1st Annual “East Coast Gather” May 15-17

Picture Album: Linky!! There are 235 Pictures in this album, so pack a lunch and enjoy.

So. Last year, we went to the Deal’s Gap Rally. ( Here, here, here, here, and here.) and, it was a decent time… but, as the “new people” there, we were kind of on our own. There were no group rides that we knew about, so we ended up riding by ourselves. (Well, there were thousands of other bikes around, mainly Harleys,  but we weren’t riding with them.) So, I decided to host my own Rally. Hence, the birth of the East Coast Gather. My main goal for the Gather was organization. I wanted to keep everyone riding together as a group, and for the most part, we did very well with that. We had a GREAT group for the first year.

Most of us are in the above shot, a few are just outside the frame, still putting their gear on ad getting ready for the ride.

This was Friday’s Route… for the most part. We kind of reversed it though. We went from “C” to “F” on the way out… and got caught in the rain for a pretty good part of it. But, once we got to 181, the rain tapered off, and we had a pretty dang awesome ride down to Morganton. We got down to Morganton, and the guys were hungry, so we stopped at SubWay for them to get something to eat. As they were in SubWay (which apparently was staffed by a group of cheerleaders) it started to rain just a bit… but we weren’t too worried about it. We got back on the road, and started back towards the Rider’s Roost. As soon as we got back to the fun curves on 181, the rain started again. After a few turns, things tapered off, so I picked up the speed. Well, 2 turns later, it was wet again. Apparently, there was also a spot of paint or oil or something in the middle of my lane. So, I’m coming around the corner, already going too fast, and I hit this mystery substance. The front end completely washes out. It’s gone. The bars smack back and forth, lock to lock, about 3-4 times. It then straightens out, but it’s still sliding. So, for some reason, the only thing I could thing of was to get the rear of the bike to meet the front. So, as the front was sliding, I stomped the rear brake and slid the rear of the bike back into line with the front. after this, the tires gripped back up, and I kept going at a slightly slower pace.

Here we are back at the Roost. You can see the clothes and gear hanging from the rafters trying to dry out. The Roost was actually a great place to stay. At the end of a day of riding, the beds were comfy. The blankets were warm. The place was dry. Since we got caught in the rain on Friday, we barely made it back in time to get to the store before they closed at 8pm. So, we ran into the store, grabbed some bread, peanut butter and jelly, and beer and headed back to the cabins with bags and 12 packs balanced on our seats, gas tanks, and handlebars. Good thing the store is about 1/8th mile down the road, and a straight shot from the Roost.

After we were well rested and full from our heavy PB&J sandwiches, the above picture was Saturday’s Route. Kind-of. We chopped off the western part of the ride, and ran it backwards. With the weather being a bit “iffy” and police presence showing up later in the day, we wanted to get up to Shady Valley as early as we could. We got on the road about 6:30 that morning, and didn’t stop until… well, Boone. We were hungry, so we got breakfast at McDonalds. You wouldn’t believe the looks people give you at 7AM in a small country town when you’re in full leathers.

After breakfast, we were off. We headed directly up 421 to Mountain City for gas, then on to Shady Valley. After a few times back and forth over the mountain, we stopped at the store to meet up with “TheRepairMan” and “zackandjake” who were waiting for us.

It was a little cloudy up there, but no rain. Things were looking good as far as the weather was concerned, so we decided to have a bit of fun and run back and forth over the mountain a few more times. After about 11AM, we were heading back over the South Side, and Tennessee Highway Patrol showed up. Luckily, we met the THP as we were heading into a 15mph switchback, so we were all travelling well within the speed limit. After that little run-in, it was time to head back to the store to have lunch.

We came outside, rocked “The Pose” for a quick picture, and got geared back up and back on the road. From here, we headed down 130 to Damascus, where they were celebrating Trail Days. The town was packed. So, after another fill-up right quick, we continued down 58 towards Independence, VA. It was about 2PM, and at this point, we’d been in 3 states. 58 was not too much fun. There was a lot of gravel and other things washed out into the road… but that makes sense, because it rained the day before, and for 2 weeks straight before that. So, 58 wasn’t an amazing amount of fun, but oh well. In Independence, we picked up 221, and headed down the home stretch back through VA towards Boone. Of course, as soon as we got within 20 miles of Boone, it started raining. No big deal. A little drizzle never hurt anyone. But then, the closer we got to Boone, the harder it started coming down. Pretty soon, it was raining so hard that the seal in my helmet couldn’t hold it back any longer. The rain was coming in all around my shield, and once the water came in, the shield became as foggy as a bathroom mirror after a nice hot shower. So, I stared at the tail lights of the truck in front of me, and followed it the mile or so back toward civilization. We pulled over at a gas station for a bit, but the rain was showing no signs of stopping. So, once again, with our soggy leathers on, we headed down the road.

We got back to the Roost, and it was still raining a bit… Not too bad, but still a bit dreary. Then, all of the sudden, we got a break in the weather, and decided that we weren’t going to eat PB&J Sandwiches again. We sent Jon down to the store to get charcoal, some hotdogs, cheese, chips, and bread. He got back, and we tried to start the fire.

Things didn’t exactly work out too well. The boxes are trying to cover the charcoal long enough to get them to light. But, that didn’t work. We tried paper. We tried gas. We tried an entire bottle of lighter fluid. Nothing worked. So, we were about prepared to eat either cold hotdogs or PB&J again. But then, we had an idea.

Turns out, you wrap 6 hotdogs in Aluminum Foil and put them on the bike’s header for 15 minutes at 1800RPM, it works like a champ. They even had grill marks on them when they were done. Nice and hot, inside and out.

So, in a nutshell, that was the 1st Annual East Coast Gather. We had a dang good time. Even with all of the rain. Sunday morning, people hopped on their bikes, and headed out. Everyone with a smile on their faces, even though they were heading out in the rain.

Virginia’s Philly Trip

Picture Album from Philly Trip: Linky!

On Thursday I got to visit my sister, Martha, who lives in Manayunk, outside of Philadelphia. She moved there in October, but this was the first time I got to visit.

Martha picked me up at the airport around 9pm, having braved the big city traffic and roadwork. Then, we went back to her awesome apartment and watched The Office, which she was kind enough to DVR for me. Did I mention that M has a sweet cable set-up as well?

Then, we got up on Friday and went into the city. Martha was kind enough to take the day off from her job so we had lots of time to explore. First, we went to see Philadelphia’s Magic Garden, which was basically a building and surrounding lot COVERED with mosaics. You can read more about it at   http://www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org/

 

The mosaics were made from art collected from Peru and Bolivia as well as tiles, bike wheels, beer bottles, and mirrors.

I really liked the outside ones. The artist, Isaiah Zagar, landscaped the outside to multiple levels. He also painted all kinds of pictures and sayings all over the tiles like, “Art is the Center of the Real World.” It was very hippie cool.

Some went up three floors.

Then, we walked around South Street, where there tons of interesting people and cool things to see like a building with ants crawling on it and a tour boat.

And a dude making pretzels

 

Then we went to downtown Manayunk and bought some nice crepes and I helped Martha pick out barstools that she’s going to have delivered tomorrow. But, sadly, I don’t have pictures of that part.

Then we met the lovely Rachel for dinner at the Manayunk Brewery. And I also don’t have pictures of that, but we had a very nice time in the scenic spot overlooking the river.

Then on Saturday we slept in a bit before running errands and taking the train to the Redding Station Market – basically an excursion based entirely on food. My favorite!

This market has everything from fresh veggies, to meat, to prepared foods, Indian, Thai, bakeries, of course Philly staples like Italian, cheese steak, crab fries…

Also, the best cupcakes IN THE WORLD. Eat at Flying Monkey Bakery… so delicious!

Did I mention the jam inside the cupcake?!?

 

On Saturday night, it just so happened that the artsy movie theater M goes to in Bryn Maur was showing a documentary about Isaiah Zagar (the mural guy!) so that was super cool. Martha and are now hippie mosaic experts.

We got even more culture on Sunday morning at the Philadelphia museum of art.

  Also, I visited the Rocky statue.

And, just to make Aaron extra jealous, we then went to the Italian festival and ate more great food!

So, all in all, GREAT trip to Philadelphia. We are definitely going to have to visit again soon.

Intermediate Post…. Again.

Well, things have been quiet lately…. since the trip to Jonesboro…. it’s been raining… and raining… and raining… and… you get the point.

But, last weekend, I had my FZ1 “Gather” down here in NC, while Virginia was up visiting her sister Martha in Philadelphia.

So, I’ll be trying to get Virginia to do an update soon, and then I will follow with a report of how the Rally went down here. I am still waiting to collect pictures from a couple of folks, and then I’ll make the update. As it sits right now, I’ve got over 150 pictures from the Gather, but there should be quite a few more coming.

Until then, take it easy.

Trip to Jonesboro

Photo Album : Linky!!

So… we hopped in the car and decided to go for a drive at about noon today. We have been to Mountain City, Damascus, Bristol, and Shady Valley to the north… To the south, we’ve been to Asheville, Charlotte, Hickory, and Lenoir… So, we decided to head North-West towards Elizabethton, TN.

Well, we didn’t end up in Elizabethton. As we got to the fork in the road on 321, we decided we were going to head towards Johnson City, TN instead. So, we did that. We drove through Johnson City, and of course the downside of taking a Sunday trip is that nothing is open on Sunday. We drove through downtown Johnson City, and it was a ghost-town. We were going to swing around the block to park and walk around anyhow, but the turn we took to go back and park faced us to Jonesboro, TN “The Oldest City in TN”. So, of course we had to go there. The above 2 pictures are from Jonesboro the top is Virginia in the stocks…the lower is a shot of downtown Jonesboro.

Walking around Jonesboro was interesting… Lots of older buildings, as you’ll see below, but in the middle of this old town, was the “International Storytelling Center”. That seems pretty cool. To see what that’s all about, click here.

There is a lot of history in Jonesboro… Which means that there are little signs like this all around, and…

… some of the buildings aren’t in the best shape… But, they do have a lot of character. You can walk around and wonder what was happening in this area 50, 75, 100… even 1 thousand years ago… well maybe not 1000 years ago. There probably wasn’t too much going on back then…

We made this trip just as leaves were starting to come back out, so things were looking rather nice.

We’ll leave off this update with this picture. This is one of my favorites. The plaque is the Ten Commandments, and it’s located to the right side of the main entrance of the Jonesboro Court House. I didn’t think that kind of stuff was legal any more… but apparently, it is.

Long Overdue Posts

Yeah yeah yeah. I’ve done a rather poor job of keeping the blog updated for the past…few months or so. So, below will be a big update… we’ve done some fun stuff, but mostly, it’s just been winter in Boone. So, it’s been cold, it’s been windy, it’s been snowing. That’s just how it is here. Let me tell you how happy Virginia has been… but, the warm weather is starting to slowly poke its head out (as long as you disregard the snow that’s supposed to happen next Monday and Tuesday)

So, other than that, I’ve been busy with school, Virginia has been very busy with school and work. Virginia and I have been working on wedding plans also! Things are starting to shape up there, but I’ll let Virginia get on here to decide what she wants to tell people, and what will stay a secret until the big day.

and… we got a new TV!

It’s a big glorious monster. Virginia didn’t really like it at first, but when she watched “The Office” in HD and Jim was life sized… I think she warmed up to it.

Also, I don’t have pictures, but we went down to Charlotte for a Wedding Registry Party at Crate and Barrel… That was a rather interesting experience. We walked in the door, and they had the place closed down, except for the special couples (like us!) that registered in advance. They gave us a bar code scanner, and set us loose in the store. So, if you happen to wander over to the Crate and Barrel website, you can see the result of what happens when you let us loose with a barcode scanner. In our defense, they influenced our decisions by giving us … I can’t think if the name… those drinks with champagne and OJ… Mimosas. That’s it. They gave us Mimosas and food and let us go wild around the store. After the festivities there, we decided to explore Charlotte a bit, we went to two humongous malls, a horrible little restaurant downtown, and I got a new pair of shoes. So, all in all, a very successful trip.

Things back in Virginia have been a bit rough. My Great-Grandmother died. My Grandpop Trovato fell down the stairs, and subsequently was in the hospital for a month. Dad got a new job. Rachel is leaving Virginia Beach, heading down to my neck of the woods. Soon, she’ll be living in Charlotte. Now… On to the updates!

The American Dream AKA House Searching.

This post will be entirely text. I was thinking about adding pictures of the houses we were looking at, but they really don’t matter.

So. Anyone that looks forward to buying a house someday, has no idea what the process is like. Our lease ends in July, so, we decided that we wanted to move out of our current apartment, into something new. (We have been in this one for 2 years, and I’m sick of working with a 5x10 kitchen with no storage space) So, we thought that the smart thing to do would be to buy a house. We started looking around the Boone area, and these dang people are INSANE. They want $125,000 for a trailer on a .25 acre lot. I kid you not, there is a listing for a house here, about 5 miles from where we live now. It’s not a trailer, it’s a 850 square foot house. 1 Bedroom, 1 bath(kind of). The toilet doesn’t work. The guy uses a hole in the back yard as his toilet. Listing price? $96,000. That house single handedly explains the Boone housing market. So, we started looking in other places. We looked at a cute cabin about 12 miles down the road, the asking price was $125,000 so that wasn’t too bad. Then, we looked inside. The whole place is covered with smoke damage. There is a gas log fireplace, and the cabin was a rental unit for vacationers. It looks like someone put a real log into the gas log fireplace. So, in order to fix the smoke damage, all of the drywall would have to come out, the insulation would have to come out, and all new insulation and drywall would be needed. Our friend Josh put in an offer on that house of $80,000. They guy’s response was “If he expects me to make a counter offer, he’s got to do better than that.” .. So, the seller is a moron. Come to find out, in 2007, the seller paid $70k for the cabin. So, that place is out of the question. Nothing else in Boone really caught our eye, so we started looking outside of Boone again. We ended up looking in Lenoir, which is about 30 miles down the road. We found a couple of really nice houses, and Josh and I went to look at a bunch. Josh and I looked at about 12 houses in one day. After looking, we narrowed the choices down to about 5. Others were weeded out because of location, barking dogs, one had a neighbor with a 30 foot flagpole flying a Confederate flag. So, after narrowing the list down, Virginia and I went to look at the remaining ones. Three of the houses turned out to be really nice. One wasn’t as great as I expected, and one that I expected to be really nice had a leaky foundation and a basement full of mold.

After Virginia and I looked at these houses, we had a nice talk on the way home. It’d be about a 45 minute commute each way, twice a day. We’d have to wake up earlier, spend more on gas, and all of that good stuff. Plus, we don’t know what’s going to happen with the market; everyone says that this is the perfect time to buy, but I see a lot of houses getting listed, and not many selling. Also, I graduate in 2 years. What if the housing market around here is horrible in 2 years? Then, we’ll have to sell the house and move.

So. We’re going to rent for the next two years. We’ll let everyone know when we get a new address.

Valentine’s at The Biltmore!

Full Photo Album: Here

So, for Valentine’s Day, my sweetheart Virginia really did great! We took off and went down to Asheville. Virginia is actually so good, that she booked us a hotel room with Tempur-Pedic beds. I have laid on one in Brookstone and places like that, but never really got to spend any quality time with one. This gave the awesome opportunity.

The main attraction of course, was the trip to the Biltmore. That place is AWESOME.

Here we are standing in front of the Biltmore. For those who haven’t been there, we’re probably 500 feet away from the front sidewalk. Of course, they didn’t allow any photography inside, but if you ever get the chance to go, you should do so. It was a bit chilly and a bit rainy the day we went, but it was still an awesome trip.

After the house tour, we went down to the winery part. I can’t exactly recommend eating at the little “Bistro” next to the winery. There was a hot dog stand on the way up to the winery, I’d eat there, or bring my own food if we go back. But, once in the winery, we skipped the tour, and went straight to the tasting. We got to taste 5 wines, and had a few that were rather tasty. After the tasting, we went to a demonstration on how to make truffles. AWESOME. The only problem was that we got there a little early, so we sat down and ordered a bottle of wine. I normally don’t drink wine, but this was good stuff… A little too good. I pounded 2 glasses of wine, and then had to hold myself back from drinking the rest of the bottle.

All in all, it was a dang awesome trip. Virginia did a great job planning everything, it was relaxing and amazing to see a house of that scale. … … Even if Virginia did get attacked by a killer fish.

I’d recommend looking through the photo album. There are many more pictures from Asheville there, and they are all actually captioned this time!

All for Now

These are all of the updates for now, but as the weather gets nice again, we’ll be travelling again and taking more pictures. I’ve got a new setup this year for storage on the bike, so we’ll see how that works. I think it’ll be nice though!

Intermediate Post

Well… it’s been a while since we’ve updated, so…. let me get you all up to speed… School has started. I’m in classes non-stop. Virginia is taking a class in Education Law. (BOOOOOOOORING) Other than that, we’ve been doing a bit of wedding planning… some sitting around the apartment…. we got a new TV… we’ll do something soon and get some real content up.

“Holiday” Break Update!

Photo album : Linky!

Well, we had a lovely little trip home for Christmas… We were home from about the 19th-29th of December. Of course, it wouldn’t be Christmas without going over to the Page house to make some trains and ginger bread men. Here, Virginia works on a sled and some reigns. This is probably the only gingerbread item that is “people friendly” from that day. The rest… well… is a little adult-oriented.

It was a good time, and we got to hang out with the Olivers! Will, Ned, Nat and Erin all came over to take part in the festivities.

Meanwhile, things at the Trovato house were also beginning to look a lot like Christmas… Mom was cooking, dad was spoiling my cat… my cat was destroying the house and the tree… and being a bad example to dad’s cat. Mainly though… dad was spoiling my cat. He gave her tuna each Sunday, and of course on Christmas day. Also, at every chance, he shared a bowl of ice cream with her. Notice his Christmas Socks.

After all of the Christmas festivities, we came back down to Boone, because Virginia needed to have her tonsils taken out on the 30th. So, the morning of the 29th, we packed the Taurus with all of our lovely gifts and the cat and headed back south. It was such a lovely day, that we hopped on the Parkway at about Galax and enjoyed the scenery on the way back. It’s a good thing we did, because ever since then, Virginia hasn’t been in the best mood to travel.

She’s not happy overall that I’m taking the picture, but this is after the tonsil removal, and she’s really been doing quite well. She’s been a trooper about the whole deal, and is actually taking herself off of the pain medication. Yeah, she’s all Rambo like that.

Until next time, enjoy the current scene from Boone.

It’s beginning to look a lot like ….

Christmas… it’s rapidly approaching...So, we’re doing our part to go with the season.. Full Picture Album here: Linky!

It’s been rather cold here for a while, so at least this year, the weather feels like Christmas should be coming… Unlike last year when it was still in the 70’s approaching Christmas Day.

So, we went out and got a Christmas tree! Last year’s tree was about 18” tall, and while it was wonderful, this year we decided to step it up a little bit. We went to a “Choose and Cut” Christmas Tree Farm, Circle C Tree Farm (Website Here). So.. on that note… For those who have never been to a Christmas Tree Farm, let me explain how these places, or at least this one, work. You drive up, all excited to get a tree. You hop out of the car, and someone magically appears out of nowhere with a pole with markings on it to designate certain heights. The person who magically appeared quickly explains how the process works. “Please stay to the left side of the road when selecting a tree, when you find one that you like, stand there with your 10ft pole and wave it around until someone shows up to cut the tree down. From this point, they’ll put a tag on your tree, and you can come back down to the barn and buy yourself something hot to drink, or some kettle corn. Pricing is as follows : $8 per foot up to 7ft($56); $9 per foot up to 8ft($72); $10 per foot up to 9ft($90); $11 per foot up to 10ft($110); and $12 per foot up to 11ft.($132)” So… ummm wow. We were looking for a tree about 5ft tall. So… in magical tree land dollars… that’s $40… “Oh, and there is a stack of smaller trees leaned up against the barn for $28 each.” … Awesome.. now we’re cooking.

So, after sorting through the trees by the barn… holding them up and rotating them… looking to see how much we could get them to “floof” out .. and looking for flat spots and bare spots, we finally found an awesome tree. It’s about 5-1/2' Feet tall, and very full. So, we paid for it, the workers bagged it for us, and we crammed it into the back seat to take back home. Not at all bad for $28.

We got the tree home, trimmed off some of the lower branches… with one of our least favorite kitchen knives… and got it set up in the stand. We’d gone to Wal-Mart before we got the tree to get the essentials for the rest of the day. We picked up two 19.7 foot strings of LED Christmas lights thinking that surely, 40ft of lights would be more than enough for a 5-1/2ft tree. Since I had to drag the tree up the stairs, mangle the lower branches and get it into the stand, Virginia took over with the decorating.

Here’s where we ran out of lights and garland… Oops! We still had a bit more to go… and we didn’t have nearly the amount of ornaments as we thought we had… The ornaments that we did have were glass… and since Gracie became rather interested in the tree as soon as we brought it into the house… we decided we needed to go back to Wal-Mart. On that note… next time you go to Wal-Mart… print out the following “Wal-Mart BINGO card” and let us know your results. But back to the point, we picked up some more lights, and then went to Big-Lots to get some cheapo plastic Christmas Balls and some Candy Canes to finish off the tree.