.dualsportridersoflouisiana.com/photopost/data/500/medium/mileage.JPG
Only a few short hours after stopping in Alabama I was back home in Louisiana again, total distance traveled (not counting bike miles) was 3170 miles (according to the GPS comming and going) with an average speed of almost 60mph! I tried getting the GPS mounted on my bike but it vibrates too bad to run off the batteries and I don't have a 12v outlet installed yet.

[JayD]

Great report Duke
Sounds like it 'twas good time

[weave]

That was a nice escape. I do not want any bike featured in this report.I do not want anybike featured in this report,I do not want any bike featured in this report....... sorry just trying to convince myself.

[Flying Low]

nice report, man. thanks for sharing. it sounds like you had a great time and memories of this trip will last you a long while.

[Rocky]

Nice report and commentary. Got any more pics of your sister?

[DukeRyder]

Nice report and commentary. Got any more pics of your sister?
Thanks Rocky; nah just a few more from KSC
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/4626/dscn1770ws3.jpg
man those guys are short shits
http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/7363/dscn1834lt8.jpg
By the wing of Discovery on the pad
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/152/dscn1865kp3.jpg
SRB in Back ground
http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/4633/dscn1882bf6.jpg
Launch Pad with Discovery Ready to go
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9366/dscn1883js8.jpg

[Ritten]

Now there's a dream of mine. To see that big chunk of metal get thrown into orbit.

[jason70360]

Do those pictures look familiar Ted? I remember alot of those views. That area (northern GA) is still my favorite so far.