4 Winds Ride Report

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4 Winds Ride Report

Postby RocketMan » Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:37 am

Four Winds Rally report

Ride to Four Winds Rally PA

OR

Rocket and Dawn go riding....

OR

Rocketing into the Dawn....

(well maybe not as that sound like I ran into her...:lol:)


I headed out from work near Dullas around 11 AM Thursday for Berkeley Springs WV to meet Dawn and arrived there around 1:15 and grabbed a couple of hotdogs from a little stand right next to the Hot Springs park. The ride up was nice along Rt. 50 to Sinkersville Pike to 522. For some reason though I couldn’t seem to settle into the ride, something just didn’t feel right about it; it wasn’t the bike or the road or the weather, rather it was something I just couldn’t put my finger on. Perhaps you’ve had that same sort of start to a ride yourself? Once I got into Berkeley Springs and was sitting in the park waiting for Dawn I half considered just bagging the whole thing, but after getting something to eat, I felt a whole lot better, so perhaps it was just hunger and having not slept well the night before. By the time Dawn showed up I was ready to roll, the felling of uncertainty having past, so we headed on up to PA. A little ways out and the sky just opened up on us and we held up under an overpass till the lighting stopped and the rain subsided enough to be able to see. Naturally as soon as we had stopped again to take the rain gear off it started raining again, this time not so hard so we just kept on going. After hitting several of the places Dawn had on her "hit list", including the Johnstown Flood park (located in what appeared to be the not so good section of town where you would not want to be caught in at night!) we crossed the river and headed up a hill overlooking the city. Once up there we started passing some pretty large homes, more like mansions or small estates. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the money was to be made after seeing downtown Johnstown but looking at a map later I saw there was a fancy country club near there so I guess where there is a country club you have money coming into the area from somewhere. After hitting the last stop before Moundsville we decided to head to a motel and do the rest of the stops the next day before heading to the rally.
Time on the road for me was around 9 hours and nearly 300 miles.

Friday we left Greesnburg PA around 8 AM and headed to Mountsville, WV.

Moundsville was a nice little town right on the Ohio River just down from Pittsburgh where we "visited" the old prisin. From there we rode up to a park I wanted to visit in Pittsburgh called Grand View Park that overlooks the city from the south side of the river just above where the two rivers meet to form the Ohio. It sits up on a steep hill (which Dawn and I then road down, and it was quite a desent with some nice switchbacks thrown in). Unable to find the entrance for the one way road into the park I headed up past the do not enter sign and drove the bike right onto the observation platform as the grounds keeper looked on. He just shrugged his shoulder and continued cutting the grass as if he was used to crazy motorcyclists driving into the park the wrong way and riding right on to the observation platform. Dawn had parked just outside the park road but then went and got her machine and drove on up to observation deck as well (I’m such a bad influence! Ha Ha!) Here’s the first pic, my bike parked by the railing with Pittsburgh in the back ground.

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And a small version of the panorama I took with the G9

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You can see the larger one here

panorama and then slide the arrows at the bottom of the image to pan left or right.

I did shoot a few shots at the Mountsville stop of the old prison but haven’t processed those yet so…..on to the rally…

After getting in one more stop for Dawn which took us almost all the way to into Ohio, about 4-5 mile shy of it, we back tracked to New Bethlehem and went to the park that Dawn had programmed into her GPS ( which we later christened “Durfus”, if you have a GPS you can probably imagine why ) only to discover it wasn’t being held there so we headed back to the town proper and then in an ever decreasing radius spiral which took us down several rather steep gravel roads (tons of fun on fully loaded road bikes!) we finally found the rally and set up camp shortly before evening set in. We spent the better part of Friday on the slab and managed to skirt around the various rain showers in the afternoon hours and really only got sprinkled on and never enough to require stopping to don rain gear.
PA has some really strange signage that I noted on the ride Friday, the first one that struck me odd and I can’t figure what it refers too was a large sign painted on the side of an overpass we went under that stated in large block letters (with an arrow pointing to a road leading off to the right) “SCRAP LEVEL PAINT” Huh? What is scrap paint? And how does one know “level” scrap paint from, say Unlevel scrap paint??? (and here I didn’t even know there was a need (or market) for scrap paint of any kind!)

The other two I liked were road signs that stated in one case “NO RETARD BREAKING” Again , WTF??? Retard breaking, isn’t that a bit insulting?? I mean these are government signs, seems a little less than PC to refer to individuals as “retards”. The only thing I can figure is that the town where this sign was must have had a problem with inmates escaping from the local institution and folks in the area had been taking out their frustrations on these poor souls. Still, it did seem they could have phased it better.

Then there was the one obviously directed at motorcyclists which stated quite clearly “Use Less Gear”. As we know PA does not have a helmet law and its now clearly obvious to me why this is so. Its quite appearant that they are hoping that by discouraging the use of helmets and gear, they will reduce the motorcycling population numbers to a minimum and thereby rid themselves of the scourge of having such low-life individuals living in their midst; but still, a government sanctioned program of eradication of a sub-set of an emerging lifestyle seems in rather poor taste (to say the least!), certainly glad I don’t live in PA! But enough of this social commentary, this is after all a motorcycling report not a socio-political rant……

Rounding up the totals for Friday, around 10 hours of riding (with stops) and nearly 300 more miles covered.

(an after thought here

…As we sat around the non-existent firepit looking at the eerie (eerie because any non-exist fire usually is) firelight playing upon the faces at the BMWBMW groups campsite I thought about the last 2 days events and it stuck me that the fact that my traveling companion had chosen to visit two locations that quite obviously had a strong criminal element living amongst the population And the fact that the area of yet another town she had wanted to visit (Johmstwon) was again an obviously high crime rate environment I began to question the wisdom of embarking on any further travels with said individuals. It was therefore with some relief that another member of our group had volunteered to accompany her on the ride she had planned for the coming day. I consider warning the individual in question, but he appeared perfectly capable of handling any situation that might arise so I held my peace.)

Now for some shots at the rally…

They had some field games Saturday, one of which consisted of a two up event where the passenger had to get a pretzel held in the mouth thru the hole of a bagel covered in cream cheese… two contestants got it dead on..

A few hole-shots

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There were number of nice old airheads there, at least 8 that I counted…. (don’t these things EVER break?????) and most were much nicer looking than mine! (as is usually the case...)

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Here’s a shot of an old mill/refinery of some sort, just cause I like old machinery…

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Both mornings started out very cool (in the low 60’s) with a heavy mist.

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Which made having the fire from the night before still glowing in the AM nice to sit near while having my morning coffee..and much nicer than the non-existant one back at BMWBMW headquarters)

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I’ve also noted that at all the events I’ve been at that are held in public campgrounds that have permanent trailers set up used as a permanent home, there seems to be an unwritten rule that the trailers be surrounded with an odd-ball assortment of cheap, rather trashy looking oddments and ornamentations.. this one even had a sign in front with the words ”Trailer Trash” on a wooden board nailed to a tree, Ha Ha!

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Sunday we packed and departed for home around 8 AM. I had preprogrammed my GPS to take us home via non-highway routes as I didn’t trust “dufus” to be capable of such after the rather round-a-bout route it had brought us to the rally site on Friday. Well was I in for a surprise, seems that now my GPS had become infected by Dawns and went we took off it insisted we travel north-west when in fact we should have been traveling south-east! Then a few miles into the ride, the roadways displayed on the map started to vanish and according to the GPS we were now traveling in some gray ether-real plane of non-existence! Humph! I restarted it several times and tried a variety of options but it kept insisting we travel in the exact opposite direction from where we wanted to go. So now I have named my GPS “Dufus II”. After a few false starts I simply used it as a general map and found my own route home. Also within a few miles of starting out my traveling companion began to drop behind ( I suspected she thought that my leading was no better than her attempts when relying on “dufus” to guide us and simply "made up" the story about "lossing" me) so we soon parted company and each traveled their own way home. Interesting enough when we talked later that evening, it turned out both dufus and dufus II had the same general routes in mind even though we had different ultimate destinations, which simply re-enforces my suspicions that Dufus infected my GPS! (Yet another reason to question the wisdom of traveling with her again!) Ha Ha!

So finally some shots from the ride home thru PA…

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I also passed several Nuclear Power plants one within only a mile or so and thought of stopping to take a picture or two till I noticed a slight glowing from parts of my unprotected exposed skin, so beat a hasty exit up and over the next rise.


All told I rode 910 miles in 19 hours and 15 minutes of traveling time, based on that I should have gone another 90 miles and I could have qualified for an iron butt (had it not been for the fact that is was spread out over two and a half days! Then again do the rules specifically state they have to be consecutive hours??? :lol:.)

Tourizmo, my 78 airhead ran wonderfully, (as always, well OK, mostly) and I am pretty confident that the relay shortage that happened recently was not caused by another factor, the relay simply failed by itself. We also hit a top speed of 77 Mph, which was petty good considering she is “compressionally challenged” at this point and was fully loaded with camping gear for the weekends adventure. The only thing I noted was that the left side valves became noticeably noisier, although I had recently set them (and YES, I did the right side too, Mr. smartly pants!) but it was still quieter than a few other airheads that rode by me at the campground. 30 years, 170K plus miles, admittedly badly abused by myself (I ride the p*ss out of it, never wash it, and don’t always do maintenance right on time, etc) yet she just keeps on puttzing down the road,,, don’t these airheads EVER break?? Or, as the man with the watch used to say, as it was being run over by a steam roller, “Takes a Lickin’, And keep on Tickin’ ”

RM

over and out…..
Fromerly MR. MonkeyButt now Mr. Breezy-Butt!
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Postby Hello Kitty » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:26 pm

Nice stuff! Lovely photos, as always.

I have absolutely had that feeling where you just ain't getting into it. Sometimes, for me, just having a break and maybe a snack or something to drink does the trick. Glad you sorted through it!

The Johnstown Flood Park is not in downtown Johnstown. Sounds like you went to the museum. Guess if Dawn wants the points, she's going back! :lol: :lol:

Glad you guys had a good time!!!
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Postby RocketMan » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:42 pm

Hello Kitty wrote:Nice stuff! Lovely photos, as always.

I have absolutely had that feeling where you just ain't getting into it. Sometimes, for me, just having a break and maybe a snack or something to drink does the trick. Glad you sorted through it!

The Johnstown Flood Park is not in downtown Johnstown. Sounds like you went to the museum. Guess if Dawn wants the points, she's going back! :lol: :lol:

Glad you guys had a good time!!!


Ha Ha! You know there was a little cornfusion on that (as well as other points, like where the hell the rally Actually was!), we found the Museum and a tiny little park sort of thing across the street, with the town bumm sleeping on the only bench, then we found a town park a little ways away from there, but since I wasn't doing the contest, I just nodded in aggreement to both places so she took shots at both, hopefully one will be the right.

Define "Park" ? If it needs a "bum on a bench", then she's covered! Ha Ha!

RM
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Postby Hello Kitty » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:32 pm

Geez. I googled "Johnstown Flood Memorial Park" and it's the first thing to pop up. It's outside of town and a nice hour+ visit for anyone who needs to go for the tour. It's off 869 outside of downtown Johnstown about 8 miles as the crow flies.

[-X Dawn! A simple google search, that's all!
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Postby Firebird » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:48 pm

It said nothing about Johnstown Flood Memorial Park. It said Johnstown Flood Park. :P Besides, that's what I get for borrowing someone else's waypoints. :lol: :lol: BTW, I went to the right park on my way home. I also went back to Keymar and promptly forgot my number there. I gotta get another number. :cry:
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Postby Firebird » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:55 pm

Oh, my CS is now a GS. I must have found all the gravel roads to, during and from the rally. :shock: I don't think Rocket or Magic are going to ever ride with me again. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

First the rain, and now the gravel. :lol: :lol:
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Postby Hello Kitty » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:12 pm

Firebird wrote:It said nothing about Johnstown Flood Memorial Park. It said Johnstown Flood Park. :P Besides, that's what I get for borrowing someone else's waypoints. :lol: :lol: BTW, I went to the right park on my way home. I also went back to Keymar and promptly forgot my number there. I gotta get another number. :cry:


Okay. I just googled "Johnstown Flood Park" and got the exact same hit.

Don't ever trust someone else! :lol: :lol: There's lies and deceit all over this game! Maybe not so much in Ed's game, but in general!
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Postby Firebird » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:18 pm

It's all good. I'm having fun and finding new places to visit. :D
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Postby Ben_Ricci » Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:37 am

Nice report and pics.

RM, I must say, you do really have a good eye for photography and capturing the moment!

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:wink:
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Postby RocketMan » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:09 am

Ben_Ricci wrote:Nice report and pics.

RM, I must say, you do really have a good eye for photography and capturing the moment!


:wink:


Tanks! That was a tought one, beleive me! One more minor complaint about the G9 is that it has a kinda slow shutter response time so the first few fired off a bit late til I got the timing down. Didn't even bother with the DSLR this trip. Still, I am happy I got the G9. I was also using the cokin star filter when shooting these, even without any highlights to get the star effect I like the way it gives a little softness to the shots, esp. shooting slightly into the sun.

RM
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Postby Rick F. » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:06 pm

RM & Dawn,

Nice report and pictures (as always!) Sounds like you both had a fun trip. My favorite picture was the early morning mist at the campground.

Rick F.
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Postby Firebird » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:48 pm

Here are a couple pictures I took while riding to get a couple trivia spots from the rally.

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Boy, was I pooped.

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The bridge leading to the Drake Museum

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Riding from NY back into PA. That was one gravel road I didn't ride down. :lol:
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Postby Firebird » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:16 pm

Here are some more.

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Good picture of Rocketman don't you think?

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Steve and George

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Mark K. just getting into camp and setting up.

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It's Magic.
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Postby Blaster229 » Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:25 pm

Firebird wrote:Here are a couple pictures I took while riding to get a couple trivia spots from the rally.

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Well at least you had a way of taming your hair :lol:
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Postby Firebird » Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:31 pm

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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