It's the 1st day of SPRING!

Finally Spring!
And another great day of weather ahead as well as taking a RZR ride with new friends from WVSXSriders.com. Should be fun.

What perfect weather.

Appalachian Mountain Dualsport Ride

Today is the last day of Winter!! Looks like we made it through without frostbite and scurvy so it's time to get back to the best dualsport motorcycle riding east of the mississippi river. That's West Virginia and the TWVT . It's Time to Ride!

PICS AND REPORT COMING

Late winter at Camp Creek WV

With just a few days left in winter, the snow almost gone and the sun finally showing itself agin, it's definetly time to do some riding. I'm at my camper for a few days doing a little riding and chores. After a hard winter for WV, I had plenty of cleanup to do around the camper. I'm managing to do some RZR riding also.

Near Beartown Flats.

Lookin' south.

Click the pic for better look at that BLUE sky.

Under a train trestle near Micajah Ridge.

Southern West Virginia had the highest snowfall in 10+ yrs. this winter and record rainfall a week ago.The result is that every gravel road has large muddy sections and every creek has been running high and out of the banks in many places now.

Today I tried to ride some trails that have plenty of normally tame water crossings. A few i crossed by being lucky, 2 I got through by throwing rocks in select holes to get just enough lift keep my ass out of the melted snow runoff. And I did a Uturn at more than 4 creek crossin's because of the runoff. That' just the way it is with trail riding, sometimes it's easy, the other times you remember.

This was one of the lucky ones, it has a solid rock bottom, just like what the RZR is parked on. The crossings the have loose rocks wash out making for holes 3-4 ft deep.

I did say the snow was ALMOST gone.

A short Dualsport ride in the North Carolina Mountains

I had to go to Wilkesboro NC for work Tuesday so I took the Suzuki along with me. After finishing with the chores I headed north out of town toward the Blue Ridge Parkway and the mountains for some long awaited seat time. The weather was perfect and getting better as the day went on, the temp. made it to 70 degrees and the skies were mostly clear, perfect after the long winter and plenty of snow/ice.
I parked the truck near some NC game lands, unloaded and hit a couple of short gravel roads which led me to the BRP. A short ride on this well known scenic road brought me to Laurel Springs and Freebournes and Stations End. This will be the site of the 9th Annual ADV Rendevous Rally this spring. The 2 motels, bar, restaurant and campground should provide a great location for this rally May 13th-16th. After meeting the owners and getting the tour of the entire location it was back to the bike and Parkway.

As I reached 2800 ft. and above the snow was still quite deep on the sides of the road and the gravel roads still had spots of thick ice in the shady areas. There was zero traffic on the parkway and gravel roads, no one in sight. Perfect.

One of the fun parts for me is seeing the wildlife, today there were 2 Deer and about 9 Turkey.

I only had 3 hours of daylight so it was a short ride but it was plenty to remind me of why I've been watching the weather so close for Spring!

My Pics

Carolina Beach trip

If you look through my videos you can see footage from our stay at Carlolia Beach and from the USS NC ship.

Jesse, Lynn and myself took a late winter trip to the North Carolina Coast for a quick geteaway March 7th-8th.
It's only about a 3 hr drive to Carolina Beach so we took off Sunday am looking for nice weather and Sprintime temps.
After checking in to our oceanfront motel we spent a couple of hours checking out Fort Fisher and the surronding areas. There's alot of history to learn about and beautiful natural areas there.

Sunday night we went out for a good seafood dinner which is a big reason for this beach trip!

Monday we went to see the USS North Carolina a retired battleship.We spent about 2 hours checking out all the interesting areas and comparments aboard the old ship. Surprising was the differences between the sleeping quarters of the enlisted men and the officers. The enlisted men slept in hanging bunks stacked 4 and 5 high. The officers had reg. beds and most had they're own rooms. Also obvious was that this ships only reason for existance was to punish the opposition with massive firepower.

PartyBoss Ride at Hot Springs NC

As the entire nation awaits the arrival of warmer weather a few us are getting together at the Party Boss' cabin in Hot Springs North Carolina. We'll be doing some bench riding and enjoying the sites from the decks most of the time. But we'll be ready for a couple days of actual riding if the weather cooperates and doesn't continue the snow attack.

Rick,aka The Party Boss, suitin' up for a cold ass ride into Tenn. across the mountain. We're going to a buds shop to swap shoes on his BMW F650.

Childhood friend of Ricks, Kevin, on Ricks Yamaha XT225. Kevin is a professional chef and provided for some amazing meals during my stay at the cabin. We had quail and duck one nite.

 The DR350 belongs to Ricks brother.

3 heads are better...

The good, the bad, the ugly?

Ricks brother on the DR350.

Kevin on the XT225.

The next morning this was the scene. Winter ain't over.

We didn't get anywhere near enough riding in, but mother nature rules.

I still had great fun; good food, good people and a good time.