April 2 - 12, 2015 New Goldwing & BBQ

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April 2-12, 2015, The Start, after the start - The new Goldwing

 1 National Parks, 9 states and 2500+ miles

 
Shortly after the fall cross country trip, I began a mission of finding a way to saturate the west coast with our presence.  At first I thought about, and even mentioned, purchasing a car to leave on the west coast so that we could go to the mainland and visit national parks.  We actually explored multiple options even to the extent of renting a motorhome.
 
In the end, it seemed to make the most sense to buy a new Honda Goldwing motorcycle and keep it in storage near one of the main west coast airports.  So the 2015 spring mission began.  Shannon planned to be in Ohio for Easter, I found a new Goldwing and arranged a purchase for that same week at Southern Honda in Chattanooga, TN www.southernhonda.com and flew in on April 2nd to get it.  While on my way, I realized that the weather was going to be bad, and I did not have a helmet to get out of Tennessee which requires helmet use.  So I contacted Skid http://skid1850.blogspot.com/ and asked if he could locate me some gear to borrow. 
 
He contacted Mike Fowler for me and he was more than happy to help, so much that we went to lunch and he took me to Southern Honda.  Though we briefly met several years ago and neither of remembered right away, after discussing past rallies, we realized when we had met before.  Anyway, I am so thankful for the VROC group and that someone from that group who doesn't even know you (or remember you), will take the time to help out.  Thanks again Mike!  I hope we can get together again sometime soon!
 
After getting to the dealership and getting through all the new vehicle paperwork that officially makes me Honda property for the next 5 years...  It's time to hit the road, and the rain came!  By the way, we're going 550 miles up to NW Ohio today.
This wasn't the actual radar image, but very close.

Here is the one clean picture before the bike rolls out and gets a bath; it does look nice and I'm glad I remember to take the pic!
Things didn't go perfect on the way home however..
I turned the heated grips on about midnight just north of Cincinnati.  It had finally quit raining and the sky cleared and it got COLD.  I set the cruise to make sure I stayed in the safe range, however, I will soon learn that holding the grip is required to keep your soaked hands warm. AND the cruise manually twists the throttle grip to maintain the set speed on th Goldwing.  End result, I was holding the throttle when the cruise was trying to release it.  This resulted in a speeding ticket!  I was so mad, I can't believe this cop gave me a ticket.  So 400 miles in around midnight, after a really long, wet, cold trip, I get that.  The last 100 miles sucked pretty bad.  It got really foggy in addition to the nasty temps the closer I got to my destination. Found out that the heated seats work too, so that was good.  Finally walked in about 1:30am and then scared the death right into my mother in law that was sleeping on the recliner and had no idea I was coming... lol Love ya Kathy!  You are an awesome MIL.

Real quickly on the rest of that story, Shannon showed up from Hawaii for Easter without her mom's knowledge to surprise her.  So my unannounced arrival was also part of the plan.  Kinda glad Kathy doesn't sleep with a gun... lol
 
 
I needed to get some storage for the wing as it's life was going to consist of mainly being in storage and all the gear would need to travel to get to it. I called Chuckster http://www.chucksterscustoms.com/ to track one down for me and I also wanted to mount a lighted spoiler.  But when the rack didn't fit, my buddy Brad Yoder hooked me up with his hitch rack, but I ended up deciding to go without it. 
 






When the time finally came that we could head west, we started out by riding at night to dodge the rain, so we didn't get many good pictures.  We stopped off in Indy at the Honda dealer to get a Bluetooth system and new rack.   Spent 8 hours at Honda and ended up with a lemon system at no fault of the part department.  In fact, they told us if we continued to experience problems to contact them.  They fully refunded the system when we sent it back 2 weeks later.  www.dreyerhonda.com  Good for them!  That is good service even though it only ended up being a trunk rack sale in the end.
The type of rack we had installed

 After we finally left the dealer, we headed to see family in Bicknell, IN at my aunt's restaurant: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cabellos-Basil-Garden/115996801756310  We stayed over night so we could get my cousin Adam and his wife Brandy setup with QuickBooks.  Shannon even helped to train Brandy for a couple hours after midnight! 



 Needless to say, we didn't jump up in the morning and hit the road, but once we did finally leave, here are a few pictures we took from St Louis, MO to Marlow, OK.























This is the first National Park on this trip.  Sadly, there is very little to offer us at this park. The visitor center has a nice museum with several critters of the region and a life sized stuffed bison. Upon reading up, it has some great swimming holes, but that 's not in our plans.  I also noticed that many of the water levels were very low.  This is one of the parks you may want to check on conditions before going as the water is the attraction.  Maybe another time we'll go by again.  If you only have time for one park while in the area, I recommend Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial.  That is an amazing place!

Our first stop on the VROC circuit was Hot Sauce and Margot's in Oklahoma for a BBQ.  They have a great spread out there in Marlow, OK.  Awesome BBQ, great cooks and hosts!!
Biscuits n Gravy - Rancher style!
 
 
We took 16 South through some beautiful ranch areas.  Caught OK 66 along the way.  Very fitting to see three crosses on a random hillside just a week after Easter.
Bugsplat joined us for the ride
from Marlow to Fredericksburg, TX.
 
 
  

We enjoyed a RootBeer and Cherry Soda instead.
 
We stopped off in Dublin, TX at the Dr Pepper soda shop and we were disappointed to find out that they stopped making the original Dr Pepper recipe a couple years ago.  Apparently, they were profiting too much from selling in the shop,] so they were forbidden to continue production and sales per the Doctor's corporate office.  Gotta hate it when big business doesn't want small traditions to profit too much.







Had dinner at the infamous Coopers BBQ.  You walk up to the pit,
place your order, go inside for them to weight it and you have a $50 meal
 because it all sounded good and looked smaller on the grill!!  lol

Caught our first siting of the infamous blue bonnets on the way down.

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