2019 Oyster Tours: Let's go South

Day 18

The day started in fog and mist and the threat of rain. We were headed to Bulsburgh next to Penn State to Steve Williams. Steve is a retired photography professor amongst other jobs from Penn State.

He is a great photographer, philosopher, and writer and maintains a great blog https://scooterinthesticks.com/, His posts come at about 5:30 in the morning and get a cup of coffee take a mediation moment and then ride his posts.

The last few years have been very hard as is wife has been sick. When she recovers from her aliments another one pops up. They are both troopers just charging ahead meeting every challenge.

We had been unsure of our plan after lunch with Steve. A few drops of rain fell on us as we ate lunch outside. After weather app consultation Bill and I decided to charge on. Steve led us out of town up to the top of high hill where we said our goodbyes as rain drops drove him back to the house.

Bill and I charged on since we live right we arrived in Shepardstown, WV dry. Scott and Alan welcomed us, assigned rooms and then had to leave to go to University event. Bill and I helped ourselves to Alan's fried chicken.

the misty start

dave holding up our forward progress

steve arrives for lunch

at the top of the hill steve and bill

murphy was left to watch us

Day 19

Bill left first. Last night he planned to back roads, but I knew that would never happen. Bill's fun ride is wide open throttle, fuel, repeat. He hit the interstate and road about 800 miles home.

I am to old for that. So I left about 9:30 with a destination of Danville, VA. There is a tank museum there that I have wanted to see. Unfortunately it is only open Friday and Saturday and today is Thursday.

bill heading home. we had a great ride together

i had to stop here. my good friends name is Weasie

scary stuff

Day 20, June 1

I was up early and on the road just after 6. I wanted to beat the morning traffic around Greensboro and to arrive in Newberry SC early after noon before it got to hot. I accomplished both.

beating the rush in Greensboro

the old troy NC hotel now owned by owned by Dana Dawson. Downstairs is renovated and rented.
the upper floors are coming when the money does.

Dana in her coffee shop with staff, daughter Lane, Hailee and Quinn students who are
working in the shop

Heck of a name for a road

and here it is.

the african american church with it's large but modest grave yard

a quarter of a mile down the road. from 1833 the white boys cemetery

Day 21

Newberry SC is one of my favorite little towns. Mainly, because as I have explained before, they have restored the downtown and it is pretty thriving small town area. The restored Opera House has over 80 performances a year. They had one last night, the Texas somebodies, but it was not to my liking.

Up and on the road just after 6 AM. I love riding in the early morning light. The only real danger is deer and I so some. Sadly they were already road kill. Most of the day was on rural four lane lonely highways. I did not do detailed planning to day, just taking the quickest route without Interstate highways. The downside is there is not a lot to take pictures of and there are few places to eat breakfast. I let Mr. Garmin off the route to restaurants that did not exist or where long out of business.

I stopped to visit with some peach pickers outside of Trenton, SC. They were very friendly guys. The boss side he had more than one hundred pickers working in the orchards. He offered me a peach that felt a little hard but he said would taste good. I told him I would save it for later and took my leave. When I did try the peach, it was excellent.

In Ivey I found a gas station that had a kitchen in the back and had a decent breakfast.

I passed but did not photograph and fairly large Baptist Church in rural Georgia still flying the old Georgia State flag with the Confederate battle flag on it. I am getting sad for our country.

Fifty miles from my niece’s house in Richland GA I stopped for gas. When I rolled Fred backwards I heard a clicking sound in the back wheel. I inspected it and saw some dust on the rim I figured was bearing dust. It did not make a click going forward so I decided I would just go forward.

I left my ear plugs out to better hear if things really started going wrong. I found the speed with the least noise, all that sounded normal any way. I made a couple of stops to inspect the rear wheel and kept my eyes glued on the GPS as it slowly clicked off the miles.

Eight miles from Richland, I met Howard. He had been a teacher but to a leave of absence, sold his house and started traveling on his Honda 150 scooter. Today he was on his way to Florida to visit family on St. George Island and his ultimate destination is Austin. At home he has a around town Triumph motorcycle and said yes, I sought have it backwards riding the Honda scooter across country and using the motorcycle around town.

I arrived a Wanda’s alive and no parts had fallen off. After the machine cooled down I pulled of the back wheel and found the problem. Scott had tried to be helpful and installed a new rear tire for me. Unfortunately, even though he had watched the video, he failed to install it correctly. It is amazing that it lasted over 2,000 road miles. It is going to need a minimum of so bearings and I decided to leave it and go to dinner.

Over dinner I created a plan. I could hang around and try to get bearings pressed in on Monday, but I had stopped at the first bearing and did not go any further. So, I decided I would get a rental car, drive home, get my trailer come back and pick up Fred. This had two advantages. One I could come back have dinner with my brother, Wanda’s dad, for his birthday and I could complete the repair in my air-conditioned garage. I liked that plan.

During dinner I reserved a car using my Chase credit card points as that was the best deal. The car was Enerprise via Expedia. After dinner we drove to the airport where I presented myself to Enterprise to pick up my car where I was informed they did not have any cars, but they could rent me a large SUV for a much higher price. Needless to say this did not set well. The agent starting spouting a speech about yadda yadda, and I interrupted and said that is nice but what are we going to do to solve my problem. Boy was that a mistake. She would no longer talk to me. She informed me that I had “interrupted her” and she was cancelling my reservation. She then went to the other agents and tried to poison them against me. And yes, for the first time in my 70 years I called someone a Bitch and meant it.

Fortunately, Avis was more interested in customer service and fulfilled my need for a vehicle.

Almost tied with Enterprise for bad service is Expedia travel. A phone tree that has more branches, numbers, and looong waits to get service. It is almost not worth. Life is to short to spend 30 to 40 minutes on hold AFTER they return your call because wait times where 40 minutes to 1 hour.