Well, Sullydirt and I got a chance to get out and do some riding on July 4th. Nope, the KLX's stayed at home and the "other dualsport" bikes got a workout on the holiday tour.

Sullydirt just picked up a great BMW F650GS Dakar. I chose appropriately and brought my KLR650 out for the ride. Mike lives not too far from Bunnell, Florida, which is about an hour's ride for me. Keeping the speed in the legal zone - Florida has a lot of troopers and other LEO's out this holiday looking for bad drivers - I took a bit longer than normal to get there. About 25 miles from Bunnell, out in a desolate area, all of a sudden my KLR went to reserve! Well, I needed to find out how far it will go on reserve, so today was the day I found it could go at least 25 miles. I figured I had Mike's cellphone number if I didn't make it all the way. Found a station in Bunnell, about a mile from where we were supposed to meet. All of a sudden, there was a BMW Dakar at the next pump. "You Marty?" was the question from the rider. It was Mike - we had made contact. We decided to fill up and then go do some riding. So off we went.

First stop was at Thunder Gulch Campground / Restaurant / MX Facility. Took at look at the track there, decided it was not going to be and then headed north to St. Augustine. Once we got to St. Augustine, we headed out steed south onto A1A and rode down to Flagler Beach. Along the way we stopped at Fort Mantanzas for a break and just to jaw a bit. From there we rode down A1A into Flagler Beac where we had lunch atop the Lion's Den Restaurant. Nice seafood sandwiches for lunch and had a chance to take from scenery pictures from the top of the restaurant.


It was easy to tell it was July 4th!


After lunch we headed south to Ponce Inlet. Our travels took us through Daytona Beach on some really scenic backroads. Our goal was to get a spot to watch the fireworks - NASA style!


A great ride, a great day and some great weather!

No mud for us today! It was asphalt all the way today.

 

Those Shuttle Pics over the mangroves are awsome! [sm=icon_rock.gif]

 

nice pics,looks like a good time,even if you did have to rough it on the blacktop all day.but you did get to watch the orbiter lift off live on your ride,you should feel for us that have to ride in rush hour type traffic all day every day and without the "nice" scenery that you have.

 

Marty, I'm glad you got some pictures. I took a couple and they weren't so hot. I had a great time. Let me know when you have some time off again. Maybe we can make plans for the west coast trip.

 

Marty, From that viewing point could you hear the shuttle take off, Man i would have died to see that in person. Great pics looks like you two had a good day.

 

scat,

No it could NOT be heard. I would say that at the closest point, we were about 50 miles from the actual pad.

I've had an opportunity to walk outside and see most of the launches. There were several that have stuck with me.

One was when Columbia was being launched - my neighbor has a Beech Bonanza and we took an early morning flight over to watch it lift off. There was a light cloud cover that morning. We had the radio tuned to the local news station and followed the countdown. We could not see the ground for the cloud cover. We were circling with quite a few other private planes right at the edge of the restricted airspace. Kind of flew a big oval pattern to stay in view. When the shuttle launched, we could not see it from the plane - all of a sudden there was this big hole in the cloud cover and Columbia was making it! Still have goosebumps when I think of that morning.

Another was one evening a night launch. The trajectory was to the northeast. The sky was cloudless and I could see it from my house, which is in the middle of the state. The thing most memorable about this particular launch was that with the clear sky and the trajectory, you could see the "speed" of the launch. Most of the time the shuttle is being launched away from you. If you have the radio on, you will hear them contacting Rota, Spain while you can still see the brilliant light and all you see is the shuttle going away from you, no distinction of speed. The night they launched to the northeast, you really saw how fast that sucker is!

Then the day I want to forget, but the vision still sits in front of me. I was watching from my office window the day it blew up on launch. I had just looked up and saw the launch and all of a sudden there were these two rings being formed. All I could think of was that something had gone wrong. I did not know at that time just how wrong it had gone. Those "rings" stayed there all day long. I kept seeing them each time I looked out the window. Saw them on the way home that night too. Very sad day that was!

During the early days of the shuttle, you had to leave almost at dawn to get anywhere near a decent viewing spot. Today, the enthusiasm has wanned and not many folks even walk outside to watch the liftoff.

Now, if you want to talk exciting, just imagine the 5 AM sonic booms when they land the shuttle! The first time you are up, out of bed and running to see what the heck crashed!

Glad you liked the photos!

 

Cool shuttle pics but the chicks were fat.

 

LOL nice pics bro.