More Butt!

On the little side car trip while bike was in storage Kriss and Dan hit up a couple sites.  One of those was Vulcan Monument in Birmingham Alabama.  It is supposedly the largest cast iron sculpture in the world at something like 56 tons.  Getting pictures of it is ridiculous since it sits on top of a 120 foot tower.  There were 159 steps to climb up inside the tower to get to an observation platform below the statue and see the city far below... or you could take the elevator.

Here are a couple pics.

The close up is from the observation platform, butt the platform did not extend far enough on the face side to get a picture from there.  The platform had a metal grate deck, which when 100 feet above the ground was somewhat disconcerting and caused one of our intrepid explorers to 'hug' the tower on the way around.  It became rather interesting when the tower hugger encountered another of the breed going the opposite way around and one of them had to release from the surety of the stone for a brief moment.   

Day 11

Trip has officially turned into a cage tour (that's car or truck etc for those not familiar).

Electrical problem with bike that just can't be fixed in a parking lot with the limited tools I have on hand, not to mention getting all the parts needed. Shops have at least a 2 week lead time on getting any work done, so Kriss and Dan are kind of S.O.L.

So, they had plans and reservations in place for the next week so have rented a car and will do those things. A shop that checked out the bike agreed to store it indoors (locked up) for a week at which time a u-haul will be procured to take bike straight home by shortest/fastest route. 

Riders of bike are bummed to say the least.

Miles today: about 30 on draining battery to get to shop. 

Will not track any more miles but will continue with occasional posts if the now drivers see or do something interesting.  Thanks for following along.

Day 10

Wasted day, mostly. Did manage to determine problem with bike is not the cheap problem :(  Riders having a restful day waiting for Tuesday when motorcycle shops open again.

Miles: 0

Day 9

3 hours later roadside assistance just showed up.

Miles 297

Day 8

Lots more wind today (or rather yesterday as posting the following morning), but only a few sprinkles that didn't even merit putting on rain gear.

Dan was somewhat disappointed after finding online a nice looking Reuben at a walkable cafe only to walk there and figure out that most of the town was closed for this Saturday. Long 4th? Maybe but they were evidently open Friday. :SHRUG:

Miles today: 301, Vernon, TX

Day 7

We decided to call it a day about 50 miles short of the planned stop when the thunder started. Glad we did as a short time after we found and got into a motel room the skies opened up. We were by then sitting in the neighboring Pizza Hut awaiting out meal.
Poor quality pic of the outside activity:

Miles today to Boise City, OK; 269

Day 6

Since this is the PB tour, we played with some Pool Balls while waiting on our pub dinner last night, and this morning Dan put some Peanut Butter on his morning toast.. see pic.

Continued out of Wyoming into Colorado today, much wind but no rain thankfully.  Heading south tomorrow to try and skirt the rain, will see if the national weather service knows what they are doing.

Found a great brew pub tonight, actually open for the 4th.  If you are ever in Yuma Colorado be sure and check out Tumbleweeds Brewery and Wine Company, good beer, good food, good people, and good t-shirts.

Miles today: 317 (that's 1714 for the trip so far for the curious)

Day 5

Nice scenic ride across the high country of southern Wyoming today, it was however very windy :(

We decided to do a somewhat shorter day today, and it is laundry day so that worked out good. Currently relaxing in Rawlins WY.

Some day we may take pictures.

Miles today 280

Day 4

Some more scenic back roads today and a little slab time.  Just had a great little Mexican dinner in Montpelier, ID.  yes still in Idaho, Will hit a new state tomorrow.

miles today - 375

Day 3

Took a nice scenic route ended up in Meridian Idaho.  Had our 3 favorite things, grooved pavement, loose gravel, and curves all at once, ok, not fun. 

Today Dan also learned what is worse than no longer getting carded for drinks at a bar, and that is not being carded when ordering from the senior menu ;(

Day 2 - 28 miles visitng family in Spokane
Day 3 - 384 miles (still working on bike-butt muscles)

Day 1...

almost didn't happen.  Went out on day 0 to take bike to the gas station and fill her up for the first leg, and bike refused to start.  After much cursing and fiddling around it was determined that gas was not getting to the carburetors.  So futzed around to no avail and finally gave up and went to bed. 

During the nocturnal hours of not sleeping Dan thought of one more thing to try. So the morning of day 1 started with bypassing the fuel cutoff relay and hot wiring the fuel pump, to try and determine the source of the issue. Turn the key and can hear the fuel pump running, hit the start button and bike starts right up. progress.  so plug the relay back in and bike still does what she should, starts and runs.  so prognosis is either a formerly loose connection or a flaky relay. Will pick up spare relay when we get a chance, it's of course not a standard size one and a Honda dealer will likely need to be seen.

So back to trip on, just starting a little later.  Day 1 consisted of riding a somewhat scenic route across WA to visit family in Spokane.  We'll be here a couple nights, so may not have an update tomorrow.

Bike ready to go.. finally...

Total Miles day 1: 330

pre tour posting

In a very late followup to the B&B tour of 2012, we are happy to present the 2019 PB Tour where we will travel the country sampling all the great peanut butters in the land!  Well, ok maybe not, we are firmly in the skippy super chuck camp, and the PB in this tour refers to pinball!  We will travel the 48 states (well maybe like 30 of them) playing pinball in as many states as possible.

OK seriously this time we are just going on a road trip and plan on visiting a few places we have not been to before.  To date we have ridden the motorcycle from our home near Seattle through 43 of the lower 48 states and 4 Canadian provinces.

Here is a map showing the longer routes of past travels.  The two longest (red and blue) ones were 2-up (motorcycle term for 2 riders on 1 motorcycle) while the shorter ones were solo. Can you spot the 5 states yet to visit?

There will be beer and pinball and reubens and other activities as we find them along the way.  There are a few planned stops but mostly it will be a day to day thing.  Mostly we take the back highways and byways and avoid big cities and freeways. We obviously need some more north-south pathways through the eastern half of the country.

Fortunately we both work in schools and have summer vacation that allows us to take long trips, but unfortunately it also means we will be doing this trip mostly July in the heat and humidity.  Oh well.

I'll try to post something up after each days travel with how far we've ridden, where we are, and if we did anything fun that day.  Maybe even a few pics.