New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

 

I thought that I would share some of our photos of our Turkey Day trip to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and New Orleans with y'all. 

 

Some of it is very lighthearted and typically Pirateesque -- bars, casinos, and general fun and mayhem.

 

And some of it is very, very dark.  With the exception of the casinos in Mississippi, there appears to have been little in the way of reconstruction in the hurricane zones.  Highways are still being rebuilt (and that's understandable, since these are big projects) but FEMA trailers are still the most popular form of habitation throughout many areas.  Entire neighborhoods are still devastated.  We need to keep those folks in our thoughts and FEMA in our minds the next time that we go to the ballot box, no matter what your political persuasion is.

 

Of particular interest to many of you will be the photos of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville New Orleans, the Dixie Brewing Company, and Fats Domino's house.

 

Enjoy!

 

http://www.fototime.com/inv/2245DB13C0EF8D0

My Journey to the Dark Side

October 25, 2006

 

A few folks have wondered where my travel tales have been this year.  Or when I was going to start writing my next book.  Those projects have been put hold so far this year, I’m afraid.  And I really haven’t ridden my bikes very much this year, either.

 

I have to confess.  I am embarking on a journey that may be disturbing to some. 

 

I am at that point in life where the Significant Other and I have bought a motor home.

 

But not just any RV.  The previous owners’ kids used to call this thing Jesus because that was the comment that their motorhome would get when they pulled into a campground or a restaurant:  “Oh Jesus, look at that!”

 

The previous owners also had a brown moose mascot for this thing.  We have the brown moose secured in a place of honor, just so no one forgets their heritage.

 

Aren’t motorhomes the province of retirees and old people?  Funny, because I don’t feel particularly old – at least as long as I don’t look in the mirror – and I’m certainly not planning to retire anytime soon.

 

And I don’t particular like the food at the Cracker Barrel, either.  So I can’t be that old.  Even if I do hear that most Cracker Barrels have RV parking.

 

I remember going to a motorcycle event in the Florida Keys several years ago that had attracted scores of folks who had ridden for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to get to the now-defunct Knight’s Key Campground in Marathon.  There were folks with some very elaborate camping setups that they were carrying on their motorcycles.  And during an evening BS session I dared – DARED, I tell ya – to comment that “Y’know … if I did this regularly I’d have a motorhome with air conditioning, showers, and plenty of martini fixins’ and I’d park it over yonder <pointing to a nice spot near where we were sitting and telling lies>”

 

And a hush fell over the place because I had broken one of the cardinal rules of the serious motorcyclist.  I had dared to admit that I might consider trailering my bike instead of droning up and down those boring stretches of I-95 that I know all too well.

 

A few years go by and what do I discover?  One of the folks that I was hangin’ with that night, a lady who sells motorcycle camping equipment no less, has purchased a semi-retired horse carrier on a Volvo truck chassis that she plans to convert into a motorhome mit motorcycle carrier.  Go figure.

 

So I am hoping that, in the long run, I will actually be able to do more and better motorcycling with the motorhome because I will be able to transport a bike, maybe some friends’ bikes, along with tools and luggage, to a location where we can set up camp and ride for several days, instead of having to constantly shuttle between my North Florida home and that places that I really want to ride at.  The flexibility should actually give me more quality riding time and less time commuting on boring roads to and from the house.  Plus, there are some places that I have wanted to explore for some time (read: in the Smoky Mountains and in Mexico’s Copper Canyon) that I simply cannot ride without a dedicated off road bike and the motorhome and trailer combination will give me the opportunity to carry a spare dirt bike.

 

So that’s the plan, at any rate.  Stay tuned.  We will see what the next few years hold.

 

Photos of this monster, a/k/a The Beast, at

 

http://www.fototime.com/inv/08796AFE564A64B

 

 

(to be continued)

Labor Day weekend trip to Myrtle Beach (high Margaritaville content)

Bosswoman, a/k/a She Who Must Be Obeyed (with apologies to the late, great Leo Kern), and I drove up to Myrtle Beach to do the Tacky Tourist Tour over the Labor Day holiday.  The intent was to hit some of the places in Myrtle that would appeal to Parrotheads.  While up there we made an impromptu trip to Wilmington, NC.  The next day we drove back down along the coast and stopped in at Charleston.  The photographic evidence is presented here:

 

http://www.fototime.com/inv/1F9BA8FA122A21C

 

Enjoy!

 

Ratings and reviews in a nutshell:

 

Margaritaville of Myrtle Beach -- great fun, very classy place in a touristy way.  Someday I'm going to spend a lazy afternoon there just watching the tube and the tourists and drinking a few.

 

Senor Frog's -- a bit of a disappointment.  I had passed on their locations in Mexico because I heard they were "too American."  Given a chance to hit the only US location (they are a Mexican corporation) I thought that they would be a bit more Mexican.  Not really.  And the bartender that we got obviously didn't want to be there that day.  We'll hit one of their places for comparison when we go back to Mexico but the Myrtle Beach experience with them wasn't great.

 

Cheeseburger in Paradise -- pretty good, but not as extraordinary as Margaritaville.  The prices on the food was reasonable, however, and seeing reproductions of the handwritten notes when Buffett wrote Margaritaville was pretty neat.  If it wasn't for knowing that there was a Margaritaville in town this place would have moved up a notch or two on the scale.

 

Trip to Wilmington, where I used to live -- priceless.

 

Margaritaville Store in Charleston -- actually much more fun that I expected.  It's a BIG store. We were in Charleston and wanted to pick up a few things and said "what the heck," so we looked the place up.

 

Like I always say, we all need to get out a bit.  Deb and I have been working on reconditioning a motorhome all summer long and that has severely impacted other trips.  The Labor Day trip was a MUST DO situation, and it was great for the soul.

Art of the Motorcycle

A few weeks ago Yours Truly led a ride to Orlando to see the local Art of the Motorcycle display.  This is more or less the same display that originated at the Guggenheim Museum several years ago and which has traveled around the world, starting in New York and then hitting Spain, Japan, and finally Vegas.  I was fortunate to catch the original 300 bike show in Las Vegas in 2002.  Now a smaller, but quite magnificent show is running in Orlando thru July 23rd.

Check out the photos at http://www.fototime.com/inv/85BE2277BFD39B1

And for more info in the Orlando show go to http://www.omart.org/aom/pages/AOMhome.html

 

Website update

Just wanted to let y'all know that I've added a photo or two and a few links to the ol' web site.  Check it out at http://www.PirateJohn.com

My Mexican trip concludes

  Greetings friends --  

It's Sunday morning and I'm somewhere a bit west of Houston.  I have added to and updated my travel photos.  Call me biased, but I think that the captions tell the story more than I can with just the written word.  You can check them out at http://www.fototime.com/inv/310309400F90334   

I entered Mexico at the Brownsville/Matamoros Port of Entry with the initial expectation of riding south a bit and then quickly heading to the Pacific Coast because my riding companion needed to meet up with other folks in Mazatlan.  However, when Tom realized how slow the going was going to be in Mexico we changed plans and he went directly towards the west while I decided to explore a bit more along the Gulf Coast.  

My stops for the nights were in C. Victoria, and then four nights in the general vicinity of Tampico.  Upon returning to the north I spent one night in the boondocks perhaps 70 miles south of Monterrey (those are the shots of the no-tell-motel) and then two nights in beautiful Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.  My final night was spent in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, and then I crossed the border yesterday.   You can follow the track of where I have been by going to http://www.star-traxx.com/TripReport.asp?TripID=597865010 .   This is more or less real time feed from a satellite tracking device that I am carrying.  Ain't technology wonderful!  

Mexico is a wonderful nation, with friendly people and a very bright future ahead of it.  It is rapidly developing and growing to compete with the new world economy, but as with any nation going through a transformation there are growing pains.  The motorcycle riding there offers great entertainment, and the sights, sounds, smells, and textures are all foreign to American senses and that is a good thing because it keeps us thinking about alternatives.  We can learn a lot from our partners down south.  

~~~~~~~
PirateJohn
www.PirateJohn.com

In Tampico's Playa on Monday. More to come.

  The article below was written on Monday 1-2-2006.  It has taken me 2 days to find another workable Internet connection so that I could send it out and get those photos uploaded. 

I am now alive and well and staying at the very nice Best Western Centro in Monterrey.  Monterrey is quite modern, and this Best Western is excellent, especially since I spent last night at a $25/night no tell motel (complete with the Christian sign-of-the-fish and the Playboy Channel in English!) in the boondocks maybe 65 miles from here.  That was after rejecting the previous town's best hotel -- no matter how you slice it $19US per night is not a bargain when there is no air conditioning, the plumbing is a suggestion, and all of your neighbors look like they have been working in the fields during the day.    

All kidding aside the last two days have been great riding and have gone a long way towards restoring my enthusiasm for Mexico.  I now realize that I got routed down two days of unusually tough roads that could have been avoided by a change in route.     More to come later.  

~~~~  

Howdy y'all --     I'm trying to update my photos at  http://www.fototime.com/inv/310309400F90334  but the Internet connection is slow.  Beyond slow.  So hopefully by the time that you read this the deed will have been done.  I've shot something like 500 photos, but only the cream of the crop (yeah, right) are presented here.    

After three days of hanging around Tampico I finally found Paradise.  Or close enough, anyway.  The Playa Madero.  Interestingly, all of my tour books give it less than great reviews but either they have not updated their listings for the last several years or no one bothered to travel north on the beach strand because there is the beginnings of a tourist resort here.  Neat place. 

I have found my Canadian buddy Henry's clean (according to him) hotel that he gets for $6.50 a night as well as the $75/night hotel that I stayed in.  There is a little bit of everything here, and a very broad spectrum to match any taste or style.      Nice places, traditional low-budget Mexican places, and a beach where the authorities will allow gringos to camp out on (hear that RVers?).  This place has a lot going for it.    

I would love to hang here, and in 20/20 hindsight wish that I had found this place before I spent 2 days hanging downtown, but no matter.  It's time to get the wheels rolling again.  Heading back north with the idea of exploring closer to Monterrey.     Chat with y'all later!    

To track down ol' John go here: http://www.star-traxx.com/TripReport.asp?TripID=597865010    

~~~~~~~
PirateJohn
www.PirateJohn.com

Still alive! First part of the late 2005 Mexican trip

  I'm doing OK, but I was beginning to think that my laptop had died.  It appears, however, that I've simply gotten bum wireless connections at the last three motels that I have stayed at.  One has to laugh.   I'm sending this out to friends and a few discussion groups that I either am on or moderate, so if you get the message repeatedly, or if some parts don't apply to y'all, I apologize.  

I'm meandering a bit through Mexico at the moment, and working on my own "Tampico Trauma" it would appear.  To track down ol' John go here: http://www.star-traxx.com/TripReport.asp?TripID=597865010   To see the photos try here: http://www.fototime.com/inv/310309400F90334  

Left home in Northern Florida on Tuesday AM with a pal who is on the way to meet up with another guy in Mazatlan, and they are heading to South America.  Tom and I rode hard (something around 1,200 miles) to get to the Texas/Mexico border in two days.  After getting Tom through the paperwork at the border we were going to meander towards Tampico and back up towards Monterrey, but the first day was a bit of a killer (strong cross winds and tough, slower roads than expected) so we have changed our plans a bit.  Tom's going on towards Mazatlan (and a crossing of the lower Sierra Madres in the winter, which should be fun) while I think that I'll explore the Gulf Coast a bit for the next few days.   The weather is pleasantly warm with a little chill as the sun sets.  My face is getting sunburned.  So for those of you in colder climates (and it was fairly cool when I left northern Florida) eat your hearts out ;)  

ol' John spent last night in Ciudad Victoria, which seems to be mostly a town on the way to other towns. Pretty good sized place however; I was watching the television news and was surprised at how professional the production was and that it was a local production to boot, when I would have thought that they would have been getting their news from a "big city" like Monterrey instead.  Ironically, I was approached by a camera crew while taking some photos; they wanted to interview me but I excused myself after using up my only two words of Spanish ("norte Flo-ree-da") and moved on.

Today's ride from Victoria to a small town 30 miles south of Tampico (I must have a chat with Best Western; this was supposed to be in the suburbs of Tampico and it ain't!) was great fun, but it took me up a couple of small mountain ranges that I didn't expect and through several towns that are pretty much the equivalent of frontier towns in a day and age when the big truck has replaced the covered wagon.  Certainly entertaining, but once again much more time consuming and tiring than traveling on the Interstates.  Still, this is the way to see the country and meet the locals.  Who, I might add, are almost universally friendly and helpful to this crazy old gringo who is obviously seriously lost.   I wouldn't say that there are a lot of Norte Americanos down here, but there are a fair number that seem to winter around Tampico.  And if someone is a lousy driver I hate to say it, but almost inevitably they have had Texas plates.   

The roads that were marked on my maps as being four lane have almost all turned out to be like Texas farm roads -- a two lane road with a wide shoulder.  However, here in Mexico, everyone drives on the shoulder!  Bearing in mind that there is a fair amount of traffic, and you are sharing with a really wide variety of vehicles from bigger trucks than we have in the States to wheezing old cars and pickups and the occasional goat that has wandered onto the roadway, things are going surprisingly well.  On the other hand it takes some getting used to to see a tractor trailer pull across the center line and into YOUR lane, all the time knowing that you need to move over to the shoulder.  And did I mention guard rails?  Armco needs to export some railing material here ;)   So the riding is "sporty," let's put it that way.  

I have also done a fair amount of two-lane no-shoulder no-guard rail mountain roads which are entertaining.  This reminds me of being a kid in Kentucky when we would go to visit the relatives who lived in the hollar. The only catch is that those were country roads, these are major truck routes that I'm sharing with Kenworths and buses.   (In fairness, Mexico has quite a few freeway quality roads.  It's just that none of the freeways run down here).   So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Updates to the photos will be sent out periodically, and I'll keep my bike club and HumourList pholks updated, assuming that I can find another network connection.  

Y'all have a happy New Year!  I think that mine is going to be celebrated in Tampico ;)   ~~~~~~~
PirateJohn
www.PirateJohn.com