First Officer’s Log 20-15-07-23

Where to start?  It’s July 23^rd and I haven’t had or taken any time to keep up my personal reports. The Captain is on my a##, so I shall write what I remember.
 

The Norton Rally was great. We met and re-met multiple dozens of friends. The rally was the largest rally in the club’s history with over 525 members and close to 300 bikes in attendance. We did all the normal things, eat, walk, talk, ride the bikes, look at the bikes, show the bikes, and judge the bikes. I didn’t win anything which testifies to the workmanship, quality, and beauty of the bikes that did. We also took a couple of short breakfast rides on the way-too-uncomfortable-for-our-way-too-old-backs Café Racer Norton, the Starship Snoopy.

After the rally we drove the Starship Arrowstar up to my brother and sister-in-law’s (Greg and Betty) place in the Bear Creek Motor Coach Resort in Sparta, NC. He has a beautiful Allegro Bus diesel pusher coach on an acre of land on top of a beautiful mountain. Seriously, his land is on just about the highest point. He summers in NC and winters at his other place in FLA. I call it “Hobbing with the Nobs.”

I want his life.

While there I met a lot of other property owners. Most do the same as Greg, summering here, wintering there. They refer to themselves as “Homeless Millionaires.” I suggested that a Telethon might be in order to help them get the support they need.  I'm not sure they thought that was funny.

My youngest brother, Scott, and his wife Linda came down from Woodbridge, VA to join us. They have the floating version of a Motor Coach, a yacht. Greg and I ply the highways, Scott and Linda ply the waterways. We had lunches, and dinners, and went out, and stayed in, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked. 

One especially fun side trip was to Mayberry, NC. Yes, of the Andy Griffith Show. It might have actually been another small town pretending to be Mayberry, but what the heck, it was close enough. 

(The First Officer forgot to say that on this marathon trip of ours he experienced two firsts. He took his first ride in a sailboat up at Port Townsend, WA, and he paddled a canoe down New River in Sparta, NC. The canoe trip was a very fun day for all six of us, Greg, Betty, Scott, Linda, Frank and me. The paddle trip ended with the FO up to his tush in the “drink.” Ask him about it sometime. End Captain’s Comment)

We left Sparta this morning and are in Staunton, VA. We will stay overnight (I am doing laundry as I write this) and be in Colonial Beach, VA tomorrow. We will visit over the weekend with two more brothers, Kim and Guy. After that we are heading toward the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Cheryl has been there before, but I have not. 

Hey, maybe they will have a penny press machine there!

End First Officer’s Log