Thought I'd like to hear some travel stories. How about a "what I did on my summer vacation" type thing?
Tell us about your last weekend trip. Or one you remember as a kid, or one you would like to make, something like that.

I'll start off with a trip my dad and I took 9 years ago. I was 60 and he was 79 at the time.
I belonged to a GoldWing motorcycle club back then. Dad had never liked motorcycles and was sure I had some
sort of a death wish when I started riding over 50 years ago. I won't bother you with all the details here but
I took him for his first ride on his 75th birthday. After that he was hooked and we went on a number of short to medium rides,
200-400 miles with the local chapter of the club I belonged to. Then in 1998 my club held a rally in Pendleton, Oregon.
So we loaded up the GoldWing and the trailer and set off on July 4th riding 2 up and pulling the trailer.
We traveled west on I-40 through AK, OK, TX, NM, AZ to Needles, Calif. Stopping along the way to visit family and friends.
We also stopped at places like the cowboy hall of fame in Oklahoma City and the Grand Canyon in AZ.
From Needles we went south to Palm Springs to visit friends. Then north to Santa Maria, Calif to see my daughter and grand kids.
The grand kids got really excited when they saw grandpa and great grandpa pull up on a motorcycle. They had never seen the bike before.
Then we went north on 395 through Reno, NV and on up to Pendleton. We spent almost a week in Pendleton exploring NE Oregon and SE WA. state.
We won that trophy for the "oldest combined 2 up." That's for 2 people, riding on 1 motorcycle, combined age. Dad also took the trophy for Oldest attendee.
I think he won that 1 by less than 2 weeks. We then headed east on I-84 through Idaho, stoping to see the twin falls. Then on to Salt Lake City.
From there we picked up I-80 east through WY, to Omaha and then Council Bluffs. Then we went south to Kansas City, St. Louis and finally back home to Memphis.
We were on the road for a total of 49 days and the good lord blessed us with 44 days of sunshine. We covered 15 states and about 8,000 miles.
We saw family, and old friends and made new friends along the way.

Dad spent the next month telling anyone he could corner about the trip. He showed off the trophies to neighbors and members of our church and even to our priest.
Most of them thought we were nuts. Two old men wandering aimlessly around the country on a motorcycle. I didn't care when they thought.
To me the best part of all was my dad loved every minute and every mile of the trip. He liked it so much we were planing a "4 corners"
(That's Calif. to WA. state, to Main, to Fla., then back to Calif.) by motorcycle as soon as I retired. We never got to make that trip.
Less than 3 years later the good lord called dad home after a short bout with cancer.
I have enough good memories from that trip though to last me a lifetime. I just wish I had taken more photos with him in them.


OK that's my story. Who's next?

Thats a heckova story m. I'll tell you a little bit about my last trip. My wife and I drove from Indianapolis to MA to visit family for Christmas. We rented a car to avoid putting miles on ours. A 2006 Toyota Corrolla. Not the most comfortable thing ever but not bad. Incredible gas mileage however.

We had our 7 month old black lab / german shepard mix puppy in the back seat. I was really worried about taking a long trip with him but he did great. For the most part he just slept on the back seat. We stopped for the night in PA. And then pushed our way to MA. I really prefer flying out there but if I had to do it again I would drive. Its long but doable. Especially if you stop half way.

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I worked in the airline industry for 42 years and could fly anywhere in the world for free. Know what? I really enjoy driving my RV all around the U.S.A.
I live in the southern Calif. desert where the temps routinely get to 115 in the summer. For the last 3 summers my room mate and I have gotten in the
RV and left during the hot months. Last summer we went on a 4 month, (18 weeks) 10,000 mile ride across this great land. At 5-6 mpg we spent almost
$600 for gas one day. So we found a nice RV park and stayed there for 2 weeks while we waited for our next pension checks. It was great.
We're planing to do it again in a few weeks. We'll leave somewhere around Memorial day and get back in late Sept. to early Oct.

Am I the only fisherman (story teller) on this board?

Have you and the wife, or just you, made any local trips? Overnighters or weekenders? Any you have fond memories of? One that you hated at the time, but remembered years later. Tell us about it.

I remember once a group of us from the Memphis GoldWing club rode up to Battle Creek, MI for a rally over the Memorial day weekend. The rally was Friday/Saturday/Sunday.
We left Memphis at about 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. Our thinking was at almost 700 miles to Battle Creek, we could do it in 2 easy 350 mile days, arriving Thursday night.
Well not 20 miles out of Memphis it started raining. As we road north it also got windier. We barely made it to the north side of St. Louis, MO. when we decided to call it a night.
We had gone a little less than 300 miles. We figured no problem, we'll just do a 400 mile day tomorrow. We woke up the next morning to find more rain. We started north into Ill.
The further north we went the colder it got. I remember riding through a small town in central Ill and stopping at a traffic light. There was a bank on the corner with a sign that flashed the time and temp.
I couldn't believe it when the temp flashed and it was 44 deg. When we saw that sign the guy on the bike next to me looked over at me and said "if it starts to snow, I'm going home."
It we late May for pete sakes. When we left Memphis the day before the forecast was for temps in the low 70's. We were cold and wet and miserable. We had decided to take a 2 lane road
to avoid all the trucks on the interstate. Well that was a mistake. The road we took was a narrow with trees right up to the shoulder. In 100 miles or so we must have seen 500 (only a slight exaggeration)
18 wheelers going the other way. My guess is that's the road they used to avoid the inspection stop on the interstate when they crossed the state line. The road was wet and slick and rough as heck.
Probably from all the truck traffic. I've made about 80 parachute jumps in my life. I don't think I've ever been as afraid as I was on the 100 miles of road. All I kept thinking was
"the blast from one of these trucks is going to blow me sideways into one of those trees." When we finally came to a town where we were going to pick up the interstate again,
less than 150 miles from our destination, one of the guys riding with his wife called over the radio. She was not at all happy and wanted to call it a night. The forecast on the radio was promising sunshine
and warm temps on Friday. We all decided to call it a night. I checked into my room, went out and got some dinner and stopped at a liquor store on the way back to pick up a bottle of scotch.
When I got to my room I poured myself a TALL drink and took it into the shower with me. I stood under the hot water for what seemed like hours. Then next morning for once the weather man was right.
We woke up Friday to sunshine and mild temps. It took us about 2 hrs to make it to Battle Creek. Friday and Saturday were beautiful. We had a good time and saw some pretty country thanks to
the local chapter laying out some very scenic rides. Sunday started out nice, but it started getting cloudy around noon. You guessed it. When we set out for home it was raining again.
This time it was warmer though and no wind to speak of. We decided to go straight south through Indiana and Kentucky to Nashville. Then home to Memphis. We made it to just south of Indianapolis
on Sunday and called it a night. By leaving at 4 a.m. Monday and riding the 2 lane back roads we were so familiar with when we got west of Nashville we managed to avoid most of the holiday weekend traffic.
While it rained for almost the entire ride home, because of the lack of wind and the moderating temps we didn't mind it so much.
In the years after the ride whenever a group of us sat around a campfire or the dinner table in a restaurant that ride kept coming up.

Oh BTW: The woman that was complaining so badly on Thursday, decided to fly home. :thumbsup:

Short version:
Wife and I go to Fla. 2 years ago. Stop over in New Orleans, party my ass off. Any way after leaving Fla. they get hit with a hurrican and a few shark attacks. Man the hurricans that they serve up in N.O will knock ya on your butt. And I'm not tellin how I won my beads....:thumbsup:

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Down the two lane blacktop.
Oldskool Is Kool :thumbsup:
Ford Man From Way Back



Check out: hotrodhotline.com for my pictures.

NO fair. :nono: You have to give us a FEW more details. I'll settle for the Readers Digest Condensed version.