Trip Day 1

I type this as I am resting on my comfortable bed at the Hampton Inn just north of Beckley, West Virginia. ~730 miles on the road today and I am kinda beat.

I got on the road at 5 a.m. today and made good time in the morning, making it past Columbia, SC where I stopped for a late breakfast at Waffle House...mmmmm mmmm good!

North Carolina and Virgina passed by rather quickly in the afternoon but just as I entered Virginia I caught my first glimpse of the Appalachians. The ride through the Appalachians has been fun so far, a nice change of pace from the flatness of Florida.

I took Interstate 77 most of the way as I needed to cover miles today but since I was making such good time I peeled off onto state hwy 19 for a while and man that was a BLAST! Curve after curve!

Tomorrow I have about 250 more miles to cover to get to Ohio where I will meet up with my friend Paul and then we will head to Pittsburgh to hook up with my friend Lew.

Here are a few pics from today....

On the road again.....

Friday a.m. (9/4) in the wee hours I will be back on the Guzzi Breva 1100 for my first kinda long ride in quite some time. I guess my last sorta long ride was in October of 2008 when i rode to Birmingham, AL. That was about 550 miles to B-ham.

Tomorrow's trip takes me on a journey to southeastern Ohio and then to Pittsburgh, PA. I will be meeting up with my pals Paul from Ohio and Lewis from Pittsburgh. My goal for tomorrow is ~700 miles to Beckley, WV, some of which will take me through the Appalachian Mountain chain.

Saturday a.m. I will ride ~250-275 miles in the a.m. to meet my friend Paul in SE Ohio in the late morning. From there we will both head over (me by bike, he by cage) to Pittsburgh to meet Lew.

Lew promises to show us the finer parts of Pittsburgh and then take us to lil Italy in Pittsburgh for an nice Italian meal Saturday eve.


Pittsburgh's Lil Italy

Sunday a.m. I am back on the road toward home. I will arrive home Monday late in the day, the good Lord and the Guzzi willing.

I am hoping to blog along the way so keep an eye on this space in the evenings for possible new posts.

Football day at work today!

Today we are having a fun football day at work, including a big cookout outside and some football related games and such. I wore my Bo Ruud Cornhusker Jersey and my boss Mary wore the dreaded Colorado Buffaloes jersey!

Drive to the coast

This morning I took the Spider out for a quick drive to the beach at Port Orange, FL and then completed my every couple of months pilgrimage to Boston Market in Port Orange for lunch...yummy!

Spanish river

Tonight I am going HERE and I am REALLY looking forward to it!!

UPDATE!

I had a very enjoyable time, delightful company and food as well. The restaurant is located in the corner bay of an L-shaped strip mall in New Smyrna Beach, about 3-4 blocks from the ocean.

The meal started with a ceviche made with swordfish and some tostones, which the cooking expert I was with told me were twice cooked green (unripe) plantains. Score one for the cooking expert! The ceviche and tostones were both delicious. Accompanying that was a bottle of sangria, which was served over ice and some little bits of chopped green apple and pineapple. That is the first time I had sangria and I LIKE it!

For dinner one entree was a delicious pork chop served over garlic mashed potatoes and spicy collared greens...all were terrific with wonderful flavors!

The other entree (mine) was a yuca (aka cassava) crusted swordfish on a base of black beans. It was great!

The interior decor was very nice and the service was outstanding. A little visit to the beach to see, smell and hear the ocean topped off a fantastic evening :) It's good to eat with a chef...you learn a lot! :)

Oh I almost forgot...I saw a shooting star on the way home!

Alfa 164L Buzz Patrol

Lately I have been hearing an annoying buzzing sound from near my glove box in the 1991 Alfa Romeo 164L whenever I turn the headlights on.

Well here is what I found. The controller unit making the buzzing/vibrating noise is shown below. This is located under the glove box on the passenger side of the car. It was attached to a bracket held in place by two philips head screws.

I removed it and it appears to me something was/is causing the circuit board to vibrate inside the case and since it fits somewhat loosely in the tracks the noise was coming from the circuit board vibrating against the plastic case, at least as far as I can tell.

So I fashioned a couple little spacers from bubble wrap wrapped in electrical tape and fit those between the circuit board and the top of the case to snug the board in the case.

I reassembled the controller and refit into the car. Tested the lights again and no more vibrating sound. I will test it more thoroughly but hopefully this fixes it.

What puzzles me still is what is it on the circuit board causing it to vibrate so much. Maybe some component on the board about to go kaput?

Here is a link to pics:

PICS ARE HERE...CLICK ME!

The route to Ohio

The latter part of next week I will be climbing aboard my 2006 Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 and heading north to Ohio and Pennsylvania. Whilst there I will visit my old college pal Paul from North Canton, OH and Lew from Pixburg.

Should be a whale of a trip and a barrel of fun! Here's my route up there and a pic of my trusty steed! It's ~1,000 miles to get there and I plan to cover ~700 miles the first day and then 300 miles day 2 so I arrive late in the a.m. I am looking forward to a tour of all the sites and sounds of glorious Pittsburg!

Click the pics to enlarge!