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EAA AirVenture, Oshkosh, WI I have always wanted to see the Experimental Aviation Association's air show in Oshkosh, WI so when my friend and aviation expert, Charlie West, invited me to join him and a group of his rowdy friends, I jumped at the opportunity to ride with the "big dogs". Their plan is to take as many back roads as possible to Michigan, ride the ferry across the lake, take-in the air show, and return home sometime before Labor Day. It's this kind of attention to detail that separates the professionals from the amateurs. The Ride Up I met Charlie, Joe, Tom, and Mark in Fancy Gap, VA for breakfast Thursday morning and we took Rt. 52 up through VA & WV. The weather and riding were great until about 5:30 p.m. when we ran into a cold front moving southeast that the weather station was predicting contained heavy rains, lightning, hail, and near certain death. The decision was made to check into the Holiday Inn in Huntington, WV and then make up for the lost miles the next day.
Friday morning we took off for Muskegon, MI. The cold front had passed through and left near perfect riding conditions - 78 degrees, sunny, and low humidity. After riding in the hot, humid weather we have been having in NC, this was a real treat. The first stop of interest was the Serpent Mound in OH, a "gigantic earthen sculpture representative of a snake... built in 1000 A.D."
We arrived in Grand Haven, MI in the early evening only to find out that all of the motels were booked. It turned out that they were having the first annual bike show in Muskegon, MI. Much to our surprise the Holiday Inn in Muskegon which was right by the bike show had all of the rooms that we needed for the night. Once again, clean living pays off! After dinner, we walked down the street to people and bike watch. The new 2008 Kawasaki Concours was on display. It is a very nice looking machine. Saturday morning we caught the Lake Express catamaran to Milwaukee, WI. Again, the weather was perfect and we had a very pleasant ride across Lake Michigan. After a scenic ride into Oshkosh, we checked into our dormitory rooms at the University. I have not slept in a dormitory since college - I kept hoping I would wake up feeling like an 18 year again but no such luck, particularly, after the "Oshkosh Death March" to dinner and back. Why would we leave perfectly good motorcycles in the parking lot and walk?!?
The Air Show The Oshkosh air show is simply enormous. Almost anything you could image in regards to aviation was there. If you like aircraft, this has to be one of those "to do" things in life. One caution: you will do a lot of walking. Here's a very small sampling of what we saw...
The Ride Back Charlie and Mark, who are in the aviation business, elected to stay at the air show while Joe, Tom, and I chose to ride back home via the upper peninsula of MI. We had a relaxing ride across the north side of Lake Michigan and checked into a motel outside of Frankenmuth in the late evening. Dinner was at Zehnder's which serves the best family style fried chicken dinners I have ever had. After dinner we walked up the street to a fudge shop which had more flavors of fudge than Baskin Robbins has ice cream. On the ride back to the motel, we rode by Bronner's, the world's largest Christmas store. We took the I-75 from Frankenmuth to south of Toledo, OH and then Rt. 23 to Columbus, OH. South of Columbus I let the GPS route us into Charleston, WV via the custom feature which allows you to choose what type of roads you wish to ride on. As a result we wound up going through the Hocking Hills area of southeast OH which had some of the best motorcycle riding roads on the trip. This is as good a reason to have a GPS as any. We took Rt. 119 and Rt. 85 out of Charleston to Madison, WV. Coming into Madison there is a sign that says "Gateway to the Coalfields" and they mean it. Rt. 85 to Rt. 16 has the largest concentration of coal mines I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the rain mixed with the coal dust on the road made for some slippery conditions. We had intended to take Rt. 16 (very scenic, lots of curves) through WV, VA, and NC but the continuing rain would have taken the fun out of it so we chose to take Rt. 52 and I-77 home. |
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