1426 miles, 8 states, 1 diploma

I did the two birds with one stone thing and combined a trip to Pennsylvania to pick up a 750 Nighthawk I bought from friend Keith Hammack with a stop over in Columbia, SC for my daughter's college graduation. Spreading the 1400+ miles of riding over four days with two more days in the middle made it very doable, but my 50 yr. old tush still got pretty sore. But it was a good ride with perfect weather on a beauty of a machine.

The night before taking off I wired up a 12v receptacle to power the GPS. I had purchased a National Cycle Plexifairing and had it sent up to Keith who installed it for me before I got there. Very nice.
Keith put up a few more images of the prep here.


On my way.


I'm thinking some hard saddle bags will be just the thing.


I stayed one night in Bassett, VA. Keith's grandpa, Maurice Hammack, got me up in this 300hp conversion Cessna 182. It was an awfully heavy airplane and an awfully short grass strip for my meager pilot skills scaled with decades of rust. I didn't do too well but he is a good instructor and kept us safe. Sure was fun to get my hands on a set of wings again at any rate.

The Graduate

The most fun was seeing her open up her present.

A new Nikon for somebody who definitely knows what to do with it.

The whole fam together again. Friend Mark shared the day with us. I just got to thinking that he has the distinction of being considered a very good friend of each of us. There aren't many people of whom that is true as scattered as we all are.


Then it was nap time for everybody.
I'm not as young as I used to was.


The end of best 50 miles of my ride.


A favorite.