09-24-10 I left the house as the sun was coming up over the lake in my back yard. The seat to my new V-Strom was still damp with the morning due and I was excited. Less than twelve hours earlier I had Big Boy Motorcycles installed new Shinko 705 dual purpose tires on the bike and was anxious to get them scuffed in. I headed toward the cost on Hwy. 378 to once again pull my bike into Jeff’s Garage for some serious wrenching done by myself and friends. The three hour ride too Myrtle Beach, SC was uneventful and a little boring. It had been a while since I had ridden without my XM radio or my GPS and my helmet was unusually quite. The ride to the beach was easy and you would think ... read more

08-20-10 Weeks of fighting with my insurance company and searching the south for a good replacement bike were finally coming to an end. Early Friday morning my wife and I loaded up in my F-150 and headed to Anderson, SC to look at a really good looking Suzuki V-Strom (DL 650) that I located on Craig’s List. The three hour drive seemed to last forever, but was worth it when I pulled up and saw my new bike sitting in the stranger’s driveway. I looked at my wife and just smiled. After introducing ourselves to the bike owner’s wife, husband was out of town; I asked for the keys and jumped on the DL. I was only gone for a few minutes and I was headed back to the owner’s home. The bike road like a ... read more

07-03-10 Friday night I went to check out the Shadow and install the new Mix-it 2 that replaced the old one that caused all the problems that plagued the trip to Hilton Head several weeks ago. The people at Cycle Gadgets were great and sent me a new one under warranty. Once I got it all hooked up I had no power to the XM Radio or my auxiliary lights. I checked all the switches and all the connections and everything looked to be in order. I finally pulled off the seat and started checking all the wires. Finally I started checking fuses and found a 20 amp fuse that was blown. I installed the fuse and everything worked fine. I put the seat back on and took the Shadow for a quick test ride and ... read more

May 15, 2010 One thing I have noticed since I started the Titanic Grand Tour is the changes in the country side. On my first ride all the farmers were hard at work plowing their fields. Now just a little over a month later the corn is knee high and the fields look like an ocean of green. After gassing up at Bunky’s in Eastover I headed out towards US-178 searching for the small town of Wolfton, SC which was just an hour away. From there it was a quick little 10 minute ride to get a photo of Orangeburg. I stopped for a quick breakfast at Subway before heading out to get a great photo of my bike, the rally flag and the welcome sign to Bamberg, SC. After Bamberg I took a 35 minute ... read more

04-24-10 Continuation of . When I walked out of the kitchen door into the wet morning I was not sure how the trip was going to go. But I have been promising my thirteen year old son, Harper, for weeks to take him with me on one of my adventures. I knew when I saw my son with his mothers riding jacket on and a helmet in his hand that this was a trip I had to make. First stop was just five miles up the road at Bunky’s Market to top off the tanks and to cash a check for some gas money along the way. I topped off the tanks, wrote the check for $20 over and left. Ten miles down the road I remembered that I did not get my cash, so I ... read more