pfalcioni

I'm totally drooling over those Maple, Bacon and Pecan Candy Bars.

After multiple rides over 3 days I ended up with huge bruises on my thighs from SV, I figured it's because I'm fat and I have fair skin that bruises if I sneeze wrong. Wouldn't stop me from getting right back on it though!

The blue is cool, but I've always loved the pure sharp look of white and black. Nice that you did so well with Sub on your suspension/steering issue, I've heard they're a good company to work with. If you call that cheap tastes, then have cheap tastes too, I finally got my dream car 2 years ago, a used 2012 Acura TL-SH with the tech package. Before that the most expensive car I owned cost about $2k, no kidding! Now motorcycles, yeah, I have a problem with spending way more on bikes than I do on cars. I'm dumb that way.

Such a pretty WRX. Ring land failures? Are they prone to detonation due to poor OEM mapping or are people driving them hard at low rpm?

With bikes it's always muffler bearings or power bands. I wonder if I could modify a bike with some airtime fluid, that might be fun.

Thanks so much! It's a pleasure sharing this stuff with people who appreciate it. If you're ever in New Mexico, definitely add Tinkertown to your itinerary, I know you guys would love it.

That final pic is breathtaking!

I am so jealous of that super short TC line.

I'm finishing up my Busch Gardens TR and should have it posted by tomorrow but something I read today reminded me of a place we visited a few years ago called Tinkertown http://tinkertown.com/ in New Mexico. I thought some of you might enjoy checking out this awesomely crazy place that was created by an artist named Ross Ward who was a show painter for carnivals for over 30 years, traveling the country painting on all the major carnival shows and in winter quarters from Texas to Florida. We actually weren't planning on visiting Tinkertown, but we'd ridden up to the top of Sandia Crest and got talking to a guy up there who "used to ride" and who told us if we liked weird and cool stuff we should check out this funky museum on our way back towards town. We had time and it sounded interesting so we plugged it into the GPS and headed back through the twisties to see the creations of a truly twisted mind (I mean that as a compliment). The entrance to Tinkertown is just a wide spot on a winding mountain road. The gate gives you a glimpse of what’s to come. This place isn’t just folk art, Mr. Ward had a wry sense of humor and a philosopher’s way with words. Noted! Walk past this amazing wall and the entrance (and gift shop) are to your left. We’re sure glad it did! This place is already awesome and we haven’t even gone inside yet. Wander up this hall a little further… And you’re greeted by dozens of incredibly detailed dioramas, all hand carved and painted by Mr. Ward, many with moving parts. Tiny little humans living out their fun little lives doing all sorts of jobs and activities from engineers to circus freaks. Some of them are funny, some are a little “off”, then some sign will make you stop and think. This circus display was massive. But what drew me the most was Mr. Ward’s cutting wit There’s more art thisaway. All displayed for you to see. This one still makes me feel guilty for all the time I waste in front of screens! Yes it is! At least when Ross Ward was creating it. We left hours later with smiles on our faces and a little sadness in our hearts wishing we could have met the man that created such a wonderful place, sadly he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at the age of 57 and passed away in 2002. We are just happy he left such an amazing legacy and that his family is keeping the place alive.

We love Northern California and spend a ton of time riding through there on motorcycles, and I can't believe I've never heard of the Kenetic Grand Championship before, it looks like a fun way to spend a few hours with tons of great photo ops. We've actually stayed at two of the motels on your first trip, the Edgewood in Willits and the creepy looking Economy Inn in Redding. We had the same misgivings as you did pulling into the Ecomony Inn, especially since we got there after dark when its creep factor was dialed up to 11. Both were comfortable stays and the staff was great. I can't believe we've ridden right past the entrance to McArthur-Burney falls and have never stopped to see it. It's definitely on my list for our fall trip after seeing your photos, although I'm sure you saw it with more water than it'll have in September.

Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are so weird, it's like altitude sickness, sometimes it's just a roll of the dice to see who will be affected. Everyone in a group can be equally healthy and hydrated and the next thing you know one person is red faced and feeling sick. I've only experienced it one time, we were riding motorcycles in Moab. Got into a really tough sand section, fought like crazy to get through it (think Fred Flintstone-ing the bike in full riding gear). Got to the other side and decided to sit down, dropped the bike and sat next to it shivering. I thought I was cold and couldn't figure out why my buddies wanted to get me into the shade and pour water all over me. I was exceedingly annoyed at them for making me even colder! Had a hella headache too. Didn't actually realize how sick I was until we rode back to camp and I spent a few hours cooling off in the air-conditioned motorhome. Thank goodness for smart friends!

No worries, have to have some "downs" with the "ups"!

I like Apocalypse. It's funky and weird and ugly, but to me it's still a fun ride.

Very true. Those folks definitely earned their moniker of "The Greatest Generation". War absolutely sucks, I am uncomfortable with any displays that glorify it, but this museum does an excellent job of bringing the experience to life without making it seem like some thrilling video game.

Thankfully Canada was so much stronger about their resolve to help Europe stop the Axis powers while America tried to hide their head in the sand until almost too late.

National WWII Museum We are definitely museum people, when we find a good one we’ll be there when the doors open and stay until security ushers us out after the lights have been turned off. Needless to say, when I’d read that New Orleans was home to the #2 Museum In The WORLD*, I knew we’d have to visit. My only frustration was that I felt one day in the city just wouldn’t be enough (I was right), and would we feel like we were wasting our second day looking at planes and other militaria that we’d seen at other excellent WWII museums elsewhere? But…#2 in the world? How could we pass that up? 'Murica! (*if you’re like me and didn’t know it already, I’ll bet you just went to look up what the #1 museum in the world is, right?) Tajah also makes us do all the WWII museums because she was a fighter pilot in the war. So, what makes this museum so much better than the dozens of other similar venues around the country? After spending a day there I’d say the differences are perspective and scope. Many museums make you feel like you're reading history from a book, this museum makes you walk in the footsteps of your forefathers and almost feel like you're a part of this war. First off, your day starts with a virtual train ride similar to that taken by plenty of young men embarking on their wartime journey. This beautifully done entrance really gets your mind focused on what the beginning of the war felt like for many Americans. Once you’re through the main gate, unless you have a tour scheduled, you’re pretty much on your own to decide how you want to proceed. I would definitely recommend starting with the 4D movie, it’s produced and narrated by Tom Hanks, so you know you’re in for Hollywood-level production values along with a heartfelt and honest look at America at war. After we saw the movie we really weren’t sure where to go next. The museum is currently made up of 6 buildings, but that number will grow by three more next year and by 2020 they’ll have an even 10. Just like anything else, once you’ve been to a place you have a better idea of what to spend the most time on, unfortunately we didn’t know what we didn’t know and we ended up spending too much time in areas that weren’t as interesting to us and rushing through some really amazing parts at the end of our day. I’ll tell you what I wish we’d done, but I think the best advice I can give you is to carefully study the website and plan out your day if you’ll only be spending a day here - or schedule two days and have the luxury of time (I wish we’d been able to do this!) If we knew better I would have started with the movie, then the D-Day exhibit in the entrance building, then gone on to The Home Front in the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion, next moved to the Campaigns of Courage pavilion which is broken up into two sections, Europe and the Pacific. From there I’d spend whatever remaining time in the other pavilions - if you want to see planes from every angle visit the impressive and vertigo-inducing Boeing Center (skip the submarine upcharge), if you’re a detail person check out the Restoration Pavilion and read about how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) helped win the war, and of course by next year there will be three new pavilions to add even more choices to your already-too-busy museum day. Whew! But I really think the core displays that stay with you the most are those housed in the Campaigns of Courage pavilion. The way they integrated artifacts, movies, oral histories, written reports and thousands of pieces of ephemera collected from hundreds of veterans made everything seem very immediate and real. You walk through a German bunker wall in Berlin... ...then sweat as you see planes swoop low through a war-torn city... ...or creep through steamy jungle terrain surrounded by the sights and sounds of fighting all around you. The theming is as immersive as anything you will experience at a Disney park, but instead of being surrounded by fantasy, what you are touching here is real history. I don’t want to be all melodramatic, but as the final remaining living legends of this war will be gone in a few short years, museums like this need to be able to tell the story of their sacrifices, tragedies, and triumphs in a way that resonates with modern society. The National WWII Museum has found a way to do that, it offers a truly a singular experience. If you have any interest at all in history and America’s place in it, you need to see this museum. Pictures do not do this place justice, but hopefully a few will whet your appetite to visit! One of the first displays in the D-Day exhibit is this depiction of how many service members from each country died during the war. It was a humbling start to our day. The Home Front literally walks you through a typical wartime Middle America living room. Air raid on Pearl Harbor x This Is Not A Drill. Original telegram from the US Atlantic Fleet. Original Enigma machine Suitcase Radio, given to resistance forces in occupied Europe to contact US and British intelligence. This restored British courier bike is the model seen in action on the wall behind. The Boeing collection is a vertical display, travel as high as your legs or fear of heights will allow and see these big birds from a different perspective. Gun displays are naturally a part of war museums, these are different because they are separated by campaigns and the weapons used by each side are shown next to each other to compare and contrast the quality available to the different countries. Used until they were used up, these flags spent the entire war on the same ship with the same gunnery officer, who packed them away and brought them home after the war. But hey, enough gravitas, tomorrow we coaster!

Yeah, I can sort of see waiting a couple hours for a new coaster, but waiting that long for a silly flat ride that is just like something you'd ride at a parking lot fun fair? People are insane.

I was just saying a few weeks ago that I'd love to see a modern take on a suspended coaster, but I think I'd love a modern Illusion coaster even more. I can only imagine how incredibly disorienting and fun it would be with modern effects, plus the ability to change the effects and create a different ride experience with different themese and screens would be excellent for the park and for local guests, change things every few years and it nearly becomes a new ride - similar to what Universal does with some of their larger VR platforms like Jimmy Neutron being changed to Despicable Me.

Coasters and surf at sunset, the only thing missing was my good camera!

Great photos and report! I love the sunset one, looks like something Disney would have as a PR image.

Welcome to Louisiana! We’re here for 4 nights and two days and Tajah gives NOLA a huge thumbs up...or she would if she had thumbs. Why? Because she's got 2 full days of rest with no car time! Plus she got this bitchin’ necklace (but isn't admitting to flashing bewbs to get it). Although we drink (often), we’re not exactly bar-hopping fiends, in fact prior to this trip the last mixed drink I had in a bar was at least a year prior. We’re also not late night party animals, I’m a night owl but my partying tendencies were curtailed when I married a guy who is snoring after a few drinks or after the clock strikes 10. So I was a little concerned about visiting New Orleans, especially just a week before they really start rolling out the Mardi Gras crazy. I shouldn’t have worried, this place is so much more than just alcohol, revelry, beads and boobies. But yeah, they do have a few bars here. Because we have senorita gato along for the ride, our hotel options are limited, especially when we’re trying to book in larger cities. I know we’ll need on-site parking and a place that’s not going to be crazy loud at night OR during the day, and nothing I found in the heart of things really fit the bill, so we ended up at a LaQuinta in Metarie. The place was cheap as heck and it was in a good part of town, but was more motel than hotel. I won’t dwell on details, but let’s just say we found the night clerk at the front desk with her head on a pillow sound asleep at 9pm and again the next morning at 7am, all three days! Needless to say there wasn’t any fresh morning coffee brewed to go with our beignets. We planned two full days in New Orleans, our first would be spent wandering from the French Quarter to the Garden District, the second day is reserved for the WWII museum. Mike is militantly an early morning person, so I’ve been forced into this weird lifestyle where we’re usually up way before normal humans, which means that we get to see a side of party towns like New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Key West that most people miss out on. Of course we also miss out on a lot of sleep, but I think it’s worth it (most of the time, just don’t talk to me during that first hour or two). We made it into the city and found cheap parking right on the waterfront in front of Jackson Square and there was no line for beignets at Cafe du Monde, so of course Mike got to crow about how the early bird blah blah blah, whatever, I needed more coffee. We spent the next few hours wandering the streets as the city woke up. What an amazing place! I took entirely too many photos, most of which looked like 99% of every other tourist’s photos of the French Quarter, well, except mine were sans boobs. Sorry. Oh, I do have a pic of an ass though. On the advice of a friend who lived in New Orleans for years I booked two walking tours, both through Free Tours by Foot. If you’re not familiar with this company they offer tours where you decide how much you think the tour is worth after it’s completed. It seemed a smart bet that the tour guides would be pretty good if they trusted a bunch of idiot tourists to not stiff them on a daily basis. Our first tour started at the base of Mr. Jackson’s fine statue. Our tour guide Sean was a native of the city whose family had lived here for generations. And he didn’t have an accent. Whaaaaa??? So yeah the first thing we learned is that not everyone here sounds like they’re extras in The Big Easy, in fact most locals don’t have an accent, but Hollywood thought they should, so that’s how they’re portrayed. Mind...blown. We spent two hours walking the streets, gawking at beautiful buildings and learning the ugly, amazing, crazy and awesome stories behind them. Sean also pointed out his favorite places to eat so we had some ideas for lunch. After the tour we headed to the farmer’s market on Poydras to see if we could find anything remotely vegetarian for Mike - yep, he’s one of those non-meat-eating weirdos, but I can’t tease him about it too much because he’s skinny and healthy and I’m fat, so yeah. Anywhoo, if you’re a vegetarian in New Orleans you’d better take up drinking because that’s about all you’re going to find to eat. So we did, and had an incredible (and incredibly huge) daiquiri made with fresh fruit from one of the market stands. With a nice afternoon buzz well in hand I opened the NOLA transportation app and attempted to navigate their bus system to get us to our 1:30pm tour that would begin at Lafayette Cemetery. After standing at the wrong bus stop for about 10 minutes some kind drunk told us we were obviously country mice and pointed us to the correct stop across the street. I’ll admit, he’s right, we’re from the country and I never learned to comfortably navigate city public transportation. I’d rather be lost in the middle of nowhere on motorcycles with no cell phone signal and only a paper map and compass than have to figure out a transfer on a city bus system. Pathetic, I know. On the plus side, Mike did find a cat. Fortunately, our bus drivers were ever so kind to the idiots from Oregon and we got where we needed to be with time to spare. Our second tour included Lafayette Cemetery and the Garden District. I can’t remember our guide’s name, but he was cool and we learned a lot about architecture, history, why dead people aren’t put in the ground around here, and where John Goodman lives. Here (John Goodman, that is). The cemetery was artistically gorgeous, but touristicly overcrowded. I would have killed to have a few hours of quiet time here in the early morning or evening to shoot photos, as it was I had to time shots carefully to avoid the unwashed masses, which is frustrating and sort of wrecks the ethereal and sombre mood that should surround a place like this. Still, if you’re in NO, do NOT miss seeing this cemetery. This picture was an oops as I was doing some long shutter work and moved the camera too quickly, but I sort of liked the effect. The Garden District is made up of impeccably maintained historic homes. Our tour guide filled our brains with history, building facts and details about details, it was fascinating and I’ve sadly forgotten it all! I’m blaming the Lethe effect on lack of food and sufficiency of alcohol in my system. Still, we had a wonderful time. Luckily my “local” friend had given me the names of a few vegetarian places in town that she recommended, one was this tiny hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place called Lilly’s Cafe. The food was plentiful and absolutely wonderful. Ahhhhh. We spent the another few hours after our early dinner racing around to the antique stores in the French Quarter. Mike is a crazy collector of all things moto, so typically while I’m riding coasters, he’s buying crap at antique stores. There weren’t any coasters around so I was stuck wandering these tiny stores crammed full of everything from antebellum oddities to modern knick-knacks. He did find a few cool things, and I had some fun just wandering, shooting pictures and soaking up atmosphere. We were both happy and tired as we walked back to the car that night. It's impossible to be unhappy when you spy a horse with wings on the way to your car.

It's also pretty gross from a health standpoint. I don't care that they supposedly "clean" the headsets between uses, I don't want to be that close to someone else's germs unless they're family.

Orlando weather is something else! I always imagine the weather reporters looking at all the conflicting radar and sensor data the just throwing dice before they go on air every morning to give yet another "50% chance of afternoon showers" report.

Great reports! I've been wanting to do a winter trip to Australia for a long time and Dreamworld and that fun little motocoaster would definitely be on my schedule, even though it's pretty solidly panned by most coaster fanatics I still think it would be a fun ride for us. It's also a great tribute to Mick Doohan, Australia's winningest GP racer. I've been following the inquest on the Dreamworld Thunder River incident inquest and so far the park and its maintenance and training are really being raked through the coals. It's so sad to see a park that is beautiful and vibrant on the surface have so many issues.