Wow, it's been a while. Alright, a bit of context: Ever since my buddy AD bought himself a motorcycle, we've been running around the state on the weekends. A week and a half before my trip, he had already ventured out westward. He had stopped by Ann Arbor, MI, then Springfield, IL and Omaha, NE. The plan was to intercept him on the return trip at Ann Arbor.

THE ROUTE!!

So it's 500 miles out and 8 hours away. Crazy, eh?


This was my travel setup. I didn't want to lug a backpack around on the bike all day long so I bungeed down my small duffel bag onto the back of the bike. I gassed up and made my way out.

On the first fourty miles of the journey, a truck four cars ahead of me had a blowout. Its left, front tire was shredded and I was dodging chunks of rubber on the highway. Fun. Already, 8% into the way there the ride was getting interesting.


At the first rest stop, I organized my change for the highway tolls and had a small break.


Oh yeah, GPS in action.

The rest of the journey was pretty much uneventful except for a little car accident 100 miles into the trip.

Alright, with 22 miles left I decided to hit a gas station. I put in my four gallons for the last 250 miles and tried to start her back up... Nothing. Nothing! NOTHING!! The dashboard lights didn't light up or anything. Frustrated, I pushed the bike up to a parking spot. I went in and bought a screwdriver to check out the fuses since it seems like I've blown the main fuse. ... The fuses were all still good. Dammit. I tried push-starting the bike and this managed to get the engine running. However, the idle was unstable. All signs were pointing to the battery.

This all cost me about an hour of fuming and raving when I finally called Matt and AD and asked him to bring the battery off his bike, which he kindly did. I popped in the battery and was so thankful hearing the engine fire up. If it wasn't the battery then I'd have to get towed, which would've sucked.


I finally hit Matt and Sherry's place at 11pm. Two hours after my planned ETA. It turns out everybody was waiting for me to get there so dinner could get started. D'oh.


Matt whipped out a bowl of marinading steaks and we proceeded downstairs.


My visit wouldn't have been complete without the delicious union of fire and flesh.


We spent about an entire hour getting the coals just right.


AD only brought a backpack for his two week excursion, so he had to borrow some of Matt's clothes. Ha!


After all that work getting the coals just right, we needed the grill for a total of 20 minutes. Yay! I'm sure the coals were good for another 2-3 hours or so. Alas, we were out of meat. We stopped caring once we realized it was 1am and were very hungry. With a belly full of seared flesh, we all passed out.


The next day, we went to Angelo's Restaurant for breakfast. As recommended by Brian. It was good stuffs. I'd go back, if it weren't 500 miles away.


Later on in the day, we went hunting for a battery for my bike. I should've replaced the thing a long time ago since I've run it down about 6 times (headlight on) and it was pushing it's 5th year. ::grunt:: At least I didn't find myself stranded somewhere out in Ohio. After hitting two places, we went to the local Kawasaki dealership and they hooked me up. Nice. $60. Damn. Afterwards, we were just criusing around.


Frogs in a Chinese supermarket! Awesome!







We went to downtown for some quality Southern Indian Food. Quality = Expensive

I had me some spicy lamb curry. The 'spicy' part was rather tame. But hell, I grow Habaneros in my backyard. We ran into Kate and Eliana, former Syracuse inhabitants. They seem to be alive. That's good. Yes, definitely. We shared stories, Eliana pined for 'puffy bread' and we all gave the place a 'thumbs up' of approval.

After dinner, we wandered around downtown for some Ice Cream and settled at a Ben & Jerry's.


Sherry trusted Matt with her leftover Chicken Masala. Note: Swinging the bag around would cause the styrofoam takeout box to shift. Yeah, it pooped itself. He ended up giving the leftovers to a bum, to Sherry's dismay.






ICE CREAM!! The girls stayed inside and enjoyed their ice creams while Matt, AD and I hung around outside... until the bums started swarming.





I had to say 'goodnight' to the bike on the way back. AD was leaving early the next morning for Syracuse. I was planning on sleeping in a bit. Matt, Sherry and I stayed up playing Fluxx and watching episodes of Venture Bros. Season 3 in the DVR. Good times. It was already somewhere past 3am, when I passed out.

The next morning (which was really noonish), we had a filling breakfast of steak and eggs over rice. Good stuff. We fed Monkee our steak fats. Yum. And I was promply on my way back to Syracuse.


The ride back wasn't very interesting. I ran into two heavy patches of traffic that delayed me a total of two hours. ::grunt:: In Ohio, I got bored and started playing with the bungee cords behind me that were tying down my luggage. I was playing with the one on the left side and then suddenly it went slack. Shit... I pulled over and saw that I had lost a bungee cord while the other was barely hanging on. D'oh. I took the next exit and hit three gas stations before I found a minimart that had bungee cables. ::grunt:: Over the course of the trip, night had fallen. I was in no real rush to get back so I was following traffic in the right lane. I would notice that cars passing in the left lane would tend to slow down as they caught up to me. I guess not too many people have seen GPS receivers taped on a sportsbike before.

Well, that was the weekend trip in a nutshell. Good times.